A Focussed Wake-Up Call
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “The year’s almost over, there’s not much time left to do anything”? Stop right there. This is your wake-up call. This isn’t the end of the year, and there’s still a juicy chunk of time left to make your mark.
This episode shares:
- The 25% Factor: Think 25% doesn’t matter? Think again. Let’s talk about why every percentage counts.
- Imaginary Deadlines: It’s time to break free from the notion that “it’s almost the end of the year,” and how it’s crippling your success.
- The Power of Focus: Don’t just flit around. Be laser-focused on what truly matters.
- Equipping Your Team: You’re not in this alone. Make your team part of your end-of-year empire building.
The 25% Factor
You’ve still got 25% of the year left! Doesn’t sound like a lot, you say? Well, what if I told you that every percentage counts like never before?
In the grand scheme of things, 25% is a significant chunk. If you could achieve 25% more every year, wouldn’t that be a game-changer for you? But here’s the kicker: so many of us willingly give away this 25% because we’ve already started the countdown to Christmas. Why? It’s like you’ve run three-quarters of the race and decided to casually walk the last stretch.
Tip: 💡Don’t squander this quarter. Make a list of realistic but ambitious goals you can tackle before the end of the year. Start by brainstorming, then prioritise. Commit to this 25% and watch how it propels you into the new year.
Imaginary Deadlines
There’s this collective sigh we let out when October hits, a premature winding-down that costs us dearly.
We create these self-imposed deadlines based on…what exactly? The nearing of the holiday season? That’s no excuse to slam the brakes on your empire-building efforts. If you look at opportunities and put them off because “it’s almost the end of the year,” you’re not just procrastinating; you’re missing out. You’re missing out on growing, achieving, and seizing what could have been yours.
Tip: 💡Stop being held hostage by the calendar. If there’s a project you’re excited about, now is as good a time as any to embark on it.
The Power Of Focus
To make the most out of this quarter, you need to be laser-focused.
I’ve been there—juggling multiple tasks and projects at once, leading to a scattered approach that serves no one, especially not me. As I’ve said on my podcast, you have to “focus on being focused.” Pick your battles wisely, and stick to them. By narrowing my focus, I’ve essentially given myself back three whole months of opportunities, ambitions, and aspirations.
Tip: 💡It’s time for a focus overhaul. List down the vital tasks that will truly propel your vision forward. Make these your non-negotiables for the final stretch of the year.
Equipping Your Team
Don’t underestimate the power of a well-equipped team in achieving your vision.
Your team is your backbone. Equip them to excel in their roles, and you’ll be surprised how much more efficient your empire becomes. Allocate responsibilities that cater to your team members’ strengths and watch how they bloom.
Tip: 💡Start one-on-one meetings to gauge how well each team member understands their role and how you can help them perform better. Delegate, guide, but most importantly, empower.
And… that’s a wrap!
So, what are you focusing on this quarter? Is it pushing your boundaries? Or are you letting the year slip away based on imaginary deadlines? The remaining 25% of the year can be your playground or your prison. The choice is yours.
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Follow along with the transcript
E18 It’s not the end of the year, yet.
Leanne Woff: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to another episode of The Audacious OBM. I’m Leanne Woff, I’m your host, [00:01:00] and today I want to talk to you about focus. The title of this episode is called It’s Not the End of the Year Yet. Now what do I mean by that? I mean it is almost October, not even October, at the time of recording this.
And a lot of us have entered into end of the year mode. And so I’m hearing a lot of Christmas is coming. The sky is falling. We’re all running around and freaking out because the year’s gone so fast. And I was having a conversation and I was asked what I was focused on. And then
somebody else mentioned, oh, it’s the end of the year. And then the person we were having a conversation with said, guys, it’s only October. And I stood back and I [00:02:00] thought, you know what, it’s only October. And even if it wasn’t, does it really matter? So the end of the year, it’s the last quarter.
There’s a whole quarter, one fourth, 25%. If you could achieve 25 percent more every single year, would you be happy? That seems like a lot and I think by writing off the last quarter, because it’s close to Christmas, we’re giving away that 25 percent and nothing is making us do that. We’re doing it to ourselves.
And so, we go into this panic of, it’s nearly Christmas, it’s nearly Christmas, we should be winding down and we set these imaginary deadlines. Now, I know I just closed my launch for OBM Academy. And a couple of people [00:03:00] emailed me back and the feedback is always very similar. This sounds amazing. This is exactly what I need.
And then it goes two ways. Either people sign up or people say, but not yet. And part of the not yet this time was I know that I won’t be able to commit at this point in towards the end of the year. 25%, it’s a whole quarter and it wasn’t until I was explaining this back to people that I realised that that’s actually an issue for us.
We look at opportunities and we stop because it’s the last quarter. And then we miss out on all the things we could have had and could have achieved. So what if it was more about setting yourself up for the next year or the next thing? Like you’ve still got three full months. What could you achieve in three months?
