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I believe something that will offend many people. If you're reading this, you are likely the exception. Either way, this idea will challenge your perspective. Everyday, I catch myself wanting to allow this trap to consume me. But you and I must resist. Most people look for good excuses. Good excuses for delaying important decisions. Good excuses for why their business is failing. Good excuses for why now isn't the best time. Good excuses in their marriage, relationships, friendships, and family. Good excuses surround many good people.   Then there are great excuses. Great excuses are reasonable to nearly everyone — The death of a loved one, sickness, poverty, oppression, malice, betrayal, disasters, and pandemics. We would all agree, if any one of those things were to happen to you or me, that we would have a great excuse for playing it safe, pressing pause, stopping, not starting, or even quitting that thing. But people dedicated to living out their greatness hate excuses of any and every kind. Excuses with the word good or great in front of them are oxymoron's to those pursuing their God-given genius. World-class people do not see excuses, they only see opportunities to grow. Every unexpected situation in life has an invitation deep within it to become either an excuse, or an opportunity. The only thing that changes whether it is an excuse or opportunity is in the the mind that conceives it. It is perspective. "Jake, are you saying there is no such thing as an excuse?" Absolutely not. There are excuses everywhere, held by everyone, all the time. That includes me. We all have excuses we believe are justified. But excuses achieve nothing other than sympathy or pity. They don't pay the bills, keep the lights on, or feed mouths. You cannot take excuses to the bank or receive praise and admiration for excuses. You cannot have excuses and world-class at the same time. For that reason, excuses are in direct opposition to everything truly desirable in life. And if we are being completely honest, every single on of our excuses faced with a "do or die" situation, could almost certainly be overcome. What if, rather than feel the need to find the excuse for your current situation, you could uncover an opportunity? What if the situations where others complain and justify their behaviour due to external, uncontrollable circumstances, you could find a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? What if this moment was the greatest opportunity of your lifetime? What if... Just remember, in almost every circumstance you can conceive in your mind where someone has had the opportunity to form an excuse, someone else has had a relentless belief they could find or create a solution — and found one! The people we admire most in life are not those who create reasonable excuses. The people we admire are always those who overcome adversity. The underdogs. The misfits. The rebels. The oppressed. The misunderstood. The heroes. The ones who found a way when everyone else said, "impossible." Trade your best excuses for belief that this is your moment. I promise, this will change your life. To a world-class life, Jake Nicolle

