Do you think signing bigger paychecks will give you more happy employees? It might, but only for about seven percent of them.

In this episode, we talk about what makes employees happy – what motivates them to go the extra mile. And it’s got little to do with money and some of the other things you probably expect.

From a study written in 2014, here are nine top motivators and the percentage of employees who listed each as their first choice:

1. Camaraderie, peer motivation: 20%
2. Intrinsic desire to do a good job: 17%
3. Feeling encouraged/recognized: 13%
4. Having a real impact: 10%
5. Growing professionally: 8%
6. Meeting client/customer needs: 8%
7. Money and benefits: 7%
8. Positive supervisor and senior management: 4%
9. Belief in the company or product: 4%

Looking at this list, we figured out one theme that ties almost half of the bullets together.

If you want happy employees, you need to understand the insight we discuss on the podcast. It will increase your employee satisfaction and your bottom line.

Beyond that awesome insight, we dive into each of these nine categories to help you figure out how to make your business stronger.

Let’s face it: everyone who has employees is performing a balancing act.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to balance better so those employees stay happier.

Happy employees increase your bottom line. Want to make them happier? Via @RustyLionAcad (Tweet this!)

Click play on the player above to get started.

Listen to this episode to hear Bill and I talk about making happy employees and more:

• The top factor that drives employees to go the extra mile (It ain’t money.)
• The best advice I ever got to improve the way I do things.
• Why Bill left the Army when the Army left Vietnam (HINT: He wasn’t a happy employee)
• The reason your payroll dollars aren’t giving you a return.
• “Venom” created by employees who aren’t motivated.
• The reasons you should learn to talk to unmotivated employees.
• Simple tactics to build camaraderie on your team (and motivation).
• Ways to build up employees’ intrinsic desire to do a good job.
• A major reason people quit their jobs. (Pay attention, boss!)

Books and resources that can help you make your employees happier:

• “It's Your Ship,” by D. Michael Abrashoff
• “First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently,” by Gallup Press and James K. Harter
• “Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High,” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
• “The New One Minute Manager,” by Ken Blanchard and M.D. Johnson Spencer

Do this next to make your employees happier:

Your employees need you to operate at your highest level. Problem is, you may feel it’s impossible to unlock all your potential, especially if you still want to have time for a personal life. We care about your potential and your freedom, and for that reason we want to give you a free 30-minute Freedom Breakthrough Session.

In your free video call, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with Bill or me, Robert. We’ll guide you toward unlocking your potential while freeing yourself up for the most important relationships in your life. Click here to get started.

Are you living your life, or the life somebody else has planned for you?

Josh Brown asked himself that question before he launched his own business. He’s now a successful franchise attorney as founder of Law Office of Josh F. Brown.

But, Josh once saw himself as floundering, and even got fired from a job because of lack of passion.

Still, when it came time to open his bird cage and fly free, he got cold feet and took another job for someone else. He even had to cancel office space he’d lined up to do so.

It wasn’t until his wife told him to stop complaining about working for someone else and start his own business that he finally leapt in with both feet.

In the four years since starting his own business, Josh has found incredible success while marketing himself in ways he never could when working for somebody else.

“The greatest regret I have now is that I didn’t start my own business sooner,” Josh tells me in this episode.

For Josh, the problem wasn’t ever his employer. It’s that he needed to do it his own way. want to do it your way.

If you want to live your own life, own your own business, and do things your way, Josh’s story will resonate with you. It might even help you to start having the blind spots entrepreneurs need to have to succeed.

Entrepreneurs are successful because they have blind optimism and move forward. @indyfrchslaw via @RustyLionAcad

Men, Josh says, should become entrepreneurs if they keep feeling a pull toward that same thing.

Click play in the player above to get started. It may help you start to live your own life – a more fulfilling one.

