Welcome to the January 2008 Edition of the Removing Your Roadblocks E-Newsletter.
We have had a strong start to 2008 with a clear vision right out of the gate and I trust that you have too. This E-Newsletter is loaded with ideas to help you create and sustain a strong and consistent 2008 by walking you through my experience working with David Allen’s Getting Things Done and following his instructions on how to use David’s system with Microsoft Tasks.
I love David’s work because it is akin and offers a system to create peace of mind because “an empty mind is a beautiful mind”.
I created a new power point for 2008 which I have already delivered it in Toronto, London, Calgary and Vancouver and I will share some of it in this e-newsletter. I have also received some great feedback that I will share with you also.
One of our goals for 2008 is to attract more corporate speaking opportunities and Laura & I have already attracted two with Canada Life in Toronto in February and Desjardins Financial Services in Calgary in May and we completed this by January 15th and we have lots more to be thankful for at the dawn of 2008. I believe that we are going to be published in the February Edition of The Advocis FORUM Magazine and this article will further our credibility in the pursuit of additional corporate speaking opportunities and one on one coaching work.
Speaking of speaking, with four speaking presentations completed so far with fourteen flights to get there and back I have just experienced my first real mishap out of 175 flights in two years as the flight could not land in Nanaimo, BC on Wednesday, January 9th due to fog and snow. The good news is, on such a short flight from Vancouver, I’ll bet I was one of the few with clean underwear and toiletries … we have to add some humor in somewhere. I stayed over in Vancouver until the next evening and invested the day with working with my clients on the phone.
We are hot and heavy into the production of two Removing Your Roadblocks Booklets & DVDs and we are really excited about these. The Booklets & DVDs will include a transcript and PowerPoint pictures of my Removing Your Roadblocks Speaking Presentations and the booklet will include a DVD of the power point and audio. The booklets will take me off the hook about publishing “the book” as the booklets will help us with the marketing of the public speaking.
Kim Black, Laura and I are also working on The Removing Your Roadblocks “Circuit” which is a Group Coaching Program that we will launch in mid April.
Our practice is filled with like minded clients that have vision, 90 day goals and actions along with results that are a reflection of the clarity that they have as a result of the private work that they do on both their business and personal lives.
So thank you for the opportunity to give thanks for the many blessings that we have received so far in 2008 and read on for some fantastic insights on how to Remove Your Roadblocks To Success for 2008 and may this be your best year ever.
Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
sreilly@leadingadvisor.com
1 877 248 6019
This edition of the E-Newsletter Includes:
- Upgrade - Removing Your Roadblocks PDF & 12 Day E-Course
- New PowerPoint and Booklet & DVD - Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008
- Speaking In A City Near You
- Jim & Barb Holland Are Creating Their Vision
- Getting Things Done
- The Elite Advisor E-Book
- Blogs From Toronto, London, Calgary & Vancouver
Upgrade - Removing Your Roadblocks PDF & 12 Day E-Course
We recorded a 75 minute Removing Your Roadblocks Speaking Presentation that I presented to The Independent Financial Brokers Summit in October 2007. We have combined the audio so that you can view the PowerPoint Presentation on YouTube. We are making the entire presentation available as a free upgrade to those that purchased the Removing Your Roadblocks PDF & 12 Day E-Course. Production will be completed in a few weeks as we have to add an introduction and menus.
New PowerPoint and Booklet & DVD - Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008
Before I introduce the New PowerPoint and Booklet & DVD - Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008 I would like to share some recent feedback.
I received this testimonial for our Removing Your Roadblocks e-newsletter on Tuesday morning, January 15th and I asked the writer for permission to share his comments.
Good morning,
I tremendously enjoyed meeting you and hearing you speak at the Sales Congress in Toronto. I signed up and receive your Leading Advisor newsletter which have been stimulating to this tired old life insurance agent. I thought that I had sent my request for your continuation of these helpful thoughts and ideas and wonder if I am safely back on your mailing list. Thanks for your time in reading and considering my email and my very best wishes to you in your helpful pursuits.
