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This is the smooth operator Podcast. I'm Adam Liette, director of operations for a seven figure online business and eight year veteran of Army Special Operations. On this show begin with the tactical, nitty gritty of what it really takes to run a thriving online business. Because at the end of the day, operators, lead the way. Welcome, smooth operators hope you're having a great start to your week, I know I am, it's the time I'm recording this it is cold as can be, because we are in the throes of winter. And I'm seriously regretting moving to Ohio. But such as is alright. And so anyway, I want to dive into being really deliberate about our own professional development and what we're doing to continue to become the person that we can be, we are never finished, we are on this journey. And part of being that on that journey means taking the next steps forward, moving ahead, working on your own self knowing that all that work does pay off in the end, it helps you create that future version of yourself that's better at certain tasks better at certain tactics, a better leader, a better communicator, all these things, they add up. And what I've personally found is that when I make it a deliberate part of my day, my routines, I'm better able to do that with my team, I'm living as an example to them. And I'm able to not only bring new skills to the table, but just by the act of me, being a continuous student, inspires my team members to do the same. As professional development, it's not just about us, but if you're a team leader, if you are leading people, it's about the people around you. And being able to comfortably set them in certain directions. Because you know, it's going to be beneficial to themselves as well as the company. So having a mindset of being deliberate and continued in your professional development is highly, highly beneficial. And when you look at all the key players in the in no matter what industry you're in, they are always learning. They're always striving for more. So there's just a couple of areas that particularly I want to just gloss through that I find beneficial for my own professional development in this continued and deliberate fashion. So the first is reading, you know, it's kind of overstated right now in the industry. Everyone's talking about books, books, books, and I get it if you're a little tired of hearing about books, but we're saying it for a reason. You know, books do have a magical quality to them and that it's not as easy to write one it's it's a very thought provoking exercise to write a book if you've ever tried I'm actually in the process of writing one right now. It takes a lot out of you to do it because you're putting so much in and and I was just listening to a podcast with Russell Brunson, where he was talking about when you're reading a book, and it's literally decades of a person's life, summarized in this beautiful format for us that's quite literally eternal, it'll last forever. As long as that book is held by someone, those lessons will continue to be shared and learned. So I've taken a real good habit of reading. Basically, every day I read some, I'm not sitting down for two hours at a time to read, not doing have like a rule like the hard 75 rule or 75 hard but I do try to read every day and I find myself reading usually two to three books at one time, where I'm going through them just depending on what I'm in the mood for. And my books tend to vary from spiritual development to personal development to business tactics. It's it kind of stretches the gamut. So I would encourage reading for your own benefit. And another benefit you can pass on is the ability to purchase books for your team. If you have someone stepping into a new area where they could benefit from a book that you've read, or that you know about that's been recommended to you. It's a nice little surprise actually received something in the mail to get you know, a physical book handed to you from your team leader, there's some, there's something wonderful about that, that's going to not only develop their professional abilities, but the relationship that you have with them. And for what 15 bucks, you're buying a whole lot of credibility for a very small amount of money in the big picture. So if reading is not part of what you do, and it can be digital books, I prefer paper books, it can even be even be audiobooks, it doesn't matter. Just recognize that there is a great deal of power in there. The second option I am continuously exploring is online courses. You know, I buy a lot of online courses, I keep, you know, various libraries of them. And I'll go through them in a deliberate fashion where I'll, I'll schedule time to go through another course. And I'll go through it, I tend to buy courses on a whim, and not really with the intention of buying a course and immediately diving into it, it's rare that I do that. Instead, I buy the course when the opportunity arises when it's either open for enrollment. Or there's some big discount going on, I just bought a whole bundle of courses with that same thing in mind where it's just, it was a limited time discount, I took advantage of it. And then I let those courses sit, and I'll go through them when I need them. But I know, before I dive into an area of expertise, where I'm looking to leverage my own time, I'm going to do it in conjunction with a course because I'm going to be able to really short circuit my success, I'm gonna be able to get there faster by following someone's guidance. Now, I don't know about you. But sitting in an online course is not really my cup of tea, like sitting at my computer for hours on end watching videos. It's not really for me. And I say that as someone that has created a lot of videos in my own course. But here's a little hack that I want to share with with you is I will download the course, and then convert it to an audio file and upload it into my books app on my phone. And this allows me to experience it in an audio format. And it's a whole lot more flexible for me. So that's just a little bit of a hack that I use to make consumption of the courses easier. And just like books, online courses are a great thing to set your team members into when they're trying to level up their area in one area of the business or they're moving to a completely new area. Like get them a course to help them walk through that. Gate kind of a an aside from courses. And you know, a lot of times an extension of courses is my third favorite way to do professional development, which is coaching programs. So having a coach is something that I've had almost continuously now for three years, and my coaches have changed. I've gone through different areas of emphasis different iterations of of time with coaches. But I love the coaching relationship that you get where there's a lot of personalized guidance, there's a lot of hand holding, there's a lot of added peer pressure to get something done, you definitely get that that bit of a push. And I actually enjoy that. I enjoy knowing that I have to get something done on Monday, because I have a coaching session tomorrow. And I made an obligation to get that done before my next coaching session. You know, there's something to be said about having that type of follow through and have it be enforced with the coaching relationship.
