Joe Apfelbaum: Recent Episodes
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Joe Apfelbaum was recently featured on “Dancing in the Discomfort Zone” with Anne Bonney!
The episode delves deep into leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize your LinkedIn strategy, providing valuable insights for professionals seeking to excel in their online presence.
Here’s a sneak peek of what Joe shared during the interview:
- The immense potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in optimizing LinkedIn presence.
- How AI can effortlessly generate compelling posts and comments, saving valuable time and maintaining a consistent online presence.
- The transformative applications of artificial intelligence on LinkedIn, including crafting personalized invitation notes and writing impactful recommendations.
- The power of AI in establishing meaningful connections and boosting credibility in the professional world.
And so much more!
Stream the episode “Artificial Intelligence (AI) & LinkedIn” on Spotify today: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5QXcuKKAk80c8i2QnPSkYl?si=D91XN6OQREeA_s0AhFMBtA&nd=1
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum has a 5 minute coaching session about how to stay centered before we get triggered. There are three moments in our life that trigger us and understanding those moments will help us take a breath and create more awareness. This interview is based on Joe Apfelbaum’s weekly newsletter that […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum interviews Pamela Gold the Author of Find More Strength a great book that Pam wrote in 2017 about inner strength. Here Pam talks to Joe about her BioHacking Company PRTL.com and we discuss some really interesting ideas about improving our health without spinning our wheels Listen to the full […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum interviews Danny Dreyer the Author of CHI RUNNING a great book that Joe learned a ton from. Nemo a relationship of Joe’s turned him to the book when Joe wanted to take his running to the next level. Listen to the full interview on this episode and let us […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum talks about his relationship running and how he went from being a person who is AFRAID of running to a person who runs everyday. Joe also interviews Danny Dreyer the Author of CHI RUNNING a great book that Joe learned a ton from. Nemo a relationship of Joe’s turned […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum talks about his relationship with his sister and a recent conversation he had with her about emotional wellbeing. Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode and new season. Resources: There are three steps to feel anything we want in our lives and we talked about those three […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to you and askes you to email him with your ideas for episodes that you want to listen to in 2020, what do you need support on. Send Joe an email and let him know that you actually listen to his podcast so he can start updating it […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to an entprepreneur who wants to grow his business but does not want to limit his success. He feels like if he picks a revenue number it might be too small, lets how that is stopping him from hitting his goal and what his breakthrough is. Tune in […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to an entprepreneur who wants to grow his ecommerce business but he has NO GOALS… Also he does not have a target market. For him to really be successful he MUST set CLEAR SMART goals. Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode. Resources: For more information […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to an entprepreneur about his lack of action when it comes to prospecting and making sales. Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode. Resources: For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/ Download This Episode:
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to an entprepreneur about his fear of speaking at a conference with lots of successful people and how he needs to get himself ready to ROCK the house and make an impact. Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode. Resources: For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/ […]
In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to an entprepreneur about work life balance and how to build relationships that last a long time. Its not about spending all your time in your business or in your relationship, its about deciding what you will be doing and having a plan to make sure you get it right.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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When you are unsure of your future, how do you infuse clarity in your day-to-day? Coach Joe Apfelbaum speaks to a college professor about students who are uncertain about on their future path.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to a health coach who is wondering why he is not getting results on LinkedIn. He realizes that he is just selling and building transactional relationships by not really getting to know the people that he is connecting to. Joe helps him see that there is a better way to build realtionships with his network.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to a web designer that is stuck because he does not know who to target. Through awareness, Joe helps the client see that he does not have a clear goal in mind, without a clear goal its hard to pick a target market. Once the goal is crystal clear and super strategic, he can pick a target he enjoys working with and come up with messaging. BOOM.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to a business coach and makes her realize that sshe has some self limiting beliefs around picking a certain demographic for her business to succeed.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to Mark Green the Author of Activators – A CEO’s guide to clearer thinking and getting things done. It talks about the two major motivators which are Fear and Inspiration as well as Habits and Beliefs. Very powerful ideas and you will learn how to take your life and your business to the next level here.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
Buy the Activators Book on Amazon
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to a success coach about the difference between coaching and therapy. Joe also goes through the three steps of the breakthrough maze and creates a breakthrough for this coach to figure out why he is not where he needs to be with his coaching practice.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to Kim Ades about her process for working with clients. She takes her clients through a special journey and she learns about their self limiting beliefs that stop them from getting to success. There are so many amazing nuggest here. – http://www.frameofmindcoaching.com/
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, Joe Apfelbaum speaks to Sales Guru Charles Bernard about how to get out of a funk and stay Mojovated, He talks about Celebration, hiring tips and how to pay sales people. Two books he recommends is E-Myth by Michael Gerber and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss – What a great episode. Please check out Criteria for Success online at http://criteriaforsuccess.com/
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, an entrepreneur that has time management issues and says that she is not savvy with social media. We quickly find out her story and why she says that.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode, I talk about how you can start loving yourself and accepting yourself more. I featured a few minutes of Mojovation from our group 1. The Mojovation group recent episode http://www.facebook.com/groups/mojovation I also feature a recent interview on the Presenters podcast http://presenterspodcast.com/apfelbaum/
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Its time to turn around the podcast and take it to the next level. How do I do that? By being consistant. I recommit to doing another 40 episodes of the podcast but I want you to let me know what I can do to make it better. You want to get entertained, and educated and inspired. Lets do this together! I added a few clips to this show 1. The Mojovation group recent episode http://www.facebook.com/groups/mojovation 2. The most recent gary sanchez interview from The Why Institude. http://whyinstitute.com/blog/joe-apfelbaum-better-way/
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Joe Apfelbaum is the creator of The Mojovation Group on Facebook where hundreds of hungry entrepreners gather each day to listen to 1000 minutes of Mojovation. Join our group here
When you are trying to learn a new skill and you get stuck, what do you do? How do you get back on the road to success? Coach Joe Apfelbaum speaks to another amazing person that wants to learn how to be a programmer and uncovers how go from Frustration to Mojovation.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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When your client decides not to call you back, what do you do? Especially if you have so much on the line. You check yourself and do not know who to turn to. Coach Joe Apfelbaum speaks to another amazing entreprenuer to uncover how to go from Frustration to Mojovation.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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You must create new beliefs if you want to take massive action. Joe Apfelbaum teaches you the step by step process to go from procrastination to mojovation and be able to create those important beliefs in your life today.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Entreprenuer calls Joe to talk about his lose of passion and how he is confused and does not know what to do. Joe coaches him and shows him how to take action even if he has every reason in the world not to take action. Passion comes from action not from excuses.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Some people rob you from your joy and happiness. You do not have to cut those people off. Instead you can set specific boundries and change your life around by taking control of your own happiness. Find out how.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Learn how to create your own luck every day instead of waiting for something good to happen to you. Way too many people are waiting for the day that they can finally get lucky and get their chance to have their dreams come true. Here are some steps that you can take to create your very own luck.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Many people want for happiness to show up in their life and they celebrate when it comes. Until that time, they are reserved and unhappy. Hopelessness is something that you actually learn and you can create habits that make you happier.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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There are three steps in the breakthrough maze, awareness, strategy and accountability. Its important to understand how to create a breakthrough in your life so that you can have more power and more freedom.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Realize that no one is coming to save you. You must take responsibility for your life and improve your level of self esteem so you can make the changes needed to grow. Joe talks about the 6 areas that you must focus on if you want to take your self esteem to the next level.
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Do you even know what it takes to do one Iron man? What about 30 in a year to break the world record? What about 50 in 50 days in 50 states!!!! Listen to the lessons I learned from this Ironman Cowboy!
Tune in to listen in this exciting new episode.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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When accountability no longer holds weight your goals can become wishes instead of actionable targets — A conversation with Joe helps our guest rediscover where their power for success in life comes from and how it all begins in the ability to keep your word.
Tune in to listen in on the first breakthrough of 2018.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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At the end of every year we make promises we hope we can keep and accomplish by the end of the following year — without accountability, without clarity and without purpose it would have been impossible for me to have written 3 books, launched two podcasts, lose over 95 pounds, speak at several events and inspire many of the people I coach.
I can’t say that I achieved all of my goals but a lot of them were accomplished and i’m grateful to have the amazing people in my life that I do — I look forward to the new year and want to leave you with these words of encouragement.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Building a rhythm for achieving goals isn’t a talent — it’s a choice. In this episode of the breakthrough maze Joe challenges his guest to map out their goals by the following:
-Goals by 3 years, 1 year, 90 days
-Goals by top 3 priorities for the week
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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It’s challenging to get traction in your life when you don’t take time to appreciate what you’ve accomplished. You may feel as though you’ve accomplished nothing. Our guest wants to get a career going because she believes she should have different results than she has now so Joe asks her what kind of career she’s looking to have as the mental resistance begins to show up Joe is able to activate our guest with probing questions that begin to shape clarity into her thoughts. Tune in to hear a breakthrough and contact Joe to have one of your own.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Your relationship to failure can be a big factor in your sense of self-esteem. Joe has shares that he’s spoken with people who have many hobbies where they feel failure but have only invested an hour or so–When it came to learning guitar it took Joe at least 500 hours to really get playing the guitar. “Often times people feel like they failed when they never really gave it a shot.”
Joe makes it painfully obvious to his guest that being down on yourself for not doing things that were on the todo list but weren’t a priority is okay. In fact remembering the 80/20 rule should make this an easy breakthrough. Tune in to a deep look at how Joe re-frames the idea and experience of failure.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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Public speaking careers deal with inspiring others even when your life is going through ups and downs. Our guest confides with Joe that she doesn’t believe she can deliver what her audience needs if her own life isn’t perfect. Joe reminds her that everyone is a work in progress and that getting in the right state of mind is different from having a perfect life. Joe coaches her through a priming exercise and gets her to commit to a few next action items to completely break through the wall she felt she couldn’t overcome.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller shares with Joe her desire for more visibility. The challenge being that she doesn’t know how to do for herself what she does for her clients. Joe takes her through the maze to show her the real issue is that she is trying to do both the strategy and execution for herself for her own content when the truth is that the amount of time she’s working with is better used if she sets short goals and minimizes what kind of execution she’s involved in for her business. The rule is never go for the urgent at the expense of the important.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller shares with Joe his belief that he doesn’t think he’s great at anything because he isn’t being paid for any of the skills he developed. Joe quickly turns the belief around and also points out that perfectionism is more of an excuse for not taking action than it is a standard of quality.–Tune in to this podcast episode to see how a breakthrough is made.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller expresses to Joe that he believes as he’s gotten older that it’s harder for him to let go of what negative things clients say to him–Joe asks for a specific example and discovers that our guest caller was perceiving what was aid about the industry as a personal attack as opposed to being an actual personal attack. Joe suggest our caller considers the fact that they said “You’re just like everyone else in the industry” and that this comment is not an insult so much as it is a cry for help. When our guest caller sees that this was actually an opportunity to turn things around Joe nudges and repeats to make sure the breakthrough sticks–Tune in to this podcast episode to see how a breakthrough is made.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller wrote a new book and wants to leverage social media to boost sales. Joe takes her through the maze and gets her clear on a strategy and set of goals that are actionable instead of depending on hope marketing. Our guest was not alone in thinking hope marketing works but Joe made every effort he could to get our guest to breakthrough the confusion and onward into a successful facebook page and email campaign.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller wants to quit smoking but is afraid to fail again because he’s tried to quit before. Joe takes our guest through maze and helps our guest discover that smoking isn’t his problem–When our guest discovers that fear of failing has kept him in limbo without the power to choose, the self awareness kicks in and you can hear the empowerment in our guest’s voice come to full force. Through renewed confidence our guest takes on Joe Apfelbaum’s 30-Day challenge to take a breathing break instead of smoke break. “When it comes to smoking quitting for the rest of your life is too much, quit for 30-Days first.”