Listen to this episode to hear franchise lawyer Josh Brown tell how to live your own life by starting your own business and more:

• How to get tons of referrals by narrowing your focus.
• Why working in golf wasn’t good enough for Josh.
• The reason giving referrals will get you referrals.
• Being the master of your domain to find opportunities.
• The “crappy” piece of advice Josh’s dad gave him before he started a business.
• Why law school sucks the life out of entrepreneur genes.
• The mistakes that lead to success.
• Why you should live your own life before someone forces you to do so.
• Why Ayn Rand changed the trajectory of Josh’s life.

Read these books to help you learn how to live your own life:

• “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” by Greg McKeown
• “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand
• “The Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand

How to contact Josh Brown:

You can get in touch with Josh Brown via his website, via email, or over the phone at 317-688-9111

Do this next to learn how to live your own life more successfully:

At the Rusty Lion Academy, we work to help men find out what living their own life should look like – in all areas of their life.

If that sounds interesting to you, why not schedule a free 30-minute Freedom Breakthrough Session?

In this free session, you’ll find yourself face-to-face on video with Bill or me – where we’ll guide you toward making 2017 your best year ever as you live your own life like you never have before.

Click here to get started.

Recently, Bill and I tossed a 50-cent piece to make a decision that could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He and I had been talking about a crazy idea I had to give away Teslas, Four Seasons getaways, Harley Davidsons, and cold hard cash to ambassadors of our brand who bring us clients.

But after we had discussed all the pros and cons, we reached an impasse in our conversation.

We didn’t have all the information we needed to make a decision.

Yet we still decided to take action on what we knew – which was not much more than the fact that implementing our decision could help us or harm us.

So we decided to flip a 50-cent piece.

Heads, we’d go for it.

Tails, our Ambassador Program would go in the “unused idea box.”

The coin came up heads.

Fifty cents is all it cost us to make a decision that could cost us as much as a million dollars.

We were laughing about it the whole time – and we’ve been laughing ever since as we’ve been putting the program in place.

Sometimes, if you don’t take action on an idea it will fester and eat you from inside. Indecisive leadership isn’t leadership at all – if you’re truly stuck on whether or not to move forward with an idea, you could do worse than flip a coin and decide to let the results guide your actions.

We talk more about our decision – and what that decision has led to – in this episode. If you ever feel caught in the grip of “analysis paralysis,” or even if you consider yourself pretty good at making decisions, this episode is for you.

Decision-making is often a matter of trampling fear with confidence. Via @RustyLionAcad (Tweet this!)

Click play in the player above to get started.

Listen to this episode to hear Bill and I talk about how to take action, make quick decisions, and more:

• The time I pulled a gun on a client to force him to make a decision.
• Why taking action to quickly make a decision will get you where you’re going faster, even if it turns out to be the wrong decision.
• How to quit wondering and wandering without making hard decisions.
• A motto to live by for decision-making.
• The surprising link between intuition and experience.
• Why a quick decision meant I didn’t have a wedding ring when I proposed to my wife.
• The best quick decisions Bill and I have ever made – and why we should have made them years sooner.
• The story of that coin-toss decision and what you should learn from it.
• Why too many men tell us they’ve faced the same decision for years straight.

Do this next to take action and make better decisions:

If you have trouble making tough decisions with your life and business, we want to help. And no, this isn’t some slick sales pitch – we really do care enough to help you.

That’s why we recently started offering free 30-minute Freedom Breakthrough Sessions.

Interested? Schedule a free video call with Bill or me. We’ll guide you toward taking actions that will make 2017 your best year ever. Click here to get started.

Even successful men feel lost sometimes.

They lose the clarity of who they are and where they should be heading.

Philip McKernan was one of those men who’s figured out the antidote.

“In the absence of clarity, take action.” @PhilipMcKernan via @RustyLionAcad (Tweet this!)

Phillip is an executive coach who’s worked with clients ranging from the Canadian Olympic team to the Pentagon. He’s also a speaker who’s shared stages with men like the Dalai Lama and Richard Branson.

