Welcome to the podcast that's going to inspire you to get up on your feet and help your ideas start flowing. You've found the Level Up Your Life podcast hosted by the inspirational motivational transplant recipient, coach, and speaker Mark Black. Mark lived on the precipice of life or death in his youth and since then has been dedicated to motivating others to live their best lives. Though there is no guest on this show you can feel Mark's smile and the conversational tone of voice makes it feel as though the listener is having a one on one talk with him.

In this episode, Mark tackles the topic of how to get results in each area of our lives, not just business. We all want a return on investment. We want to avoid making the following six mistakes that will impede or prevent us from attaining the results we desire if we fail to utilize them:

• Intentionality - being deliberate/purposive
• • Begin with the end in mind - know where you're going
  • People often take off running with an idea, but we don't see beyond what it is we're doing right now
  • • Where will the job take me in two, three, five years?
    • Is this partnership going to be equally beneficial later?
  • Less intentionality can guarantee a loss of our effort, energy, love, work etc
  • What is the end game? Where do you want to go? Break your life down by categories - health, relationships, mental wellness, and so on.
• Purpose - What is the why behind doing what you do
• • What's your why?
  • Why do you do what you do for a career besides money?
  • • Is a paycheck a big enough purpose?
  • The purpose gives us fuel to move forward
  • Mark shares a personal story about questioning his motivation when running a marathon. The 'why' becomes critically important in order to finish. "I don't have what it takes to finish this race." The only thing that prevented him from quitting was seeing his whys listed on his hand.
• Intense Focus - like an Olympic athlete
• • We live in a culture of distractions
  • • Cell phone
    • Computers
    • tablets/iPads
    • Social media
    • Television
    • Busier generation of people/lack of downtime
    • What are the one to three things we're working toward?
• Plan
• • Can't hope to create a wonderful life, career, or relationship by accident
  • Human beings like consistency/creatures of habit
  • Think about how much time it takes to plan a vacation - plan your life with that diligence
  • Recalculating GPS
  • Massive Action Plan
  • • Break a six month/year goal into smaller milestones
• Daily Execution
• • Builds up every day, weeks, months, years
  • 80% on target at the very least
• Accountability
• • Forces you to do what you said you would do
  • • A friend/support group
    • Coach
    • Reward/punishment system

"Things are supposed to be hard sometimes and that's actually really good for us."

"We need to not strive to make things easier, but to make things worth it."

"He who has a big enough why can endure any how." - Nietzsche

"The person who chases two rabbits catches none." - Confucius

"We will continue to do what we have always done until something shakes it up."

"We're not perfect."

"There are no shortcuts. You just have to execute."

"People are not lucky. They didn't stumble into results."

"Recalculate immediately before you get way off track."

"It is a false assumption to assume that people who are motivated are naturally motivated. They had to work at it."

 

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