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is looking to get 5,000 new customers for her product launch and coaching strategy services. As a proven success in business she’s having trouble understanding what’s keeping her from getting to the level she wants to achieve so our host Joe Apfelbaum takes her through the maze and sets her up for success by reiterating how important understanding the sales funnel is to the success of any business. Also, Joe arms our guest with a contingency plan should none of her current leads qualify for her services.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-18-How-to-plan-if-none-of-your-leads-qualify.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 018 - If None of My Leads Qualify, I Need A Plan (258 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is looking to get her management leadership to a level where they aren’t afraid to be candid with team members who keep missing deadlines. The consequences for missed deadlines aren’t as real as our guest would like them to be and until she can get her management there our guest doesn’t feel comfortable enough to go on vacation. Without being able to leave her company in the hands of someone she trusts her freedom is limited so Joe takes her through the maze and suggests role playing as a way of exploring the candid boundaries our guest is looking for in her team’s communication.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is looking to raise money for a family member that is ill to get proper care–Our guest has already asked some of the people closest to him for financial help and fears that asking people is his extended circle is not the right choice for a next step. Without seeing any other options our guest asks Joe if there’s anything that Joe can see that he doesn’t see himself. Our host Joe Apfelbaum is able to point of why the fear of asking people in his extended circle is paralyzing our guests ability to see why it’s not a bad idea. Joe also points out that the very same fear is also keeping our guest from creating any other possibilities too. Realizing how toxic the fear was whether justified or not our guest commits to reaching out to his extended circle with a plan in mind that’s mutually beneficial and inspiring.
Resources:
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is looking for guidance, having just launched his business, the early sales department is where he wants his breakthrough. Our guest believes he’s not good at sales until Joe reminds him that fear is false evidence appearing real and that our guest is actually very personable but his fear of rejection, not fear of sales is what’s keeping him from taking his business to the next level.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
Books mentioned: https://www.gitomer.com/product-category/books/
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In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is looking for more success as an actor, which is what she chose as her life passion. After making several attempts to work with other creatives who didn’t have the same work ethic or commitment she became disillusioned. With her heart set on meeting the cream of the crop in the business she’s at a loss for how to approach them while providing value in return for a foot in the industry. Tune in to see how Joe helps our guest breakthrough the maze.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-14-What-Others-Think-Of-You-Is-None-Of-Your-Business.mp3 Download This Episode: Episode 14 - What Others Think Of You Is None Of Your Business (214 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller is stressed about finances even though she’s a successful business owner because her spouse is deeply stressed by whether or not he’ll keep his job so she asks Joe to help her figure out how to make more money to lighten her spouse’s burden. Joe helps her see that the reason she’s having trouble is because she’s focused on the wrong problem and asking the wrong question. Joe shifts her focus to understanding her husband being stressed is the real issue to work on and in order to ask the right question she has to change her language and to stop saying “I Don’t Know” which enables her block by reinforcing the idea that she isn’t capable of solving her problems. Listen in to hear the golden moment Joe and our guest breakthrough.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-13-What-happens-when-you-say-I-dont-know.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 13 What Happens When You Say I Dont Know (215 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough he’s looking for is how to set a limit to his work hours. Our caller has wanted to focus on meeting his health goals via cycling but continues to let work get in the way. Joe walks him through a series of ways to get the best of both worlds and the breakthrough leads to more awareness of areas our caller wasn’t aware he wanted to fix too. Listen in to see how it happens.
Resources:
https://www.ringcentral.com/
https://www.uberconference.com/
https://www.upwork.com
https://fiverr.com/
https://speechnotes.co/
https://www.rev.com/
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Episode-12-Changing-Services-and-Delgating-Tasks.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 12 Changing Services and Delegating Tasks (249 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough she’s looking for is how to schedule your week because there are just not enough hours in the day. As a small business owner she’s recently hired 3 employees and has suddenly found herself at a loss for how to manage her time.
Joe reassures her this is a classic case study and invites her to consider how fast she wants to grow the company to determine how hard she’ll have to work. Joe goes on to explain how often business owners forget that they are the most important part of their business and forgetting to allow time for number one needs to be non-negotiable.
The breakthrough comes in when Joe suggests building a framework around a focused 5 hours for a business day. Opening up time for self care and development.
Tweetables:
“Often times we ask how do I manage my business better but we forget to manage ourselves better.”
“If you want to grow your business you have to grow yourself first.” – Jim Rohn
Resources:
Jim Rohn Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5nulJAIn4
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-11-How-Am-I-Supposed-To-Do-The-Work-Hire-Employees-and-Close-Clients-Alone.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 11 How Am I Supposed To Do The Work Hire Employees and Close Clients Alone (205 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough she’s looking for is that she never seems to have enough time to do the things she needs to do. Joe gives an immediate rebuttal “but you can manage your priorities.” followed by the question, who has more time than you?
Understanding where to go next because this is a classic case study for entrepreneurs Joe goes on to ask our guest caller to dig deeper and to ask what she really doesn’t have enough of because Joe knows it’s not time.
At this point our guest has their first breakthrough revealing that they have a weekly article they’d like to publish so Joe challenges her to commit and schedule it as a priority. Putting it in our guests words “I’m going to invite myself to my own meeting.”
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
Tweetables:
“Don’t disregarding the important to honor instead the urgent.”
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-10-Do-You-Really-Have-Less-Time-Than-Bill-Gates.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 10 Do You Really Have Less Time Than Bill Gates (210 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough she’s looking for is getting over the fear of being judged. Understanding this on a personal level Joe immediately helps our guest caller navigate to a breakthrough first by asking her to pick best case scenarios of how to get started in getting out there and becoming active on social media channels to help her business expand.
After some trouble Joe changes his strategy and invites our guest caller to list out a few examples of the worst case scenarios instead, which proves to work and begins to drive forward the breakthrough. At the end of it all she commits to closing one new client by the end of the month.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
Tweetables:
“For clarity, don’t look for the best thing you could do, look for the worst thing you can do and go from there”
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Episode-9-Being-Authentic-Online-To-Create-7-Figures.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 9 Being Authentic Online To Create 7 Figures (204 downloads)
In this episode of the Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough she’s looking for is being able to do more. In her own words, “Making the plate bigger.”
Understanding that this is a common roadblock for entrepreneurs and small business owners Joe recounts the story of an event he hosted where one of the guest suggested to anyone wanting to get more done that they needed to learn the art of delegation. Then he recommended to Joe and everyone at the event, a book by Donna Genett, although not well known, effective.
As the conversation develops Joe discovers that our guest caller had never set a specific goal she wanted to achieve and this being a classic case gave Joe all he needed to know about how he can help her overcome this roadblock.
Joe goes on to illustrate how lacking a clear goal makes everything look like a priority which limits productivity.
Resources:
If You Want It Done Right, You Don’t Have to Do It Yourself!: The Power of Effective Delegation by Donna Genett: https://www.amazon.com/Want-Done-Right-Dont-Yourself/dp/1884956327
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
Tweetable:
“If you don’t know what more means, how can you ever get to more?”
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Episode-8-Delegate-and-Make-The-Plate-Bigger.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 8 Delegate and Make The Plate Bigger (204 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough she’s looking for is in making more time for connection with the people she loves. Understanding her purpose lies in making and keeping those deep connections strong Joe offers our counseling masters degree holder actionable items as potential commitments to break through the maze.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
For more information please visit: www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-7-Ill-Live-My-Life-Purpose-Even-If-Only-For-An-Hour.mp3 Download This Support: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 7 I'll Live My Life Purpose Even If Only For An Hour (192 downloads)
In this episode of the Breakthrough Maze our guest caller says the breakthrough he’s looking for is in finding a way way to stick to his schedule, no matter what he has on his calendar something always comes up. Our guest wanted to discover a strong approach to dealing with million dollar clients that continue to interrupt his life at all hours of the day.
Joe invites our guest to think about the idea of keeping your word. You need to say “This is what I commit to doing” and give yourself the freedom of scheduling chaos time. Our guest begins to have his breakthrough when Joe suggests putting into place a system that his clients agree to as blocks of regularly scheduled time they can reach him, making anything outside of those blocks non-negotiable. Even if it’s just a check in call for 15 minutes with the disclosure that this time and attention will be undivided to the client.
Tweetables:
“If you don’t create an agreement, there is an agreement for you.”
“Without Integrity there is no power.”
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Episode-6-Manage-Your-Million-Dollar-Client-Expectations-Stop-Being-At-Their-Beck-and-Call.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 6 Manage Your Million Dollar Client Expectations Stop Being At Their Beck and Call (201 downloads)
In this episode of the breakthrough maze our guest caller tells Joe that she needs a breakthrough in business by landing new clients. Joe gives our guest caller a kind nudge by asking her why she feels she doesn’t have new clients.
When our guest tells Joe that she thinks she needs a lead magnet to land new clients Joe reminds her that fear can often keep us from taking advantage of the simple solutions available to us. Joe challenges our guest caller to make some calls and to ask for phone numbers when she needs them for a call. Even looking at facebook in the about section.
Faced with a challenge to commit to changing her circumstances our guest caller takes on the challenge. The second breakthrough comes when our guest callers shares that she’s been living with worry and it’s making her feel tired. Still thinking about moving back to brooklyn because living in north carolina isn’t ideal anymore Joe invites our guest caller to learn to appreciate this transition period in her life. Reminding her that Viktor Frankl was able to find happiness in one of the worst places in history.
Tweetable:
“Where your focus goes, your energy flows.”
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-5-If-Only-I-Lived-In-Brooklyn-Id-Be-Successful.mp3 Download This Episode Here: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 5 If Only I Lived In Brooklyn I'd Be Successful (224 downloads)
On this episode of the Breakthrough Maze our guest caller tells Joe opens up to Joe about how vague the roles of his employees are in the company. Joe reassures our guest caller that small businesses have this problem in common.
Joe recommends booking meetings with the whole team and one on one, that are non-transactional to open up communication between his team. Joe points out that these kind of meetings allow for a team to understand what the ultimate goal of the quarter is for our guests company. This becomes the 1st breakthrough preparing his team to secure 5 million in revenue for the year.
Our guest caller’s second breakthrough comes when Joe lays out a strategy to take control of a refund rate that has gotten out of control. Joe invites our guest to coach and trust his team enough to solve this issue for him instead of keeping himself in a hub-and-spoke business model that falls apart if he leaves for vacation. Simply creating accountability by putting the refund rate number upfront where the whole team can see.
Tweetable:
“When multiple people are accountable for the same thing, nobody is accountable.”
“Stop solving your employees problems, they’re smarter than you.”
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-4-Aligning-Company-To-Reduce-Refunds-and-Increase-Profit.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 4 Aligning Company To Reduce Refunds and Increase Profit (203 downloads)
Joe invites an 8 figure coach to a call on the breakthrough maze. Our caller tells Joe that he wants to breakthrough his procrastination block. Although Joe covers best practices for making every task on a to do list actionable, no matter how simple a task may seem, our guest caller tells Joe that the very first thing Joe said is what gave him a breakthrough.
Our 8 figure coach admits that like the clients he helps he also runs into blind spots and Joe reminded him that keeping his word is part of the deal if you want to live with integrity. Joe quotes the book the 4 agreements “Be impeccable with your word.” as the number one agreement.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
“If we don’t have integrity, we won’t keep our word, and we’ll procrastinate.”
