Jeff Howell: Flow Through Turning Challenges Into Opportunities

Hey, everybody. How’s it going? This is Jeff Howell coming at you with another edition of Mindset Monday. And today I want to go over a few things that have happened to me in the last week and just how I am approaching the challenges, the inevitable challenges on the entrepreneurial journey and seeing them more and more as opportunities to drop in in different ways and to come up with creative solutions along the way. So in getting bombarded and blindsided with different challenges from clients and the CRM and different ways that we are working on the back side to make the CRM perform better, I really felt like I needed to go into a major work sprint and just focus, focus, focus on work. And then as it happens, you know, I have I’ve been really good about not getting distracted by by certain things. But I also see that there are opportunities. You know, my word for 2022 is I’ve mentioned this flow and seeing opportunities to drop more into flow and honoring that. I asked for it. I want to drop into it when it’s presented to me, when the opportunity is presented to me. So last week I kind of started looking at my calendar and looking at different opportunities that were coming up. And Thursday night was the monthly Internet Internet Marketing Party here in Austin, and I’m a member of the Internet Marketing Party Mastermind and just really enjoy those events and the opportunity to connect with other digital marketers and and all of that.

And so that was on Thursday night. So there was not a chance I was going to miss that. And then as I was looking through the events that were kind of happening around town, there was another event on on Friday with a group of people that I really wanted to connect with, and there’s not a lot of opportunity to connect with them. So it would mean that I would need to be kind of like off work or at least just out of pocket for the day for a Friday. So on Friday that’s not as difficult as, say, on a Wednesday or a monday, but it was still going to take me away from my desk, so to speak. And I knew I wouldn’t be as focused and I wouldn’t be as productive on all of the things that I’ve set myself up for and the goals that I have for myself for this quarter, etc. But I knew that I could drop back in on Saturday, so I was like, okay, well, this is sort of like a more, you know, the Thursday night thing is more business. This Friday thing is more pleasure. And then the next thing on the calendar was Sunday with a group of people in Austin to volunteer. And so then I was like, wow, that’s, that’s really cool.

It’s kind of teeing up where I could have like this business opportunity, this pleasure opportunity and this volunteer opportunity that that sounds like flow to me. So I went ahead and, and made a commitment to be it all three of those events and it worked out really well. You know, Thursday night was an amazing event. Friday was amazing. I had a couple of different things that I was able to do, kind of to take a break and then I drop back in to work on Saturday and then Sunday I was able to go out and volunteer, which is very cool and taking those opportunities again and seeing like, Well, I know I have a lot of work to do, but what other benefits can come out of this just from being in flow number one, but also from the people that I’ve met in those different events, even if they were just for pleasure, you know, what kinds of opportunities and relationships can be generated from those opportunities and that could potentially help me move forward towards my goals, even if my goals were more on the business side. And I guess just saying that out loud, it’s like I have personal goals also and those are moving me forward towards my personal goals, which is inevitably going to give me more energy on the business goals that I have, etc. And that’s that free flow of energy that I’m looking for in that word flow for the year 2022.

So so that’s kind of the way I justified setting it up that way instead of just I could have just sat on my desk and just grind it away and just been there, you know, in front of the computer screen grinding away. But I chose to make that decision and it works. It’s worked out really well. I was still able to keep up with everything. I don’t feel behind. I don’t feel overwhelmed. There’s a lot of challenges to overcome, but that’s just the nature of it. So then the second half of this mindset Monday is really around the speaker that spoke at the Internet Marketing Party on Thursday, Tom Shipley, and he’s a very seasoned veteran entrepreneur and investor and has a whole bunch of different things going. And he gave an amazing speech just more again with that mindset part coming in. And the first thing he said when he came on stage was, you know, whatever your goals are, add a couple zeros to it. Like he believes that. Or he has the mindset that the bigger you frame the opportunity, the more you’re going to step up to the plate to be able to find the creative solutions that are necessary to solve that. So if you’re looking at I want to do ten grand a month. Well, what if you were doing what if you were doing $1,000,000 a month? You know, how would that what would you have to do to solve those problems? What would you have to have in place to make that possible? And then your brain starts thinking at a whole different level at that point.