Respectfully,
Michael Harwood
Hi Michael,Thank you for your very kind and inspirational words.
Laura will make sure that you continue to receive the e-newsletter.
I am wondering if I may have your permission to share your kind words with my readers.
Thanks so much,
Simon
Mr. Reilly,
How nice to so quickly read your kind response.
I don't think you can really know your impact on people, your unselfish sharing of meaningful ideas gets absorbed and the source doesn't get recognized or remembered and thanked ... for the many you've helped thank you again.
Any of my thoughts of course you may share.
Michael
And just before I get into the New PowerPoint and Booklet & DVD - Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008 I have some more recent feedback.
Here is some feedback from Phil Hauser who is doing all the right things to build an attractive practice as you can see from his web site and e-newsletter invitation.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Pro-Seminars Follow Up
Hi Simon,
It was great to see you yesterday. Wish I had had a chance to talk a little just to see how things are with you and vice versa but it was a hectic schedule.
Today was pretty good. I must say my two most favourite speakers remain the same. ( Robert Gignac and Simon Reilly )
Just food for thought. Don’t take it as criticism, just comments I heard and overheard about your presentation.
A number of people thought you came across with great energy and had a good message. One of the reasons I would have liked to talk more before hand is I would have had no problem being singled out as someone that has worked with you. I did talk to a few people about our work together but only to the degree that it was very useful in my business.
A couple of other people said they thought your sales pitch was a little strong. That you were only trying to sell something not add value to the day. I find this a little bizarre given a) they are sales people themselves b) I don’t think your selling is too intense c) you gave away a free newsletter and promised not to call people who didn’t express an interest. The only reason I pass the comment along is that I know how hard you work on Pro Seminars and thought you might benefit from the fly on the wall comments I heard. If you can benefit from them all the more power to you. Please don’t take it as a criticism from me. I am not sure that they got the message or really “get” it. .
By the way, I really found the message even better than previous. I value you and your work and frankly I want to see your successes grow as much as my own because of the time we have spent together. As you know, I have seen you speak on a number of occasions and it is always refreshing and energizing for me. One thing you mentioned was the continual (constantly renewing?) nature of or the discipline as we called it in our work. It was a good reminder that there are times when I work to my values easily and things work better, I feel better and so on. I can’t recall the exact words but you said something more along the lines of getting back on the horse when you hit a roadblock.
It was very powerful as always for me.
Again Simon, it was great to see you. I wish you the greatest of successes in 2008!
Philip Hauser, CFP
Sterling Mutuals Inc.
815 Berkshire Drive
London, Ontario
N6J3S6
Subscribe to my newsletter or visit my archive
Hi Phil,It was great to see and talk with you.
Thank you for taking your valuable time to e-mail and for your insight.
Yes my message is strong and I don't take what you passed on the wrong way.
I respect people's points of view and without sounding defensive … there are those that have a vibration that will receive the message and there are those that are so deeply in the grip of the ego mind that rather than do something to change it is easier to shoot the messenger.
Thank you again and have a great weekend.
Simon
P.S. Your e-mail would be so great to put in my e-newsletter, may I have your OK?
Hi Simon,
As always you have hit the nail right on the head and of course you can share my comments.
That is exactly what it is the vibration. You wouldn’t want someone who doesn’t get it to half bite and then get no-where with them.
It was my pleasure to email.
Take care!
Philip Hauser, CFP
Sterling Mutuals Inc.
815 Berkshire Drive
London, Ontario
N6J3S6
519-668-0338
Subscribe to my newsletter or visit my archive
So onto the New PowerPoint and Booklet & DVD - Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008.
We are hot and heavy into the production of two Removing Your Roadblocks Booklets & DVDs and we are really excited about these. The Booklets & DVDs include a transcript and PowerPoint pictures of my Removing Your Roadblocks Speaking Presentations and the booklet will include a DVD of the power point and audio. The booklets will take me off the hook about publishing “the book” as the booklets will help us with the marketing of the public speaking.