Today's episode is about Worry. I believe worry is the debt of disorganized thinking. In other words, failing to think and plan costs us a heavy price, and that price is worry. I want to start though with this Chinese proverb called, 3 Men Make a Tiger: It goes like this: People will believe anything if enough people tell them it’s true. It comes from a Chinese proverb that if one person tells you there’s a tiger roaming around your neighborhood, you can assume they’re lying. If two people tell you, you begin to wonder. If three say it’s true, you’re convinced there’s a tiger in your neighborhood and you panic. Why do we worry? We worry because we have not set aside time for thinking or research, and as a result we have not made a plan. Planning and worrying are in direct contrast. When you plan you see a picture of the future that is to be desired. You set a date for achieving that goal. Then you reverse engineer which actions are the most likely to help you arrive at your target. You consider how long those will take you and whether or not you can shorten or extend your target based on the likelihood of achieving the necessary steps. You even consider who can help you get it done, which tasks you can leave out to better focus, and what you may need to sacrifice in order to increase the likelihood that you are going to succeed. Worry is the exact opposite of planning. When you worry you paint a picture of a future that is to be feared, dare I say dreaded. You do not set a date for when your world may crumble. And because you don't know exactly when everything may crash in on you, it increases your fear. You consider all the things that could go wrong, and you reflect on all the things you've done in the past that are exactly like the things that could go wrong in the future. You focus in on your worst moments and project them into your vision for the future. You see only obstacles and problems, not challenges and situations that you are capable of finding solutions to. You feel entirely alone and isolated, scared that you do not have what it takes and, as a result, you magnify the sacrifices required to get free from the situation. Success is the last thing on your mind. Looking at these two scenarios, I can see that I have done both in my life. If I'm being totally honest, I naturally want to worry all the time and have to fight the urge. That's because worry is nothing more than an urge at first. It prompts you to think right now, in your head, without sitting down and planning. It doesn't want you to see all the options and ways you can combat a bad situation, it simply wants you to imagine. Worry tells you not to write anything down, not to consider the potential outcomes of various actions, not to think about who can help you. Worry is set on simply letting your mind stir on all the things that can go wrong. Now that we've broken down how worry works and it's strategy to paralyze you, you know exactly how to go from worrying to planning. When you feel the urge to worry, pause. Write down what is troubling you. Look at it on paper. Ask yourself, what are a few ways I can ensure my future situation looks the opposite of the fears and concerns that are worrying me? How can I make sure my finances are in order? How can I prevent this deal or situation from blowing up on me? Who can help me? What is something I fear I am doing right now, or going to do, that is making things worse? How can I change my course right now?   Often times we avoid looking at things that we believe will expose areas of weakness or potential disaster in our lives. This creates more harm than good. The best way to protect yourself against worry (and catastrophes) is to simply get comfortable with being uncomfortable. When you allow yourself to face the demons and skeletons in your closet, you will realize worrying about them required more energy and pain than simply looking at them and solving them in the first place. A great motto to filter your actions through is this one: Hard decisions, easy life. Easy decisions, hard life. When you do what is hard, you condition yourself to DO IT NOW and tackle the things which you fear. Then, you fear things less, you trust yourself more, you spend less time worrying that something is unresolved and more time simply resolving things. You will also notice that more opportunity comes your way because we live in a world where people mostly worry. And when they see other people who worry very little, they are gravitated to those people. The world either seeks people who will worry with them, or seeks people who will ease their worry. Be someone who attracts the latter by learning to remove your own worry entirely by facing head on that which scares you, even if you don't have all the answers up front. The very act of planning will reduce and then begin to entirely remove your worry! You will know for certain, whether or not there is truly a tiger to be concerned about. Do Not Worry Matthew 6:25 — “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The reason you are not experiencing your greatness and genius in life is simple... You trade great things for good things. At any given moment, there is a multitude of things you could be doing. Many of which, good things. Seeing your family, calling a friend, enjoying a book, watching a show, talking to your spouse, going for a walk, dreaming up your future, eating a meal, listening to a song... The list goes on and on. But the obstacle that prevents us from getting what we desire most in life, to achieve our own God designed version of greatness, is not doing bad things when we could be doing good things, it's doing good things when we could be doing great things. The principle of true success is that one must sacrifice. You cannot do every good thing at once. You cannot do great things if you are busy doing good things. Should you never spend time with family, friends, or loved ones? Of course, you should spend time with them. But you cannot have everything all at once. You have to decide when you will sacrifice moments that are good moments in order to invest that time and energy into the genius you hope to bring into this world. There is this myth out there that you should have a really well-balanced life. Here's the truth, you can have a balanced life and it will be perfectly plain. You can strive so hard to make everything balanced that you make your own desire completely imbalanced. The fastest way to lose your joy in life is to pursue total balance. What you should desire, rather than balance, is an edge. You should desire that your life rides the line where you are maximizing yourself and resting a day a week, rather than resting 3 days a week and struggling to get things done with a "busy schedule" of watching movies, seeing friends, and noodling around. Instead, immerse yourself in greatness. Pursue what matters. Sacrifice what is good in pursuit of what is great. It will be different for every one of us and only you can truly know what sacrifices are required. But all you need to remember is that bad things are not what robs you of greatness, it's getting very busy doing good things.

In life, there are people who think things they have not yet earned belong to them. Do not be one of these people. Do not be someone who believes you deserve that for which you have not valiantly fought for, struggled to obtain, and with sweat, blood, and tears, won. Be someone who recognizes that everyone does not get a ribbon. And if there's some type of contest where everyone gets a ribbon, you're not interested in participating. True success in life is not about material things, monetary gain, or acclaim. Those things are the common, but not guaranteed, add-ons of true success. True success is acknowledging that you and you alone are responsible for achieving what you have set out to achieve. If something in your life is not where you want it to be and you blame anyone, or anything, for your lack of success, you will never be truly successful until this changes.