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-3-Eight-Figure-Coach-Learns-To-Keep-His-Word.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 3 Eight Figure Coach Learns To Keep His Word (201 downloads)
Joe speaks with his guest about her fear of technology. Breaking any cap on business growth potential by embracing the social media selfie trend. Our guest caller goes on to say to Joe “You can do a selfie in the middle of whatever, and I admire that…How can I befriend technology?”
Joe shares his story about his own how he combatted his own fear of social media and helps our guest caller see that she understood technology just fine. What she discovered, with Joe’s help, was that her fear of technology was mislabeled. “When we ask the wrong questions, we get the wrong answer.”
Our guest’s breakthrough came when she committed to making a 60 second video and sharing it on social media. Regardless of the content she committed to getting over her real fear of being vulnerable to judgements.
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
Tweetables:
“When we ask the wrong questions, we get the wrong answer.”
“My vulnerability is my strength”
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-2-Im-Just-Not-Tech-Savvy.mp3 Download this Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 2 I'm Just Not Tech Savvy (211 downloads)
In this episode of The Breakthrough Maze your host, Joe Apfelbaum, introduces himself and shares his story which was the seed behind what inspired him to launch a campaign for public coaching via Facebook Live.
Bringing more than thirteen years to the online business, technology and marketing community and Serving as CEO and Co-Founder of Ajax Union a digital marketing and advertising agency based in Brooklyn, NY Joe challenges himself to grow by undertaking an innovative approach to coaching anonymous callers with challenges he’s not anticipating.
For more information please visit: http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/coach/
Resources:
www.ajaxunion.com
www.joeapfelbaum.com
http://www.joeapfelbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Episode-1-Welcome-To-The-Breakthrough-Maze.mp3 Download This Episode: The Breakthrough Maze | Episode 1 Welcome To The Breakthrough Maze (198 downloads)
I’m teaching my children to listen to the words they say because our words create our reality.
The other day, my daughter told me, “I can’t find my raincoat.”
I said, “What do you mean you can’t find it? Use your magic words.”
Everything changed when she asked me, “Could you help me find my raincoat?”
I told her to look in the closet and there it was. While she was saying can’t, she couldn’t. But when she used positive words and changed her attitude, her reality changed.
If you want to change your life then you have to change your words.
This is how you’re going to live the life of your dreams: with magic words. Only with magic words can you implement those dreams and make them happen.
Words are the programming of the subconscious. Whatever you say, you breathe into reality. Take a moment and ask yourself, “How do I want to live my life? What do I have to do to make my dreams happen?”
If you keep repeating, “I am not good at running…:” will you even try to run? No. Then how will you ever be a runner? It begins with habitual thoughts. It begins with words.
Magic words also allow us to plan for the future. We have the ability to create the future we want. When we plan for the future, we’re not stuck in the now. We’re not stuck in the past. You need to be able to use your magic words so you can time machine yourself right into your future.
We live our lives one day at a time because we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Yet we are constantly trying to predict the future anyway, even though it’s impossible to do so.
But if you take a step back, you stop the predictions and start living in the present.
If instead you ask yourself, “What’s next? What can I do that’s different than if I used my default programming? What can I do that’s completely out of the ordinary?”
It’s uncomfortable to be out of the ordinary. And most people don’t like to be uncomfortable. People think it’s dangerous to be uncomfortable.
But do you know what’s dangerous? Thinking it’s dangerous to be uncomfortable. It’s normal to be uncomfortable. It’s important to be uncomfortable. You have to celebrate your discomfort! Why? Because discomfort gets things done.
Your desires aren’t going to be realized by living at your comfort level. No one ever got what they wanted by being comfortable. People get what they want by being out of their comfort zone and doing things they’re scared of. By doing things that are challenging. By accomplishing things everyone else said were impossible.
But when faced with the impossible, you said, “It’s possible.” And you did it. You proved them wrong.
When everyone else said, “No, this is not my job,” you said, “Not only is it my job but it’s my responsibility. “
It’s okay to have a habit of decision but instead of just deciding, choose. That’s the next level. But you can choose. You do have options. If you don’t realize that you have choices then you won’t be able to take your life to the next level. You’ll just be stuck in that vicious cycle of that same old, same old. Remember, what you resist persists.
And until you become aware of where your options came from, you won’t be able to use your magic words. And magic words can change everything.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of the digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer and a published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcasts The Breakthrough Maze, CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. In 2016, Joe was named the King of Kings County for his contribution to the Brooklyn business community. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all, he is proud of his foodie wife and his five beautiful, amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
“What am I missing?” wait who said that? “I know I must be missing something. I just do not feel right.” is that me saying that in my head?
We have voices in our head that ask questions and give opinions about everything. Imagine if you can read a transcript of all the things that are going on in your head each day.
What do you think you would see there? Are you happy with those thoughts? Ideas? Opinions?
Imagine if you knew that you can change those thought bubbles into the thoughts of your liking. Into the ideal thoughts that will create the ideal actions for you to live the life of your dreams.
If you let your head go on auto pilot, Your head will do its own thing and most of the time it’s not pretty because it wants you to survive.
While coaching an entrepreneur recently I asked him about the thoughts in his head and he said they were there to protect him, that it’s important to listen to the thoughts and let them direct him.
That is certainly one way to live your life. You can choose to listen to every thought in your head and follow the advice of your brain.
Will that make you happy? Will that give you the power? It might or it might not.
If you want to have more power and more happiness you need to take control of that opinion creating machine and realize that all the thoughts you have in your head are there to protect you from dying and we are going to die anyway. So why not live a little?
When we are so obsessed with dying we forget to live and in the service of surviving we give up thriving.
What does it look like to thrive? Well if you are inspiring yourself by taking the right actions to maximize your life. You might call that thriving. Or you might consider suffering thriving. It all depends on the programming that was put into your head and by whom? Not by you!
You are not your own programmer, you have been programmed by circumstance.
As human beings, we want to avoid pain and we seek pleasure. It pains me to see people suffer without knowing that they can get out of the suffering. Sure you need to go through pain to be able to grow but do you need to suffer through it? I heard someone once say that pain is not optional but suffering is a choice.
You suffer when you think you should not be feeling this pain, when it’s not fair! When it’s an injustice and life “Should” be different and there is nothing you can do to change. When you are the victim, you suffer.
What if you are the most powerful person on the planet. Can you suffer? What if you had access to everything and anything. Can you ever suffer?
No, you can only have compassion for those who suffer.
How do you take control of your reality? It begins by realizing and becoming conscious to the fact that you can change your thoughts and you can change your words and as a result you can change your actions which will create any reality you dream up.
Now that you know you can change your thoughts, will you change them or will you let your head do its own thing?
Feel free to comment and let me know what you think in the comments below.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his foodie wife and his 5 beautiful amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the “unalienable rights” which the Declaration says have been given to all human beings by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect.
You have the right to pursue happiness!
How is that pursuit working for you?
You think that if you finally get that promotion? Close the deal? Find the perfect partner? Sell the company? Make millions and retire? Buy that fancy car? Learn that new skill? Get rid of all your problems? That you will finally be happy?
When you base your happiness on circumstance, you are giving away the power to something or someone else, to make you feel happy.
Why give away all that power? Why not take responsibility for your own happiness and choose to be happy right now?
Most people think that if they had money, they would do the right things and they would be happy. It’s really the other way around, first be happy, then do the right things and you will have money.
Instead of making happiness the destination, make it the journey. – Joe Apfelbaum
Be happy because you get to choose happiness.
Someone recently asked me how I am able to feel happy at anytime. I told them that it is a choice. I starts with what I focus on. If I focus on my unmet expectations from other people or from life, I get frustrated and sad. When I focus on appreciation, I start to feel happier. When I focus on what other people need instead of what I need and I help others, I feel happy and accomplished. When I focus on my own needs and worry about my desires, I feel depressed.
Gratitude and giving is a great way to feel happiness at anytime. If happiness is a feeling that you can awaken anytime, why doesn’t everyone feel happy all the time? Because people want the feeling to come from some external place. They want to get lucky. Most people do not realize that they are lucky to be alive and they can choose happiness and feel it anytime.
Now that you know this, will you take the time to think about all the great things that are happening in your life right now? Think about how fortunate you are right now?
Take responsibility for your own happiness and feel happy because you want to, not because it’s tied to some external occurrence. You get to feel happy, you get to smile and make other people happy as well.
“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” – Dale Carnegie
What are you grateful for today? Feel free to comment and let me know. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
When I got this idea in my head that I “Should” put myself out there and start writing, speaking and sharing my ideas, I had some major resistance.
The voice inside my head said “Sure, you have tons to say but who would really want to hear you. What value can you really add? Just keep it all to yourself if you want to look good to others.”
I listened to that little voice in my head and I made up excuses.
“I am not a writer, I hire writers to write for me.”
“I am a private person, I don’t like to share in public forum, It’s just who I am, I need to accept that”
“I have no real original value to add, everything I said, someone else already said in a different way. Who am I to start saying and sharing ideas.”
The list of voices and reasons can go on and on but I think you get the picture.
I am not here to tell you to brand yourself and make an impact, I am not here to should on you or to tell you that if you brand yourself you will be more successful.
I would like to simply share my experience with you and give you the steps I took to create a brand that I love and that makes an impact every day. My personal brand is still a work in progress and I have ways to go but here is where I got to where I am.
Before I began to develop myself as a leader that has thoughts and shares their ideas, I needed to first confront and distinguish those little voices in my head that do not let me get into the “Zone” AKA the reasons why I should not do brand myself as a leader and make an impact.
Here is how I addressed the first three reasons above and you can make your own list of reasons and address them honestly in your own way.
I am not a writer; I hire writers
Yes, I am not a writer because If I am being honest with myself, I never take the time to write. I have been pretending that I am not a writer, yet I am perfectly capable of writing emails that are moving.
I am perfectly capable of speaking and sharing ideas with people one on one, that move people and inspire them.
The fact that I am not a writer TODAY is true. The reason I SAY I am not a writer is because I am not spending the time writing.
The reason I that I do not spend time writing is because I SAY I am not a GOOD writer.
It’s a circle I am stuck in. Because I can never become a GOOD writer if I do not write!
I need to just write even though I am not a writer and I might become a writer, I might even become a GOOD writer.
That is something I had to stop pretending and making excuses for to be able to break free from that self-judgment and move forward.
Here is another example:
I am a private person, I don’t share in public.
Am I really a private person? YES! I like privacy. Do I really like privacy all the time? No! I just like privacy when people ask me to speak in public. I do not want to share my thoughts in front of people. Why? Because I am a private person, because I am humble because I am shy!
I know deep inside that I have a truth to share and I wish I can get out of my shell but I can’t get out of it. I am just this way and it’s now it was meant to be. The voice in my head tells me these reasons to try and protect me from taking a social risk and looking bad in front of many people.
The internal justification might be, if I make a mistake in front of one or two people, I can live with that. If I make a mistake in front of 20 people, I will die of shame.
Joe! You don’t die of shame, you feel like you die but that is where you begin to live. People jump out of airplanes to get that rush and all you have to do is get up in front of a group of people who ASKED you to speak because they know you have some value that they need.
Sure, the fact that you are funny, entertaining, interesting, smart all those things are more of a reason for you to get up and share your truth with the world.
I needed to own up the fact that I have been pretending to be a private person because I was afraid people would see how charming I am and ask me to get up and wow the crowd. That I would get up there with people’s high expectations of me and I would fumble and look stupid. And then I would just DIE and I Would not be able to do this again ever.
