The Skill Stack Podcast

This episode has no intro or outro music.

It is just Ray talking in a relaxing manner to get into your subconscious mind and help you make changes that will help you earn more money.

Dealing With Stress

What is Stress?

Stress: In a medical or biological context stress is a physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tensions. These are manifest in a variety of symptoms

Stresses can be external (from the environment, psychological, or social situations) or internal (abnormal thought process, illness, or from a medical procedure)

10 Tips for Dealing With Stress

1.  Avoid or reduce your intake of caffeine, alcohol, illicit drugs and nicotine.

2.  Go For A Walk - Take some exercise.

3. Get More Sleep - Learn Sleep Techniques

4. Learn To Relax - some great advice here:  www.Mindstore.com

5. Share Your Thoughts - Talk to someone If You Want to talk to me boo a date and time here: https://calendly.com/raymclennan

6. In Your Journal, write out a Stress number from 1-10 and what triggered it.

7. Take Control - write out the problem and a number of suggested solutions.

8. Manage Your Energy and Get a Routine

9. Say "No" more often

10. If You Don't Feel Well - Rest.  Stop.  Recover and recuperate.

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

11 Excuses that stop you making progress

Anyone can become a success when you overcome and get past these 11 lame excuses holding you back.

1. There’s too much competition.

2. I can’t find the time.

3. I don’t know what to sell.

4. I’m not good at selling.

5. I’m too old/young/married.

6. I don’t understand social media.

7. It’s been three months and it’s not working.

8. Not asking for help soon enough.

9. My team can’t do it.

10. Something bad happened, my life is over!

11. I don’t have any money.

I offer some slots to people who need help but cannot afford to join the programme.  So If you’re listening to this, you can reach out to me for a free 15 minute call. Use www.Calendly.com/raymondmclennan

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

Routine does indeed equal results.

Daily Routine.

Divided into 3 parts - Morning - Daytime - Evening

The irony is that the morning routine starts in the evening – with your Journal.  - I mentioned in Episode 24 that having a journal led to some surprising results – this is one of them. A routine is good. A routine gets results

Having a routine does the same.

Take 5 minutes before you relax for the evening or before you go to bed and just jot down the things you need to do.

In the journal there is the ONE thing that you absolutely must do and 3 other things you want to do.

So the night before …take a few minutes to take a look in your calendar and jot down (write out in the daily journal) the things you want to get done.

Morning Routine

1.  Get up  - for me that’s around 6am – no alarm clock – (see Podcast episode No #032

2.  Drink water (ideally with lemon and sea salt)

3.  Exercise  HIT for 15 mins max (see Podcast Episode No #010)

4.  Shower/shave/ablutions – 15 mins

5.  Check journal and tasks – emphasis on Gratitude - 5 mins

6.  Send out emails – max 30 mins (see Podcast Episode # 026)

7.  Post on social media – 15 mins max

8. Day job – core skill – get on with your life – You should have at least 4 - 6 free hours a day for this.  Which from an efficiency point of view is extremely good. – The average worker does 2 hrs and 34 minutes of work a day according to a question on Quora in May 2012 and again in 2016 and 2019 They referred to articles in. Inc.com and Mentalfloss.com

And to get 4-6 hours of real work done, there’s a routine for that!

Daytime Routine

First of all, leverage as much as you can.  But here are 11 ways to control your day to get the most out of it and to let you get on with your core skill/profession.

1.  Set out your Key Result Areas (KRA’s) Income Generating Tasks (IGT’s)  and measure your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) – (More on that in  podcast episode No #031)

2.  Never answer the phone (see Podcast episode No #022)

3.  Change your voicemail message to let people know you don’t listen to voicemails – it stops phone tennis!

4.  Never respond to an email (see Podcast Episode No #026 Controlling your email)

5.  Don’t book meetings unless they are at a time that suits your energy

6.  Learn to say “No”

7.  Have a pa or VA or system to handle calls such as Calendly.com

8.  Set specific times for calls and meetings using www.Calendly.com and www.Whereby.com

9.  Turn on out of office message responders. Nudge people to your social media or FAQ’s

10.Have a pa or VA or gatekeeper filtering incoming messages, emails and requests such as www.AllDayPa.com

11.Make full use of transcription apps and software to document things.  Such as www.Otter.ai.  Temi or www.Rev.com

Evening Routine

1. Get out your Journal - Write out your plans for tomorrow

2. Review your Goals/targets/Aims/Vision Board (Photos in an album that you can look at and absorb)

3. Brush teeth - prepare for bed

4. Sleep technique - see Podcast Episode No #032

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

Control Your Email.

Here’s how.

1.  Create 4 new folders

2.  Delete everything in your inbox

3. Only do emails 3 times a day

1.  Create 4 new folders

Folder 1 is Awaiting Urgent Reply

Folder 2 is Immediate Response

Folder 3 is General

Folder 4 is Marketing

Now if you put an exclamation mark ! in front of those words, they should appear at the top of yout folder list and not in alphabetical order way down the list of other folders you might have already created.

2. Delete everything in your inbox.  Yes you heard me.  Your inbox should say zero emails.

Go for it. It's Refreshing.  You could move everything into General in one fell swoop or you could allocate chosen emails to folders - takes longer but it might be for you.  Even if you put them into General you can still search for them

3. Only do your emails 3 times a day.

Between 0600 and 0700

Then at 11am

Then at 4pm

Two Great Websites for controlling email:

Use 

www.Nudgemail.com

www.Unroll.me

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

12 Quick Ways to become successful.

1. Listen to The Skill Stack Podcast

2. Join The Skill Stack online

3. Don’t Manage Your Time. Increase Your Energy.

4. Outsource More

5. Do not Spend Too Much Time on Social Media…unless

6. You Need To Think Like a Business

7. Be a Positive Thinker

8. You Need to Establish Targets and Systems

9. You're a Perfectionist – Don’t be

10. Manage Your Money Properly

11. Be Constantly Learning

12. Think Bigger

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

Having a Journal is not just for kids or students.

