I didn’t particularly have a great childhood — I suffer from alopecia so I got bullied a lot, and it really affected my self-confidence, and it really affected my mindset. As a kid, I was very introverted, and I didn’t really like to interact with people.

I didn’t really have a support structure when I was growing up; I had an absent father. And my mother really didn’t make much of an interest in what I did. I was awkward, and so my father, who had started running about 18 months before, encouraged me to get into running. At the time, I was an asthma sufferer. I remember turning up at a running club on my own at 11 years old to join an Athletic Club.

The receptionist introduced me to the coach at a time and we talked about our expectations more than anything else. I remember the very first time I turned up, I saw these fast track-and-field athletes, and I got really intimidated. I felt really uncomfortable being in this place where I was way out of my comfort zone. I started to get these negative thoughts and started saying to myself, “I feel like this is a bit of a mistake”.

When we started, even doing the warm-up was a struggle for me. I barely run 100 meters without having a chronic asthma attack. It was a real challenge. But after some perseverance and through self-discipline, I started getting better. My time started to make some improvements. And within nine months, my asthma disappeared altogether.

I met my first proper coach about a year after that; Alex McGee. My former training partner, Mo Farah, had came from Somalia and, similar to me, he was bullied a lot because of his lack of English. But we used each other’s competitive nature to motivate each other so that we could become successful athletes.

I think running became a distraction from life. I train Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I’d compete Saturday and Sunday, so it can take up quite a huge chunk of my time. I was actually a really busy kid, and I didn’t really have a lot of time. It got me into this kind of zone. It was just the kind of place where I was happy at the time.

As I started getting better, I started to get those small wins under my belt, I started gaining confidence and I started gaining self-esteem. I started to see things a little bit differently. I created some habits really early on, self-discipline and being super time productive. Things that a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners aspire to in today’s world, I got way before even starting my first business.

11 was a very special age for me. Back in the day, we didn’t typically have a large amount of money, we lived off the state, we lived in a state-owned property. My mom never worked, so there wasn’t a lot of wealth that went around. It was myself with my younger brother and her. I remember walking in the nature reserve, which is about 15 minutes from where we lived, and walking and I started seeing all these golf balls from where golf was played next door. The next day, I decided to go back with a bucket and I started collecting all these golf balls, I started jumping in the stream and foraging in the bushes. I didn’t even have money to buy Wellington boots, so I’d just take my shoes and socks off and jump in. Then I started walking around the fairway and all these golfers started to come up to me, curious why an 11-year-old boy is walking around the fairway and concerned about my safety. I told them I’m rescuing golf balls and the golfers were interested to see what was in my bucket. They started inspecting some of my golf balls. Brand was important, condition was really important and even the color was really important, depending on the time of day. From a golfers’ perspective, if you’ve only got two balls, and we’ve got about six holes to go, they’re panicking, sweating about losing some more balls. I always hang out around hole 12, which is where everyone was kind of panicking. This is where I started learning entrepreneurship, where I started to learn negotiation and sales.

We both walked away with smiles on our face as they got a great deal because they only paid half price for a brand new ball and I get a good price and went home with a bag full of coins. I gave some of the money to my mom for groceries and milk and bread and so forth. And I kept the rest for savings.

I think I conditioned my mind at a very young age. I have this results-oriented mindset. I’m always striving towards performance and improvement. My belief is that if you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. And no one really wants to move backwards.

How do I get to this action-taking mindset?

Have self-discipline.

You have to discipline yourself, you have to set everyone has goals and aspirations. All of us want financial success, we all want health and happiness, we all want abundance as well. If you want to achieve things in life, if you want to get the most out of life, you have to self-discipline, you have to prepare.

You have to make short term sacrifices for long term benefits.

The world right now, it’s kind of crazy. There’s so much going on, there’s so many distractions, most people are working from home, but how can you change your environment? How can you surround yourself with different people? How can you condition your mind?

Think about where you are and where you want to get to. How are you going to do that?

Go back to “why”.

Start to question yourself, start to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Why do I want to do this? What motivates me what gets me out of my bed every day? What makes me hungry, what drives my passion?

One of the things that I did was going with the flow, and what I mean by that is really aligning yourself in terms of your values. Whether we live by those values is a different matter. And whether we compromise those values is also a different matter.

My values never get compromised; I would never sacrifice my values because that is my DNA. If I change my DNA, then I’m going to attract a different tribe, I’m going to attract a different energy and I don’t want to do that. I’ve got good energy; I’ve got flow and people know me for a particular reason. Otherwise, this is where people get confused in terms of their clarity. They don’t know which direction they want to go in.

You’ve got to take action.

Stop talking and actually do something about it. And I see so many people just doing this, they talk they rabbit, but they never take action, or because of insecurities fear, limiting beliefs that they put upon themselves, or whatever excuse they want to come up with. This is the reason why people don’t actually achieve the results that they desire.

Is there any particular situation where my mind that’s been affected by the results that I didn’t get? Sure, all the time. It’s an ongoing journey. It’s an ongoing battle. But I think one thing that you’ve got to learn from is that there’s no such thing as failure, but rather I see them as learning points in your life. You reflect on how is it that I could have made the situation better? Could I have actually turned up with my A-game? A lot of people really are affected by failure, but you have to really question what was my intention? When did I turn up as an A-player? Did I go all in?

I’m an all-in or not at all type of person. If I’m going to do something, I’m going to go all in, or I’m not going to bother. There’s no middle. You either commit, and go or not bother. I think that’s the first question you have to ask yourself.

