How many times in your life have you pulled back the curtain to reveal the “behind the scenes?” More importantly, when you’ve done that, how many times has that been to your advantage? Other people don’t want to see the backstage, and frankly they don’t care what you have going on… they care about the production and performance and how you deliver.

One of the biggest rookie mistakes I see people make at events or networking groups, is to have the mentality of “what’s in it for me?” They are so concerned with what they are going to say, who is going to take their business card, and what type of return on their investment they are going to get. If you take the approach of “Connect first, Collect later,” it will pay much bigger dividends to you in the future because you’ve created value and a reason to trust you.

This topic today is specifically for my big dreamers and visionaries, serial entrepreneurs, and those who want to break the mold for phrases and belief systems they have adopted to be true. Yes, I am speaking to you if you have heard the phrase “you can’t chase two rabbits” and you somehow correlated that to parts of your life that held you back from the pursuit of two or more things at once.

Keeping up with the Jones’s is a phrase that’s been used for referencing people who are constantly stretching their financial threshold in order to appear they have the same or more assets as their neighbors, co-workers, friends, or relatives. Likely you know someone in this category who always has the newest model vehicle, this seasons current handbag, or the house next door that seems to keep expanding countless upgrades to outdo the person across the street. This example is not to shame anyone for having expensive possessions or aesthetically pleasing lifestyles, but rather to pose a question of who are the “Jones’s” in your life, and what makes them worth keeping up with?

What we do, consistently, will eventually show up as some form of finished product. When we are children, we are taught to brush our teeth twice a day. If you began a consistent routine of brushing your teeth both morning and night starting at a young age, you developed the discipline to a point where you don’t even think about it and the habit becomes almost automatic. The same happens when we create discipline in our personal and professional lives.

Today I will give you 3 questions to think about that might help you determine if you are aligned with the best version of you, and what you are doing with it, to develop your purpose.

Most of us will feel like we’ve failed when we don’t do what we say we are going to do, when we are supposed to do it. Which often times leads to doing nothing, paralysis of analysis (trying to figure out WHY) something isn’t working or WHY we can’t seem to get ourselves motivated, and sometimes just quitting altogether. There could be a simple solution that you can implement today!

Depending on what you are offering, the ask should be concise and straightforward with the other party completely understanding what they are being offered. They have the right to say yes, or no. If the answer is yes, congratulations! Now the relationship investment begins. If the answer is no, then the relationship building continues. Either way, if you aren’t asking for business, the answer will ALWAYS be no. Give yourself and others the opportunity for a YES.

People can find themselves stuck in this cycle several times an hour, a day, a week, or monthly and beyond. The key is the quicker you can acknowledge and identify where you are in the cycle, will allow you to move forward more quickly and not get stuck. Paralysis of analysis and doing nothing is where sales goals go to die.