I want to show you today why mastery is monumentally under-priced. And I am going to share why I believe, with complete confidence, that playing "average" in your life will cost you far more than playing at the level of a true master ever could.

Most people are lukewarm. They live life with one foot in the door, one foot on the porch. They live each day second-guessing themselves. They spend most of their energy battling the internal voice that tells them what they know they ought to do with the voice that tells them it's OK to take it easy, and they shouldn't have to try too hard. These same people never fully decide, are always in internal conflict, and have big dreams that they steadily lose hope on, or subtly minimize their dream each day, week, month and year. Eventually, opportunity passes them by. They never experience the deep joy of tasting the sweetness of their ultimate potential because they're too busy defending the weakness of their current actions. What I'm getting at today is this — you have to be ALL IN, or ALL OUT. You cannot be 80% of something that you say you truly believe in. I've been talking with a lot of leaders lately. People who are business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs... And you know what they all say to me? "Jake, why do I feel like I'm not living up to my potential as a leader?" The answer is one of two things. If you don't know what you believe, you need to get out of your own head by picking up an inspiring book, listening to people with vision, getting away from the distractions of the digital age for an afternoon or get behind another person's vision for a while. Then, when you find what you believe in, meaning, what you believe is worth dedicating your mastery, genius, energy, and time to... you must guard it with your life, set actions that you do not compromise, and take daily action toward it. If you do not do what you say you believe, you are not guarding what you believe in with your life, setting actions that you will not compromise under any circumstance and taking daily action toward what you believe is worth dedicating your mastery, genius, energy and time to. We can summarize this point in a single question: Do your actions reflect your beliefs? In other words, do you BACK the things in life that you say matter? If you DO NOT back what you believe... You are in a constant state of conflict. You say exercise matters, but you're overweight and unhappy with your body, never having enough energy. You say eating healthy is a good idea but you claim you have no time to plan out meals and make them. You say having more money would change your life but you never set a budget, invest monthly, prioritize paying off debt, and then get clear on a strategy to make more money, or get a coach or mentor. You say you want to become a writer but you don't write... EVERY single day. You say you want to help other people get results but you haven't figured out how to get yourself results. Listen... There's a simple solution to all this. Get remarkably clear on what it is you want to achieve. How do you do that? Ask yourself what TRULY matters to you. If you died in 5 years, what would you want to be in the middle of doing or at the end of having achieved? In 10 years if you were to die, what would you hope people would say at your funeral? The goal with this exercise is to look inside at what excites you, inspires you, and motivates you. If nothing comes to mind, get busy studying others, reading autobiographies or working from someone else. Get a coach or a mentor. Be unafraid to pay big money to have someone save you time and increase your capacity to add value and generate true wealth in the world. 2. Create a strategy. Create a one-quarter plan, broken into months and then conduct a weekly review of what your big 2-3 things you must achieve in order to move you toward your goal. Then each day, plan out what your tasks should look like and review these daily. That's it... I said it's simple, and I meant it. You have 2 things you need to focus on for now. Get clear on what you want to achieve and, if you must, find someone you can apprentice under, study, or pay to coach you if you are in your own way. Have a quarterly plan and break it into 3 parts, 1 plan for each month... Then review this weekly and see how you are performing, assigning yourself daily tasks to make it a reality. So I leave you with this... Be so busy experiencing the deep joy of living out your genius each day — that you have no time left for a single excuse.

"Value." Something we hear tossed around a lot. "Just add value." People all seem to echo. But no one every actually tells us: What is value? And how do you "add it", exactly? In order to understand value... you must make this transition: ——— From thinking like an employee, To acting like an entrepreneur. ——— Here's how you know if you have the employees or entrepreneurs thinking. And it's easy to tell... When you offer your services, do you base your value around time? Said differently; Do you price your services by time? If so... you are thinking exactly like employees. Employees are paid a steady hourly [time-based] wage. Entrepreneurs are not paid by the hour. Now while that just clicked for some of you and you saw the light. Others reading this thought, "well what's the alternative?" Let's now discuss the entrepreneurs mind... Being paid hourly is literally trading your time for dollars. That is a services business and it does not scale. Alternatively... A business that gives you time and financial freedom looks like this: People give you money to help solve a specific problem. The moment your business is focused on doing this, everything changes. The moment you help solve a specific problem, people stop looking for more time from you. Instead, they start wondering how quickly they can get out of the "hell" that they are living in. If you're interested in understanding how we go about accomplishing this: Don't just watch this training - study it and pay close attention to the 2:30 mark. Warmly, Jake P.S. If you are looking for a longer training that dives deep into premium pricing - we have an in-depth and highly valuable training you can attend for free by clicking here.