Reflect.

Ask yourself if your intention wasn’t as good as what it could have been. If I was to repeat this process, if I was to launch a project again how could we have changed our situation, rather than blaming others. People are good at blaming others for whatever their circumstances are right now, or the fact that they haven’t achieved this or they haven’t achieved that. Remember that every time you point at people, there will always be four fingers pointing back at you.

You have to take personal responsibility. If you want to get results in life, you want success, you want happiness and abundance and wealth, you have to take personal responsibility and grab life by the balls and make it happen for yourself. No one else is going to happen.

One of the things that we did this year because of the pandemic is move really fast and decided to put on a summit called the Game Changers Summit, a 30 day summit. We essentially collaborated with some of the world’s leading industry authorities in entrepreneurship, marketing and branding. We went from idea to launch in less than seven weeks. We did content for 30 days solid. We interviewed Jack Canfield, Dr. John Demartini, Sharon Lechter, some of the big boys in the entrepreneurial world, and we had a lot of fun, but it was just a ridiculous amount of hard work. On top of that I had a newborn baby as well, so I would not advise anyone to go do that.

We then launched the podcast, the Game Changers Experience, and then I’m working on re- launching the Game Changers Summit again in 2021, which I’m really super excited about. We’re going to be bringing in some real hot heads. It’s going to be live as well. It’s going to be really fantastic.

On top of that, we’re also going to be looking into launching a TV channel as well. Behind the scenes, we’re also launching our Accelerator Programme for our global audience, which is mainly for six figure openers and creative entrepreneurs and business owners that want to gain greater clarity, increase their productivity, but more importantly, they want more success and results and more impact.

If you want to know more about any of these exciting projects, feel free to DM me or email me at hello@adamstrong.net

Interestingly enough, there was a really great episode that we did on the Game Changers Experience podcast called “Don’t be a soul-sucking CEO”, during which I interviewed Gary Ridge. We were talking about micro-managing. Now in these strange times, delegation is probably going to be one of the key factors if you want to get serious business growth.

You’ve got to start to delegate because the big problem with a lot of entrepreneurs and professional business owners is that they wear too many hats. The big problem with wearing too many hats is that you try to learn too many skills. You try to be everything to everybody. From experience, it’s completely and utterly overwhelming, because there are just so much things to do. You’re the leader of your own business.

I know that some of you are thinking that the reason you don’t delegate, or the reason you don’t delegate as much as you should, is because you think it’s quicker and easier to do it yourself. I totally understand. I’ve mastered the hard way the art of delegation. We have a marketing team now, turning content from the podcast into different mediums. We have a variety of different articles that come out on medium.com. We’re experimenting with some amazing videos on YouTube and launching a new TV channel.

The other reason why entrepreneurs and all the professional business owners don’t delegate as much as they should do is because they’re thinking about money.

There are some really thought-provoking questions that you may or may not have been asked in the past. Get yourself a notebook and pen handy and write down some answers.

How do you value yourself?

What I mean by that is financially, how do you value yourself? We’ve all got goals in our lives. We’ve got financial goals, fitness goals, wellness goals. I admire people who’ve got goals.

If we think about it financially, your business has the financial goal of earning £100,000, hypothetically speaking. Within that hundred grand, how many weeks of the year are you going to work? There are 52 weeks in the year and generally, most people take between four and six weeks off. So we’ll just say for today is that you’re going to have four weeks’ vacation. So that’s 48 weeks of work.

How many hours would you typically work on a daily basis? For example, you could work 10 hours per day. And say we work five days a week. So that’s essentially 50 hours per week. Now, take the hundred thousand pounds, divided by 48 weeks, which is £2,083 per week. Now we divide that by the 50 hours per week that we will work. That gives us £41.67. Rounding up, we should be valuing yourself at £42 per hour.

If you are doing tasks or activities that earn less than £42 per hour, then essentially what you’re saying to yourself is “I am devaluing myself”.

What are the passions that you have within your business?

What’s the real reasons why you do your business? Some of my passions about running my business is that I love to create content. Podcast episodes like Power Up Thursdays on the Game Changers Experience podcast, doing interviews, doing YouTube, writing articles — I love doing content. It’s fantastic. It makes me feel happy and fulfilled. I love building relationships. I love building trust and credibility; I love building my brand. So, there are certain things that I really enjoy doing with about my business.

But there are some things that I really detest. For example, I really do not enjoy managing my social media or managing my inbox.

What I would like you to do is a way to write down a list of things that you really enjoy, what are some of the passions that you love about your business? What do you enjoy doing in terms of activities? And what are the things that you don’t enjoy doing. If you can start making a list of passions that you really enjoy doing, and you focus on those things. All the other things that take time can then be delegated.

Does each activity align to your WHY?

Does it align to your values? Does it make you happy? Does it make you fulfilled? Does it energise you? If it doesn’t do those things, it needs to be systemised or delegated out.

How much will it cost you?

I’m not just talking financial costs. I’m talking about how much would it be detracting from your passions? What is it costing you as a business?

These are the four questions that I ask you to honestly answer. Use your notebook and pen and paper, and think about how you can delegate more and how you can systemise your business more. The more that you do that, the more that you’re going to feel that you have control, you’re going to feel a lot more empowered, you’re going to feel like you can grow your business faster.

We’ve got the same 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It’s what you do with that time. I have the same time as everyone else and I manage to get probably about 10 times more done than the average entrepreneur and professional business owner because I’ve mastered this.