Beyond that, he’s a dyslexic Irishman who flunked his way through school and has managed to become an author and filmmaker despite the challenges of dyslexia.

His journey of action started in an orphanage about a dozen years ago when he realized he’d been wearing a mask in the business world.

In an unplanned stop at a Sri Lankan orphanage, he realized he had nothing to hide behind. No gifts to give the children, no phrase books to try to communicate with them.

Only himself.

And that’s what he decided to give. Without the masks he’d been wearing in the business world.

“We have the ability to impact people, not by the checks that we write, but by the sheer gift we have in our essence.” – Philip McKernan

By giving himself in that orphanage, he found himself.

“I allowed them to feel that they mattered even for a day, even for a moment, even for an hour,” Philip tells me in this episode. “Unbeknownst to myself I started to realize I matter too.”

And with that knowledge, he decided to take action.

He moved out of his native Ireland to Canada and has been helping other people find themselves, find their gifts, ever since.

He most recently did that by completing a documentary called “Give and Grow,” which you can watch by clicking here.

The film shows how successful men and women find themselves by giving their core away in service. Taking action like that, he said, is what helps many people find their talents – what he describes as passions deepened tenfold.

Click play in the player above to hear Philip’s remarkable story of turning from a lost dyslexic to a man who helps others find their gifts and take action.

Listen to this episode to hear Philip McKernan tell how to take action, uncover your gifts, and more:

• Why giving yourself is so hard to do.
• How to measure your personal value.
• How Philip works with people to discover their gifts.
• The reason dyslexia made Philip a better listener.
• One time when a complete stranger asked Philip to be his best man. (And how Philip responded.)
• Using your gifts to benefit other people.
• Why you might not like Philip if he helps you find your gift.
• Making a documentary without bias when you’ve never made a film before.
• Why you might be the intimidating person if Philip intimidates you.
• The reason you should avoid putting people on pedestals.

Read this to take action and uncover your gifts:

• “Rich On Paper Poor On Life: 3 Paths To More Meaning (And Money),” by Philip McKernan

How to contact Philip McKernan:

You can get in touch with Philip via his website.  

Do this next to learn to take action more often and more successfully:

Like Philip, I work with people to uncover their values and craft a personal vision that will free up their potential.

To help men like you, my partner Bill and I just began offering free 30-minute Freedom Breakthrough Sessions via video calls.

In these free sessions, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with Bill or I, and we’ll guide you toward taking actions that will make 2017 your best year ever. Click here to get started.

Most people know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge told in Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol.

But his story deserves a retelling for our audience of hard-working and driven men.

See, we all get slammed this time of year with way too much to do, way too much to spend, way too many company parties to throw, and way too many places to be.

It can make the Scrooge come out even in the men who really love Christmas.

I admit that I’ve sometimes had a love-hate affair with Christmas, and as a modern businessman, you probably have too.

In this episode, I talk with our Content Director Mark Wilcox about how to keep Scrooge out of your Christmas season.

We talk about the Dickens’ story of Ebenezer Scrooge, compare it to our busy working lives today, and tell how to make Christmas meaningful again.

This episode will tell you how to avoid neglecting the things that matter most through this Christmas season while ignoring the things that don’t matter.

So click play in the player above to get started.

Don’t get Scrooged over by paying attention to the wrong things at Christmas. Via @RustyLionAcad (Tweet this!)

Listen to this episode to make Christmas more meaningful and more:

• The one key to make Christmas more meaningful (HINT: It’s not better gifts.)
• How shoeboxes help me and my wife enjoy Christmas more meaningfully.
• Christmas traditions that bring family togetherness.
• How to be more present and make Christmas more meaningful with segment intending.
• What you should learn from Ebenezer Scrooge’s mentor that he didn’t.
• Why you should put aside love of money in favor of love of people at Christmas.
• Three things you can do to make Christmas more meaningful and less of a drain.
• How to use your assistant to make Christmas easier on you.
• The legacy you want to leave (HINT: Think what Scrooge turned into after his experiences.)