Given the limited amount of space in the E-Newsletter I am going to share some of the PowerPoints and the transcription that goes with the slide.
Please note that this is pre-production material and it will likely need to be edited.
I want to talk about an overview of this presentation. I’m going to do an introduction in a few minutes. I want to talk to you about my history of management and time, and how I spent last week. I’m going to expand upon what I did last week to set up my 2008. I want to talk to you about who and why you do your vision and planning for 2008 because it’s more about who you are and why you do it verses what to do and I’ll expand upon that. I’ll talk to you about the 2008 planning process; I’ll talk to you about benefits. I’ll talk to you about why we don’t, and again solutions and I’m going to ask also for an invitation or invite you to subscribe you to my free e-newsletter and I’d like to have a conversation with you.
Now, my history of time management - 1955 (the year I was born) to 1995. I had a lot of unmet needs. I was a worker. There was no management of time and there was no management. I had no system, so from 1955 to 1980 I was a worker and in 1980 I went into the BC construction industry. I was in sales. I was providing glass windows to stick frame condos, multifamily high rises. I believed in the power of 100. I had this little territory in the Fraser Valley. My territory was Abbotsford and Mission. That’s where I was supposed to be marketing these windows. Well by the time I was finished I had expanded the territory as far north as Tumbler Ridge, BC and as far South as San Bernardino, CA.
We used to go around in our sales meetings, “what are you going to do this month?” $20,000 “What are you going to do this month?” $50,000 “What are you going to do this month?” $100,000; then they would get to me $1.1, $1.2 - that was million a month! You name it, I had the contractors. But I was driven. I was a worker. I was driven my subconscious unmet needs at that particular time I didn’t know anything about.
Now interestingly, one of my clients, my biggest client said “Simon, you gotta get your shit together”. I was waking up in the morning I was like a cyclone. My hands were like that sticky fly-paper stuff that pulled down from the ceiling. Whatever stuck to my hand that was the thing that I was doing that day. There was no priority. I was running around with my hair on fire fighting fires all day long. So I did this program - It was called Priority Management. It was great! But what it did was it caused me to focus on what was on fire and a lot of things got left behind. So I continued and you can see this quadrant four time management model - who does that belong to? Steven Covey. So what did Covey say? What quadrant did Covey tell you to turn around and focus on?
“Two!” says a member of the audience.
Thank you sir, you’re absolutely right. Quadrant 1 is all about crisis, pressing issues, etc. Quadrant 2 was about planning and deciding what you were going to do so I in a sense graduated into Covey. But at that time I was also pushing adrenaline. What does that mean? Yes, I own the #1 Anthony Robins franchise in North America between 1990 and 1995. And I used to think you could go broke but then I found out you could whistle right on passed zero. That was an expensive lesson. Motivation is unsustainable and I’m going to explain to you why it cannot be sustained. In fact I’m going to go so far as to tell you that it’s completely dysfunctional and I’ll explain that to you in a minute but back to my history of time.
So 1990 Quadrant Four - time management; 1995 that’s when I was complete with the franchise and I went into other training. Other training around family systems theory - emotional release work, inner child work, deep inner work. To get to the point where I developed an understanding so I lived in both worlds I’d been to the motivational world and then I went to the inner world to identify what the challenge was, was motivation because you hear motivational speakers say “if you got limiting beliefs you have to turn around and change that now. You’ve got to be positive and just change that now and all of a sudden everything’s going to be wonderful and you’re going to be happy for the rest of your life!” But then what happens is two days later you just fall back.
I came to realize that the challenge was that if you have limiting beliefs you will have unmet needs to go with it. And the unmet needs are the source of the limiting beliefs and smearing positive beliefs over top of the unmet needs and eliminating emotions isn’t going to make it go away. You’ve got to develop your understanding of these unmet needs and I’m going to expand upon that as I go about this presentation.
