As a coach, I love great questions. Great questions have the power to shift thought and consciousness. And the question I have for you today is, “What does making an impact mean to you?”
And let’s be honest. Impact can be had on so many levels. I can have a huge impact on a stranger by noticing their smile and telling them that they light up the room.
I can have an impact on a social cause by giving my time and energy to a movement that I believe in.
I can have an impact on my wife by honoring date night and giving her my undivided attention.
Opportunities for impact are everywhere!
And impact isn’t always about having a bigger influence, more income or a larger following. We all get to choose what impact looks like for us.
But here’s where I want to tease some ideas apart when it comes to having an impact.
Don’t confuse your desire to have an impact with your current awareness of what you think is possible.
Let me explain.
At the end of last year I was feeling really torn. I loved the bejesus out of my 1:1 clients and the work I was doing there. I was also feeling the urge to scale up my “impact”, but I couldn’t see how it would be possible without me working harder or changing what I loved to do. And since freedom is one of my highest values, there was no way I was going to pursue more impact if it meant having to hustle harder.
How can you increase your impact, your income and your influence while working less and increasing the value of your offering?
A coach that I hired asked me the following question: “How can you increase your impact, your income and your influence while working less and increasing the value of your offering?” BOOM! Now that’s a great question! And that question haunted me for a good solid month before I could even begin to see an answer.
I’m not going to get into the details of my specific answer right now, but I couldn’t even consider having more impact until I was able to approach it from an entirely new perspective. Answering that one hard question over and over again opened up my creative capacity and allowed me to see new resources that had been available to me all along. I just hadn’t been able to see it yet.
Let’s hit refresh. These two things we now know for sure:
-
We get to choose what “having an impact” means to us…
-
We understand that our desire for “impact” and the path to get there may not be completely obvious based on our current awareness of what’s possible.
Now, if you want to have a bigger impact through your ‘high-touch’ work, it’s important to start with what I call the “money questions.”
-
What is the impact you really, truly want to have?
-
Are you on the road to doing that?
Once we can fully claim the impact that we truly desire to have – some of the friction starts to disappear. And then people, resources, connections and answers seem to come out of nowhere – once you claim the impact you really want to have.
Answering the second question should be pretty straight forward. You’re either currently on the path to creating the impact that you want to have or you’re not. If you’re not, figure out what that looks like and get truckin’.
One way to do this is to check out the upcoming cohort of The Council of Visionary Business Builders.
When I decided that I was committed to answering the question “How can you increase your impact, your income and your influence while working less and increasing the value of your offering?”, I was set on a path of talking to 20+ coaches, consultants and creative professionals who had scaled up their businesses to $1M+ per year. Why? Because if I want to answer that question for myself, I need to have some context about how others have actually done it.
Just like if you wanted to know how to build a $200k+ per year coaching business, I could tell you exactly how I’ve done that.
And here’s where this gets fun. As I talked with these 20+ entrepreneurs that have built businesses that give them more impact, income and influence, I noticed three specific things that ALL OF THEM SHARED!
At this point, you might be trying to guess what they are.
You’ll have to forgive me if I make you wait until the next post.
This is a really important concept, and I want to give you a proper explanation so that you can successfully apply it to your own business.
But if I were to properly explain the three things right now, this article would get much longer.
For now, I want to hear what you think.
If you want to break free from the trap of playing small and hustling all the time – and you have a strong desire to…
-
Become world-class at your zone of brilliance…
-
Generate more income in a way that feels really good to you…
-
And own a business that aligns with your idea of impact…
What do you think are the three things you must focus on?
Hit reply and let me know. I’ll read every response.
Live bravely,
Michael
Hear what a recent Council member had to say about being part of the Council of Visionary Business Builders.