Do this next to make Christmas, and every other day, more meaningful:

To feel meaningful and fulfilled, you need to be getting things done as a hard-working man. Through the proprietary process we outline in our free eBook, Five Steps to Accomplish Anything, you can get more organized and stay on the road to fulfillment without the chaos, frenzy, and confusion too many men live with. Click here to download this free eBook and work to change your life.

My guest today is one of the few people living who can say he survived a sniper round to the face.

While serving in Iraq, Justin Constantine warned a reporter working on a story to move around more because of a known sniper in the area. The reporter took a step forward at that moment to comply with the advice just as a sniper shot pounded into the wall where his head had been an instant before.

Despite saving a life, Justin almost lost his moments later when he sadly became a wounded warrior.

“The next round hit me behind my left ear, came exploding out of my mouth, and caused incredible damage,” Justin tells me in this episode.

The sniper’s shot took sight from Justin’s left eye, knocked out most of his teeth, destroyed his jaw, and severed the tip of his tongue.

Doctors had to reconstruct his jaw with bones relocated from his legs.

His head swelled up to a huge size and he had to relearn how to walk and do just about everything else.

I interviewed this wounded warrior 10 years to the day after his brush with death, and his recovery has been amazing.

Now, he refers to himself as an army of one – but in the business sense.

He currently runs The Constantine Group, where he works primarily as an inspirational speaker and author. He’s also a board director for the Wounded Warrior Project, a senior advisor for the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, a radio talk show host, and more.

That’s some army of one! Especially for a wounded warrior.

Still, Justin will never hesitate to ask for outside help for his army, and says he wishes he could have learned that lesson before he got shot in the face.

Even an army of one doesn’t have to be lonely. @Constantine_Jus via @RustyLionAcad #business #entrepreneurship (Tweet this!)

Listen to this episode to hear Justin tell his riveting story – from how he got shot in the head to how he recovered with a ton of impressive career achievements. Click play in the player above to get started.

Listen to this episode to hear one wounded warrior tell how to bounce back from disaster to become a business army of one and more:

• What it’s like to survive a sniper shot as a wounded warrior.
• When people celebrate that you said your own name.
• The attitude that carried Justin through his darkest days.
• How to tap into the people who want to help and why you should do it.
• Why a side hustle can turn into your lifelong passion and career.
• Another wounded warrior Justin looks to when he’s having a bad day.
• The mantra Justin lives by today after nearly dying.
• The surprising thing Justin learned about people through his horrific experience.

Read these books to become a better army of one for your business:

• “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World,” by Cal Newport
• “Man’s search for Meaning,” by Victor Frankl
• “As a Man Thinketh,” by James Allen
• “My Battlefield, Your Office: Leadership Lessons from the Front Lines,” by Justin Constantine

How to contact Justin Constantine:

You can get in touch with Justin via email, through his website, or via LinkedIn.

Do this next to be a better army of one in your business:

We know that sometimes you feel like you need an army as a business owner. When you feel like your to-do list is drowning you, let us help. Download our free eBook, 5 Steps to Accomplish Anything, and you’ll find you’re a bigger army than you realize, even if you’re an army of one.

Do you celebrate the goals you achieve like a SMARTY PANTS?

You’ve probably heard of SMART goals – that your goal-setting should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

In this episode, we draw on some of those same principles to help you set celebration strategies that will motivate you for both the goal you’re working on and future goals.

A problem many goal setters face is to mistake the achievement of a goal as its own reward.

Sure, meeting a goal will be fulfilling to some degree. But adding a celebration strategy into your goal-setting process boosts your vision, drive, and motivation to hit your goals.

Make your celebration strategy related to your goal and to your soul. Via @RustyLionAcad #goalsetting

In this episode, we’ll teach you how to take control of your subconscious by adding a reward at the end of your goal like a SMARTY PANTS.

That’s an acronym you’ll find you can take to the bank as you set in motion these kinds of celebration strategies for your business and your life.