I used to wear those hats all the time. We all go through a journey.

The Stop Doing List

The other thing that I’d like you to do right now, as you got your notebook and pen out, is to write on the top of the pages, “My stop doing list”.

What are some of the activities that you really dislike doing? Many people have a “To Do” list. That list is probably endless. This is why a lot of entrepreneurs and professional business owners are so time-poor. Because you have these never ending to do lists.

What entrepreneurs need to realize is you need to have a “Stop Doing” list. Make a list of activities that take up a lot of your time. The questions you need to ask yourself is, does the activity (managing your social media operations, managing numbers, creating graphics, whatever it might be) make you happy? If it doesn’t make you happy, use your notebook: Does it make you happy? Put a smiley face or a sad face.

If it doesn’t make you happy, then can it be delegated? Are you empowering your team? One thing that I do with my team members is that I give them full projects. And there’s a communication, there’s expectations. I manage it, but I don’t do it.

Sometimes, it’s really hard to let go, and I get it, it’s really difficult to let go. But if you want to grow your business, if you want to scale it to the next level, it doesn’t necessarily have to cost you a lot of money. That’s the only way that you’re going to effectively grow the business efficiently.

Is the task recurring? The best way to actually do this is to get a weekly journal, write down all of the activities that you do now. In the Power Up Thursdays episode, Time Management Secrets, I talked about the power of having your day blocked out into 30-minute segments. Write down all the activities that you do within that 30 minutes and then spreading that over the day, then you can get an idea about what you’re doing on an on a day to day operational basis. If you’re doing tasks on a regular basis, whether be managing emails, creating graphics, or whatever it is, ask if it can be systemized. Can you use tools out there that can be systemised to make your life easier? One of the real basic systems for me is a CRM system or an email management system.

Some of you may still be doing your own bookkeeping and accountancy. If you are, are there systems out there that you can leverage to make your life a lot easier? I hate doing those things. I have a finance team that manages all of that kind of stuff, they just report back to me with the numbers. Again, I don’t do any of that stuff. It just doesn’t interest me at all. It’s really important to empower others, leverage other peoples’ skills. They’ll get it done faster — it’ll probably take you 10 times longer because your heart and soul are not in it.

What are what are some of the things that you could essentially put on your stop doing list? Gary Vaynerchuk mentioned about the fact that there are so many different social media platforms out there now, including Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, depending on where your target audience is hanging out. To articulate and create different content for different social media platforms can be really overwhelming. Can you delegate that task out? Can you get a virtual assistant, for example?

If you create graphics, which might be for a particular event, whether it be a virtual event or a digital event, can you find a graphic designer who can do it for less money and can do it less time than you.

Day to day operations, in terms of managing clients, or customers, or if you’re shipping products out, also take time. Are there certain things that you can use to make the operations more smooth and more efficient? Administration tasks takes up a lot of time for a lot of people. Research can take up a lot of time. If you’re doing some market research and you’re trying to find out something like you’re creating something new, can you delegate the research out? Are you creating certain channels for Lead Generation? Are you managing the follow up?

There are certain activities that you could essentially do and there are certain things that you can delegate out or use systems to make things more efficient. I’m big on systems this year. Once we implemented systems in our business, it was plain sailing. Initially, it took up a little bit of time to set it all up. Now, we have a great email system, for example, which is all automated. We have a marketing team, who are great at creating graphics, creates content for our podcasts and videos, I have my virtual assistant and the finance team. I’m a delegate King now.

It feels so empowering when you delegate things out and you let things go because you’re going to feel free. I feel like I can do so much more with my time. I feel like I can serve more people, I can impact more people, rather than being bogged down by things that I really don’t enjoy doing.

We’ve been receiving so many great compliments from people, so I just wanted to say I’m truly thankful for your great comments and reviews on the Game Changers Experience podcast. I’m truly blessed.

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in the business world, in the entrepreneurial world. I really wanted to take this opportunity to give you a methodology on how you can increase speed in your business, because most of you are probably working from home. You may still be trying to find routines, trying to find habits, even six, seven months down the line, since the pandemic is here, it can be extremely difficult to wait for normality.

I’ve worked with numerous companies, small and big. There was one particular company that I remember working with a couple of years ago, that was based in Scandinavia. They drafted me in because they saw that we had written a few articles and published them on LinkedIn. One of the partners of the financial firm contacted me and told me that they love the content that we’re creating right now. They wanted us to teach their senior management about how they could increase speed in their business. We sent out a questionnaire, did some due diligence and preparation, and asked what the real reason was for me to be there. They told me that, being a financial firm, they didn’t seem to be as productive as they could be. They didn’t seem to be making fast decisions like they should. They didn’t seem to be moving at the speed that they were happy with.

One of the foundations that I teach a lot of my clients is about going back to your core vision. A vision is essentially what you want to achieve in the long term. It should be a 10-year view. This gives a business a structure gives people a direction or a goal to move towards.

The financial company that had contacted me didn’t really have a vision and a lot of the values were completely disproportionate to each other. They also weren’t aligned to the company. Partners were bickering and arguing, not respecting each other’s opinion. It was a toxic culture between these guys, but they just weren’t gelling, they weren’t connecting, they weren’t clicking.

I suggested that they go back to the vision and to the foundations. I think what a lot of companies overlook the core foundations. What is the big long-term goal? What is it that you want to achieve? What is your mission every day? What is it that that your staff, your workforce, your team do every day? What gives you this motivational energy? And what are the values?