The fear had a grip on me for the better of 30 years and I finally had the courage to just do it. I got up in front of 80 people and presented a topic that I was a true expert in. Digital Marketing, SEO etc. Even with that, I was pacing, and hyperventilating, out of breath and scared to hell. But I did it anyway and realized that I love doing it and I can impact thousands and help millions by doing it. So now I do it anyway.
Here is another example:
I do not have any original ideas; who wants to really hear me!
The fact is that I do not have any original ideas. All ideas existed in some way shape or form. The way that I generate ideas is that I take two existing things and put them together to create a new thing that is made up of other things.
My creativity is about making connections that people usually do not distinguish and that makes me happy. When I make a connection, I get energized and when I share it and people are impressed by the idea, I feel validated.
I have been pretending that I do not have any good ideas to share because I was afraid that people would call me out. They would Google it and see that someone else said something similar. That it was something that I stole and I would be called out as a Liar. When in fact, I am being inauthentic by holding back my ideas, because my ideas are mine, even if someone else said the same exact thing. I own it now because I took ownership of the idea and shared it within the context of my lens.
Only I can see things from my exact view, from my exact experience, from my exact insane paradigm and the fact that I am not sharing was causing me to feel like I am not enough.
Like I am not worthy of sharing my original ideas.
That only my mother can hear them and everyone else can’t know those ideas. Because my mother won’t Google to see if the idea is really mine.
In reality, no one is going to Google anything. “I only do that for myself to feel validated.” I Google things to see if anyone else said them!
Now that I realize that it’s just a fear I am ready to get started branding myself as a leader. Here are the 5 steps that I took.
- Identify Your Excitement
- Define Your Audience
- Speak To A Writing Coach
- Plan Time In Your Calendar
- Define Your Assets
Identify Your Excitement
To really be able to connect with people, you need to connect on an emotional level. You will never be able to connect and make an impact with logic. Humans connect with emotions. You need to be able to charge you content and thought leadership with your voice that has your own personal flavor of your emotions. This is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to outsource writing and leaders have to really get down and write on their own.
Imagine giving a speech to your company but instead of you talking, you have someone else do the speech that you wrote. That’s not you! Yes, it’s your speech but it’s not your voice. You want to make sure that you can get your voice down and people want to hear the excitement in your voice. The emotion will transfer to other humans and your story will stick.
Brainstorm a list of all the categories you can think of and pick the top 4 categories and focus on those areas.
When you start writing, just write about what excites you. Your ieas, your questions, the questions that others have had and share your own experience. People learn from discovering your experience as if it was their own.
There are four seasons, I have my own which are.
- Sales (B2B Business Development),
- Marketing(Digital Marketing),
- Networking (Business Networking)
- Leadership (Self Improvement)
I can read and write about those topics for hours and I love them so much. They excite me and because of that, they excite others when I share my experience with those topics.
Sure, I have dozens of topics that I can speak about, topics like health, motivation, relationships, religion, technology, psychology, coaching etc but those are my top 4 at this time in my life.
Define Your Audience
If you only spoke to one human being, who would that human being be? What would their name be? What gender? What would they look like? How old? What do they do? Why do they do it? You need to really get down and look at this person in the face and have a conversation with them. The more defined your audience, the better you message will hit home to EVERYONE. People try to be general because they do not want to miss anyone, they end up missing everyone. You need to be VERY specific if you want to make an impact.
I am speaking to a business owner that started his own company and figured out how to get his business to a few hundred thousand a year. He is working 16 hours a day and is hungry to keep growing his business. He feels like it’s a miracle that he got this far and he has a family at stake. He really wants to keep growing his business but he is not sure how he will do it. His goal is to break the million dollar mark and he is optimistic that he can do it.
What are the things that you would tell this person? Now you have so much more to say to them! Remember you can speak to everyone but do it by speaking to one person and the impact will be much greater.
Speak To A Writing Coach
The only way to get your ideas out of your head is to make time each month to speak with someone about your ideas.
You know what excites you and someone who is a good sounding board can help you extract those ideas that you want to share. It took me 8 months of speaking to a writing coach to come up with the ideas that lead me to write a book.
Just having a conversation about the problems you want to solve, about your expertise about the people you want to impact. Talking about those ideas will make a crazy amount of topics arise and they create the motivation and accountability to get this going.
I found a book editor that became my writing coach. Before I had her, I used my admin as my writing coach. It’s just a person who will be there for you to hear your ideas for 30 minutes to an hour month.
Plan Time In Your Calendar
I never used to make any time for writing. Other things were more important. Who really has the time! We all have the time, you just do not have it as a priority.
For me to really be able to get into the groove of writing, I needed to dedicate time in the morning before everyone wakes up. I would create a document the night before and add the first sentence. I would go to sleep thinking about the topic and when I woke up, I would spend an hour in front of the document just spilling my thoughts out.
This is how I wrote this exact article, it’s not something I planned more than thinking about a topic to write about and adding a time to my calendar to write about it.
I need to clear my email inbox first to make sure there are no fires that will not allow me to get into the zone. Sometimes clearing your mind first by doing a brain dump and just adding everything that is on your mind into a TO DO list might help you clear out your brain to give you the ability to really be creative.
Also, I promised my admin that I would write about this topic so I would look stupid if I didn’t execute on this. You have to be able to want to look good and have your pride on the line to really be able to produce results.
Now that you have a plan in your calendar and you are writing, there is only one more step
Define Your Assets
There are assets that most people do not define when they start on their journey to sharing ideas as a leader. I found that by defining those assets and organizing them at my fingertips it helps me be able to create and not worry.
Here are three brand assets you need to define and optimize each year.
- Bio + Personal Summary
- Headshot + Photos
Values + Inspiration
Most people do not have a good BIO and those that have a bio, it’s usually not up to date. After you post each article you need to have a blurb you can add with your short article bio with some call to action. Follow me on social is enough of a call to action but it needs to be inspiring and short.
It pays to have a full bio as well where you list out accomplishments that you are most proud of. The BIO is for you to have more confidence. That asset is super important for all ideas to have.
If you have not taken professional headshots in the past year, find someone to get your headshots done. It feels so good to have great photos that are created by a professional. It won’t happen on its own, you need to get it done.
You also want to have a collection of photos that you use when you write articles, I use my Google Photos to download a recent photo. If you don’t take many photos at least start a collection that inspires you so you can have something to share with your article. Think about starting a collection of photos and videos.
The third brand asset is a document that has your values, your strengths and some items that inspire you. If you create this document and review it each month, it really helps you develop your voice and strengthen it. You want to find quotes that excite and energize you. Poems that move you. Collect a virtual bucket of inspiring items that represent your voice. Find other leaders that are putting out content that feels like your style. Include a list of those people in this document.
You can also include a list of tools that you use to help you be able to write better. For example, I use Grammarly.com to help me be able to have the proper grammar in my articles because my grammar sucks.
Now that you have your assets you will have more confidence, more clarity and take more action.
To Summarize, You need to first challenge your beliefs and views about yourself and your ideas. Once you do that you can take this 5 step approach and start sharing ideas. Identify Your Excitement, Define Your Audience, Speak To A Writing Coach, Plan Time In Your Calendar, Define Your Assets.
Please comment with your biggest takeaway and if you like this please share it with others.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency . He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer ofGrowTime.tv. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
At a recent EO board retreat we did an ice breaker at dinner and one of the topics that we discussed was, what advice would you give your 20 year old self.
There were so many great tips that each person gave.
Here are a few ideas we discussed that might get you thinking.
Live in the moment
You might want to keep waiting for that amazing thing to happen in the future that will be the key to your happiness. Learn to love the now! Be in the moment, this might be the last moment you get to experience.
Fear = False evidence appearing real
Most of the things that you fear will never end up happening. Stop worrying about what might go wrong and focus on the positive.
Relationships is the only thing that really matters
It’s the people in our lives that will give us the most satisfaction and the most agony. Learn how to work with people and invest in your relationships.
Do not spend more than you make
It’s not worth getting that shiny object that you cannot afford. The best way to get out of debt is not to get into debt in the first place. Do not spend more than you make. If you want more, work more, learn more, make more.
Don’t live your life to make your parents happy
Your parents know what they know and it’s important to give them what they want but don’t sacrifice your whole life to live their dream.
You don’t need that stuff.
The less stuff you collect in your life, the more at peace you will be. Stop hoarding all those things. Travel light.
Do what you think is fun
Do not do things that others think is fun to be popular. Do what you think is fun and have a great time enjoying life. Remember, you only get to live once and you don’t want to have regrets. Travel, have fun and do what you love while you can.
Failure is the key to success.
Don’t whine when you fail, instead use it as a learning opportunity. Realize that the only way you will get to walk is if you fall. So celebrate the falls and you will be running in no time.
Friends do not just make themselves.
Treat your friends like they were a plant, they need water and sunlight. If you fail to nurture your relationships you will lose them. Don’t complain that you don’t HAVE friends. Make friends if you want friends.
The language you use matters!
Every single word that comes out of your mouth takes control of you. You need to change your words if you want to change your life. Make sure you monitor your words and you will be able create and have anything you want by changing how you speak and how you think.
What would you tell your 20 year old self? I would love to hear your response! Please reply to this email and let me know.
“I like flying by the seat of my pants” He said to me when I asked him if he did an annual review. “I do not like to plan, I prefer to let things just go as they go and I hope for the best.”
I told him “hope is a great thing, but it’s not a great strategy.
Imagine if you wanted the perfect garden but you didn’t want to buy the right seeds, water the flowers appropriately and spend time getting rid of the weeds.
You would not have the perfect garden. Instead, you can expect the grass to be greener on the other side because your neighbor is taking the time to plan, to water, to cut the weeds.
If you fail to plan, you are essentially planning to fail.”
He looked at me and said that the reason that I am successful is because I am “lucky”, It has nothing to do with planning.
I agreed with him, I said that I believe that I was lucky enough to know that I must plan for the future and have the courage to share a vision that I want to bring to reality.
Success is not something that you just find somewhere. It’s like love, you must create it with intent, you must nurture it to fruition.
To me success is about setting a goal, a measurable goal, a specific goal, an actionable and attainable goal, a realistic goal that I am inspired and motivated to achieve. Then I need to set a time that I will have that goal completed by and I need to make sure that I am accountable to another person that I respect.
Success is very personal. Success to me is very different than success to you. If you define your level of success by what other people have, you will never be fulfilled. You need to dream up your own dreams and make them a reality. It all begins with planning. Having a written plan that you review regularly.
Yes, I have my 2017 vision board ready and I already sent it to the people who will hold me accountable. If you want to see it, let me know and i’ll send it to you.
Here are three easy steps to prepare for 2017
- Confidence: Reflect upon your accomplishments in the past year, look at each month and see what you did and what you are proud of. Write them down and pat yourself on the back. You deserve to recognize and celebrate your accomplishments. If miss this step, you will not have the confidence to set more goals.
- Clarity: Identify all the areas of improvement, write down all your current problems. All your desires and wishes. Write it all down so that you can see on paper what you really want in the coming year. Once you have a full list of everything you want to improve, fix and create. It’s time to decide which one thing, is the most important thing in each area of your life. Business, Family, Personal and Community. If you have too many priorities, you don’t have any priorities.
- Activation: Create a list of outcomes along with actionable items that you will execute on in the coming year. Share those outcomes and action items with a friend. Make sure that the actions you commit to taking align with your top values and that you have a strong reason for wanting to accomplish those goals. The “Why” will fuel you into action.