So then 1997 came along and I finally sat down and wrote a vision, purpose and mission for my life and my business and that vision, purpose and mission has been realized but it wasn’t until I understood the concept of unmet needs. Because these unmet needs of safety and security and approval and worthiness were driving me and I couldn’t see clearly to be able to develop the vision that I was looking for so as a result of my experience I’ve dedicated the rest of my business life to be able to share my experience with you this technology so that you don’t have to give up your life or you business so you don’t have to make the same kind of mistakes that I’ve made. So what has this vision been able to do for me?
Well in 2005-2007 we identified Leading Advisor as the company name. It wasn’t always called that. It was called Executive Coaching Systems before that and I wasn’t even true to my niche. I was spread all over the place. I was coaching the number one Re/Max Realtor in California, and I was coaching the company that is the largest distributor of fine writing instruments in the world. How do you market that? That’s impossible. But when I stepped back and took a look, 60% of my practice was working with financial advisors for the last decade so for me, it was easy. I’m just going to work with financial advisors; that’s it. Forget the real estate, forget marketing MontBlanc and all the other fine writing instrument, retailers, and manufactures; let’s just get focused.
Developed a team; hired a virtual assistant, an IT support person, a web site contractor, bookkeeper, accountant, coaches - business and personnel. Again, developed a niche market - developed the brand - “Removing Your Roadblocks” - that’s the brand. And then to go with that, we relocated, (and that’s not a spelling mistake if you’re reading it). It’s called the “hoffice”, meaning it’s a home office. I live in Parksville, British Columbia with my wife - we work from there. I’ve got a Vancouver identity office. You might see our address as being Vancouver, but most of the time we’re in Parksville. Developed PowerPoint presentations, show reel, speaking at Pro-Seminars, IFB, Advocis, published in the Advocis Forum magazine and, believe it or not, 68 presentations in two years on the road to financial advisors and increased sales by 275% using what I’m going to share with you today. But I’m giving you this in a sense to be able to make it real. This is what I’ve been able to do with it.
My wife and I went to England last summer. We did a retreat following this planning process, so we did it six months ago. I just completed it again. We take a lot of time to make sure we understand what our vision is and where it is that we want to go. But I’m here to tell you that when one has needs of safety, if they’re concerned whether they’re going to survive and they’re worried about what their clients might think of them, and if they don’t think that they’re good enough, they’re not going to take the time to do this kind of thing.
What’s the outcome? So 2008 again - being a visionary, a leader and a manager; looking at gross $500,000, speak at corporate events, expanding the team, adding an executive assistant and a marketing assistant, form strategic alliances, upgrade the Web site, new logo, advertise, developed products including the book and a trade show booth that’s long overdue.
I spent the last week emptying my head into a project management system. I took everything off my mind and got it into my computer. It’s absolutely essential to unload your mind, because if your mind is full of stuff, you cannot think of a vision.
Let me think, Pro-seminars, 8am, Toronto. Gee, did I get that quart of milk my wife asked me to get? Hang on a second, Pro-seminars 8am, Toronto, January 8, ’08. Wait a second, quart of milk; did I get that quart of milk? Now, I’m being foolish here, but that’s the kind of thing that distracts us from where it is that we want to go. We’ve got to take the time. But why don’t we take the time? Why don’t we take the time?
That planning process is about 90% about who you are first of all. Developing who you are and why you want it. But what part is easy? I’m not the first person to talk to you about these planning processes.
So yes, no, or maybe? I’d like you to have a private conversation and ask yourself these questions. Do you know what your values are? Never mind do you know what your values are, are they written down? Your values are the DNA of your guiding system for your vision, your business plan, and your goals. Do you know what they are and are they written down? Have you got a vision, purpose and mission written down? Write it and it will be. Do you have a time management plan? Do you have a money management plan? I’ll expand upon that. Have you got written 90-day goals? This is it. We’re right out of the gate. Now is the time to be writing 90-day goals. Not one-year goals. Yeah, you can write the one-year goals, but then get them down to 90-day goals because they’re measurable, they’re actionable, they’re short term, it’s something you can focus on right now, and something you can use to reward yourself. Then you develop your action steps and how the project management system that allows you to collect the information. Actually, that’s the first thing - collect it. Get everything off your mind. It’s absolutely essential. Then you can process it. Then you can organize it. It gives you a system to be able to review it so that you’re constantly in a space of doing, in action. You’ve got goals. What’s your next action? What’s your next action? You want to be in action.
