Mark Molony is a coach, counsellor and educator. He is the co-founder with John Bruna of the Mindful Life Program.

Over the past 30 years, Mark Molony has spent a lot of time watching people trying to get things done. In fact, most of his conversations are sparked by the inability of people to get the things done they want to be done.

We all have the experience – usually every day – of intending to do lots of things – in particular the things that we’d like to change or improve about ourselves. This could be to be healthier, eat less, be more productive or simply enjoy life more.

Whilst we often know what we need to do and have a genuine intent to do them, we often don’t. What stops us from translating our intention into action?

In this episode (#106) of the Ideas Architect Podcast, Mark Molony talks about what we intend to have to happen and how to manage our attention to give us our best chance of making it happen. In particular, we talk about:

What is Intention? What is Attention? And how can we use this to get more done and the right things done?

Mark Molony points out that the big challenge we all face is Intentional Drift – where we cannot hold our attention long enough to fulfil our intentions. This is the most fundamental building block for getting things done and ultimately becoming the person we want to be.

Can you hold your attention long enough to fulfil your intention?

The first step to creating behavioural or personal change is awareness. If we don’t notice what works and what doesn’t, then we have no access to making a successful change. The second step is to set an intention to focus on what you want to change. This is the simple step toward rewiring our brains and building habits.

Personal change starts with awareness

While developing our intention and maintaining attention to this is the access to personal productivity it also has profound implications for our mental and emotional wellbeing. This is not simply managing our feelings and avoiding reacting to the unwanted situations in our lives. It also includes the ability to let our emotions flow through us so their impact is reduced. In this way we don’t resist life, we engage fully with it without being reactive.

This requires a strong level of maintaining our attention and self-monitoring our attention and focus. The simple question to ask ourselves here is: What am I focusing on right now? And ideally, we link this self-monitoring to our intent and objective

What we attend to becomes our reality #mindfulness

A lot of popular attention is now focused on meditation and mindfulness. And while the terms are related they are often used incorrectly. Mark describes meditation as a gym workout that is separate from our daily living. It’s a great focus to drive attention and concentration. In contrast, mindfulness is where we are putting our attention during our daily life – for instance, while driving our cars or waiting in line at the supermarket.

Meditation is a gym workout that prepares you for Mindfulness in your daily life

Toby Marshall is the founder of Lead Creation – a B2B marketing agency that does both the strategy and the implementation of the marketing.

Toby and his team employ the strategy of online>offline>online. This means you start by making online connections, then meet face-to-face at events and grow the relationship online after that.

Toby Marshall is also the author of Get Your Prospects Talking Back.

In this episode (#105) of the Ideas Architect Podcast, Toby Marshall talks about what’s hot in marketing and lead generation. In particular:

Why you need a three-part lead generation system and how to build it. Toby Marshall shares his online > offline > online strategy for generating business leads. This starts with promotional marketing online that invites people to meet you at trade shows and event marketing. We still want to meet face-to-face! And, once you’ve met you can keep in touch online again.

Online > Offline > Online – the 3 part lead generation strategy you need

Even as recently as ten years ago, the majority of business was done face-to-face. This meant travelling across town or perhaps flying interstate to meet potential clients. Often, this was all for a one-hour meeting only – that’s a lot of effort for an unknown return. Toby Marshall shares how he does business today with live video to meet with potential partners and clients more quickly, more often and more easily.

There is no one off-the-shelf marketing system that takes you from lead generation to client relationships. Instead of having five tools to do your marketing, now it is likely that you have more than 50 to build a full system. And, because these are all distinct and separate they need to bolt together – the lego kit of marketing.

As Toby Marshall suggests, the lego kit of marketing profoundly impacts how you do marketing and who you turn to for help. He suggests you avoid two ‘cons’:

Marketing Complexity – 10 years ago = 5 tools, today = 50+

Having a website is no longer enough. It’s simply a platform. We also need a strategy to create content to attract new customers and sales funnels to convert and direct the customer relationships.

The old approach of trying to do it all yourself no longer works because of the complexity involved with the 50+ software tools you’ll need to build your lead generation system. Toby Marshall shares how he has built connections that have enabled his clients to afford a trade show in Shanghai, London and Las Vegas. It’s all about collaboration and the Share Economy in action.

https://twitter.com/tobyleads

Melanie Colling runs Purpose Driven Projects to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses through projects.