How can you reliably predict if a business is going to fail? It is actually far easier than most people realize. All you have to do is look at two key ingredients. If these ingredients are missing, the business will almost certainly fail. The #1 reason why businesses fail: Not testing ideas in the marketplace. This is not just a good idea. It's vital to your success. Instead, most coaches spend the majority of their time: designing their course creating pricing "options" (an awful idea by itself) designing a website preparing social media posts And they spend no time learning how to validating. Validating is when you seek the input of the market to gain crucial insights... And it works. If you do it the other way around - building something based on your assumptions of what people want - you end up with a site no one visits, posts no one cares about, and prices that are irrelevant because you no one ever asks to work with you. This is a fatal mistake and it leads us to... The #2 reason why businesses fail You must sell before you build. Once you have receive feedback from what people are look for... You actually need to sell your program before it's built.  That's so important, I'm going to type it again.  Sell It Before You Build It.  "That sounds great, Jake. How can I believe that actually works?"  Because it's not my advice.  It's what all great businesses do when getting started.  It's also the reason kickstarter is such a massive success. Selling before you build the whole program allows you to validate that people will pay for the thing you are about to build and it gives you the added excitement and initiative to get an early version of your offer out sooner rather than later (but with customers ready)! Selling it before you've designed a program entirely also creates raving fans. Interested in seeing how this works? This video shows how you should design your entire coaching program... Click here for a step-by-step walkthrough of a process we call the Coaching Fast-Track™.   Warmly,   Jake   P.S. If you love having quick 6 minute ideas like this one but prefer video or podcasts, check out my podcast, The Jake Nicolle Podcast, here on itunes where I talk about subjects like this one every day. I also share how you can build a bulletproof coaching business that will stand the test of time.

Is your goal to grow your business? You shouldn't read another book. I'm going to try and convince you why. Because reading is actually working against you. 95% of books are spent trying to convince you: Why you should believe the author's insights. The other 5%? The actual insights. All that time spent for some insights. Do you even need more insights right now? Or would you prefer a proven step-by-step system you can follow to grow? If your goal is to gain insights alone... Then, read on. If your goal is to win your ideal clients and build a business... Do not read another page. Get a mentor with a system. So you can begin to apply the insights you already have to a business that works. Now, don't get me wrong here... I love books. As a matter of fact, I'm reading Mastery by Robert Greene right now. But... I am only reading because I already have a system in place to apply insights. My strategy is helping me bring value into the world through leadership training. And I'm winning clients as a result. I am reading with a very specific goal in mind. I'm specifically looking for insights on mastery that I can apply to my business right now. I am not reading about something I might be able to apply in the future.* And that is a remarkably important difference. You cannot become a masterful coach: By reading about it With no clients With more certificates You only master coaching through working with clients. If you are interested how to: Identify your Market Anchors™ Win your ideal clients Activate your Client Protocol™ Move towards mastery at a rapid speed Then I have a special offer for you: I am booking calls today for free 1-on-1's this week.* My schedule fills up quick when I have done this in the past so I will accept the first 30 appointments for this week at no cost. Register now. Warmly,  Jake  *P.S. Use Code: FREE40 - for the question "What makes you different from the other applicants..." in your application. I will also share my top 2 strategies for winning clients on the private calls.