Now that you wrote it all down and shared it with a friend, you are ready to take on the new year and make your dreams a reality.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
PS: Last year I did 1000 selfies with 1000 people, check out my top selfies, are you in one? Do you want to do a selfie with me in 2017?
PPS: I am really excited about my accomplishments in 2016, Here are 10 that I committed and executed on.
- Interviewed 52 CEO’s for CEOMojo.com
- Filmed and published 52 Episodes fo GrowTime.TV
- Posted 200 Mojovational Street Talks on Facebook
- Took over 1000 selfies with 1000 people.
- Got Lasik, Perfect Vision
- Next level health, lost another 10 lbs (80 total)
- Had my 5th Child!
- Finished 3rd draft of my book.
- Sent a weekly email to you each sunday. (This is the last one of 2016)
- Built a next level business culture, lived up to the amazing vision. Right people in the right seats. Our digital marketing business is better than ever.
I am super excited about 2017, I am ready! Let’s do this together!!!
Thank you for being in my life.
Happy New Year!
“I just met an old classmate of mine and he made me feel terrible.” He looked troubled by this encounter. I asked him to go on “Tell me what your classmate said.”
“It’s not about what my classmate said, it’s about what he didn’t say. I really feel like asking him, how he is doing, learning about him and connecting with him in a deep way. Yet, I can’t bring myself to connect with him, because I know that he won’t reciprocate.”
This got me very curious, I really wanted to learn more, so I kept quiet and used my body language to indicated that he should go on.
“In the past, I have tried to connect with this person and he totally brushed me off. I kind of hate him for that. He thinks he is more important, like he is aloof and I can’t stand that.”
He was obviously hurt but not by what was done to him but by the way he connected with the idea of unconditional love.
You expect and demand that others treat you better than you treat them. You want people to love you, care about you, nurture you.
Think about that grumpy cashier, I have come across them many times. My experience completely depended on on how I approached this situation. If I walked in with the expectation that, you are my cashier, you need to be in the service of others and you “should” smile when you serve others as a cashier. If my expectation was not met, I would be disappointed.
On the other hand, If I took the responsibility of the service of others and said to myself, I will leave every person I interact with a bit better off after I meet them. I now have the power to change this person from being a grumpy cashier to someone that might be able to smile a bit.
This cashier might have a life that is much harder than mine and might feel stuck but I will make their life better by not judging them but showing up with love, unconditional love.
I do empathize with the person who wants unconditional love. Because I want to be accepted and loved unconditionally. When I get treated that, I feel like I have wings. When someone takes interest in me, loves me, connects with me, wants to learn all about me, is fascinated by me. I get high.
Now that I know that I feel that way, why not make others feel that way. Maybe they will realize what is going on and do the same, or maybe they won’t. Most people don’t. Not because they can’t but because they are not aware.
I know that most people are reactive. That means that they will react to their environment. That is why it’s so important to choose your friends wisely because you mirror your friends.
When it comes to business networking, the more you show up and give, the more likely you are setup for success.
Often people tell me that networking does not work for them, I ask them how many referrals and introductions they made in the past 6 months. They will scratch their head and try to remember. Usually not many. If you want networking to work, you need to make 10x more introductions than you expect to receive.
Yes, loving unconditionally, giving unconditionally is a ton of work. But the payoffs are huge.
It takes a real leader to stand up, take responsibility and give, love, create, without expecting anything in return in the depth of their heart. That doesn’t mean that if you see someone that you feel takes away from your energy that you should engage with them for the sake of good leadership.
At least challenge and question that icky feeling you feel, when you are confident that you will be giving and you will not be getting back from that source. It always comes back, It just comes back from another channel.
I challenge you to take a moment and take serious interest in the people around you today. Do not wonder what they can do for you but only focus on how you can add value to their life. You will have more power than you ever had.
Can you love unconditionally? Are you looking for a reward every time you show love, every time you give? Do you expect other people to take interest in you when you take interest in them?
Feel free to let me know what you think.
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
As I lay down on the couch, stuffed from thanksgiving dinner. These are some thoughts that entered my mind.
“I am grateful” when we are grateful we are full of great. What is great? Great is a measurement of quality, quality or both. Another word for great is excellent or very well.
“I appreciate you” is to tell someone that I recognize that you are full of worth. That I understand that you have value. Appreciate is to appraise or to indicate that someone or something is praiseworthy.
“Thank you” is a way to express gratitude, which is the quality of being thankful and having the readiness to show appreciation for kindness.
The words that we use matter. When we are grateful, we recognize greatness. When we are appreciative we are openly praising. When we express thanks, we are focusing on the kindness and love.
Using these words, expressing these emotions, having these thoughts actually change the molecules in our bodies. Gratitude is an attitude of thanks and that attitude heals.
The only thing that stops people from being thankful, appreciative and grateful is fear. People are afraid that if they point out what is working, it might stop working. They might stop getting lucky if someone notices. They fear they do not deserve all this good in their life. That somehow they are not praiseworthy.
Where does this come from? Why would anyone not feel great! Why would anyone how have this amazing feeling of excellence. Some of it has to do with our past experiences, most of it has to do with our current beliefs that were shaped my past experiences and associations we make without effort.
The way that you think is programmed in your subconscious. You don’t really have a choice. If you are always negative, its not because you like it. It’s because that is your programming. You are programmed to fear, to hate, to hold back praise.
It feels weird when you start to go against your programming so you continue to live this way. Some people call it tough love. I call it insanity. I call it suffering for all those involved. Its a shame that people are not aware and that they do not have the great tools they need in order to get themselves out of this mess.
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer
How do we change this? How do we live in a state of greatness? It starts with us. We need to become more aware. Not try to change anyone but be thankful that we are aware. Be thankful that we are praiseworthy and we have the capacity to praise and appreciate others.
We need to give love to all those around us and not fear that if we give love to others when they misbehave that they will take it as a reward and continue that behavior. We need to give love openly and honestly. To be thankful, fill of praise and full of great gratitude.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein
Each day, you must ask yourself empowering questions.
- What am I grateful for?
- What is great in my life right now?
- Who am I thankful for?
- Who would I like to praise today?
- What happened to me yesterday, this past week that I appreciate with all my heart?
- What was done for me today that I can appreciate and give thanks for?
- How will I be more grateful today?
- How will I express my love and gratitude to the people I interact with today?
Think about the wonders in your life, like running water. Like the internet. Like the fact that we woke up in a bed and we can read!
Yes, you can read this right now and make your life even better than it is. A very large population in this world, cannot read right now. I appreciate that I can write and communicate and share my thoughts with the world.
I am grateful that I can add value to your life.
I am thankful for those that are reading this and loving it and I am also thankful for those that have gotten to this point and have rolled their eyes a thousand times, I love you too.
Happy Thanksgiving, make your day great, everyday!
Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 12,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. In 2016 Joe was named the King of Kings County Brooklyn for his contribution to the business community in Brooklyn. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.
For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum
“You ruined in my life. After working with you for 5 years, we went out of business and now I have nothing. I will not forgive you!”
That message hurt me.
Not because it was true but because for 5 years, we helped this person build their business as much as we were able to, with a few hundred a month.
For 5 years this person lived off a company that had poor customer service, poor pricing and outdated technology. They were not willing to change and invest in better technology and the industry kept changing. Eventually it caught up with them and they could not afford to keep their doors open.
Most of the 1100 clients that we serviced in the past 7 years were small businesses. I wish they were all able to make the investment, for us to bring 6 business strategists into their office and do a workshop, to show them exactly what they need to change in their business to 10x their bottom line while still growing their top line.
To help them understand how to properly grow themselves, their team, their culture and understand that digital marketing is just a small part of growing your business.
Instead of taking responsibility and embracing the change in marketing, the change in sales, the change in their customer’s mindset. This person choses blame and is full of resentment.
There are too many people in this world that are angry about the past. They cannot forgive and move forward. They wish that things were not the way that they were. They wish that things were easier.
Don’t wish it was easier, wish that you were better! – Jim Rohn – Watch This..
It’s easier to blame the government. It’s easier to blame the economy. It’s easier to blame your parents. It’s easier to blame your community, your education, your life… It’s so easy to blame your vendors.
Its very hard to blame yourself. Its very hard to take responsibility.
If you are still angry about an incident in the past, its because you still have not learned something from that incident in the past.
If you are worried about the future, its because you do not have a good plan for the future. A solid plan that you are confident in.
When you forgive someone, you are not doing them a favor, you are helping yourself move forward into the next chapter of your life.
Choose responsibility instead of blame. Choose peace and love instead of anger and resentment. Learn something from the past and forgive those, who have wronged you. No matter how wrong they are.
Learn and move forward. Lest you pay the price again and again, till you finally learn the hard way or die unhappy.
You cannot change someone who is not aware of their bad habits and is constantly blaming and shaming people around them.
What you can do is forgive them and hope that they wake up from their bad dream.
Our life is only a dream, we change the story when we realize, we have the power to do change it by changing our thoughts with love.
Let’s choose to live our ideal dream together and enjoy peace, love and prosperity.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
PS: We recently won an award for being the King of Kings county in Brooklyn NY. For the past 7 years we have been servicing the community and we have positively impacted over 10,000 businesses with our thought leadership and business advice. We created hundreds of jobs and made this world a better place.
I am proud to accept this award and I am happy I was able to celebrate it with our award winning team. A past client came over to me at the event and told me that we earned this award because he was with us for 5 years and he never worked with a better, more amazing company. That made me smile, because I knew it was true and because I knew it’s really about our people.
PPS: Jeffrey Gitomer is the king of sales and I had the honor and privilege to have him on CEO Mojo! Listen to the episode of the podcast here. I was also featured on his podcast Sell or Die..
“Everything I do feels like a sacrifice. I am serving everyone else and no one notices me. My kids are a burden, my relationships are a burden, I am drowning and the people closest to me are busy taking care of themselves. How can I make everyone realize that they need to save me.” A women emailed me after watching one of my 200 street talk videos on Facebook.
There are people who walk around feeling like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. They have many responsibilities, kids, work, family, social obligations and more. Some people are so busy taking care of everyone else, they forget about themselves.
They hope that someone else will come and save them. All they want is someone to meet their needs without them having to ask for it.
“Is that too much to ask?”
When we were babies, we would cry and our parents would come and give us everything we needed. We didn’t have to use language, we didn’t have to articulate. We didn’t even know what we wanted, we just felt in pain and somehow the adult in our life figured it out.
We were nurtured and it felt amazing.
Why can’t we feel that amazing feeling again? We yearn for someone to take us in their hands and take care of our every need, even if we don’t know what our need is.
All we need to do is whine a bit, cry a bit, feel like a victim a bit and hope that an adult in our life will notice.
The problem is that when the “adult” notices, most of the time they don’t understand why you want that. You are not a helpless baby anymore, you can take care of your own needs. You can use language and make requests from people that love you and they may comply with your requests most of the time. Especially, when the requests are made in the proper way.
The way to get your needs met, is through awareness yet we don’t know what we don’t know. So we keep on kicking and screaming and wonder why we don’t feel happy or at peace. Maybe it’s the people around us? Maybe if we found better friends, better partners, better lovers, we can get our needs met!
It’s never the people, it’s you always you!
Here is a major clue that will lead us to the answer…
When we feel disappointed that someone “didn’t do” something we “did not” ask them to do. When we feel resentment that someone in our life is not giving us something that we want. When we feel sad that we don’t have people in our life nurturing us without us having to let them know what we need. That is the hint. That is the clue that will help us become more aware that we are an adult and we need to start realizing that it is now on us to nurture others.