Click play in the player to get started.

Listen to this episode to learn about SMARTY PANTS celebration strategies and more:

• Why your celebration strategies need to draw on basic goal-setting principles to motivate you.
• The PANTS that will set your goal-setting on fire.
• How a celebration strategy pushed one of our team members to earn $10,000 more in 6 weeks.
• Why the most powerful celebration strategies are related to the goal itself.
• How thinking big on celebration strategies will push your goals forward.
• The reason you need to wear your SMARTY PANTS when setting goals.
• A goal we didn’t meet that had an awesome celebration strategy anyway.
• How a client published his book with the help of his SMARTY PANTS.

Do this next to improve your goal-setting and celebration strategies:

We teach our proprietary goal-setting process in our free eBook, Five Steps to Accomplish Anything. It will increase your revenue, make your personal life better, and help you strip the chaos out of your life all at the same time if you follow its principles. Click here to download this eBook and change your life.

 

 

As an entrepreneur, you might feel you’re known known for your resilience.

But sometimes you just need to face the facts and move on.

Today’s guest, Thomas Lindsay, is CEO of Humanly HR and the host of the podcast Smallbiz Brainiac.

He also has nearly a quarter century of experience in the insurance and professional employer organization (PEO) industries.

From 1992 to 2002, Thomas worked for his uncle’s PEO as chief operating officer. He helped the company grow to manage more than $400 million in client payroll.

Sadly, the company couldn’t get a worker’s compensation policy to secure all that payroll in 2002 when the insurance industry fell to its knees after 9/11.

“The market was hardening,” Thomas tells me in this episode. “Nobody could take the risk. Our premium was too big!”

Thomas, his uncle and the rest of the company worked in a mad scramble to secure their position. Potential deals, arose only to fall through – some spectacularly. (You need to hear this story!)

Get the facts. Filter the facts. Face the facts. They can’t eat you. @smallbizbrain via @RustyLionAcad LINK (Tweet this!)

Facts can’t eat you, as Thomas says, but you may occasionally have to come face to face with some hard ones. Thomas and his uncle eventually had to face the facts – and shut down their formerly prosperous business.

Hear details in this episode about what that looked like, how it affected them, and – more importantly – how they rose from the ashes. Click play to start.

Listen to this episode to hear me speak with Thomas Lindsay, founder and CEO of Humanly HR, about facing the facts and more:

• Moving from thinking small to thinking big.
• Learning (the right way) from an embezzling father who steals your identity.
• Using the golden rule (for great profit) in business.
• Why separating your personal life and business life could work well for you.
• What you need to do to start making progress in your life. (HINT: We won’t lie about this.)
• Why you shouldn’t care what other people think of you.

Read these books to help you face the facts and learn more about your life and business:

• “DotCom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online,” by Russell Brunson
• “Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics,” by Will Bonner and Lila Rajiva

How to contact Thomas Lindsay:

You can get in touch with Thomas through his website or via email.

Do this next to get in the face the facts:

As coaches, it’s our job to help you face the facts about your life and business. Sometimes, one of those facts is that you’re wasting your potential.

To help with that, we recently wrote an eBook that can help you accomplish anything in five steps. Click here to get that book – free!

 

 

Is your vision statement actually visionary?

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy turned the space race on its head by putting forth an inspiring vision – the United States would land on the moon before the end of the decade.

Of course, JFK was no rocket scientist, so it would have been easy to dismiss the idea as a crazy notion.

But thanks to the clarity with which Kennedy communicated, people could practically see American astronauts walking on the moon. Before any other nation could pull it off.

So, the actual rocket scientists – the ones who could make that vision a reality – banded together.

As you know, they nailed it. In July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

But without Kennedy’s inspiring vision, that might never have happened.

So.

What’s your big vision? Could it take your business to the “moon”?

In this episode, we discuss everything a well-crafted vision statement does for your company – and tell you exactly how to craft one as inspiring as JFK’s.