For me, that’s an instantly curious topic – lots of people are talking about purpose and we all have projects, but few are talking about ‘purpose-driven projects’.

Previously Mel had worked in the corporate world for over 20 years in various senior project management roles. She has also run and sold an online wedding business.

Melanie Colling has recently returned from a seven-month stint in Bali working with the Entrepreneurs Institute founded by Roger James Hamilton.

In working with entrepreneurs, she finds that the execution phase is where many people struggle. In particular, who can help me? From this insight, Mel is now working to help connect entrepreneurs with the people they need to grow their businesses.

In this episode (#104) of the Ideas Architect Podcast, Melanie Colling talks about:

It’s only through action that you find your passion #knowyourself

Melanie Colling – Purpose Driven Projects

Melanie Colling on Facebook

Email: Mel @ MelanieColling.com

The Business Connection Podcast with Brett Jarman

The Wealth Dynamics Profiling Tool

Brett Jarman on the Ideas Architect – episode 99 – Expert Leverage with Teams, Systems and Content

Geoff’s book Done

Tim Graham runs a group fitness centre in Ballarat, Victoria called Integrity Group Fitness.

Traditionally, gyms and the fitness industry have focused on short-term results through boot camps and weight loss. This view shapes how fitness centres promote their service. And it is best demonstrated by the TV show The Biggest Loser.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t work for the customer. In most cases, they return to their unhealthy habits and being overweight again.

Tim Graham talks about how he is building a different approach to exercise and building his business.

This reflects Tim’s own journey in the fitness industry. He began focusing on the usual high-energy exercises such as cycling and pump classes. Since then he has begun to include lower energy forms such as yoga, pilates and walking groups. He talks about this contrast as ‘force’ and ‘flow’.

Whilst you might expect that this episode (#103) of the Ideas Architect Podcast is all about getting fit, you’d be mistaken. Instead, Tim Graham provides some clues to building fitness in any business. We talk about:

Tim talks about motivation including the balance between Force and Flow. The typical force view focuses on forcing results and pushing yourself to your limit.

Whilst useful, to only focus on this type of exercise merely reflects the common disconnect between our body and our mind.

In contrast, Tim discusses the gentler approach of yoga and pilates which promote calm and flow.

Tim shares his thoughts on walking and why it is underrated as a healthy fitness choice – particularly when you’re just getting started. It’s convenient, free, great for recovery, and contemplation and can be a high energy pursuit too.

Tim’s business Integrity Group Fitness competes against a host of other fitness centres in Ballarat. He shares his strategies for building difference and novelty into his business approach – including doing fitness training to classical music and doing a rooftop bike ride.

Tim uses music, lighting and social groups to enable people to shift their perception of their workout to boost their effort and enjoyment. Further, he shares his aim to build a community and a social outlet for people around the common goal of ‘keeping fit’.

Optimize your fitness by balancing force and flow – with Tim Graham

Fitness centres traditionally are positioned as ‘clubs’ with ‘memberships’. However, this is more of a marketing term than a sincere effort to build connections. Tim shares his thoughts about his efforts in building a tight-knit community.

Like all businesses, the key to success for fitness centres is to have people achieve results and fulfil their goals. Tim shares his approach around balancing ‘force’ and ‘flow’ to avoid exercise burnout and ensure his customers stick around long enough to achieve their fitness objectives.

About Tim Graham

Integrity Group Fitness Website

Georgian Benta is an entrepreneur and podcaster based in Romania. He is the host of The Gratitude Podcast which has had over 30,000 downloads. Georgian’s vision is to inspire 100,000 people to live a life inspired by gratitude.

He shares his pursuit of self-knowledge from a simple desire to understand himself and be happy. This soon spread to how he could help others leading to the practice of gratitude.

Georgian Benta has a unique business focus sharing Gratitude as a Habit. Most brands build their products and services around shapes or colours or things. Few build their business around a particular feeling. Best of all, the feeling of gratitude can be practised by anyone at any time.

We discuss the big shift in gratitude from being a religious practice to it becoming a mindfulness and happiness habit supported by science.

Some of the things you will learn from Episode 102 of the Ideas Architect Podcast include:

Start your day with 3 things you are grateful for

Don’t grab your phone – pause and ask yourself: What are 3 things you are grateful for?