Instead of feeling depressed, we must stop giving excuses and start taking responsibility. We must stop giving blame and we must start taking ownership. We must step up and lead every relationship with awareness and passion so that we can live a life full of love and enriched with peace.
The fastest way to get out of depression is to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about others. Stop thinking about what you are not getting and start thinking about what you can be giving.
Have you ever come across such a problem in your life? Let me know how you respond? Would love to hear from you.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
PS Just released a new episode of CEOmojo.. Mona is a great guest on the show. Listen to her passion http://www.ceomojo.com/
Going to an EO conference in Boston with over 500 CEO’s, business leaders, successful entrepreneurs is energizing and exhausting at the same time. I love meeting all the people I know and catching up. I love learning from the half a dozen speakers I heard from and getting inspired by the people who got up and spoke about the struggles they have been through.
The most exhausting thing for me is about the follow up. If there is one thing I have learned from going to conferences, it’s that unless you follow up with the people and the content, it’s a waste of time.
I have 50 people that I need to follow up with about various conversations that we had. I also need to implement about half a dozen things into my company and into my family.
Here are some 10 ideas that I got from the conference.
- What are you really bad at? Ever ask yourself that question? As a positive person, I am constantly focusing on my strengths. I do not take the time to identify what I am deliberately bad at. Dr Frances Frei spoke to us about how great companies are great at a few things that matter to the consumers and they are deliberately bad at other things to stand out. How IKEA is really bad at quality, location and customer service but great at low prices and do it yourself mentality.
- Training your client is just as important as training your employees. We all know that training our employees are important. Many people do not realize how important it is to train their clients too. Manage their expectations, teach them how to communicate with you. Starbucks is great at getting you to learn their made up words so that you can practice on the line and not look like an idiot when you order. They created all this vocabulary to simplify their own needs to making sure that they can speed up orders and put the burden on the client to learn their language. It’s a powerful idea to teach your clients how to fit into your mold and make them appreciate your own personal competitive advantage.
- It’s impossible to be resilient if you do not look at obstacles as problems that you need to solve. The reason that people are able to overcome great challenges in life is because they have the courage to focus on what they are in control over. They understand that they will not be in control of everything. They do not blame or look for a an excuse about why it won’t work. Instead they think about what they are in control of and how they can change the situation. Changing your mindset to problem solving will help you get back up.
- For a startup to be successful you need to have a visionary and an operator to be able to have ruthless focus on finding a sustainable profitable market. The big problem with startups getting money is they spend it on fancy things like a nice logo or great furniture. What they need to be focused on is finding a way to make a sustainable profitable machine that produces profit from the market. 80 percent of startups go out of business in the first 3 years because they do not have this ruthless focus of finding this market. Once you find this market you can start having fun.
- Business if fun till you hit white water. At some point your business will hit whitewater, which means that the lack of systems and processes will cause havoc. Problems will creep and clients will not he happy. The visionary and the operator used to have FUN but they are now dealing with too many issues. So they get a processor to start creating processes for their business. Checklists and systems are being created and if there is not enough synergy they go from predictable success to the treadmill, where processes are more important than common sense and eventually go out of business.
- If the visionary leaves the business the operator soon follows. The operator needs the visionary to stay inspired and the visionary needs to the operator to be a ruthless finisher. The way that they succeed is they work together synergistically. Where the visionary does not share every single idea that pops into his head and allows the meetings to have an agenda. The operator is present and doesn’t always try to fight fires. If the operator is the firefighter, the visionary is the arsonist.
- Stop focusing on your kids weaknesses and start focusing on their strengths. When was the last time you ask your kids what they are BEST at? When was the last time you celebrated their islands of competence. That is the key to building up your children and helping them grow to be resilient adults. Discovering what they are best at, focusing and honoring their strengths will give them the courage to take those strengths and apply them with resilience.
- What charitable activities have you done together as a family? It’s important for families to do charitable activities together so kids become more grateful for what they have and end up being happier. We get so caught up in our day to day that we sometimes forget how important it is to help others. Studies show that people who mentor, teach, donate their time have a greater sense of purpose and live longer, happier lives. Volunteer your time, effort and energy to help others.
- There are three types of children, the easy child, the shy child and the difficult child. Every child needs to have a charismatic person in their life who they can look up to. Someone who they can draw strength from. How do you become that charismatic person in your child’s life? Build them up, accept them for who they are. Dr Robert Brooks spoke to us about his parents and how they had a file on him and his brothers that made him feel really special. That gave him the ability to bounce back and be more resilient in tough times. Difficult children just want to be accepted and empathized with. The worst thing for a child self esteem is when they see disappointment in their parents eyes. Your child is born with a temperament which has nothing to do with you and your mission is to love them unconditionally. You will not get all your needs met from your kids. You need to love them for who they are and accept them.
- Use your right brain more by laughing and helping others. When you take the time to laugh, even if you fake laugh, you develop your right brain and have the capacity to connect with others and you feel more fulfilled. A young woman that had her left brain removed got on stage and Beth spoke to us about how she felt and how she got through it by caring about others. Thinking about others is the key to living a more fulfilled life.
I have so much more to say and there are so many more take aways, for now the key is to follow up and implement or get a ruthless finisher to help me do that.
What actions are you going to take today? What resonated with you the most by reading this?
Feel free to comment below.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
“Everyone around me is winning but me! What is wrong with me? Why am I always left holding the bag?” He had dark circles around his eyes. He was down on himself. “I used to be happy, I don’t know what happened to me. I feel like after making so many mistakes in my life, I just can’t handle doing this anymore. It’s hopeless.”
I looked at him with compassion and asked him “What happened? What changed?” He said that people got greedy and now he is left with nothing. Because he has nothing, he can’t do anything and he has become a nobody.
“Are you telling me that if you had all the right things, you would do the right thing and become the right kind of person?” He looks at me and with full confidence says “You got it! if only I had it made like most people that take advantage of me, I would be able to help myself and others and I would be happy and successful.”
I looked at him and smiled. “You know, I used to think that way too. I found that the more excuses I made and pushed the responsibility away the harder it was for me to have what I want. I found that when I embraced my mistakes, when I failed with purpose, the universe sent me the energy to stand back up again. Its really crazy to fail on purpose, why would you fail if you can simply succeed. Many of us don’t realize that we must fail with purpose, not on purpose. We must take our failures and attach a purpose to them so that the mistake don’t take power from us, instead failure can give us power.”
He responds “Seems like a difficult if not an impossible task. How can a person that was robbed of hundreds of thousands of dollars and is constantly being taken advantage of find a good reason for that?”
“Difficult it is, impossible only if you let it be.” I continued. “I found that for me, when I was about to have a new stage in my life unlocked, there was a challenge that tested me first to see if I can accept this new stage, if I was ready for it. If you can’t handle losing hundreds of thousands, how can you handle making millions? After all you might lose it?! What will become of you then? Maybe by adding a purpose to these incidents and instead of asking, how can a person… you ask “What is great about this!” One of the greatest things I learned in recent years is that when we get the right answer to the wrong question we may of won the battle but we lost the war. We need to ask the right questions, the answers will appear, once the right questions are asked. Our job is not to find answers but to find questions. Change what you ask, who you ask them to, and find yourself.”
He said, “Look, all this sounds good but I need something actionable. Tell me three things I can do tomorrow to get me mojovated!”
Here are three things that might help you if you take them seriously.
- Your body will define your mood. If you are not exercising, eating right, sleeping enough and drinking half your weight in ounces, you will not be in a good mood. Its that simple, you need to be in the right state to have the opportunity to be mojovated. You can’t take a car, give it dirty oil and bad gas, have a broken transmission and a bad battery and expect to win the race. You need to create a few habits that will get your body in a good place.
- You become your thoughts. Having a great body and being in a good mood is not enough, you need to also have a sharp mind. You need to learn and grow. You will keep having the same thoughts unless you read, write, listen and take learning seriously. Get smart and stop spending time with people who are wasting their mind. Change your conversations and change your thoughts so you can improve your character.
- Help other people who need what you need. The fastest way to get what you want is to give it to others. Want love? Love others, Want money? Help others make money. Want happiness, go out and make others happy. It’s a weird phenomenon, I won’t explain it because it doesn’t make sense. The more I help others get what they need, the faster, I get what I need. Stop worrying about how much you get and start concerning yourself with how much you can give.
Take your body, mind and the gift of giving seriously and you will become the person you need to be, do the things you need to do and ultimately have everything you desire.
Does any of this resonate with you? What would you of told him? Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, would love to hear from you on Twitter @joeapfelbaum!
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
As the airplane is circling JFK I am thinking to myself, I can’t wait to get home and see the wife and the kids. Suddenly the pilot announces, sorry to inform you but the airport is closed due to ice on the runway. We are going to turn and go to Dulles airport in Washington DC. My heart sinks, you have a plan and then mother nature decides to get in way. I was not in the mood of this now. I was coming back from a busy business trip in Florida, that was back to back and I didn’t have much sleep. The thought of having to drive or take the train from Washington was just exhausting.
That got me thinking of the time I asked someone why they don’t write. They told me that when they sit in front of a screen or paper to start writing, they feel exhausted. I asked them why, they said because they are just not the creative type. What does that mean? You just don’t have the ability to create? You just don’t have any ideas in your head? No experiences to talk about? No opinions on anything?
*They are just not the creative type*
Another person told me that they are super creative but they never have time to be creative because they are always busy. I asked them why they didn’t schedule time to be creative and they said they are so creative that they cannot be organized enough to schedule time to be creative.
*Limiting Belief: When one is super creative, they cannot be super organized.*
That person explained to me that when one is super creative, they cannot be super organized. Made sense to be but at the same time it didn’t feel right.
You have this great skill or talent as some might call it, to be creative. You can’t use it because you are not organize. How is anyone ever creative?
I started researching the concept of organization and creativity. I learned that everyone is creative when motivated and everyone can be organized if they take the time to learn a system and have the desire to put it in place.
*Everyone is creative when motivated and everyone can be organized if they take the time to learn a system.*
This was very significant for me because I lived my life thinking to myself that something was wrong with me because I had an organizational problem. When in reality I just didn’t have a good system and my belief that I was not an organized person, limited me from seeking and learning the system that I needed.
Those that think they are not the creative type, will not be the creative type and those that think they are not organized, will not be organized.
If you want to be creative, you need to get organized so that your mind is clear from all the things you have to do. So that your mind is free to be creative, so that you can schedule time to be creative. What good is having a creative skill or talent if you cannot use it.
What good is being organized if you free up all your time and have nothing creative to do with your time.
As humans we were born in the image of God and that means we are mini creators. Let’s clear our minds and allow our hearts to passionately create.
How will you express your creativity today? What type of person are you telling yourself that you are?
Feel free to comment below..
Joe Apfelbaum – Ajax Union
PS: After 5 minutes of being frustrated on the plane, I realized that there was nothing I can do to change the situation. I accepted that I will be going to Washington and started brainstorming all the great things I can do down there. The pilot announced that they were clear to land in JFK and I was home within the hour. Now I feel like taking a trip down to DC
BIO: Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO and co-founder of digital marketing agencyAjax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 11,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his successful foodie wife and beautiful amazing kids.
“Some people are happy and other people are just not happy” He goes on to tell me. “I believe that happiness is not something you can achieve, its something that you feel as a result of things in your life that you are not in control of, if you are lucky, you feel happy.”
“Good luck with that!” I tell him, I go on, “For me it’s totally not like that anymore. I used to live thinking like that but I learned that there are some activities that I can do to make me feel happy. When I do not do them, most of the time, I don’t feel happy.”