So that was a really cool thing to hear somebody who has been successful and has multiple, you know, very large exits to think about, okay, well, how can you push yourself to the limit to the next level? In other words, maybe not to the limit where you’re you’re burning yourself out, but to the max where you’re getting the most creative energy and solutions out of yourself. And that’s what I’m trying to do with my life on a daily basis with just, you know, the biohacking, neuro hacking, business hacking, whatever you want to call it. It’s like I’m trying to optimize my life from a health standpoint, personal standpoint, relationship standpoint, business standpoint, like everything. So when you have big goals like that, you know, it kind of forces you into that kind of a, you know, dynamic where you really your brain and your subconscious is stepping up to the plate to give you the creative solutions to those kinds of challenges to overcome them. So then he also went into, well, what happens when you have those challenges? Like how can you approach them? And one thing he suggested and we talked about journaling on these mindset Mondays and I am a firm believer in it.

I’ve done it over the years off and on. I kind of dropped back into it over Q4 of last year and have not really kept up with it as much as I’d like to so far this year. But I’m definitely still dropping in with it, especially in these times of like, you know, equinox, solstice, full moon. Like people don’t really tune in to. They think, Oh, well, full moon, that’s all. That’s like super woo woo or whatever. But it’s like you’re following the calendar, you know, every day, every day of the week anyway. It’s like these are just natural sort of rhythms of, of, of time where fall, fall, winter, spring, summer, those are quarterly resets, if you will, and natural in the natural way that nature works. So, you know, I don’t I see those things as opportunities of just sort of like signposts or way stations along the way to reset your thinking, reset, reassess your goals, and to recommit yourself to what you’re trying to accomplish in life. So so that’s kind of the way that I take it right now in this full moon sort of opportunity. That’s one of the things that I’m doing is I’m doing some resetting. So what he said is that when you’re doing these kinds of assessments of your condition, your situation or condition or where you’re at in your life and towards your goals, like think about think from the future standpoint, maybe a year ahead of time, maybe a year, three years ahead, maybe five years ahead.

Looking back on your current situation, what would you tell yourself? What would you be telling yourself if you had that future mindset? You had the wisdom of that you know what you’ve already created, what you’ve already, what you’ve already accomplished. And from that mindset, where does that come into play to give you maybe some creative inspiration that you can implement today or give you some kind of a motivation or some extra piece of of knowledge or awareness or understanding that’s going to help you solve the problems that you have today so that you can get through them. So that was another thing that he said that was very you know, I think that was the most valuable thing that he said was to come at it from that perspective and to do this kind of self assessment, you know, often enough to where, you know, again, when those big challenges come up, then you don’t you don’t get you don’t like freeze or get bogged down by them. But you’re actively using those opportunities to generate more energy and more creative capacity to solve those challenges and to move forward. And ultimately, those challenges become opportunities, like I’m saying and I, you know, I just said problem a few days ago.

It’s still a practice, right? We’ve been programmed to think that anything that is not working, you know, 100%, it’s not 100% easy then it’s a problem, you know? But it’s actually. You know, my own process has been to look at it as a challenge and then to even up level from there and look at it as an opportunity. So I would challenge you guys to maybe take a quick assessment of your top 3 to 5 challenges that you see in your business today. And take this perspective of, well, what was the what’s the one year from now version of me going to? What’s the advice that they’re going to give me? What would they tell me? What’s the three year in the future version of myself going to tell me? What’s the five year version of myself going to tell me? Like, write that out and see what happens. See if you come up with solutions in if you do or whatever your experience is, whatever your experience may be, share it in the comments and let’s play off of each other and see what kind of what kind of progress we can make in this sense. So I appreciate you listening to Mindset Monday and I hope you get some value out of it. And I look forward to hearing your comments and I’ll see you on the next one piece.