“Perfect is the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire  Perfect is also the enemy of you making a profit.  How do I know?  I have personally spoken with just shy of 200 coaches this year.  Can you guess why 95% of them are making less than $8k/month?  Perfection.  In business, making an impact is my number 1 goal.  That is why our 40 minute training is called The 6-Impact Steps.  Business should make an impact.  But...  I can NOT make an impact without making a profit.  And I can't make a profit chasing perfect.  And you know what?  Neither can you.  If you are ready to put systems in place to combat this perfection plague, then...  I want to have a call with you personally, 1-on-1.  But first → I want you to watch this short video I filmed on perfection.  Only reach out if I resonate with you.  It's time to remove perfection, make a profit, and leave your impact.  Warmly,  Jake  P.S. After you have watched the video, you will see a link below inviting you to a 1-on-1 call. P.P.S. Only serious applications are accepted for 1-on-1's.

Failing is a good thing. When you learn from it… that is. Too many coaches let the fear of failing cripple them. I know I have. Nothing will cause you to fail faster than inaction. Guaranteed. Because you failed by default, immediately, when you don’t act. You cannot succeed without first trying. After interviewing and being mentored by coaches like Tim Storey (Oprah’s personal coach) and David Meltzer (CEO coach for fortune 50 companies), I can tell you one thing for sure: They have learned to embrace failure. Dust themselves off. And get back to doing meaningful work. Some of the best advice they have given me is to: “Surround yourself with those who have gone where you want to go.” If fear is holding you back from hitting the next level in your business. Watch this video. Warmly, Jake P.S. After you have watched the video, there is going to be a link at the end where will accept some free 1-on-1 calls.

The other day I asked a group of coaches: What is the biggest thing holding you back from success? Their answer: Time. As we dug deeper into the problem of "time," we came to realize that one of the biggest things holding everyone back was... 80% of their time was spent dealing with clients that made up 20% of their total revenue. When we start out in coaching, many coaches take on less-than-desirable clients at far-less-than-desirable price points. Later, when the coach is trying to escape the 1-on-1 coaching bottleneck, they’re “stuck” helping these clients they signed up earlier. Now... What if you could replace your less-than-desirable clients, for high-paying, great attitude, do-anything-you-say clients that don’t suck your time, operate perfectly and get amazing results in a group coaching setting? It's possible — this is exactly what my clients are doing, every single day. Ask yourself: Which 20% of my clients are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?Am I the bottleneck in my coaching business? Once we know the problem, we can actually start making moves to implement a solution. Let's jump on a call together to dive into the strategies that will help relieve you of the burden of "time", release the bottleneck, and actually, get you working less, with more enjoyable coaching clients — all at higher price points. Here is the link to book a meeting. To your success, Jake Nicolle P.s. Scaling your coaching business online, spending less time and making more money, does not need to be frustrating and complicated. If you’re looking for a proven system to follow, click here and we can discuss your strategy moving forward.

We all have big aspirations at the beginning of the year. Some people make it through the first few weeks charging ahead, taking ground, and accomplishing their big resolutions. Others drop off right away. Few people make it through the first 3 months before stumbling back to their usual routine. Very few people actually accomplish their goals by the year's end. Why? Today, I'm going to share the things no one is telling you when you're planning your resolutions. One of the things is to anticipate and plan for your failure because you will fail in one way or another. Do you know what matters more than simply breaking a streak? Continuing to get the heck back up when you're knocked down... No matter how many times you have to get back up. Now that sounds like a new years resolution. Let's get started. -- Jake   My coaching case study for coaches ready to ignore all the shiny objects in the market-place and form an effective strategy for winning ideal clients: https://jakenicolle.com/case-study

