Blaze Your Own Trail - The Value of Clarity and Measurement with Eric Twiggs

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

TakeawaysGet clear on your audience and their needsCreate an outline and focus on the next stepRepurpose existing content for your bookInvest in coaching and surround yourself with a supportive communityDon't let perfectionism hinder progressMake appointments with yourself to stay accountableChapters00:00 Introduction and Background05:07 Life After High School and Discovering Speaking07:06 Transitioning from Corporate to Entrepreneurship09:05 Investing in Personal Growth and Development10:59 Becoming an Author and Speaker13:46 The Importance of Coaching and Community19:30 Tips for Overcoming Procrastination29:18 Becoming a Published Author35:13 Helping Others Overcome ProcrastinationConnect with EricConnect with Jordan:LinkedInInstagramTikTokJoin Jordan's weekly Group Coaching Community Risk Free  Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Eric Twigs, and I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. Yes, hey, Jordan, thank you. This is truly an honor to be on your show. So I am your procrastination prevention partner. I'm the author of The Discipline of Now, and I'm the host of the 30-minute-hour podcast, and I help entrepreneurs to beat procrastination so they can make more money, get more done, and feel more confident. And I am located in Clinton, Maryland, which is in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Awesome. Awesome. Appreciate you, uh, given that context there. And my family and I actually spent a decent

amount of time in the DMV as they call it. So I'm, I'm familiar with where Clinton is. We lived in Bethesda, Maryland. We lived in Fairfax, Virginia. My dad lived in D.C. for a very long time in northwest D.C. So yeah, I'm definitely familiar with that part of the country. So let's, my favorite part of the show, Eric, is really just taking a rewind and getting a sense into our guest story and their journey. You know, how have you blazed your own trail? And so what we want to do is really dive back to adolescent years, you know, elementary middle to high school. You know, what kind of kid were you what type of stuff did you get into were you more into athletics or academics i'd love to just get a sense of a little eric and and some of the things you did back then yeah so it's

interesting so i mean growing up i was in a mixture of both athletics and academics probably more athletics ran track you know i'd play basketball always had an interest in sports but so one of the things that stood out to me when i was growing up was my dad and his work ethic, right? So he, I just always saw him. He's up early. I mean, and, you know, there was no such thing as virtual meetings, you know, in those days. So he's just up and out.

So that just sent me a message that, you know, hard work is critical. And it wired something in me even to this day. And so the other thing is that I found when I was growing up that I was really never a natural right. I was never the guy that just stepped on the golf course for the first time and hit the ball straight down the field. I know people like that. Those type of people irritate me, by the way. That's a whole other topic. But, you know, I was so I literally, I had to really work for things. You know, I had to work to get better at me, whether it was track, whether it was whatever I was doing, I had to apply a certain amount of effort. But I do think that really

served me, like to this day. So now there's certain things that come more natural to me. that I feel like are my gifts. And I apply that same level of focus and effort as if it wasn't a gift. And I think it really helps me. So I think that those are just some things, you know, as I grew up, that they just really stood out to me. Sure, sure. So what kind of lessons can you share?

I'm sure you picked up a bunch, you know, being in track and, you know, doing other sports. So what are some lessons you learn from sports that you feel like kind of help shaped and mold you and things that you think are critical to your success. Well, I mean, one of the things is that you can't manage which you're not measuring. So, like, if you're not measuring, there's a reason we keep score, right? I mean, even if you look at track, if you're, I mean, you should really be measuring every aspect of it. If you're running track, you've got to measure, you know, what your 100 time, what your 200 time, what your 40 time. And as you keep tracking it, that's what it gets better.

So, like, to this day, you know, I just, I'll track it if I want to improve my podcast downloads. You know, I just start tracking it. And that's really, a lot of times, that's the only thing I'm doing different. But all of a sudden things tend to improve because now I'm paying attention, but I'm not aware that, you know, there's subtle little things I'm changing when I see that the result isn't where I wanted to be. So that's something. And the other thing that I picked up, and this was always a big struggle for me was really clarity. Right. I just believe that clarity is the starting point of success.

And, you know, some people, when they arrive on a college campus, they know, yep, I want to be a doctor. So I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to take this internship. I need to do that. I need to do that. I wasn't one of those people. You know, I knew I wanted to get into business, but clarity was always a challenge for me. And so that's something I've really worked on in my career. Just anything I'm doing, I need to be. we'd be clear. We need to know the end from the beginning. So those are some things that come to mind. That's great. That's great.

And so let's talk about after high school, did you end up, you know, going to college and playing sports in college, or did you take more of the academic route there? Yeah, I didn't play sports in college just because I knew in college, it's just a whole different ballgame. It's, you know, sports is like a lifestyle.

You know, and when I was doing it before, it was more fun and that type of thing. But when you get to college, it's all, you're all in. And that's just what you're doing all day all the time. So I didn't do sports in college, but I had, I did have an experience in college that literally shifted me. It really got me to the point of, because I'm always asked, you know, how did you start talking about overcoming procrastination? So it was my, it was my senior year at Hampton University. And I'm having a conversation with a good friend of mine.