And while I understand it, because I do it too, it’s nearly the end of [00:04:00] the year, it’s nearly the end of the year, and then you look back and you look at all the things you have done and all the things you haven’t done, and you go into this thoughts pile. But can I tell you something? Today is no different than yesterday.
Nothing has really changed because of where we are in the year. Our daily life is still our daily life. Our businesses are still our businesses. And although there are seasons, and I understand that it’s not, there’s nothing that, solidly happens once we hit Christmas or hit the new year that says stop and start.
It’s from one day to the next. And so can I tell you something? If at Christmas you’re tired, then the day after Christmas, you’re still going to be tired. And if you. End of the year in kind of a slump, you’ll probably start in a slump until you decide to change it. So, this changed my perception a little bit from, Oh, we’re winding [00:05:00] down, we won’t do anything big towards the end of the year.
It’s it’s October. It’s not like we’re a week away from holidays, guys. And so I decided that I’m going to focus on being focused. So I have the tendency to do a lot of things all at once and sometimes I get really excited and then I do the things I’m excited about and then don’t do the things that I decided were strategically worth it, because I want to do the fun thing.
And so for this next quarter, I don’t want to just scale down and flit through, which sometimes, there are seasons where you just need to go with the flow a little bit and take pressure off. But right now I don’t need that. Right now I still want to achieve things and I don’t want it to be really hard, [00:06:00] but I want to make sure I’m achieving the right things.
So to do that, the first step was determining, okay, what are the things, what are we going to be focused on? And for me, it’s picking whatever it is and then sticking to it. So this is what I came up with. I was going to record more episodes of this podcast. See what I did there. I’m going to write my OBM Coaching Sales Page and my Empire Builder Coaching Sales Page, which I actually don’t want to be a big drawn out thing, but I want them to be on my website and at least they’re there and accessible.
And then I want to do, I bought this metrics course a while ago and it’s how to set up all different data driven models in your business and how to do like metrics measurement for marketing to get to [00:07:00] business goals. And it’s not a big thing. It’s a small, smallish kind of course, but it’s just so interesting.
And I’ve wanted to do it for ages. So I want to finish that. And then the next thing is equipping my team, which I’ve already started doing. And so it’s getting everybody into really good positions, knowing what their role is, knowing what they’re doing, having them have enough space and time to do their best work, to do work they like, and just getting really clear on what those things are.
So they’re the things I decided to focus on. Now, I have loads of other things on my list, but I’m focusing on focusing. So before I can do any of the other things that are on my list, I have to do these things. And for instance, one of the other things that’s been on my list for ages is to properly set up my call booking page.
And so I did it for my [00:08:00] intro calls and did a little bit of a hack job to put it together. Because it’s really, really silly to be an OBM. An OBM coach, just a general Tech Ninja will not have a call booking link. It’s one of those really obvious things that I just never got around to doing. And so it’s nagging at me because I’m like, I just want to do it, but it’s actually not the priority.
So I have to pause. And until I’ve done my focused things, I can’t do that. And then that can be my, my treat. They’re still important, but they’re not what I’ve chosen to be the priority. So, as we move through to the end of the year, three days ago, it was my opinion that I didn’t have any of these focuses.
I had some stuff I wanted to do, and if I got around to it, I got around to it. But now, I feel like I’ve just been given back three months, [00:09:00] just from that shift. And that, I’ve got three months, what can I do? What should we do? And all of a sudden my list is bigger and bigger, but I have things I feel like I can achieve, and I will.
And so, I just wanted to talk about the illusion that we create, that we pick a month and then we say from here it all trinkles down and I’ll have less energy and I’ll there’s no point in really ramping anything up because people are winding down. It’s just not the way life works anymore.
But, if I think about it, when I was a teenager, and it would be holidays, and I would plonk my bum on my couch and watch episode after episode of Gilmore Girls and Friends and would love life and sleep in until 12 or 1 PM. That is not what holidays look like anymore. Holidays do not look like sitting in a camping chair, reading book after book.
[00:10:00] It’s, it’s so not the same. Life is too fast paced now. And despite that, I have like eleventy billion children. so I just go from one job to another. And I’m not saying it’s not nice, like holidays are good. And when I do get. Some rest and to restore, but it doesn’t mean I’m scrambling to the end of the year, dragging, waiting, waiting for this break.
I don’t feel like that. And if I don’t feel like that, there is no point in me completely stopping just because we’re three months out from an imaginary deadline. So. I’m going to stop putting rules around what I can start and what I can’t start based on imaginary things. And so I just wanted to share that with you and encourage you that if you do want to keep going, you can.
And it doesn’t have to be big astronomical things, but it just [00:11:00] doesn’t have to stop because we’ve put on the looking downhill act. So my question for you, what are you focusing on this quarter? Pick one and then DM me at audaciousempires@leannewoff or send me an email or leave a raving review for this podcast.
You know that you want to. Alright guys, I hope that that gives you some fun and some joy towards the last quarter. Enjoy your 25 percent and I’ll see you next week. Bye!
Have a great week.
[00:12:00]