I like to practice what you preach at the end of the day. That’s so important.

Some really great examples of companies that became complacent are Tower Records, or in the UK HMV. Tower Records and HMV, back in the heyday, especially around sort of the 70's, the 80's, were juggernauts in the music industry. They represented big artists and you’d go into a HMV, or a Tower Records, you pick up your records, LPs, or CDs. But then Spotify came in because they could anticipate people going online more. There, you could get a free account and listen to people’s music. Tower Records don’t exist anymore and HMV have one or two stores. And the reason why they failed as a business is because they didn’t adapt to the climate. They didn’t take the consumers’ habits into consideration, they were too slow to move and adapt with the times.

It’s exactly the same with Blockbuster Video, for example. Blockbuster Video was big in its heyday, right back in the 90's. We would go down to the local video store, pick up your VHS, pick up your popcorn and your soda and go home and watch a movie. Two nights later, you take it back.

What changed Blockbuster Video? Again, they became complacent, they failed to adapt and learn about people’s shopping habits. This is when Netflix came in. Netflix wiped Blockbuster off the planet.

The same is true for Woolworths in the UK. What was a big juggernaut offering convenience products and food products. I love the Ladybird clothing line. But again, they failed to adapt to consumers’ habits. When Amazon appeared on the market, they understood how people’s habits were changing. They’re a big juggernaut. They’re one of the biggest and wealthiest companies in the world.

For these businesses, it wasn’t just because they failed to adapt. There are a number of reasons why a lot of smaller companies also don’t survive.

Bureaucracy and politics do not pay the bills. Neither does perfectionism. If you bring those things into a business, they’re going to slow your company right down. It is important to eliminate those things straightaway. If you eliminate those things, I can personally guarantee you will get natural speed.

Speed: I love creating new ideas. New ideas are great, but implementation is even better. This year, for example, we created the Game Changers Summit

You also need to focus on work ethic — creating a culture of hustle and working hard is going to trump anything in business.

There is a lot of confusion in the world right now, and some people are waiting for normality, whatever that looks like. There’s no such thing as normality. Some are waiting for everything to be perfect; a perfect world, perfect people, perfect products. If you’re waiting for the perfect opportunity, whatever that looks like, it’s made up in your head. There’s no such thing as perfection.

It’s all about how quickly you can implement and adapt to the market and stay ahead of the competition. It’s about what it is that you can do differently. What is it that you can bring to the table? What are you identifying in terms of the market, the needs, the anticipation.

One of the things that we did back in March is some due diligence and some market research. We wanted to find out what people’s pain-points were, what is it that kept them up at night. As soon as we found that information out, we then came up with an idea for a summit. We essentially went back to those people and explained the idea and the benefits that they would reap from it, and asked whether they would be interested in participating. Of course, 98% of people agreed.

With so much going on in the world right now, including distractions, pandemic, economy, and things like that, we have to remember that those are things that you cannot control. What you can control is how your business is going to thrive in these times.

There are businesses that are absolutely thriving right now. This is possible because a vision has been created. I’m in a massive mission right now to inspire people so that they can create the clarity they need, so that he can take fast and decisive action. I love working with small business owners and entrepreneurs If you start creating speed in your life, it creates momentum and increases your confidence. When you increase your confidence, you start to see results. And when you start to see results, you start to get excited. You start to get that energy, you start to think about what gets you fired up.

Make sure that you take these ingredients into consideration, because then you can add it to the recipe that you’ve already got. You can then create the speed that you need in your business. Speed crushes limitations — if you have limiting beliefs, are distracted by different things, speed helps you focus. I don’t worry about what’s happening in the world. What I worry about is what impact I want to create. What value can I bring to the table? How can I help people? How can I make people’s lives easier? What is it that I can do differently to inspire and motivate people.

You’ve also got to create a culture of speed because if you execute quickly, if you take action fast, then your team members, your staff members are also going to be inspired by your fast action. And in these times, you don’t have time to sit around, procrastinate or worry about what’s happening in the world and the economy and the pandemic. You cannot control these things. What you can control is how you show up every day. What you can control is the difference that you can make to people’s lives. What you can control is how you give value to people and how you show up, and how you can effectively take action.

I hope this article has helped you. Remember, if you have any comments, feel free to reach out to me on social media or on the podcast, where we love seeing comments.

I am a former elite athlete — I used to study and train with Olympic athletes and the current Olympic World Champion, Mo Farah, was my training partner. We mainly did long distance running.

What is the zone?

The zone is basically a state of mind. It is a state of supreme focus where you’re ultimately so connected to the goal that you have in mind or whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

For example, I used to be a distance runner and my main events were the 10-mile half marathon and cross country running. I really enjoyed that. But there were things that I did prior to competition. This included some routines in order to really get into the zone. And you would have seen a lot of athletes practice this, especially if you’re a sports fan. Footballers, for example, may have headphones on when they get off the bus, even right up until the beginning of the match. They’ve got the headphones in because that’s their way of getting focused and blocking out all the distractions.

It’s the same with a track athlete. For example, a sprinter completely looks forward, is completely focused on the finishing line, is already winning the race. They’re already thinking and breaking down exactly what he needs to do at a particular time. And they’re so focused on achieving, because they are there in the present moment.

I’m going to give you a system that you can use to effectively get into your zone, because being in the zone for each person is very different. To get into the zone requires not just a supreme level of focus, but there are certain things that you need to put in place before you can effectively get into the zone. And obviously athletes are extremely good at that.

