March 15th 2017, Short Review on Your One Word by Evan Carmichael

   A couple of weeks ago I was shocked to find out that a YouTuber that I am subscribed to had recently published a book. The YouTuber is Evan Carmichael and he provides great videos for entrepreneurs. His videos range from motivational videos to videos about the top ten rules for success of famous entrepreneurs. If you want to check out his channel, you can click here. The reason that I decided to purchase the book is because Evan's videos have helped me through a lot. I was honestly not expecting much from the book but it surpassed my expectations. As I progressed through the book I found myself loving it more and more. So lets dive into my review of the book.

   The subtitle of the book is "The Powerful Secret To Creating A Business And Life that Matter." This is a book that was written for entrepreneurs. The book is written to serve as a blueprint to guide the average entrepreneur to success. The first part of the book is titled Core and it is the most important part of the book (in my honest opinion). Throughout this portion of the book Evan teaches us how to find our ONE word, his one word is #Believe. The reason why I said that this portion of the book is important because your entire business revolves around your one word. In the few chapters that make up the core portion of the book, we are introduced to many successful entrepreneurs who have found their one word and incorporated it into their business. Throughout the entire book we are given knowledge from these entrepreneurs. these entrepreneurs have businesses that range from tens of thousands of dollars in revenue to millions of dollars in revenue. Other than just helping us find our one word Evan touches on core selling. Core selling is selling based on your one word aka the core of your business. Core selling lets you connect to customers on a deeper level.

   Part two of the book is titled Campaign and the title once again is simple and straight to the point. The first half of this part is about how to test the waters with your one word. Sounds simple but the way he explains it makes it practical. Another great thing in the first half of this portion is the piece on motivation. Motivation is important because life is not always sunshine and rainbows and Evan teaches the importance of motivation. The second half of this portion of the book is called The Planning Checklist. Just like the name suggests, it's literally a checklist. The only thing that separates this checklist from your grocery list is the content of the list. This list has every step needed to change your business from mediocre to extraordinary. Your type of business might not require all of the items on the checklist but I can guarantee it needs a couple of the items. The important takeaway of this part of the book for me was the fan base. Because my business is content creation it relies on a loyal fan base. I will definitely apply this portion of the book into my day to day operation.

   The last part of the book is titled Company. The final part of the book is about building a team and a company. This part of the book didn't apply directly to me because I am not in that position as of yet. The first half of this portion covers everything from hiring the right people to firing people. Most entrepreneurs were employees before so the information in this chapter is very helpful in teaching the basics of managing a team. The second half of the final portion of the book is Operations and its straightforward. The chapter goes over the day to day of running a business. It touches on everything from client management to mentors. Anything that you need to run a business is in this part of the book I especially loved the part on mentors and advisers. Like I said in the beginning Evan's YouTube channel has many video on successful entrepreneur's top ten keys to success. But Evan also has the mentor me playlist, with both of these playlist even the Average Joe can get successful people to mentor them.

   If you want to purchase a copy of this book feel free to click here. I highly recommend this book to any entrepreneur. Doesn't matter how far along you are in your journey because this book covers many topics. Feel free to comment down below about your favorite part of this post. If you would like to support the site in anyway please check out the links posted below. Like Always I'll catch you guys in the next one.

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April 19, 2016 Goal Setting

   "If you plan to fail, you are planning to fail" - Benjamin Franklin. This is a powerful quote which is the basis for today's discussion on goal setting. When most people hear the words goals they tend to associate it to dreams and aspirations. Goals and dreams are not the same at all. A dream is something that you wish for, whereas a goal is written down and has an action plan.

   Through my journey in network marketing I always heard about the importance of having a "goal statement". The "goal statement" was a paragraph on where we saw ourselves in a time span of three to five years. You would first write in detail how great everything had turned out and after that you would then describe what made that possible. In my personal opinion, I do not believe that this type of goal setting is fully effective. I prefer having my action plan set up like a chart that has two columns, one labeled 'Goal' and the other column labeled 'Actions to achieve goal'. By doing an action plan in this manner I can pin point what tasks directly affect my progression towards my goal. This in turn makes sure that I am doing the "right" things to achieve my goal (see April 3, 2016's post for "right" things). I am not saying that my way of goal setting is the one and only way to set goals. As long as you have an action plan you are already a head in the game we call Life.

   Just having a goal and/or action plan doesn't mean that you are done with goal setting. A big part of goal setting is visualizing your goals, because if you can "see" your goals it makes them more attainable. One thing that I learned in network marketing was to have a "Dream Board", which is filled with pictures of things that the maker wants to achieve. I literally hate the word dream, because dream means wishful thinking. Wishful thinking will not get you towards your goals so I am renaming the "Dream Board" to 'Goal Board'. By creating this board you are able to put as they often say a face to a name. Sounds a bit confusing but let me give you an example... " I want to be a millionaire" this is a statement that most people answer when asked what they want in life. This statement is too broad because it does not specify what they truly want from life. The Goal Board would break down this statement to something such as financial freedom, the ability to take multiple vacations per year or even owning a car collection. Other than breaking down goals to smaller attainable parts it also sets up a deadline for completing the goal. 

   By setting a deadline for your goal, you create a way to measure progression towards a goal. By measuring your progress you are able to determine if your actions are helping you succeed in obtaining your goal. This grants us the ability to adjust our actions in order to maximize our productivity towards goal attainment. Goal deadlines also create a sense of accountability. If you fail to achieve your goal then you are the only person to blame. Think about deadlines at work, your boss holds you accountable if the deadline is not met so why should it be different here.

   I now have a rather simple question to ask. After reading this post, do you have dreams or do you have goals? If you answered goals then I have one more question for you. Have you done goal setting? If you answered no then it is not a goal but rather it is a dream. But do not fret and worry because you now should know how to turn that dream into an attainable goal. If you follow your plan you will be successful.

                                                                                                        Thanks for reading,

                                                                                                                         Josh R.