Many top business people use one every day.  One guy I know who earns c$5m - $9m a year with his social media training company  has created his own template based around his own targets.

If it's good enough for him and many others, then it is a skill or habit you need to consider and ideally, to start.

There are good emotional and psychological reasons why having (and writing daily in a journal works for you;  reasons you might not expect!

If You want to get yourself a journal, there are 3 good ones

1. Best Self Journal - http://bit.ly/2una8Xo

2. Inspire Now Journal - http://bit.ly/INJournal

3. Brendan Burchard - High Performance Planner - Go to Amazon and search for this.

Some studies have also found longer-term benefits of expressive writing for emotional health outcomes, including mood/affect (Pennebaker et al, 1988; Páez et al, 1999), psychological well-being (Park & Blumberg, 2002), depressive symptoms before examinations (Lepore, 1997) and post-traumatic intrusion and avoidance symptoms (Klein & Boals, 2001). However, the findings for emotional health are not as robust or as consistent as those for physical health.

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

Follow us on Twitter @TheSkillStack

email us: [email protected]

Online course: http://www.TheSkillStack.com

Public Speaking

This is not about giving a speech to 300 people from a stage.  Public speaking is a skill that you need to learn if you ever talk to more than one person at a time, either in conference calls, webinars, recording videos or talking to a group in person.

You can of course grow your business by talking one to one.  But you can really grow your business by talking one to many!

When it comes to the subject of public speaking, I've only ever heard three responses.

So, People fall into 3 categories when this subject comes up.

1.  I hate it and won't do it

2. I like it and will speak anywhere

3. I want to do it but I don't know how

Those who hate it probably have a fear of public speaking.  If so, there are some tips on how to overcome that fear.

If you like it and will speak anywhere, you can do even better with a system.  Improve your speaking by just 1% in the right area and you can potentially add a lot to your personal value.

If you want to do it but don't know how, you need a system that works.

In this episode Ray describes how he made over $120,000 in his first year as a proper professional speaker.  He knows many people who make that from speaking per month using the same system he describes in this podcast.

But like any great system, you need to use the ingredients in the right order!

Look out for Earn The Honour and The Pentagon - these two things alone will transform your public speaking.

Here are the 7 tips (so you don't need to write them down whilst listening in a car or travelling!) Plus one Bonus!

1. Start Small - practice in front of small groups first

2. Prepare thoroughly - Stand in front of a mirror. Check your equipment and your timings

3. Do not just memorise words - let the talk flow

4. Avoid common bullet points

5. Reduce Stress - No looking at your 'phone before you go on stage

6. Find a Friend to Focus on - meet people before you go "on stage' shake hands, say hello at the coffee break.

7. Engage the Audience - eye contact and get them to raise hands and ask questions

8. Bonus - Earn The Honour of being chosen to speak - tell the audience, why you're there!

The Pentagon - 4 Tips to remember to structure ANY talk

1. What is It? (spend 5% of your time on this)

2. Why are you doing it or talking about it ? (30%)

3. How will you do it? (40%)

4. What if.....it all goes wrong...overcoming objections (15%)

5. When do you need to do this or start this? (10%)

If you want to attend one of the best public speaking courses in the world, currently held in the UK...email us:  [email protected] or DM us on Twitter @TheSkillStack

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

Control Your Phone

Cell phones, mobile phone, smart phones...they have many names.

One thing is certain, smartphone addiction is growing and it's sapping your energy and your creativity and it's time to take back control with these top tips.

First of all, here is a list of apps that can help you to exert more control over your 'phone (I know, Irony Klaxon, get an app to control your app addiction!)

Mute

Moment

Space

Hold

Forest

But sometimes it’s the simple things; the little things that make the biggest difference. Discipline is one of them.

1. Get one of the apps above to help you

2. Do not use your phone as an alarm clock

3. Use pen and paper to record thoughts

4. Switch off your phone during the day

5. Do not take your phone into your bedroom at night

6. Turn off notifications

7. You are not a dog so stop acting like one

8. Are you choosing your 'phone over a relationship

9. A phone is a tool, not a ball and chain

References

Salehan, M. & Negahban, A. (2013). Social networking on smartphones: When mobile phones become addictive. Computers in Human Behavior, 29.

Stothart, C., Mitchum, A. & Yehnert, C. (2015). The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

van Deursen, et al. (2015). Modeling habitual and addictive smartphone behavior The role of smartphone usage types, emotional intelligence, social stress, self-regulation, age, and gender. Computers in Human Behavior, 45

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]

How to Boost Your Energy Levels.

It's not time-management you need to learn about, it's energy management.

Once you can manage your energy levels then you can start to make difference in your life.

There are a few small things to learn and understand.  Once you listen to this podcast and understand these small things; and more important, once you start to implement them into your daily life, you will learn a skill that only truly successful people know and use.  Then you will have the energy to start to put in place your vision.

All success leave clues. The Skill Stack shows you what to look for and more importantly, like any great recipe, the correct order of the ingredients and skills is as important.

For all the underlying links and transcript, go to: www.TheSkillStack.com/podcast

You can get us in our Twitter account: @TheSkillStack

email us on: [email protected]