This time around, I wanted to share some things I’ve learned over the course of my career. I call them Terry-isms, and they’re common life lessons I’ve applied to both my life and my business.
I hope you enjoy reading. Don’t forget to leave a comment with your thoughts.
I’ve said this for over 20 years, so you might already know this first one.
But ask yourself: What are the things in your business that need changing? Where’s the bottleneck? What do YOU need to be doing differently? Do you really need to make those changes, or are there others that are more important? Do you need to change your people, process, or program? Maybe you need to switch up your marketing, or your product, or your reports or KPIs.
No matter how simple the changes are, it’s vital that you start making them — or else you run the risk of staying locked in a standstill, never getting the chance to show the world all you’ve got.
At the end of the day, you live and die by the choices you make. You’re the president of those choices, and the president of that life.
YOU decide who you want to work with, what company you want to build, what idea you want to execute, what to do with your day and who to do it with, and even whether to go left or right — it’s all YOU. Nobody else can make those choices for you, so give yourself a pat on the back for making it this far, Mr. or Mrs. President.
Everyone gets frustrated from time to time. I know I certainly have.
In times like these, focus on changing your nomenclature and phraseology to say, “Isn’t it fascinating that this particular thing did or did not happen? Isn’t it fascinating that someone thought in a different way than I did?”
What you’re really doing here is opening your mind up to other possibilities instead of stunting yourself in your growth by focusing on negativity. Frustrating things are bound to happen — you can either learn from them or let them chew you up and spit you out.
In business, in sales, and in life, you’ve gotta be excited about what you’re doing. Nobody wants to work with someone who drags their feet through the mud all the way up the mountain.
You’ve got to be excited so you can get others excited. And you don’t just want to get one or two people excited, you want to get tens, or hundreds, or thousands if you can. Masses of asses, as I like to call it.
What about you? Are you excited about your business? And are you constantly inviting others to participate or get involved with your business?
If you’re not, get excited and start inviting. You’ll be surprised how positively people will react.
All your sales are out there — you just have to go look for them.
Every day, you need to be going out and finding people. You need to become a hunter, not a farmer. There’s always going to be groups of people who don’t want to be part of what you have to offer, but finding them is just as important, because it puts you one step closer to the people who do.
Everybody would love to live a perfect life, but unfortunately, that’s just not how it usually pans out.
Rather than letting that get you down, focus on living a life full of progress, not perfection. By looking for progress, you’ll see things get better and better — not worrying about why they’re not 100% perfect.
You want to see progress in your company, business, personal health, financial status, relationships — everything. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be better than it was a week, a month, six months ago.
Nobody’s perfect, but everyone is capable of making progress.
I believe the best way to market is nose to nose and toes to toes.
You’ve just gotta get up in front of people and talk to them. Sure, digital marketing and advertisements are important, but you can only start a movement after you’ve gotten your first follower — and the best way to get that follower is to meet up and talk to them.
You can have the best 1-hour workout in the country — just like we do here at Orangetheory Fitness — but if nobody knows about it, you have nothing.
I can’t tell you the power behind marketing. It’s like using a giant megaphone to find different channels for reaching people. And you don’t have to do it all on your own — there’s tons of experts out there who can help you out.
But if you have something great to share, you need to let people know about it. And the easiest way to do that is by marketing.
Ask yourself: Do you want to allow reasons, or do you want to allow results?
People will always try to give you reasons for why something doesn’t work. And reasons, really, are excuses. In times like these, I like to write down all those reasons on a piece of paper, talk to my people about them and take a sincere interest, and then set them aside. Then, I say to my team, “Let’s get back to work and do the things we know have worked for us in the past. Let’s keep moving forward.”
Focus on allowing results — not reasons.
If you’re not getting the results you want, the first thing you want to do is take a step back and say, “How am I really spending my time? What does my agenda look like? Am I doing things that are really moving me forward, or am I just checking the boxes?”
Maybe the issue is with your KPIs, or getting lost in your inbox instead of making calls, or with your management style. Whatever the case, your results are directly proportional to how you spend your time. Track your time, figure out how you’re spending it, and make changes where things slip through the cracks.
Keep feeding your mind with the good, the pure, the positive stuff out there. Believe in yourself. Don’t ever give up. Never, ever give up on yourself and on your dreams, your goals, and your desires.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. For more advice on how to get your mind, your business, and your life in shape, don’t forget to tune into my podcast every Tuesday.