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The Impact Entrepreneur

Mike Flynn takes you behind closed doors and invites you into his conversations with game changing entrepreneurs. These conversations go beyond success and failure, beyond product or service or platform, to uncover what is really behind the decisions these entrepreneurs make and what IMPACT they hope to have in the world.
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Now displaying: December, 2017
Dec 25, 2017

Last week, I started counting down my five favorite impact moments from the show in 2017. Today we’re wrapping up the year by reflecting on the words of a truly incredible and inspirational person: Mel Robbins.

 

Mel is an expert on leadership and defeating doubt, a motivational powerhouse, and the best-selling author of The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage.

 

The #5SecondRule is unbelievably simple, but practicing it can change the way you approach life – and I don’t know if there’s a better New Year’s Resolution than choosing to implement it in your daily life.

 

Don’t remember what the #5SecondRule is? Here’s a refresher...

 

The first thing you have to understand is that your whole life happens in five second windows.

 

Throughout your day, whether you’re flying high or down in the dumps, you’re making decisions… and when you’re not paying attention, you make decisions based on self-doubt, procrastination, fears, excuses, and feelings.

 

However, within any five second window, you have the choice to ether let self-doubt pull you back down the path or beat the habit of self doubt and take a step forward. “Once you understand the power to these five second decisions, you have the secret to changing absolutely everything.”

 

How does The Five Second Rule work?

 

It’s incredibly simple: the moment you are facing a decision and you are beginning to doubt yourself, count 5-4-3-2-1 in your head.

 

Don’t count up, because you can keep going – when you count backwards, your brain is allowed to shift gears; you can turn off the interior region of the brain where habits are encoded and self-doubt lives, and turn on your prefrontal cortex.

 

By counting, which is an action, you are already making a different decision than listening to self-doubt, and by counting you are moving in a direction that is opposite of self-doubt. As dumb as it may sound, the actual act of counting is incredibly powerful.

 

Bring your resolution to the next level with the 5 Second Journal

 

The 5 Second Journal was created for real people who might miss a couple days of journaling, have a desire to quit forgetting their best friend’s birthday, and want to bring out the badass within by using a simple and science-back solution proven to get the important (and real life) sh*t done.

 

Get your own journal and start 2018 off right by going to 5secondjournal.com.

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

 

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters

Dec 18, 2017

2017 has been a wild ride, and I am so grateful that you all have been going on this journey with me. To celebrate the year’s end, I’m sharing the five most impactful moments from the show this year.

 

#5 - Ep. 64 – Getting Motivated at Halftime - with Coach Lou Holtz

 

My conversation with Coach Holtz aired in the middle of the year as part of our Halftime Series. If you had a chance to listen, you understand he knows what it takes to lead and he knows what it takes to win. He taught us that there are three powerful keys to motivation: belief, choices, and dreams.



 

Not only did Coach Holtz succinctly describe the motivation process, but he also precisely highlighted that, at the end of the day, only one person is responsible for our choices. So, as is evidenced by his winning record, he is adept at drawing the very best talent out of people, but he also possess the ability to lead people to greatness. And while the title of leader may be given to you from someone else, true leadership is earned.



 

#4 - Ep. 48 – The Secret to Disrupting Human Performance – with Steven Kotler

 

Steven is the best selling author of books like Rise of Superman, Abundance, BOLD and Stealing Fire, and my conversation with Steven was part of our Disruption Series. His core mission is to design a way for you and me to get into a flow state. When our normal sense of self and time vanishes, we are freed from the drudgery of daily life, we possess a sense of effortless motivation, and are able to tap into a level of inspiration that is normally unavailable to us.



 

Think this stuff is all hocus pocus? Well right now the US Government, the Navy SEALs, Apple, Google, and many others are heavily invested in creating and developing environments around this concept in an effort to massively uplevel human performance – to the tune of $4 trillion.



 

Another incredible factoid that Steven dropped has to do with anxiety and excitement. The chemicals our brain releases when we feel anxious are the same as those that release when we feel excited. The difference in how we experience those chemicals is how we frame the event. Seriously… that was awesome.

 

#3 - Ep. 70 – Giving, Purpose, and Fulfillment & Ep. 71 – Mastering Behavior Change: Tap into Your Purpose & Potential – with John Berardi

 

Dr. John Berardi, co-founder of Precision Nutrition, actually joined us for episodes 70 and 71, in which we talked about purpose. In episode 70, we discussed Precision’s marketing philosophy and why they have grown to be as successful as they are. It’s pretty simple: it’s give, give, give, give, ask. And if you have ever signed up for one of their programs, you know they give a ton away. In fact, just recently, they gave away a 70,000-word document that could have surely been a NYTimes best seller – But their marketing tactic is to give.



 

One of the most important lessons they learned early in the business has to do with Scale. Scale is another one of those buzz words, but what happens if you experience the rewards of success before you have the infrastructure behind you to back you up? In PN’s case, they had a HUGE sale that quickly became their greatest weakness. The proceeds from the sale ended up getting flagged and held by their merchant and, over the course of several months, they sold nearly a half a million dollars in product without receiving a single penny.

 

The first episode with JB was so awesome that I had to bring him on again to talk about his approach to goal setting and planning, as well as what drives real behavior change. Instead of focusing on a specific five year plan the achieve X goal or work with X client by X time, JB and his team focused more on being interested than being interesting, when everyone else was being needy, too aspirational, or all about money and getting paid.