What affects our mindset?

There are so many things that effect our mindset, from negativity to fear, to your environment, to the associations that you hang around with. There are so many things right now that affect your mindset. And these things have to be dealt with before you even think about getting into the zone.

What Olympic athletes are particularly great at is conditioning their mindset for success. One of the things that I found, especially being an entrepreneur and a business owner, is ultimately you’ve got to find a passion that really brings the adrenaline out of you, that brings this power, this excitement.

Find your passion.

If you’re doing something right now, even if you’re in a job, if you are doing a business, that doesn’t particularly make you happy, there’s no way in a million years you will ever become fulfilled. You will never fulfill your potential. You will never ever get yourself into the zone because you’re disconnected with what excites

I had a really interesting conversation with a lady this week. I loved her energy, but she had so much going on. I could really feel her passion for wanting to help people, but she just really was in this no-man’s land.

What are your interests? If you don’t know what your passions and interests are, you’ve got to go back to that. Think about what you’re passionate about.

There was a couple who lived in an apartment and were on low-paid jobs at the time. One of them had just lost their job, and they were struggling to pay their bills. They were sleeping on a mattress. They were hardly eating, they were at the brink of going crazy, and you can imagine the pressure that they were under. But they decided to set up a business based on their passion and that passion was fitness. They created a business that they could monetize in the digital world or the online space. They did some training. They started to become more focused, laser focused and essentially what they wanted to accomplish, and they started to get some success and within about two years, they became millionaires, just because they wanted to focus on their passions. They were doing jobs that they didn’t enjoy it, even though they were low paid, but they did enjoy fitness, they enjoyed training. They loved helping people, they loved staying fit and staying slim.

Have a clear intention.

One of the things that I would say from my perspective is you’ve got to have a clear intention about what is it that you actually want to accomplish in your business. Get a very clear intention in your head about exactly what you want to achieve. Because if you get that correct, then you can start to laser focus on essentially getting into that zone.

Don’t fear pressure.

The only pressure that you feel is what you put upon yourself. You’ve got to have situational awareness by becoming aware of your strengths and your weaknesses. Be aware of your environment and what is going to distract you from achieving your focus or achieving your goal because once you begin to get an understanding of that, you’re then going to start to increase your confidence and confidence is what you really need in order to overcome fear.

Have grit.

Grit is basically a combination of mastering self-discipline and passion It is a commitment to a particular task or project or burning desire to essentially see it through. You develop resilience in face of adversity and tenacity and determination to reach your goals. More importantly, you’ve got to believe in yourself.

If you don’t believe in yourself, then how is it that you are essentially going to be able to connect with other humans? If you can’t believe in yourself, then they’re not going to believe in you. There’s going to be a disconnection between trust and credibility.

You also really need to think about being addicted to improvement. When I was an athlete, one of the things I was so I suppose addicted to was to improve my times. For 10 kilometer running, the holy grail was to break the 40-minute mark. I was so focused on trying to improve and I started breaking down what time I needed to hit every mile, every half a mile. I started to visualize

Create visualizations of success.

Start to create visualizations. It’s all about the preparation that you do in your head. Start to map out what it feels like. So in running, for example, I started to really believe that I was actually there, I was actually winning the race. Because one of the ways in which you can win, especially in business, is that if you start to visualize and you start to get a picture, a crystal clear picture of what it looks like, how does it feel, then you’ve already won, because your only competition really is you. And that’s what you’ve really got to conquer.

Be present.

Maintain focus under pressure because we’re all under pressure. Especially when you’ve got lots of projects going on. And if you’ve got multiple different ideas going on in your head right now, be present. Because if you focus on one thing at a time, then you’re going to go much faster. Otherwise all the other things become distractions.

Learn from losing and also learn from winning

From a growth mindset, think about whether there was ever a time where things didn’t quite work out? How did it make you feel? Did it make you feel disappointed? The other question you have to ask yourself is did I try my best? Did I go all in? Did I bring my A-game?

You start to analyse, you start to assess yourself. And one of the things that athletes are particularly good at, and this is something that I would highly endorse you guys to do is to self-evaluate. Become aware of your strengths and weaknesses, what are the areas of your life that you’re particularly great at? I always focus on my strengths and delegate my weaknesses. That’s why I have a marketing team, and my marketing team do the stuff that I don’t enjoy doing because I focus on delivering great content like we’re doing now.

Stop comparing yourself to other people.

Now, athletes are particularly good at this. What they do is focus on themselves. They focus on their own performance and take responsibility for it.

Don’t be sucked into the comparison trap, especially if you’re on social media a lot. There, you might read some posts from other people that they have been featured here or done this or achieved that. And then you start to create those negative dialogues in your subconscious. What I would endorse you to do is don’t always believe what you read. That’s the first thing and secondly, comparing yourself to where other people are is only going to degrade your performance.

I really want you to take these points on board more than anything else because I really do believe that you can identify certain patterns of behaviors and self-sabotaging habits by becoming a little bit more aware.

Keep a journal.

You can keep a journal by writing out certain habits, behaviors, and how is it that you feel at certain times. When you start to write down these things in your journal, you become more aware of how you can fix certain things.

Challenge yourself.

For example, this year, I did stay completely out of my comfort zone. We hosted the Game Changers Summit that some of you already know about. And the Game Changers Summit was a digital, online summit with 30 of the world’s leading industry authorities. I had no clue about how to run a summit. I had no clue about systems and processes to streamline to make it more efficient. I didn’t know how I was going to reach people. I had so many unanswered questions about if it was going to work or not.