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I just love that. And it's really helped me take big steps in a very quick manner. Because I had a coach to guide me through it and really call me to account when I wasn't doing as much as I could be doing. Coaching is always beneficial. And there's so many different types of coaches, and the industry is only growing. So if you don't have a coach at this point in some aspect of your business, I would encourage you to seek that out to pursue just just a very variety of opportunities and content wise a lot of coaches are teaching the same, very similar things but because of that unique relationship that you have with a coach, you really want someone that you jive with as someone that you just get along with in this really intrinsic way and you identify with so have that in mind as you're looking for coaching opportunities, is look for that person that you just have that sense of feeling around like they are able to reach you in this interesting way. You can't quite put your finger on it but I know a good coach when I find one and I know someone that jives with me. I'm sure if you've experienced that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you know pursue a coaching relationship and You'll see what I mean, as you go through some of the initial sales calls or some of the initial what, how can we help you calls? Some people are going to identify, you're just going to identify with them right away some people you're not going to. And that's fine. So don't feel guilty about the fact that yeah, I'm sure what you have works with just just not jiving with me. Do your homework, meet with multiple coaches to see which is the best fit for you. And another option that I just want to explore here is the idea of a mastermind. So mastermind is the next level of coaches. It's where you'll have a leader of a mastermind, and it's a very small group, but you're working towards a desired outcome. So in general, there are two basic types of masterminds. And I'm part of both different kinds. The first is like a Free Self put together mastermind, I do have a mastermind of group of a couple of guys that I was working with professionally, and we just really got along. And we were seeing things eye to eye, we had a very similar worldview. We'd liked each other. So we decided to form an informal mastermind, where we meet about every month or every fortnight, and we just go through what's going on in our lives, what's going on in our businesses. So it's not only the business side, but the personal side. And so we're able to share things bring our vulnerabilities to someone that we know trust and love, and able to really gain a lot of clarity from that, and be able to support each other one as well, which is like the other side of the mastermind is not only the receiving, but also giving and you learn a whole lot by giving. The other area of masterminds is the paid for mastermind, it's a professional group led by someone who's has experience in this area. And it's a group of people all going through something together. But again, there's a lot of back and forth, not even between you and the facilitator, the mastermind, but other people that are in the mastermind as well. So paid masterminds, you get a whole lot done really, really quickly. And it's just a different relationship from the coaching relationship, which is usually either one to one or one to group coaching, the mastermind programs that I've been a part of, you get that added benefit of the other people in the community and a lot of back and forth a lot of communication, a lot of sharing, and really experiencing what it's like to go through something together in a paid for formal mastermind. Okay, so that's the four biggest ones that I use. And again, all all these four ones, as you probably noticed, are largely paid for, you know, stuff that you do have, there's an entry fee. And there's a lot of free stuff out there as well. I mean, I have to be an advocate for podcast, right. And I do listen to a ton of different podcasts. But there's also YouTube videos, there's, you know, people that post amazing content on Facebook, or they're tick tock, I just find the difference in a personal level is my follow through in free content is far less than my follow through and paid content. Because there is something that happens to us, when we do have to put skin in the game and have accountability have an investment that has been incurred, we're much more likely to actually follow through, which is why I didn't go over many of the free options, instead opting more for the professional paid for options. So I hope that helps. I hope that gives you just some ideas of what you can do to continue developing yourself professionally. And I do have to put in a shameless plug in that I'm actually joining a mastermind program starting next week. So this is going to be focused entirely on podcasting, and how to grow your podcast faster how to land in the top 1% in your niche, how to increase your downloads by, you know, really eight to 10% or eight or 10x, your downloads per episode. So if podcasting is something that is important to your business, it's something that you want to grow and continue to have a greater impact. I'm very happy to be able to invite you to this mastermind program, like I said, I'm going to be a part of it. So I will be on the live calls and in the community. So it gives us a chance to meet at that higher level where we're able to learn from each other. I can teach you some of the tricks that I've learned and vice versa. And we will be learning from someone that has done a great deal of success in podcasting in a very short number of episodes. Actually, I think she's under 30 But already really ranking high really doing things the right way and that's my friend Tori Barker is the one hosting and facilitating this mastermind it's gonna be a great experience. Time is coming up, though. So if you are interested in leveling up your own podcasting game, to having a bigger impact, I would invite you to join me along, just follow through to the show notes, there's a link to join us. And this is not an affiliate link. For me, I make zero money by promoting this mastermind. However, I do like to promote things that I believe in things that I know are going to make a difference for me, and invite you along for the ride. So I look forward to seeing there should you join us. Otherwise, I'd say the biggest takeaway is just when we're considering our professional development, be deliberate. Think through what you want to go through, have a plan. And then in your area as a leader, be able to show your team members the stuff you're doing, when we are able to show our team that we're not done yet learning or done learning at either that we are continuously evolving, man that has such a big impact on your team and their willingness to acknowledge that they aren't the best at something yet and be willing to get help from someone that is seems like a little thing. But when you take that desire for continued proof improvement, and you multiply it across the entire company, just imagine how much more you're going to be able to move forward together faster, and with better results as a company. Thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode where we'll be actually interviewing Tori, talking about podcasting and all the things that go into this wonderful medium that so many of us love to actually be able to level up our own impact and reach more people. Until next time, I'm Adam from smooth operations and operators, you know what to do, lead the way. Alright, that wraps up for this episode, but don't let the learning stop here. Join us in the Facebook group where we'll be sharing the latest tactical techniques and tricks that we're seeing working companies just like yours. Go to Adam liette.com/facebook That's ADA m li e TT e.com/facebook.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai