Now that Thanksgiving is over, and December is here, it's easy to let our thoughts wander. We begin to focus on the end of the year and the upcoming beginning to a new one.

It’s that time of year. Cooler weather, football, and HARVEST TIME!! Just like no football team would take the field expecting to do well without having prepared for the last few months, a farmer wouldn’t go out to his fields expecting a bountiful harvest without first having spent the time necessary working the fields, sowing his seeds. In this month’s podcast, I talk about the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. It’s a good reminder of what most of us already know – that reaping, without first sowing, or without understanding that not all seed sown will produce fruit. Take about 15 minutes and listen as I talk about the Sower and the Seed.

We all need new beginnings from time to time. August is a great month for that since many of us with kids are preparing for a new school year. My youngest joins his sister at GCSU for his freshman year of college while she starts her second year. My oldest and his wife just had their first child in June. All of those things mean new opportunities, new challenges, and new routines. But it also means some of the same opportunities, the same challenges, and the same old routines. How do we make the most of the new, without disregarding the old? Rather than focus on a particular topic for this month, I wanted to review the basics and intent of the Make A LIfe – Manage Your Month Coaching Program. In this month’s podcast, I review the ideas behind the program and the specifics of the plan. Hopefully this will help reset expectations as to the whys and hows of the coaching program and what you should be able to get out of it. It’s not too late to start with this month and make it the best one yet!

It’s in our moments of decision that our destiny is shaped.Tony Robbins For most of us, freedom is a choice. We’re free to choose who we love, where we live, what kind of job we work, how to worship, etc. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people make choices that don’t actually lead to greater freedom. The job they choose, combined with where they choose to live can often lead to long hours, long commutes, and dissatisfaction. Many people end up feeling trapped, and they are. They think what they have is freedom and it’s normal. I heard a quote this weekend about this. Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.Ellen Goodman I don’t know about you. But I don’t want to be normal if that’s it. That kind of normal sounds like prison to me. And prison certainly doesn’t make me think freedom. On this month’s podcast, I talk with three leaders, Jenna Rude, Mick Daly, and Jennifer Myers, each in slightly different stages of life and in our business. I asked them to talk about what freedom means and how this opportunity has helped them experience freedom. Take about 35 minutes and listen to their stories. I think they’ll inspire you to think about freedom differently and help you think strategically about making a life, not just a living.

Conversations. They happen every day. The word literally means to talk with someone. But it seems we sometimes forget that. Especially when we take the talk to social media, where we often talk at people rather than with them. We talk about our awesome products. We talk about our amazing opportunity. We talk about our food, our vacations, our kids…anything and everything we’re passionate about. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if that’s all you’re saying, and no one is responding, then what’s the point? If you’re so busy posting about all that you’re passionate about, but not engaging in two-way conversations, you’re missing the point. And you might be coming across as narcissistic. That’s not attractive. This month I talk to Joe Stradinger, Founder and CEO of EdgeTheory, a company whose mission is to help customers grow revenues by focusing on their greatest asset: the conversations that influence customers and prospects. They have worked with some well known companies and organizations and they have now partnered with The Juice Plus+ Company to help us own the conversations around health and nutrition. Take a listen to the podcast. Think about how to strategize your social media messaging so that you’re having conversations that lead customers to you.

My monthly mantra has been “start well and finish strong!” But what exactly does that mean? What does it take to “finish strong”? We’ve talked to some top leaders in previous podcasts about the importance of messaging your mission, defining your DMO, and how creating exceptional customer experiences is vital to your success. Understanding and executing on these concepts are definitely part of starting well, but they all also play a part in finishing strong. Since our business, and our paycheck specifically, operates on a monthly cycle, finishing strong requires a renewable sense of urgency along with a dedication to doing whatever it takes to reach your goals. Our company provides us all with a very useful tool on the 25th of every month to let us know where we stand so we can finalize our plan of attack for the last week. It’s then up to each of us to take all-out massive action to do whatever it takes to achieve our goals. Here from four of our top leaders, Kacy Schloss, Bob Burdick, Kerry Daigle, and Terri Luongo as they talk with Curt about having a sense of urgency, understanding and utilizing your PVC report, and qualifying your business in order to finish strong.

What makes someone buy your product? Better yet, what makes someone love your product? What makes someone love your product and tell others all about it? Typically, what makes someone buy a product is the benefit they perceive they’ll get from using the product. It’s what happens next that makes all the difference. If you’ve had a great experience at a restaurant, or if you’ve read a great book, or seen a great movie, what do you do? Most of the time you tell everyone you know that they should try it out, give it a read, or go see it. Unfortunately, the same is true for bad experiences, too. Except rather than encourage people to give it a try, you warn them to stay away. YOu share your bad experience in hopes of saving someone else from the same bad experience. Have you thought much about how to create a great experience for your customers? If not, you should. This month’s podcast has four top leaders within our business talking about how they create exceptional experiences for their customers and how that’s helped them grow their businesses. Take a listen and share your thoughts. How are you creating exceptional experiences for your customers? Share here on in the Facebook group.

Have you found your rhythm? Are you able to enjoy the natural ebbs and flows of life? Or do you mostly believe that proactivity is a pipe dream and you live in the reality of reactivity? If you’re feeling the stresses of trying to get it all done, maybe you need to evaluate your DMO. “What’s a DMO?” you ask. Spend a few minutes listening to this podcast as Curt and four of the top leaders in his business share their insight on the importance of defining and executing your DMO in order to establish a sustainable rhythm for work-life balance. Hear from Jamie Kuenzie, Leanne Gordon, Beth Leipold, Gordon Hester and your podcast host, Curt Beavers as they each explain their DMO and how that impacts their productivity and ultimately their success. Take notes and develop your own DMO based on their advice. If you already have a DMO, compare yours with theirs and see if you can find ways to improve.

Do you have a mission? Can you communicate the message of your mission? Can you do it in six words or less? This month’s podcast features Curt with Dave Rhodes from the recent Peachtree Bootcamp. Dave is a “missiologist” and he uses the legend of Ernest Hemingway and his six-word-story to challenge you to consider the message of your mission and improve your ability to better articulate your mission’s message, which leads to multiplication of the messengers and ultimately, that leads to a movement. Are you ready to lead the movement?