“I KNOW EVERYTHING.” Today’s episode is going to be a fun one…. I believe that I actually know almost everything I need to know. Now before you call me a heretic, I want to prove to you that every single thing you want to accomplish in life, you likely ALREADY know the answers too also. Let’s talk about some of the basic stuff: Health (sleep, food) Routines (scheduling, priorities) Relationships (romantic, personal) Business (do your best, surprise and delight clients, share about what you do) Money (save at least 10%, pay off highest debts first, live well below your means, avoid debt that doesn’t appreciate (cars, clothes, gadgets etc) Happiness (do something for others in need, give your money away, message someone an encouraging word) Spiritual life (you know there’s something bigger than you at work in the world and in your life, you acknowledge you yourself are not the centre of the world, you know there is more than just the observable world - there is a world of values and morality and purpose that is as real as you and me but invisible and yet has produced hierarchy, good, evil, destruction and beauty) YOU KNOW ALL THIS AND YET… We think we just don’t know it all. The truth is we understand everything we should do… but we lack the discipline, vision and focus of knowing WHAT TO ACT ON and WHEN. Here's Where 99% of people & business fail in life. First I want you to ask yourself why you think they fail and hold onto your answer… I’ll explain what I believe it is, and what the research would show it is, in just a minute. I want to start today by asking you when in your personal life or business you’ve seen the greatest results… Next… I want to ask you whether or not any of those items you listed or thought of were external… Because we’re going to start here: We are going to eliminate EVERYTHING external from determining your success. You can’t blame ANYTHING that you have the power to change. This means you can’t blame financial resources for why you’re not more successful. You can’t blame the people around you if you’re not willing to remove yourself from the relationship. You can’t blame your lack of information because information is literally everywhere. Busyness does not equal Productivity Success Higher income Busyness is actually you distracting yourself from doing your most important work. You have to begin to prioritize what I like to call power actions which are the items that move you toward your big goals. Tasks to ignore: Any form of direct messaging Phone always in Do Not Disturb Mode Anything that interrupts your flow or your focus Bill Gates and Warren Buffet met for the first time. Bill's dad asked, "what is the most important quality you both possess for your success?".

To accomplish any goal you need to get incredibly specific. But even "getting specific" can be vague unless you get specific about: A measurement for your success (ie. Lose weight < Be 5lbs lighter) Why your goal is an absolute must and significant to you A deadline for your goal When in your day, week or month you will start, rehearse or accomplish your goal The outcome of your goal What things get in the way of you accomplishing that goal Which actions you can take to set yourself up for success Someone you can share your goal with Someone you can chase your goal with If you take 5 minutes to physically write down answers to these questions, you will be amazed how much your mind, body and soul come into alignment for you to tackle and succeed at your goal!

We all know the saying, “death by a thousand cuts” – the idea that it’s not the big things in life that destroy us but the accumulation of many poor decisions all added together. The alternative to our demise is our victory and we rarely discuss it. If we die by a thousand cuts how can we live and become victorious? I believe it’s by taking a thousand faithful steps in the right direction, no matter how seemingly small. Actually, the smaller the step of faith in action, the better. If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. THINKING SMALL Our lives are defined by small actions. Contrary to what we like to believe, it is not the big massive moments that define our character, our thinking or our reputation. It is the combination of many small decisions we make each day that define our patterns of behaviour. If you want to be trusted with much, I encourage you to start by being consistent with the little you have. Show up, right now, where you’re at. This means you go above and beyond right where you are. The biggest mistakes I have made in my life can all be traced back to thinking I was above my situation. Instead, I should have held onto the perspective that if I was going to become better than that situation I would have to take action worthy of deserving more. Then, the likelihood of the MORE I was searching for revealing itself would soar. OPPORTUNITY? Don’t make the same mistakes I have made in the past. Instead, choose to ask yourself today how you can bring more of yourself to the opportunities before you. If you can’t see the opportunities then there is a better chance that you are simply blind to them. This opportunity blindness will not somehow help you arrive at the more you’re anticipating and hoping for in life. If you want to create remarkable opportunities, simply look around today and go, “Could I solve that problem?” or “Am I bringing all of myself to the situations in front of me?” or “How could I see my current situation as an opportunity?” The worst that can happen when you adopt this way of thinking is that you become more talented at whatever you’re doing. You might even begin to form a habit of going “ALL IN”. That would create more resources and skills to better serve you when your opportunity arrives. None of that sounds like a bad thing to me… Go ALL IN, Jake