So there is a sample of what we are doing with transcribing my speaking presentation into a booklet that will include a DVD with the audio and PowerPoint.
Thank you to Christina Greenway for the transcription of the Removing Your Roadblocks To Success In 2008.
Speaking In A City Near You
| Canada Life | February 14th, 2008 | Toronto, ON |
| Pro Seminars | March 3-4th, 2008 | Kitchener, ON |
| Pro Seminars | March 5-6th, 2008 | Toronto, ON |
| Pro Seminars | March 12-13th, 2008 | Vancouver, BC |
| Pro Seminars | March 17-18th, 2008 | Edmonton, AB |
| Advocis Calgary | March 19th, 2008 | Calgary, AB |
| Pro Seminars | March 19-20th, 2008 | Saskatoon, SK |
| IFB Spring Summit | April 24th, 2008 | Calgary, AB |
| IFB Spring Summit | April 28th, 2008 | Vancouver, BC |
| IFB Spring Summit | May 27-28th, 2008 | Toronto, ON |
| Desjardins Financial Services | May 2008 TBA | Calgary, AB |
Jim & Barb Holland Are Creating Their Vision
Hi Barb and Jim,
Thank you so much for your message … as I read it I found myself right in the moment and into the splendor and the spirit of the environment that you chose to do your planning process.
Congratulations for taking the time for both of you to create the space to realize your vision for the future.
I have a request … may I share your e-mail in my e-newsletter as per below.
Thanks for the opportunity to be of service.
Simon
Monday, January 21, 2008
Hi Laura,
As I’m writing this, I can see the majestic beauty of Horseshoe Falls through the window behind the laptop. What a beautiful place to do some good work. Jim and I came up to Niagara Falls to focus completely on our own strategic planning for the year. Our choice to come here was a good one. We have the quiet ambiance of the hotel and are grounded by the sound of water rushing over the lip of the falls as it has for thousands of years. We’re here another day, and if we need to, we’ll stay yet another. We saw the benefit of planning in Jim’s last quarter and are determined to improve and build on that success for an outstanding year.
Hope all is well in beautiful B.C. Give my best to Simon. Jim is looking forward to their Tuesday call.
Barb Holland
Jim & Barb Holland
The Holland Benefits Company
Windsor, ON
jim.holland @ hollandbenefits.com
Getting Things Done
In advance of sharing my experience with David Allen’s Getting Things Done & Ready For Anything I have the following quotes to offer;
“Completing the planning process and emptying the mind working from Microsoft Tasks allows huge feelings to flow through the heart.”“You don't need to think, just be in the now.”
“The ego mind is like a needy a dog, it is always trying to get the approval of its master ... no sense in beating it up - the question is; who is the master?”
Does it frustrate you that as much as you make best efforts to keep yourself organized you often find yourself in burnout and overwhelm?
If this is true and you are committed to creating a simple a consistent solution to the challenges that you are facing, read the following Blog entries that I wrote in the first part of January;
January 7, 2008 - Happy New Year With An Empty Head
January 8, 2008 - Getting Things Done & Outlook
The Elite Advisor E-Book
Blogs From Toronto, London, Calgary & Vancouver
January 8, 2008 - An Executive Decision
January 9, 2008 - Worst Economic Disasters
January 10, 2008 - I Am Not My Computer!
January 10, 2008 - We Can't Land
January 11, 2008 - The First Flight In 175
January 11, 2008 - It's The Principal Of It
January 14, 2008 - Sharing The Joy & Giving Thanks
January 15, 2008 - Canada Life & Desjardins Financial Services Speaking Opportunities
January 16, 2008 - I Don't Think You Can Really Know Your Impact
January 17, 2008 - Many Are Called, Few Are Ready
Thank you for sharing your time.
Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
sreilly@leadingadvisor.com
1 877 248 6019