 

#2 - Ep. 72 – Living Life Curious, Fulfilled, & with Purpose – with Marie Forleo

 

The wild and successful Marie Forleo’s has had quite a journey: from NYSE to bartending to choreographing hip hop to launching her digital education company to ultimately being dubbed by Oprah as a thought leader for the next generation.



 

And finally, coming in at number 1...

 

...well. actually. you’re going to have to wait until next week when I play that episode in full.

Until then, I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

 

Now go make an impact!


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Resources:

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

 

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters

 

Dec 11, 2017

The creative mindset is powerful – and guess what? We all possess it.

 

Those who have tapped it may sometimes seem as if they possess superpowers but they don’t; they are just normal people like you and me. The creative mind is simply a way off seeing and engaging in the world around us.

 

Put another way, the creative mindset is a powerful thought process that can open doors and enable us to see opportunity where it seemingly did not exist before. In some cases, it can even make the impossible possible.

 

Think for a moment about all the lessons that Rebecca Jackson, the Juilliard-trained violist, learned during her journey and imparted to us through the stories she told back in episode 87. Rebecca has used music to honor Holocaust survivors, unite refugees, and empower children. She’s very much creating a positive Sound Impact in communities all around the world.

 

Learning to play music taught Rebecca many valuable lessons as a child, all of which helped her get to where she is today. Regardless of our skill, abilities, knowledge, or education, there is always room for growth and we always have something more to learn.

 

Who can you learn from? Well, in Rebecca’s case, in addition to learning from her immediate family, her fellow musicians, and the incredible teachers and mentors she encounters along the way, she is also able to learn from the stories of others: the stories told through voice, through music, and through community.  

 

We have to learn to play together to create a collective, beautiful sound, beautiful product, or beautiful community. This requires an important degree of humility and open-mindedness to hear and see other people’s vision.

 

The incredible artist, Blake Jamieson, shared with us in episode 88 that despite growing up in a creative household, the idea of being a successful professional artist seemed outside the realm of possibility. So he pursued a degree in economics and ended up as a digital marketer helping make other people’s dreams a reality.

 

But that voice inside of him, the seed that was planted in him on the day he was born, kept nagging and he knew he needed to make change. The only thing he knew for certain was that his relationships would be a critical element to his success as an entrepreneur.

 

None of us have to follow the paths forged by others – we can all take action, make ourselves more accountable, and treat our ventures as art so that we can achieve the impact we want to have in the world.



 

The eclectic and talented Lauren Mayhew joined us in episode 89. As an actress and performer, Lauren encounters and manages changing environments on a regular, sometimes moment-by-moment, basis. She shared a ton of insight about developing the ability to be fully present in any situation, making your own opportunity, dealing with rejection, managing her own expectations, and much more.

 

These are not just skills for performers; they are life skill that we all need to develop and hone – not just so we can survive, but so that we can THRIVE.

 

Perhaps the most important insight Lauren shared is the importance of following direction. In her case, she receives a script and reads the script based on her interpretation of the character, the environment, the time, the place, her emotional state, etc. Her ability to adapt to the change, to be flexible to those guiding her, can be the difference between landing the role or not. The same is true for all of us.

 

Whether it is a relationship, a business deal, or any other kind of venture, life will throw us curve balls, deals will fall apart, and relationships will change. If we are too rigid, it can prevent us from adapting and ultimately succeeding in life.

 

This is not to say that you should simply toss in the towel if something falls apart. We should pause, listen, learn, and then respond.

 

This is the perfect time to slow down.

 

As many of you know, I am a Christian, and one of the reasons I launched this show is because I want you and I to realize our God-given potential. It is the season of advent in the Christian tradition. This is a period of time when we wait in hope of the birth of our savior, Jesus.

 

But it is not a time for being idle; it is a time of preparation. Prepare your heart, prepare your mind, till the soil, pick the weeds, and remove the rocks in your heart, mind, and soul to make way for new seeds that will bear great fruit.

 

This is not an easy task because it requires us to become quiet in a very noisy world, and reflect on the rocks and weeds that are preventing the seeds God has planted in us from realizing their full potential, from fully blossoming, from bearing the fruit they are intended to.

 

Regardless of your faith, I invite you to examine your heart and mind, and identify the things that are holding you back or preventing the seeds in your heart from bearing the fruit they are intended to.

 

Until next time, go make an impact!

 

Resources:

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

 

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters

Dec 4, 2017

Lauren Mayhew is a powerfully positive person with an eclectic background. She is an actress, a former member of a girl band (that performed with the likes of NSYNC and Destiny’s Child), a TV host, and an EDM performer.

 

Even with all of those notches in her belt, there’s still so much more that Lauren wants to do – “There’s still so much more to accomplish.”

 

Sometimes moving forward means looking back. There’s a reason why cars have a rearview mirror that is smaller than the windshield: it’s important to reflect on the past and see what’s behind you because that informs where you’re going.

 

People like to try to bury the past, but reflecting on both successes and failures can help you in the future – even rejection can be an opportunity.

 

As you move forward, it’s important to stay positive, strive for improvement, and be consistent... although it’s not always easy.

 

Start by identifying the things that will make you more successful, or more well-rounded as a person, and then act on that.

 

“You have to keep driving at it, and that’s what makes the difference. You may not be where you want to be in six months, but you’ll definitely be substantially farther than you were when you started.”

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Resources:

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

 

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters

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