There wasn’t one time when I said to myself, this is going to fail. I was completely immersed in this summit that we created. I was so focused on helping people and inspiring people so they can take fast and effective action. I don’t want people to become me, I want people to become themselves.

You don’t see behind the scenes. I couldn’t have done any better than I already did. And that goes to my team as well, because without a team, there’s no way I would have been able to develop or deliver a successful online summit. It was the very first time and we reached over 2000 people. We impacted 2000 lives. And we delivered some amazing content.

This is what the zone feels like.

We are thinking about relaunching the Game Changers Summit to reach out to the people that didn’t listen to it the first time. If you’re interested in listening to 30 of the world’s leading industry authorities, please drop me an email to hello@adamstrong.net.

I gave him some great tips and insights about how to create and build momentum. Now, a lot of people have been asking me questions about how to get into this action taking mindset, because people are struggling with creating this momentum.

Today I’m going to give you share some tips and advice about how you can build momentum. And more importantly, how you can then sustain your momentum.

Especially now with so much going on in the world, there are so many distractions. And most of us are probably working from home as well, which is a distraction in its own. My circumstances include having two young kids, one is the age of two, one is five months. Balancing family life as well as running three companies now is extremely challenging. The challenge is in finding the fine balance and seeing what works for you and what doesn’t work for you.

ONE: Treat momentum as a mindset.

Consider momentum as a state of mind that we need to get ourselves into. The first step is to think about what impact you want to create. Think of the end result.

Remember not to focus on the numbers because you’re going to put so much pressure on yourself. If you don’t hit the numbers, you’ll feel disappointed. Many people use the numbers as a platform to see whether they have been successful or not.

Instead, think about what the long-term and the short-term impacts are that you want to create. Whether you’re working on writing a book, launching your own podcast like me, whether that be attracting new clients, growing your clients or whatever it might be or launching a product, the fundamentals don’t change. Think of the impact that whatever it is that you’re doing right now will have. What do you want to try to create for people? It’s super important to get an understanding of that.

TWO: Think about how you want to make people feel.

Essentially, this is not about you. This is about the people that you are speaking to, your prospects, your target market, your niche. How do you want them to feel based on the experience that you give them?

Keep that in mind because we get too wrapped up in the numbers. We get too wrapped up in earning a certain amount of money or having a certain amount of leads. Come away from that because what you’re doing is scratching the surface level. You need to go much deeper into how it is that you want to make people feel. If you can understand the emotions that you want to create for people, then you can essentially mold whatever it is that you are trying to get out there

THREE: Know what value you bring to the table.

I come from a place of service. The more that I serve people, the more that I help people, I know that I’m doing my duty. I feel that from my perspective, my bigger purpose in life is to genuinely help people.

What Is it that you bring to the table in terms of value?

FOUR: Serve without expectation.

I just create endless amounts of content, but have no expectations. If you have an expectation, you become disappointed. It’s the same in relationships. If you have expectations, and they have not clearly been communicated, then you’re going to be disappointed.

Never have expectations. Just do what is best. Try to perform at your best and to give the best.

I bring my A-game. But I serve without expectation. We created and launched the Game Changers Summit, which was a summit over a 30-day period and included 30 of the world’s leading industry authorities in entrepreneurship, startups, mindset, branding and marketing. We had leaders like Jack Canfield and John Demartini speak.

Everything was offered for free without expectation.

Soon after the Game Changers Summit, I was featured on the front cover of a big magazine called Influential People Magazine. I’ve also been nominated for an award and have a pool of opportunities coming in to my inbox. I get daily emails from people saying, “I love your podcast, you inspire me, you energize me.” I get reviews, and all of this is like fuel. This gives me this higher purpose in life. It makes me fulfilled.

FIVE: Focus, focus, focus.

If you find it difficult to focus on one thing at a time, I would endorse you to think about the thing that’s most important to you and your clients right now. Ask yourself what it is that works. What is it that doesn’t work? And focus on getting it done.

We will soon release an article about how I get into the zone.

SIX: Block out distractions.

There are so many distractions in the world right now, especially the media and your environment. Many people are working from home and that also presents so many different distractions.

Get yourself a sheet of paper and write down all of the things that distract you and prevent you from moving forwards and from taking action. Include those things that cause these hurdles that prevent you from going in a different direction. If you make a list of those things, you can then identify the major disruptions in your life. You also identify how you’re going to be able to replace it or change it to become more aware of what you need to do in terms of taking action.

SEVEN: Create high energy and enthusiasm.

When we talk about growing a business, it’s all around trust and credibility. This means that it’s not about the product that you sell, it’s not about the service that you offer. It’s about the energy that you’re giving off to people.

For example, speaking in a monotonous, softer voice fails to clearly show any enthusiasm for what is being offered. However, speaking more energetically draws more interest.

The energy that you give off and the enthusiasm is going to attract people. Energy and enthusiasm sells and it draws a particular crowd of people.

EIGHT: Change your environment.

A good friend of mine asked how it is that I’m able to say so productive. They’ve just moved into an office and she said, “I love working from home, but I just I feel like it don’t get much stuff done.”

If you are in an environment where it uplifts you and gives you energy and gives you focus time, then that’s fantastic. But if you are in an environment where you don’t get any of those things, then you need to change your environment. Some people work particularly well from home, some people don’t. If you are working in a co-working space or an environment where you have toxic employees, or you have toxic people around you, you need to change your environment. You need to avoid the toxicity out there.

NINE: Work in surges.

One of the best ways to describe a surge is with the use of an annual calendar. I tend to work off my financial year and our financial year-end is at the end of January.

A surge as essentially a maximum of around three months, and within that three months, it’s complete focus time. Focus on all the things that you would like to impact and accomplish, whether it be to launch a programme, launch product, connect or build relationships.

After a surge, you have a period of reflection. A period of reflection is essentially a minimum of a week, during which you sit down you go through all the things that you’ve achieved, and you give yourself a pat on the back and some down-time. This is a switched-off time because entrepreneurs and business owners can be extremely hard on ourselves in terms of getting stuff done.

Create a surge over a maximum of around three months. And then have a minimum of one week and then you plan it out throughout the year

TEN: Celebrate your wins.

As a former elite athlete, one of the things that I find particularly difficult is that I’m extremely hard on myself, purely because that is just the way I’ve grown up. That’s the way I’ve been wired. If I don’t feel like I’m achieving or performing at a high level, I’m going to be hard on myself. But what’s really important is that, if you’ve accomplished something, even if it’s a small win, make sure you celebrate that.

ELEVEN: Take calculated risks.

If you take risk out, you take opportunity out. I know that there is a lot of people that are fearful right now, but if you don’t take any risks, then opportunities do not materialise.

TWELVE: Just do it.

Learn to have a mentality of just doing it. Don’t worry about what other people think about you. In last week’s article, we talked about being more authentic and about judgments and not thinking about what people think about you.

THIRTEEN: There’s no such thing as perfection.

Let me repeat this one: there is no such thing as perfection. So, if you are holding off, waiting for normality or you’re waiting for the environment to be perfect or you’re waiting for the perfect time, that time will never come. There’s never going to be a perfect time. There’s never going to be a Perfect place. Just get out there. Otherwise, your offering will be outdated that you’re going to be full of regrets. And you could be helping so many people. I speak from experience.

FOURTEEN: Stop chasing the money.

Something I see right now, because there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty, is that people are focused on chasing the money. I come from a place of service, and money is a byproduct of your success.

The more people that you serve, and that you help, the more people that will trust you and build your credibility. This is the long game. Rather than focusing on making a certain amount of money or creating an amount of leads, focus on serving.

What you need to think about right now is what the vision is that you want to create and what the impact is that you want to create. Stop chasing the money and it will come. But it’s going to take a little bit of time.

FIFTEEN: Just be you.

From my perspective, there are so many fake people out there. There are so many people that are trying to make it all about them. It’s not about you. It’s about the people that you can help. Push your ego to one side. The more that you help people, the more that the universe will reward you in kind.

I know that this stuff works because it’s happened to me. Some of the most influential people that I have interviewed such as Jack Canfield and John Demartini believe it as well.

I hope that this has helped you to create that momentum that we all need right now. Remember, if you’re looking for more free resources to help with business, mindset and many other topics, subscribe to the Game Changers Experience podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

This is amplified by the amount of social media out there, whether it be on Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram. I see so many people out there right now that are consistently trying to put on this mask of what who they are and to trying and fit in with what society thinks that they should be. This is the reason why I wanted to talk about authenticity on a deeper level.

When I was younger, I lost my hair through alopecia at the age of 10. I actually started wearing a sports cap from the age of 10. If you look at my school pictures, you’ll see me with my sports cap. I had exceptional circumstances, but I was so consciously worried about what other people thought about me. I felt so ashamed of myself. It affected my self-worth. It affected my confidence levels more than anything else.

These judgments about what other people think about us are often not true. We don’t really have any facts or evidence to suggest that what you suspect people are saying is actually true. It’s just made up in your head.

From the age of 16 going through to adulthood, I became stronger, more confident. Now, I don’t care about what other people think of me.

You may have heard the saying, “fake it ‘till you make it”. I really hate that because why should you fake it when you could really just be your authentic yourself? Stop trying to fit in with what you think society wants you to become or be or feel or express yourself in a particular way.

We become the average of the five people we spend most of our time with. Your friends, family and work colleagues want you to become a particular type of person. If you let other people run your life, I will guarantee that you will live a miserable life. Stop trying to fit in with society and with what other people want you to become.

Being authentically yourself is especially important if you run a business. I’m quite an intuitive person. Normally, within the first 10 seconds of someone speaking to me, I can figure out if someone cares if they’re on the right path or there’s something missing. Some of us think with our heads, some of us think all our hearts, but some of us think without guts. And normally, people who go far in business make decisions based on gut feeling. If the energy is right, the decision will almost always be right.

I actually call people out and let them know when something doesn’t feel right. I ask whether there is something they’re not telling me.

One of the best interviews I’ve done this year so far was with Dr. John Demartini. We were talking about living by your values. We should all know what our values are. If you don’t know what your values are, you need to become self-aware. Honestly identify your strengths or weaknesses and what you stand for. Ask yourself what impact you want to create and why.

For example, my values include being hard-working and results driven. To be authentic, transparent, and trustworthy are also some values that are really important to me. We essentially pick up those values through our life experiences, our childhood, what we learn from our parents, and mentors, as we grow up.

One of the things I see, especially in the entrepreneurial world is we don’t live by those values. You’ve got to make sure that you don’t compromise those values. As soon as you dis-align from your values, you’ll start to feel a disconnection. This is one of the reasons people may not feel satisfied in their work.

The disconnection from your values could also lead to copying the actions or content of others. Again, this could be an attempt to fit in with what society wants them to become. It could also be laziness. It could be an attempt to chase the money. What people don’t realise is that if you’re speaking to prospects or customers, they’re going to feel that disconnection.

Living without authenticity will lead to a really miserable life. Instead, focus on building strong and meaningful relationships, but be authentic, be yourself.

What do you need to do to ensure that you’re more authentic?

Number 1: Do what you’re passionate about.

For me, my mission is to help 100,000 entrepreneurs to get through these challenging times. I suppose my legacy is that I want to be known for helping people because my values are set around helping people and I genuinely love to help people. The more people that you help, the more that you are remembered for the right reasons.

Number 2: Love yourself.

This sounds really weird, but love yourself because if you love yourself, you appreciate yourself and you appreciate the people around you.

Number 3: Show compassion to others.

We’re going through challenging times right now. Some people are doing particularly well while some people are not. Showing compassion and empathy is super important.

Number 4: Have a conversation with yourself and identify your “Why”.

The clearer the purpose that you have, the more authentically you could come across the people.

Looking for more resources on living an authentic life? The Game Changers Experience podcast offers more tips and tricks to help you improve. Free on any podcast player.

I’ve been able to take my experience from elite sport and bring it into the business world. One of these lessons that I’ve been working on from a very young age relates to how to build a winning mentality. This has become a focus of a lot of my coaching because mindset is a key fundamental in growing a successful business.

For example, I could give you a blueprint for creating a successful business, but without the right mindset, it almost certainly wouldn’t work. It’s a bit like wanting to run the London Marathon, but with zero experience. You could design a plan for completing the marathon, but without the right mindset, the chance of completing the successfully marathon is very slim. However, if you had conditioned your mindset prior to receiving the plan, you would be much more likely to succeed.

So, how do you start building your winning mentality?

There are a number of things that you need in order to condition your mindset so that you build the right mentality for the success in the future.

Number 1: Take personal responsibility.

One of the things that I have observed in the entrepreneurial world in particular, is the habit of playing the blame game when people don’t succeed. Some people start to blame their partners, their kids or their colleagues.

Remember that for every finger that you point at somebody, there are always four fingers pointing back at you.

Number 2: Make a decision.

Decide if you’re going to move forward or stay as you are. The decision depends on circumstances, but you’ve got to make the decision.

Number 3: Develop a positive belief system.

Believe that you can be a successful entrepreneur, that you can achieve a goal, that you can do what you set out to. If you don’t believe that you can help people, then people are going to feel that — they have an intuition. When I have conversations with people, I go with my gut feeling.

One of the big sticking points for a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners is that they become emotionally attached to the “no”. People may start to compare and start to judge and start to develop negative thought patterns around why they’re not good enough. But you’ve got to believe in yourself more than anything else.

Number 4: Have a great attitude.

A great attitude towards your life is an important part of developing a winning mindset. Without a good attitude, the relationships that you build along the way will be severely affected

Number 5: Go back to your why.

We had a great session with our members in the Game Changers Next Level club. And one of the things that we talked about was how to develop your why. I recommend watching a great TED talk by Simon Sinek on YouTube.

Ask yourself what the reason is that you are on this earth; what’s the reason why you’ve been created? Also ask yourself why your why is it important to you. Stand in front of the mirror and have a Q&A session with yourself. Interrogate yourself and ask what the reason was for doing what you’re doing. challenge yourself to be clear about why you get out of bed in the morning, why you make the content you make or why you want to help people.

Number 6: Eliminate distractions.

The world right now is a little upside down, and there are so many distractions out there. Whether it be social media, whether it be kids, whether it be the environment, the television, there are so many distractions.

You need to figure out if your mindset is being affected through these distractions. Get a pen and paper and write out those distractions in a list. Then, find out ways to remove those distractions.

Number 7: Learn from others.

If you learn from other people’s mistakes, then you essentially shortcut your ways to success. As you learn from their mistakes, it gives you more of a platform to start from. Now, I’m not saying that making mistakes is a bad thing. Rather, trying to minimise those mistakes is going to be crucial in your success.

When I first started running, these 7 methods were a great way to deal with all the negative voices in my head that were telling me that I wasn’t good enough. Using these tips, I was able to flip a switch and change my mindset.

You can read more about my story and how I overcame many obstacles by going to my website:

www.adamstrong.net

Here are 5 things you can do today to become more productive:

Number 1: Get 10 things done before 10am.

If you get 10 things done before 10am, you already feel like you’ve accomplished something really, really big.

Number 2: Block your day into 30-minute segments.

Take your daily schedule, whatever that schedule looks like, and divide the day into 30-minute segments. If this is too much of a challenge, start off with 60-minute segments and note what you spend time on. As you get better, you’ll become more self-disciplined

Number 3: Plan the night before.

If you plan the night before, you’re already set up for the next day. You’ve already done the groundwork and you’ll be able to start the day feeling really prepared.

Number 4: Make a stop-doing list.

Make a list of all the things that take up a lot of your time and identify those items that you can delegate. This can help you save time.

Number 5: Take at least 36 hours to do absolutely nothing.

On a Saturday, I tend to finish my day at 12 noon, and then I don’t go back to my computer until at least six or 7am Monday morning. The reason for that is because I need time to switch off. I need time to reflect and see what I’ve accomplished and what are the wins of the week and what improvements I can make.

Looking for more resources on productivity? The Game Changers Experience podcast offers more tips and tricks to help you improve.