He looks intrigued, “Are you telling me that you are in control of your own happiness? Sounds too good to be true.” He looks away and thinks about all the times in his life where if that was true, he would avoid so much heart ache. “What about when someone dies. You won’t feel sad?”
“I will feel sad that I lost someone I care about, but It won’t take my life over and make me depressed for the next year.” I go on ”There is one thing to miss someone and feel sad that they are no longer around. Its another thing feel so upset about something that you can not function. For me when I live my life a certain way, I find that I get over things much quicker and although there are upsetting circumstances that happen, my happiness is always available when I want to feel it.”
“Tell me your secret, I want to know it.” He looks at me with his menacing eyes.”I probably won’t buy it but I still want to know how you feel happiness all the time.”
“It’s a lot simpler than you think. People ask me how I did it, How I lose 75 pounds. I simply tell them, I did what I knew I had to do, to get the results I wanted to get. I stopped eating cookies, drinking soda, eating sugary treats. That means no more jelly beans, or donuts. All the foods that I thought would make me happy, they were actually doing the opposite. They were giving me highs and lows.”
I saw he was not buying it, so I just figured i’ll tell him what I know and not really care, cause it does sound weird. Maybe there will be a chance that he will try it and feel happy. Here goes!
“It’s more like a science to me. Happiness is about what you do with your mind and body to get it into a certain state. When I sleep well, eat the right foods, get my blood flowing with exercise, drink enough water, stretch properly my body feels happy. When I think positive thoughts, express my creativity by writing, singing, dancing, painting, meditate and create clarity in my life by journaling, my mind feels happy. When I do nice things for other people and treat everyone around me with amazing love and respect, when connect with a higher purpose by learning and praying, my spirit feels happy. When I do all them together, I enter a state of happiness. Its pretty consistent.”
He laughs and tells me that it’s sounds nice but it’s not practical. Life just gets in the way and you can’t live your life in a fairy tale. Plus it sounds like it’s hard work to do all those things. Probably not worth the effort.
I smile and tell him he is right. Because if luck is what is working for him, that makes him right. I would rather be happy than right. I would rather work hard and leave getting lucky to those that need it.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
You wake up and look at the alarm clock and see that it’s 5am, what is the first thought that goes through your mind?
Be honest with yourself and write down that thought. Look at what you wrote down and ask yourself if this is what you WANT to be thinking each morning for the rest of your life.
I used to think that no matter how late I woke it, it was still too early. Now I changed my attitude and mindset and I love getting up. The earlier the better. Why? Because I have a fresh mind to be able to do all the things that I want to do with no interruptions.. Even social media is quiet in the wee hours of the morning.
There are no calls, no text messages, no whats-app messages, no emails pouring in except the notifications that are automated that do not take any brainpower to deal with. All that frees up my fresh mind to work on the things that are most important to me.
So, you change your mindset and you create a habit to start getting up way before anyone else? What do you do? How can we spend our time if we had all the time in the world with a fresh mind.
Here are 10 things I do each morning that help me stay ahead and feel amazing.
Gratitude is number one. I start off my day with the traditional Modeh Ani that I was taught by my parents to say each morning. Thanking God for giving me my soul back. That is the first thing that I utter when I wake up. After I wash my hands, I think about 5 things that I am grateful for. Simple things like running water or a plunger might be enough to kick start my day with that positive mental flow I need to feel happy.
I don’t really think about making my bed each morning anymore, I just do it and it happens.
Make My Bed; About 8 months ago, I started practicing a habit to improve the quality of my actions. That began with making my bed. I never really saw value in making my bed when I have a person coming to maintain my home for me. Why would I need to make my bed when I am going to mess it up when I go to sleep anyway. That shift in thinking caused me to go deeper in my relationships and realize the power of habit. I don’t really think about making my bed each morning anymore, I just do it and it happens. The quality of my life improved so I stay conscious of the fact that I make the bed. I plan on adding things to that routine like a nice touch to making the bed but for now, it’s just that. Sometimes I go back into the bedroom to make sure I made it, and I am proud to see that I have! Its part of what I do now and it does feel good to be able to control my actions without using willpower each day.
*Water is my caffeine.*
Drink Water; Snapple used to be my beverage of choice. The drink that made me happy. Tropicana orange juice was another “healthy” favorite that I would indulge before I went to sleep and as soon as I woke up. Now I make sure to drink at least a liter of water in the morning before I leave the house. Why? Because it just makes me feel more alive. Water is something that so many of us overlook but it literally makes up more flexible and gives us more energy. I do not drink any sugary drinks anymore because they just make me more thirsty and they are empty calories. Water is my only drink. Some people ask me why I don’t drink coffee, I simply answer that I don’t like the taste, never did. Water is my caffeine.
*I look back and recall things that happened that helped me, that shaped me, that motivate me, that inspire me that make me feel amazing.*
Journal : One of the most important habits that I started a few years back but did not keep up to it properly is the habit of journaling. Last year I dedicated myself to do it no matter what each day and I kept it up for 3 months without missing a day. It really changed how I think and took my personal development and effectiveness to a whole new level. I look back and recall things that happened that helped me, that shaped me, that motivate me, that inspire me that make me feel amazing. I did not have to the tools to do that before. The only way you can improve is to be able to reflect on what you want to improve, if you don’t journal you are reflecting on what you think you were in the past, not what you actually were, you can improve by imagination. You need to have the facts. Now I sit down and if I only have 5 minutes, I just write down the things that happened the day before. If I have 10 minutes, I write some ideas down and if I have more time, I get creative, ask myself a question like, “What Do You Want?” I answer it with my right hand and after with my left hand. It’s amazing what can come out of your mind when you do things like that.
*Each year, I added 10 pounds till I gained over 75 and I was unable to do the things I loved to do anymore.*
Weight: If you do not measure, you will not improve. I suffered from being morbidly obese because I overate. The reason I overate was because I didnt really think about it, I didnt measure it or think that I was getting obese. It just happened slowly over 10 years. Each year, I added 10 pounds till I gained over 75 and I was unable to do the things I loved to do anymore. One day I decided that I will start weighing myself everyday and asking myself, where I am today and where do I want to be in a month from now. The progress was amazing. The ups and downs where incredible. Sometimes, I was up 5 pounds and I would feel guilty to cheat and eat a slice of pizza. There were times that I was way down and I would celebrate and eat that ice cream I was eyeing for a few weeks. It helped me stay accountable and when you look at your numbers each day, it really speaks to you. Some people are in debt and they dont bother looking at their bank account each day. Look each day, measure and set your goal. Make small improvements and take control of your life.
*I remember a time when I was not able to do ONE pushup. Not even lift myself off the ground.*
Fitness: Every morning I do pushups, squats and stretches. Even if there is no time for anything else like running, biking or using my rowing machine. I still do push myself to do pushups. I remember a time when I was not able to do ONE pushup. Not even lift myself off the ground. I will never ever go back there. I can do over 30 straight now and I goal is to be able to do 50 without stopping. That feels amazing and It begins by putting it into my morning routine. If the weather is acceptable, I will go for a run. Most of the time, I try to get at least 3 miles in. My goal is to be able to run three miles in under 27 minutes. I am at 29 minutes now and I am going to do this slowly. Yes, I can probably push myself and do it once, but I want to be able to do it all the time so I am building up slowly. The way I motivate myself to get out for a run in the morning, I just throw on my running gear without thinking about it. I built a habit to just get into gear and that gets me motivated to just do it already.
*Even if you only read one page of a book, it changes how you think the rest of the day.*
Reading: As humans we have over 40,000 thoughts each day. Most of those thoughts are the same ones that we think about over and over again. The way to get out of that is to read. When we read our thoughts change. When we read productive content we become connected with the author. Imagine being connected with the leaders of our past generation. One of my friends called the author’s he reads from, mentors of his. Even if they passed away, he communicates with them via their books and contribution. It’s so powerful to be able to do this. Even if you only read one page of a book, it changes how you think the rest of the day. Today I read a page from Traction the business book written by Gino Wickman. He asks, what is your guarantee in your business. Every company needs to have a guarantee. I asked myself what is my guarantee in my personal life? What is my personal competitive advantage? What do I bring to the people around me, to my family, to my friends? That is what reading does to me.
*God created humans with the unique ability to design their life and the lives around them.*
Creativity: Every morning I must flex my creative muscle, whether it’s by writing a 2000 word article like this one or by recording a song or by practicing a magic trick. I need to do that as it energizes me. The one desire that all people have, that is super fulfilling is the desire to create. God created humans with the unique ability to design their life and the lives around them. To create music to evoke emotions to communicate and change society with ideas. Using our gifts and not allowing our fears and challenges to hold us back from greatness might the most important thing we can do each day, it might be our purpose.
*People are starving for compliments more than they are starving for food.*
Compliments: There are so many people I love, I appreciate, I admire in this world. The problem is that I am so caught up with myself and thinking about my problems that I forget to thank people and tell them how much they mean to me. I made it a habit to compliment the people around me each day with a meaningful compliment. Whether it’s my wife, my brother, my mother or my admin. People around me get their share of compliments because I do it with intention.It makes them feel like a million dollare but it gives me unlimited power. The power that I need to energize the world and to keep doing good. People are starving for compliments more than they are starving for food. Feed someone else a nutritious compliment before you feed yourself a nutritious breakfast.
For extra credit I do things like pray, learn torah, take a shower, take a multivitamin and a D3, have some cayenne pepper and a lemon. Eat my fair share of protein and veggies. Check my calendar and make sure I am prepared for the day but even if you did one of those ten things each day, you might see an improvement in your happiness.
BIO: Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO and co-founder of digital marketing agencyAjax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 11,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his successful foodie wife and beautiful amazing kids.
“Pass the bread, please” says the man that can’t fit into his shirt while holding the butter knife with one hand and the plate of margarine with the other hand. “Let’s go, pass it down while it’s still warm.”
That man was me, I would eat bread like some people spend money they don’t have, on credit cards. I could not afford the luxury of eating all the bread and asking for doubles but I still did it because I didn’t know what it was doing to my bottom line.
I would eat bread like some people spend money they don’t have.
You might ask, how could you not know? It’s the same question I ask my friends that are 50k in credit card debt and have no emergency savings, no lifeline and no cash in the bank. They are constantly spending more than they earn and buying luxuries with their income.
I am not talking about people who are spending money buying the basics and are on minimum wage. I am talking about people who make multiple six figures and still can’t make their mortgage payment because other things take priority.
Losing 75 pounds puts things into perspective for me. When I look at a luxury food item for example let’s say, chocolate. I ask myself, can I afford that? Am I in the condition to purchase that and eat it? If I am being true to myself, I will answer that I really can’t afford it because I am still overweight and I am not burning enough calories each day to justify that bar of chocolate.
*When I look at a luxury food item for example let’s say, chocolate. I ask myself, can I afford that?*
Someone once told me that if you can’t eat anything you want, you are simply not living. Who would want to live like that. I simply smile and say your are right. I my mind I think to myself, how can anyone live with 75 pounds of extra fat on their body, carry around all that weight just because they can’t control their habits, their desires and their impulses.
Being fat held me back from doing simple things like running after my kids and playing catch or like standing for long periods of time. It held me back from going for a nice 6 mile walk around the park which is one of my favorite things to do now.
*Being fat held me back from doing simple things like running after my kids and playing catch*
The interesting thing is that I can afford to eat bread right now because I am happy where I am, I need to eat it in moderation. I ate bread every day for the past week and did not gain a pound. Why? Because I didn’t over eat more than I burned and I also was aware that It’s a luxury.