Your life is meant to be lived ALL IN. It takes more energy to live a below average or even a mediocre life than it does to live a life full of incredible achievements. The person who lives a below average life chooses to constantly justify to others and themselves why they have been treated unfairly. They become the victim. The person who lives an average life settles for an OK career, an OK partner, OK friends and has experienced year after year of OK memories and maybe, if they're lucky, an OK week long vacation. When things drift from OK they fight and claw to get back to their safe place which happens to be right on the edge of below average. Living to justify why you are the victim, living to ensure everything is safe and OK, and living without truly preparing for the curveballs life promises to throw takes far more energy than it does to go ALL IN on your life. Don’t believe me? The person who goes ALL IN believes they can have it all. Each morning serves as a reminder that today is full of possibility, hope and whimsy. Every encounter with someone reveals a hidden lesson about life and a new exciting way in which to understand the world. Relationships become a place of growth, encouragement and the richest moments in life. Careers become about having an impact and casting vision rather than money and fame. Money no longer becomes about tangible things but a fuel for intangible potential and generosity. The greatest joy is realized in serving and providing for others, creating incredible experiences and blessing future generations. Faith flows freely and hope realizes itself in a force far greater than themselves. Living ALL IN brings you more energy each day than you could ever know what to do with. That energy manifests itself in gratitude, joy, vision and anticipation of what’s to come. Here’s a quote that I would encourage you to consider by looking around at the people in your life and asking, "who do I know who lives a below average, settles for mediocrity, or goes absolutely ALL IN?" For to the one who has it, it will be given, and it will be increased. But from the one who doesn't, it will be taken, and it will be decreased. Are you ready to live your life ALL IN? Today, make a decision that you will take control of all the areas in your life you have; left to chance, filled with excuses or blamed someone else for. Decide today that you are responsible for, and capable of, being someone who gets to have it all, blessing everyone around you as a direct result. You were created to go ALL IN. Jake

You know that one big thing you need to get done that you are in fact getting absolutely nowhere on? Today's Novel idea is about putting that thing in it's place and winning the day. Part of winning the day is to begin the day with that one big scary task. I had a friend just this week share how much he was struggling to get through this big project he's been slaving over. After a brief bit of a conversation, I realised a few critical errors my buddy was making. One, he was responding to emails, texts and various other external prompts when he should be putting all his energy into that project. Second, he wasn't getting any physical activity, which deeply stifles any of our creativity. Your goal is to think of that one big thing you need to get done and prioritize it to be the very first thing you do in the day. This means you shouldn't even turn on your phone or open up your email until you've spent at least the first chunk of your morning tackling this to-do. Procrastination is by its very nature, unassuming. No one realizes just how much they are procrastinating until they are filled with self-doubt and blame. What you get to do is tackle that big thing before anything else and then reward yourself with the other things that usually are a distraction. An example would be, I'll enjoy my morning coffee once I've started that project, or, I'll open my inbox to take a break from conquering my big to-do! I hope this helps you press into your goals a little further and this #NOVELiDEA puts you back on track to accomplishing more! Jake

 Embrace what's Embarrassing. Today's #NOVELiDEA comes from a funny experience I had at a retirement home this weekend. It cost me ten minutes of my life... And no, I'm not taking about the old lady who thought I was her long lost son (that really did happen), I'm talking about a door that a group of strangers THOUGHT was stuck shut. After standing their for 10 minutes, Someone came up and simply slid the electronic door we all assumed was locked wide open. The lesson I was reminded of is to:. Step out and take chances.... Even if it results in you playing the fool.

Exercise: Close your eyes and envision who you want to become over the next 10 years... How do you make people feel? What is it like when you walk into a room? How engaged are you in conversations? What do you do first thing in the morning? What do you do as the last thing before bed? Who are the types of people you're surrounded by? What do you contribute to your community? How do you add value to the people's lives around you? What are your limitations? Do you have the same fears? What challenges do you wish to have conquered? Which people do you wish to be distant from? Which job will you wake up for? Which business(es) will you be running? Now ask yourself this following questions as you re-read each above question again... "What is holding me back from accomplishing this today, this month or this year?" "What is one thing I can do to move the needle toward my ideal outcome and my best future self?" "Who is one person I know that embodies this trait already and how could I learn it from them?" Change doesn't happen over 10 years, it happens at different critical moments over the span of 10 years. I am simply encouraging you to ask what you could instigate today to expedite the process by lifting off the limitations you have placed on yourself. Let me know how it goes. With love, Jake