Hi everyone, it’s Pat here and I have a really fabulous topic for you today. I want to talk to you about two habits that are an absolute must for entrepreneurs and successful business owners, particularly over the summer months. I’ve been quite reflective about this for the last little while and decided I just wanted to come out, share these and talk about them.

The thing is I do have a background in mindset training. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be mentored, coached, and trained by Lou Tice at the Pacific Institute. One of the things I learned in that whole area of critical thinking and mindset is that once we, as human beings, set a goal, then there are four major barriers that pop up right away. Four major barriers.

This is only for people who set goals. The rest of you, this isn’t relevant. But for those of you set goals, you have dreams, and you’re ready to get out there and use your potential—I’m not going to say necessarily reach your potential, because it’s infinite—but for those of you who want to grow and develop and become your best self, you set a goal, you set a dream, you write it down, and the way the mind works is that there are four barriers that pop up right away, one of which is habits, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

The other three, in case you’re interested, are attitude, expectations, and beliefs—the belief system, but for today I want to talk about habits.

The habit topic ties in with a book I received as a gift. This is from my mentor and coach, Larry Winget. This is his new book: What’s Wrong With Damn Near Everything! How the Collapse of Core Values is Destroying Us and How to Fix it.

That’s the key. It’s not just what’s wrong, but how to fix it. I got this yesterday and I wanted to be finished by today. I’m halfway through. Here’s what happened. I decided at noon that this book is so good and has such great content, I didn’t want to race through with it. I was going to do my usual speedreading and then go back and read it over, but the content in this book stopped me dead in my tracks. This is good stuff.

It’s interesting because the way I read it is with my highlighting pen. It has stickies attached to it and you can see I highlight things here. I’ve interviewed Larry on my radio show in the past and he knows I always come prepared with notes and stickies, and the whole bit.

Now, this book is just solid content. It’s relevant, it’s timely, and I want to share with you what happened as I was reading this, which leads to the confession.

In this book, in particular, there are a few chapters where Larry talks about the collapse of core values. That’s so important because, as a business coach, I’m talking to my clients all the time about knowing what your core values are. I read a quote a few years back by Walt Disney, and he said, “When you know your core values, then decision-making is easy.” That really stuck with me.

What I see all the time with new entrepreneurs, my clients, and with colleagues is they don’t know their core values. When we sit back and wonder why it is so hard for people to make decisions, why are people so last minute, it’s because they don’t know their core values. When you do, decision-making is easy.

It’s so interesting to me. Chapter one is about core values.

Chapter two, which is just as interesting, if not more, “What’s Wrong with People?” That’s a rather interesting, intriguing and compelling title, don’t you think? “What’s Wrong With People?”

The third chapter, “What’s Wrong with Business?” That’s a piece that I want to talk about today.

Chapter four, “What’s Wrong with Education?” For those of you who are parents, this chapter would be of particular interest to you.

Chapter five, “What’s Wrong with Our Government?” That’s of interest to all of us these days as we see what’s going on in the world. Oh my gosh, a time of change.

Then chapter six, the big question: “Are We Able to Turn This All Around?” That is the question. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Larry, who is known as the pit-bull of personal development, he has so many bestselling books on New York Times, Wall Street Journal. I have all of his books. They are absolutely phenomenal.

This is the month of July. In my business, our practice is to stop in the month of July and, for me, as the business owner, I take a look at three things in my business. I take a personal look at things, I take the professional look at things, and I look at the operational side of things. As a business owner it takes a lot of energy to reach our goals. That’s on a personal basis too, not just business-related, but particularly in business. As a person and as a business owner, it takes a lot of energy to reach our goals. As I said at the beginning, you set a goal and then those four barriers pop up: habits, attitudes, beliefs and expectations.

Take a look at your habits. For me, for the month of July, because I’m off the road, I’m here in my office, which is so good. I took a look at my personal habits. I had set a goal for a certain physique. I have a big birthday coming up in August. It’s the sweet 66, and I had a vision of what I want to look like and feel like. I set the goal and, therefore, put some action steps in place. One of the things that I did was that I signed up again with my personal trainer.

In January, I had made the decision not to renew with him because I didn’t want to get up at 5:30am in the morning anymore. I wanted this year to be a little bit easier on myself, so I did not renew with him and, quite honestly, what that led to—and here comes some of the confession—is that I got sloppy. Not that I stopped working out. Any of you who follow me, you know I’m either climbing mountains in Sedona or I’m jumping rope in a hotel room, but I did get sloppy with respect to how hungry I was for the goal; how badly I really wanted it.

I’m always saying that my clients too, “What’s one thing you want to have happen in your life and in your business,” but the second part, “how badly do you want it?”

When I started and restarted my business a few years ago, I was hungry. I literally was hungry. I moved here across the country with virtually nothing, and I started all over. When you have no savings account, you have no partner or spouse to pay the bills, you have no clients, you have no contacts, and you’re hungry, you get out and you hit the streets.

Over the past seven years, taking my business to just under $1 million, that hunger has subsided, so I don’t need that intensity in my business anymore. That mindset shifted on over to the physical fitness part of my life, and so when I stopped working out with the trainer, I did continue with yoga, bike riding, but the intensity was not there and, quite honestly, the level of commitment was not there. I needed to stop, stand back and take a look at that piece of it.

Here comes the book. I got this book and I’ve worked with Larry for over four years now, so I know his style and his approach. Look at that face. That’s the face of a coach who doesn’t mess around. I started reading this book. What does this have to do with anything? Honestly, those of you in business, all you need to do is get this book. Seriously, I have pages highlighted with my stickies, I have it highlighted in yellow, but then there comes a point in this book where there’s what I call a page-turner, which means a page folder.

For those of you in business, I’ll I’m going to say to you is you need to get this book for one page, and that is page 69. You have questions, you’re wondering about things, you’re wondering why you’re stuck personally, professionally, in your health—page 69 has the answer, and I’m not giving it to you. You need to get the book. This book is available this week through Amazon. Run, don’t walk, to get a copy before they’re sold out. It’s a great read. It’s a quick read and, like I said, I’m halfway through it.

Other parts in this book that are so interesting, Larry talks about (on page 67) that people are full of excuses and blame. Here’s what stopped me in my tracks. He said, “We talk about our own life and what we want, what we think we want, what we say we want. Is it necessarily true?” When you read page 67, this is a real stopper. He says, “People are full of excuses and blame.”

This is where my confession comes in too. He says, “Try this. Go tell someone what they can do in their life to be better, and nine times out of 10 you’re going to hear all of the reasons that they can’t do it. They’re too old.” I hear that all the time. “They’re too young, they’re too white, they’re too black, they’re too brown, they tell you they don’t have any money.” I hear that. When people call me and say, “Oh, I desperately need your coaching. I’m in trouble, you can help me,” and we get to the investment conversation, people always default to the fact, “I have no money.”

It’s just a default. It’s a bad habit. We all have money and we have money for what we really want. That goes back to what I said earlier. Identify what you want, how badly you want it, and what are you prepared to do for it.

Larry takes all of this down to core values. Again, it comes back to me and my confession. When I got sloppy around what I wanted with respect to health this year, I got sloppy. I was not living in integrity with myself. I was not honoring the power of my word, and then as I was reading this book yesterday I was thinking are you talking to me? And he is talking to me.

I want to encourage you to get the book because I know we all want to live our best life. We want to grow our business. We want to be happy. One of the reasons I love working with Larry is he does tell me like it is. He’s respectful, he’s honest, and he’s genuine. Some people find him to be harsh, rude and hurtful. He’s not. We have to look at our perspective on things. Where are you coming from?

First of all, run out and get the book. On page 69 is the answer to many of your questions as to why you’re stuck and how to get unstuck. I think there was another page folder that I had here. This is just so good. I’m going to be ranting and raving about this.

Page 53, he talks about why do businesses fail? Lack of preparation. Some of you struggling in business right now, you may be wondering why you’re failing. These questions that Larry has posted on page 53 and page 54 are what every business owner needs to read and needs to address to get unstuck in their business. Seriously, this book is a must have, personally, professionally, organizationally. You can get it through Amazon.

If you want your business to grow, let me go down another track for a minute. Those of you who know me, you know that I only choose to work with the best of the best. I’m open to feedback, I do the hard work, I do what it takes.

The other piece of that is investment in yourself. Those of you who are serious about personal development, about personal responsibility, about living your best life, then I want to invite you to join me, because I always invest in myself. Those of you who want to come with the best of the best, because that’s the circle I run in, I want you to mark your calendar for August 17th and 18th because Larry hangs out with the best of the best, and so that’s what attracts me too. Larry is known to have his Five Friends. There is an amazing event called the Ultimate Business Summit in Vegas in August. Larry planned that so he could watch me melt, I know that for sure.

The other piece of being successful is to be a reader. The Five Friends include—these are some great books and these guys are great authors—Joe Calloway, who wrote Keep It Simple. Joe is one of the Five Friends. He’s going to be there. Mark Sanborn; many of you know him in the leadership world. Mark Sanborn wrote Up, Down or Sideways; another phenomenal book. Leading the Ultimate Business Summit, and the person who just received the most coveted, highest achievement award with the National Speakers Association is Randy Pennington, Make Change Work. And Scott McKain. This has been one of my favorite books too, you can see by all of my tags. Some of the books don’t have them because I buy them and give them away. Create Distinction, Scott McKain.

I want you to make a commitment to join me, Mark, Paul and some of the others. Paul is from the UK and he’s coming, and I believe Heather is. Anyway, I want you to join me in Vegas, August 17th and 18th. You can help me celebrate my birthday, among other things, but come into the circle of the best of the best. Seriously, if you want to make an investment this year, that’s where you need to be, but the first stop and the first start is right here. Go get yourself Larry’s book, What’s Wrong with Damn Near Everything! How the Collapse of Core Values is Destroying Us and How to Fix it.

I was talking about the core value of integrity, self-respect and personal responsibility when it comes to our health, our finances, our family. Get that book, read that book, and bring it to Vegas with you. I know Larry would be happy to sign it. You’ll get some great one-on-one time with Larry and the rest of the Five Friends.

There you go. My confession is I have identified my core values and I got sloppy, and so I got back in the game and I ramped up my accountability with Kathleen, among others, and so that’s what you need to do too. Identify your core values and, if that is confusing to you, get Larry’s book. It’s available on Amazon today. This book is a life changer, personally, professionally, and for business.

But do you know where all meaningful and lasting change starts? It starts with you. It starts with us. It starts with the way we think. Get the book, book your trip to Vegas, sign up for the Ultimate Business Summit.

The Two Habits

One habit is to be a reader, and that’s why I’m showing the books of the Five Friends. Readers are leaders. Readers are successful people. Most people don’t even read one book in a year. I’m always showing Larry my list.

Habit number two, to succeed in business and in life, is to identify your core values, particularly around your personal health, and get into the habit of exercise and fitness. It takes a lot of energy to reach our goals. That’s habit number two.

Make that commitment, decide what you want, how badly you want it, and be prepared to go after it no matter what to stay true to your core value, and get an accountability buddy.

I look forward to seeing your comments about Larry’s book. Go get it on Amazon, and then we look forward to seeing you in the summit. I’ll be back with more business tips at another time.