Say ‘thank you’ and notice how you feel when you do

Cross-cultural communication expert Taruni Falconer helps people work in other cultures or come to Australasia. Her role is to help them navigate their new cultural landscape and work settings.

Effectively, Taruni Falconer is a Habits Coach. She helps leaders communicate effectively in high-stakes situations and teach them how to develop powerful habits and practices.

Taruni Falconer is aware that to be successful in cross-cultural situations we need to communicate in a way that is appropriate to the new setting – rather than accidentally offending the locals. And, that how we communicate goes beyond the words we use.

Some of the things you will learn from Episode 101 of the Ideas Architect Podcast include:

Habits are unconscious; Practices are deliberate – Taruni Falconer

To talk of a dominant culture is to show an outdated mindset – Taruni Falconer

In this special 100th episode we turn the tables as Suzanne Mercier interviews The Ideas Architect himself Geoff McDonald – we talk about podcasting, board games, Book Rapper, Project Passion and purpose.

In Episode 100 of The Ideas Architect Podcast we discuss:

Brett Jarman from Help Me Leverage talks about two powerful ways to Expert Leverage so you can earn more and work less:

Brett Jarman’s business helps high-value experts, produce, promote and monetize their content. His niche area is a business called Experts on Air which helps business experts to create content and repurpose it in multiple ways.

He shares his experience in business in automating tasks and working with teams of locals, virtual assistants (VA) and contractors.

In Episode 99 of the Ideas Architect Podcast Brett Jarman talks about:

[Tweet “How to create your Minimum Viable Presence online with @brett_jarman #contentmarketing”]

Done – Why You Fail to Finish Your Projects

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2017/04/21/6-underused-content-marketing-strategies-that-get-results/

One of the reasons that we fail to complete our projects is that we focus on inner goals and not outer goals. Have you ever considered that you might be working on the wrong goal? And, I don’t mean writing a book versus getting a new job.

Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist who focuses on motivation and communication. From her research, she suggests that we all have a default mode for getting things done. Sometimes this works for us, and sometimes it doesn’t.

One of the key ideas that we use in Project Passion is the difference between external goals and inner goals – as derived from Heidi’s book Success. It is also discussed in Daniel Pink’s best selling book Drive. He talks about the difference between external or extrinsic motivation and internal or intrinsic motivation.

We rapped both of these books over at Book Rapper.

An external goal is what most of us pursue when we want a better job, a new car or to write a book. These are important and often they are not enough. Pink and Halvorson suggest that our focus on external goals is limited. They help us get so far. However, an inner goal will likely take us further.

Are you failing because you pursue the wrong types of goals?

In Episode 98 of the Ideas Architect Podcast, we have the sixth chapter and fifth of the seven rules from my book Done: Why We Fail to Finish Our Projects and What to Do About It. Some of the things you will learn from this episode include:

Project Passion Book Introduction

Project Passion Introduction Part 2

3 Project Passion #3 How not to Plan Your Project

Business Coaching: Don’t Fix Problems

Seven Rules of Project Passion

Business Strategy Rules Rule

The big challenge around Business Strategy Rules and Project Design is to plan just the right amount.

My first career was as an architect. Our role was to plan every single thing before any construction started. Whilst this worked for 50-storey skyscrapers, it’s unlikely to be the best way to design your project or create your business strategy.

It prompts the question: How much is the right amount of planning?

Ironically, planning too much can waste time, money and effort. And, planning too little can also waste time, money and effort.

Planning too much can also be a form of procrastination.

Also, what’s the best way to plan when we’re tackling something you haven’t done before? How do you even know what to plan for when you can’t predict what will work?

Ideally, a good strategic plan should enable us to:

The alternative to a big fat time-consuming plan is to create a series of project rules that define what to work on, when to work on them and how to make smart decisions along the way.

The key to Business Strategy Rules is to create rules as the means to define your strategy. Rather than define everything, simply define guidelines to use along the way.

The key to a simple Business Strategy is to create simple rules

In Episode 97 of the Ideas Architect Podcast, we have the fifth chapter and third of the seven rules from my book Project Passion.

Some of the things you will learn from this episode include:

Project Passion Book Introduction

Project Passion Introduction Part 2

3 Project Passion #3 How not to Plan Your Project

4 Business Coaching: Don’t Fix Problems

Seven Rules of Project Passion

Project Passion