We also take you through our own vision statement, tell you how it has helped us find the best team, and talk about how it affects us everyday.

You can’t afford to be without an inspiring vision statement – or, worse, to have a lackluster vision that inspires nobody.

A well-crafted vision statement can stimulate a self-fulfilling prophecy within your team. Via @RustyLionAcad (Tweet this!)

Listen to this episode to hear me speak with Bill about inspiring vision statements and more:

• The two movie clips that drive our vision (and maybe make us cry a little).
• How vision and legacy should link up.
• How our vision came together on a restaurant napkin.
• Using vision to hire the best.
• The anarchy that erupted when we told our team not to work toward our vision.
• The top two attributes your vision statement needs to have.
• Why you need outside help and constructive arguing for your vision statement.
• The vision that drove Steve Jobs to skip focus groups for iPods.

Read this book to help develop an inspiring (and concise) vision statement:

• “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” by Greg McKeown

Already have an inspiring vision statement for your business? Do this next

We host a weekly live web training that can help you build toward anything. What we teach is the same process we use to build toward our vision, so we know it can help you in that regard as well. Click here to register for this week’s training – it’s free!

 

 

 

Without a roadmap, you’ll never know where you’re going.

But even with one, some routes will get you to your destination faster than others.

My guest today is author, speaker, coach, and radio personality Lane Ethridge, the founder of Changing Lanes International.

His business helps other businesses find more success – while helping the leaders of those businesses live life “in the fast lane” so they can get to their destination sooner.

Lane tells me in this episode that many leaders follow what they think will bring them money, rather than what they really want to do.

The trick is, Lane says, that when leaders follow their gut they more often find success.

If your plan to become successful is a roadmap, Lane says your gut feelings act a GPS – providing directions and helping you get where you want to go in the shortest time possible.

But too many people quickly driving forward still spend too much time looking back, wondering if they’re on the best route to success. Business owners, Lane says, will have more success if they stop looking in the rearview.

Our hindsight can become somebody else’s foresight. @misceLANEeous via @RustyLionAcad #mentorship #coaching

No matter how well you drive, though, life in the fast lane is going to come with a few bug splats on the windshield.

Remember – those ugly smears only take up a small portion of the glass. You can make the smears worse by staring at them too intently, or even by turning on the windshield wipers to “fix” the problem.

“Whether a ‘bug’ is cancer, death, or bankruptcy, we focus so long on that we forget we should be doing something else,” Lane tells me. “Our distraction makes us forget where we’re going even though 99 percent of the windshield is still clear.”

Want to hear Lane talk about these concepts – and many more – that could help put your life in the fast lane? Use the player above.

Listen to this episode to hear me speak with Lane Ethridge, founder of Changing Lanes International about life in the fast lane and more:

• The difference between tests in school and life.
• What you have to do to earn money in life.
• Being conned out of $20,000.
• Distractions that hold many leaders back.
• Why success sometimes come after your biggest failures.
• The thing you own that is your best vehicle to success.
• Getting fired six times by the same man and still going to work for him.
• The reason Lane carried a yardstick everywhere with him for 400 days.

Read these books to help you live life in the fast lane:

• “Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!” by Robert Kiyosaki
• “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill and Arthur Pell
• “Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles in Opportunities,” by Sharon L. Lechter CPA and Greg S. Reid
• “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us,” by Seth Godin
• “Changing Lanes: Take Your Life into Overdrive,” by Lane Ethridge
• “Life in the Fast Lane: Your Dreams are Closer Than They Appear,” by Lane Ethridge and Haris Reis
• “Kairos: Turning Opportune Moments into Momentous Opportunities,” by Lane Ethridge

How to contact Lane Ethridge:

You can get in touch with Lane through LinkedIn or Twitter.   

Do this next to get in the fast lane:

As coaches, it’s our job to get you in the fast lane. To help with that, we recently wrote an eBook that can help you accomplish anytdhing in five steps. Click here to get that book – free!