Overspending on luxuries when you can’t afford to do that is a bad habit that we justify and so is overeating the wrong types of food.
When someone asks me how I did it? I say, for three years I struggled and I pushed through. Yes, I failed a bunch of times caving for Pizza, burgers and other nosh. For the most part I got off wheat, sugar, rice, potato and pasta. To accelerate the process and cut back on fruit and stopped eating dairy products.
*Yes, I failed a bunch of times caving for Pizza, burgers and other nosh.*
My brother went to a nutritionist for a year and she was working with him to get him to lose weight. He actually gained weight and was classified as morbidly obese, he desperately wants to lost 75 pounds. I pleaded with him to try this diet out. He commited to 90 days and in the past 3 weeks he shed 30 pounds. Now he needs to stick to this diet to get to his goal, drink a significant amount of water and take his vitamins. Get enough sleep and break a sweat a few times a week.
If we can control our mind and our emotions the rest is setting up the right habits and watching the pounds melt away.
I am sure many people will say that eating too much protein is bad for you, that you must drink your milk and you must each some carbs to survive. Try this out and realize that although you think you need that luxury called bread and sugar, the reality for is me is that when I committed to losing weight more than I committed to feeling good about what I ate and I took action, I lost weight and saved time and money along the way.
Don’t try to get rich quick, realize that it can take a few years for you to get to your goal, do it slow and steady and stay rich for life.
BIO: Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO and co-founder of digital marketing agencyAjax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 11,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his successful foodie wife and beautiful amazing kids.
One day I was walking in the park and I got an idea, I would film a video of myself giving people some tips about how to set goals and take their life to the next level. There were three simple steps, build confidence by reflecting, create clarity by identifying your desires and writing them down and activation by creating small actionable steps toward your goal.
When people take action they feel Mojovated! Its really amazing to see how excited I get when I accomplish something that I have been pushing off. There is no better feeling in the world than to know that you are fulfilling your purpose and being productive.
The problem is that there are many distractions. Those distractions take my attention away from the goal. If I was going to practice what I preached I had to remove some distractions. For me it was Facebook. It was taking up too much of my time. I love checking up on all the comments and like that people give me but its taking away my attention from my goals.
So I committed to going off Facebook for 2 weeks at the end of December so I can plan for an amazing 2016.
There were times that I would look at my phone, looking for the facebook icon, but it was gone! No notifications, no engagement. Just me and my task to get clear on my goals.
I remember thinking to myself, I really did reclaim tons of precious time. The ability for me to focus now and not get distracted by this amazing social platform is novel. It actually feels good to be off facebook at a time where everyone is tuned in to see what others are doing for the holiday. It was amazing.
I filmed 52 episodes of my new TV show on www.GrowTime.tv which is coming out on Tuesday Jan 5th 2016. Most of the episodes came out perfectly in one take because I was not distracted and I was fully focused.
CEOMojo was also relaunched and the first episode for 2016 will be going live on Friday Jan 8th 2016. I will be interviewing 52 CEOs about the things that Mojovate them! So far I already interviewed half a dozen and created the full format for the show including the intro and outro. Make sure you subscribe on ITUNES.
Created an amazing plan for GrowTime Academy where I will be launching courses for business leaders that want to grow from Average Joe to CEO.
Added a new template to JoeApfelbaum.com and started the process of putting together my personal brand website properly so I can launch it in early 2016. I am really excited about this website and the plans that I have for it.
Took the time to create a perfect Vision for Ajax Union our Digital Marketing Agency in Brooklyn. Monday Jan 4th we will have a special company meeting and review the Vision that is on the wall with the whole company so everyone is rowing in the same direction in 2016.
These two weeks were especially productive because I had the time to reflect on all the amazing people that I have met over the past year, the friend I have made and all the great things I have accomplished.
Here are some highlights.
- Weight: Lost over 75 pounds in the past 3 years, this year was my breakthrough year getting to the goal I set 3 years ago!
- Fitness: When I got down to do pushups a few years back, I was not able to do one! A trainer said that to be healthy you need to be able to do at least 30. On my birthday I got down at an EO event and did pushups with Larry Zogby.. We did more than 30 and who is counting! I also ran my fastest mile ever, sub 8 minute mile and I ran my fastest 3 miles ever in under 30 minutes. That was a huge accomplishment for a person that used to not be able to run even one block!
- Writing: I finished draft one of my book “Average Joe to CEO” and I set a goal to finish draft two in Q1 of 2016. I wrote over 40,000 words in 20 days. That really blew me away. I was so focused and pushed myself to do it. I have been talking about writing a book for years. I am so happy I got to this point.
- Video: I have been posting an impromptu video on Facebook almost everyday for the past few months. People have been telling me that they love watching my videos and they learn so much. Little do they know that I was used to be afraid of having myself on video and now I can film 52 episodes of a tv show in just a few weeks!
- Productivity: For the first time in my life I can actually say that I have an organization plan. A plan to have all my projects and tasks in a place where I know what done looks like and all the tasks that need to be acted upon to finish the project. I have an amazing Admin that is helping me stay focused and I and finishing things that I have started.
- Routine: I have optimized my morning routine. I wake up on most days by 4am and I journal, meditate, pray, read, write, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast. I never really optimized my routine like this. I used to be so reactive in my life and I feel so amazing now.
- Relationships: I have done over 1000 selfies with people that I care about in 2015 and that is up from under 500 in 2014. My relationships are deeper than ever and I feel more satisfied in all my personal and business relationships.
There are so many more accomplishments that I have reflected upon and I have set goals to take my life to a whole new level in 2016. Now it’s time for me to get back to work. I hope this article inspired you to take action and eliminate some distractions so you can build the confidence, create clarity and take action…
Happy and Healthy New Year!
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
BIO: Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO and co-founder of digital marketing agencyAjax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 11,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his successfulfoodie wife and beautiful four kids.
Its real easy to give people advice on what to do. What about giving ourselves advice? We find other people who have all the faults in the world but we sometimes forget that we do pretty dumb things.
When thinking about 2016, I want to keep in mind that I am not the smartest person in the room and I can learn from every person I meet. Everyone has something to teach me.
Here are some things that I do that I want to improve in 2016.
*Judge Other People*
We all Judge others when we look at them. We must judge in order for not not to be overwhelmed. We take our past experiences and compare them to the present and automatically make assumption. It’s a natural thing that occurs in day to day life. For me the problem is not the day to do judging, its when I get a hint that I am wrong and I shouldn’t be generalizing other people and I ignore that hunch that I get that I am doing it. When I have that hint of awareness that there is more here than the eye sees and I don’t take that bait. When I do that it’s just dumb and I need to stop doing that in 2016. I will keep judging a book by its cover, title and table of contents but I will not judge the people I meet for the things that they have done and for the way they look. I will treat others with the respect I want them to treat me with and I will continue to grow as an individual.
*Waste Time*
Wasting time is relative. Some people think its a waste of time to work hard and others think it’s a waste of time to party. The way we invest our time can be looked at in the same way that we invest our money. We can either spend it or invest it. We all had those impulses to buy something we don’t need for people we don’t like with money we don’t have. We just buy it and don’t even eat it. We have big eyes sometimes. For me, it’s with time. I sometimes do things I know I should not be spending my time doing and I do it anyway. It’s not a good use of my time, I can have someone else do it. This year I will be smarter about my time and focus on my priorities and values to help me not waste time.
*Chase Opportunity*
Opportunity is amazing, it’s what drives people to make changes in their lives. The problem becomes when we start saying yes to things because we think, hey you never know. Its pretty dumb to throw away the opportunity you have with your current relationship for a maybe relationship or your current business for a maybe business that you didn’t even vett well. A real opportunity is when you weighed the risks against the rewards and you make a smart decision. Did you fully think that through or are you emotionally driving that decision because you are being impulsive? In 2016 I want to make my opportunity chasing about going deeper with what I already have and not look for new things that are shiny objects. Everytime you say Yes to something new you are saying No to something old.
*Don’t Focus*
Focusing on the wrong things is better than not focusing on anything. Focus is about being fully present with one thing at a time. Yes, we have thousands of external distractions each day and hundreds of thousands of internal distractions too. The key is to learn the art of focusing when it’s time to get something done to the end. Like this article would of never got written if I didnt focus on my goal of writing 2000 words a day. Technology and Social Media has taught me to be more distracted than ever before and in order for me to reclaim my focus I need to practice things like mindfulness and meditation. I took Facebook off my phone and that helped me focus too. Sometimes it’s the small things that make the biggest impact.
*Start New Things Without Finishing The Old*
Activation is one of my greatest strengths. I know how to get started. Taking a stale project and moving it forward or restarting something that most people think is dead is where I thrive. We all know that your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness. I keep starting new things and I don’t finish the old things so I have hundreds of projects that don’t get finished. I pledge to stop doing that dumb activity in 2016 and I get people to help me finish the things that I start.
*Am Not Precise Enough*
Let’s tell someone to put the stuff in the Whatchamacallit. That’s not specific and it won’t get done. There are times that I know I am not being specific and I do that on purpose. Like during an interview, I like to ask open ended questions and see what people say. Limiting those questions to yes or no questions does not let shed light on the person’s creative personality. The problem is when I give people instructions. Or when I commit to a goal. You need to be super specific if you want it to get done. In 2016 I pledge to be more specific, to tell people what I want and when I want it and how I want it done.
*Take Silly Risks*
It’s important to take risks but taking risk for no reason is just plain dumb. If you are not in a rush don’t hurry, don’t take that risk just to get there faster because you are competitive. Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the risks that are worth taking from the risks that are not worth taking. Its because we don’t take the time to properly calculate the risk or the fact that it’s a risk we are taking. The more we pause and ask myself, what is at risk here, the better we can decide and choose what risks are silly and what risks are worth taking.
*Don’t Follow Up*
Going to a an event, having an amazing meeting and not following up is such a waste. I took over 1000 selfies with hundreds of people last year and I followed up with many but I missed out on many opportunities too. There are times when it’s ok not to follow up, it’s not something you need to do with every person you meet, you have a limited amount of energy and you need to save it for the people the follow up that really does matter. Sometimes I miss a huge opportunity because I simply did not follow up and that is dumb. Getting in the habit of following up is the key. I pledge to be better at following up after I meet with someone, even if it’s just a thank you email.
*Listen To My Negative Self Talk*
When I see a video of myself, I hear myself on a podcast, or I see a photo of myself. I start making comments in my head that I would never make another people. They say to treat other people like you want yourself to be treated but we sometimes forget to treat ourselves with the positive light we tend to treat others with. This year I am going to listen to the negative self talk and I finally going to talk back. I am going to stop listening and start responding with so much positivity that it will drown my negative self talk with humor.
*Don’t Practice What I Know.*
The dumbest thing that I can possibly say is “I know that already” especially when I am not practicing that which I say I know. How many times did you go to a seminar looking for that “new idea” and realize that it’s the same old same old. You keep hearing those ideas that you already know but you are not doing them! This year I pledge to take the things I know I need to do to become a better human being and finally practice them!
Perfection is the enemy of greatness and you can’t be amazing if you try not to make any mistakes. The key is to learn from your mistakes and have progress every day. By analyzing the dumb things I do and learning from my mistakes I will make my dreams come true.
What are some dumb things that you do?
Feel free to let me know in the comments below.
Welcome to Joe Apfelbaum’s Website. A Place where you will find out more about Joe’s Journey and how you can get in touch with him. Feel free to browse around and spend as much time as you need getting to know Joe.
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