"Dude, You're Not Thinking Big Enough"

Today unofficially kicks off Game Week around my house.

I've been doing Friendsgiving every year since 1999 (which my saint of a wife has happily picked up on), and it takes a little extra focus to get the house ready for a few more people than the fire marshal should probably know about.

Speaking of game week, I finished a book this week by Dr. Bob Rotella called How Champions Think. It gave me pause because it reminded me of some of the ways I've lost the champion mindset over the years.

I know that might seem out of the ordinary coming from somebody who speaks about swagger and the importance of mindset, focus, and perspective. But I think that’s the point. Over time, our perspectives shift; influenced by different events, different people, and different seasons of life.

It’s easy for drift to set in without you even realizing it.

In hindsight, here’s where I've fallen short: I never set an aggressive enough goal for myself.

When I started this business, I told myself I didn't want to build anything gigantic. I just wanted to make a living. I wanted a nice lifestyle. I wanted to feed my kids, support my family, and do nice things.

And I've done all of those things.

But after a while, it became unfulfilling. You recognize what you've been missing. Despite the fact that I've essentially accomplished everything I set out to do over the past ten years, something has been lacking.

Listening to that book helped me realize what it was.

Over the last couple of weeks, my focus has become a lot clearer, allowing me to lock in more. That feeling’s like an old friend I haven’t seen in a while.

I’ve missed him.

I had breakfast with a friend this morning. I try to get together with him every couple of weeks because his energy, while I watch him build his new company, is infectious.

He demonstrates that single-minded inspiration that you need, and in some ways, he was a catalyst for me realizing mine had been MIA.

My inner monologue at one point this morning to myself was, “Dude, you’re not thinking big enough.”

Yes, I call myself dude. Don’t act like I’m the only one. Hell, my daughter just called me “Dawg…”

That larger goal is what creates the systems, the processes, the single-mindedness that keep you moving forward. It makes it clear exactly what you need to do every day when you wake up and who you need to be talking to.

As I've developed more of that clarity, more of my conversations continue to move in a specific direction. It's powerful.

Why do I share this with you? My editing partner (you may know him as Claude) actually asked me if I meant to be so vulnerable with this piece. It’s not always my vibe, but here’s the thing: I’m here to tell the truth.

The truth is that I’m not perfect, I’m not going to pretend to be, and there’s no way in hell that a bunch of you reading this right now haven’t felt the same way at some point (maybe even right now).

The experience and this revelation have better prepared me to help people with their own.

I had a great workshop this week with a team in Charlotte. We actually spent a lot of time getting specific on value propositions, differentiators, and what their best customers really value from them.

We talked about knowing yourself. We talked about knowing your best customers. We talked about the feedback loop between those two concepts.

This is an underappreciated logic for growing your business. As cold outbound becomes more difficult, “go to market” is looking a lot more like “go to network.” But going to your trusted contacts with your hands out doesn’t feel right to most people, so you need a framework to do so.

I’ve got some ideas, and my clients seem to like them. If you’d like to chat, you know how to reach me.

I’m covering these concepts in an ebook that I hope to have completed here soon. These things are always a work in progress, but the manuscript is almost done, and now it’s just laying it out and getting the design work completed.

I'm hopeful to have it designed and in your hands by Thanksgiving, but regardless of that timeline, I'm excited to get this into your hands because it's been an important piece for me, and I think it'll be a valuable piece for all of you.

As always, thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week.

Cheers,
JB