His name is Donnell. Now, I have to admit, Jordan, he and I were a little different, right? At the time, he was all about his purpose, and I was all about the party. So I would say, hey, man, you know, let's go. We got this frat party. What are we doing? And he'd say, oh, Eric, you need to really get serious to think about what you want to do and be focused. And I'm like, okay, man, are you coming to the frat party with me or that?

And so several weeks go by, I don't talk to him. But then I get a phone call from his mother out of the blue informing me, that he was killed in a car accident. Completely changed everything. It really sent me a message that maybe I don't have the time that I think to do the things that I want to do. Completely changed everything. I mean,

I am different to this day. And from that moment on, I really started paying attention to what am I procrastinating? What are my priorities? How can I be the most productive person that I can possibly be? That's really where that shifts. already. Yeah, well, sorry for your loss. I know, you know, losing someone close to you is never easy, but I'm definitely happy to see that you've, you know, taken the tragedy and turned it

into triumph and you're helping other people, you know, not make, not make the decision to procrastinate, hey, but figuring out ways. And we're definitely going to get into that here as we go on to the episode. So, so this happens in your senior year. You finish up school. What goes on in your head as far as direction or what you wanted to do after that. That's a great question. So I thought the message from that was, you know what, life is short, time is short. I need to climb the corporate ladder as fast as possible. I need to become successful and, you know, with a company. And that's the, that's the message. So I did that. And I got to a point where I was a district manager in automotive service.

I was pretty young to have that type of position. I had 17 locations. I had 500 employees. We were successful by every measure. We were winning all these awards. I'd walk in the room. Literally, people would be applauding. We were having a lot of success.

But I remember this really plain as day. And I'm driving at BMW and all of that. One damn driving. I'm looking in the rearview mirror. And I realized that the eyes that were looking back at me or the eyes of someone who hated what he was doing. So, like, I was successful, but I really didn't feel significant. So sometimes, you know, you can be climbing, and it's like the old saying.

Sometimes you can be climbing, you know, the ladder of success. And you get to the top and realize you're leaning up against the ladder is leaning up against the wrong building. That was totally where I was at that time. Yeah. And I was there in corporate as well, having the same feelings, the same thoughts. is like this really where I'm supposed to be. So I'd love to know.

I'm sure that's a question that you asked yourself. And what was the answer you got back? So it was really some time, it took some time to discover that, right? I knew it wasn't this, right? And I just started really thinking on, you know, when, when did I really feel like I was lit up? And I was really liking it. And it always went back to when I was speaking in front of a group. I remember, like I was, at one point before I became a district manager, I was a corporate trainer.

And I would, after the classes, I remember I would always say, man, you know, there are people who actually get paid to do this all the time. Man, how cool would that be? I would really be thinking that all the time. And then finally, I started getting the feeling like, hey, you know what? I should be a motivational speaker, inspirational speaker. I mean, then I started procrastinating because then I started thinking, oh, wow, who's going to pay me to come talk to their group? Well, you know, who do I think I am? Les Brown, Tony Robbins? They've said everything that needs to be said on this topic. But, but finally, after some procrastination, I joined Toastmasters International. And so I joined Toastmasters, and all of a sudden I started winning these speech competitions.

Then I met someone who trained professional speakers. I took his course and literally. with one event made back everything, you know, I was paying for the course based off of one ID he gave me. So I took that as a sign that I joined the National Speakers Association and the rest is history. And I just really just kept pursuing it from there. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And what I really take away from this is you decided to invest in you, right? You decided to invest in your, in your craft, invest in your ability to be better, right? Even though, you had won some awards in corporate and a lot of that I'm sure was based on your ability to sell right

the ability to communicate effectively which is speaking right but now you've kind of said hey you know what I want to I want to take the next step here and I want to actually invest in me so that I can get to the levels that that you wanted to get to and I want everyone that's going to listen to this or watch this so important that we invest in ourselves because we're sending ourselves a message, right? We're sending ourselves a message saying, I'm worth it. If I'm going to do this, I need to do this the right way. And when you can get people that have been there and that have done it to show you the way, it's just going to collapse the timeline for you. So for people that are procrastinating on investing in your business, don't make that mistake,

because I've been there. I know Eric's been there, you know, and it's so much better on the other side. absolutely but so here's the thing now that the challenges that what got you to that point is like let's say you're an entrepreneur you got there by just kind of just taking the bull by the horns and making it happen and figuring it out and you can almost think that you know getting help is a sign of weakness right but i'm struck by something that tim grover said Tim Grover is Michael Jordan's coach, he was his personal coach right, that helped him with his workouts and everything.

He said something that, you know, Jordan is proof that you don't have to be bad to get better. And you just have to understand that. Just because you're asking for help doesn't mean that you're flawed. It means that you're just trying to get to the next level. And there's no coincidence to anybody that we think about, okay,

who's the greatest of all time, whether it's Tom Brady or Michael Jordan or LeBron. James. At some point, they were under a Hall of Fame coach. That's not a coincidence. And you have to look at it from your business the same way. You really have to get to the next level, invest in the right coach. Spend time with a group of people who are going in the same direction as you. Find me a peak performer that doesn't have a coach that is not a part of a team. I don't think it's possible for a true peak performer to not have those things in place.

Yeah, coaches, mentors, you know, people in your corner. Let's call it community. You know, everybody needs that no matter whether you're in corporate or whether you're an entrepreneur or you're thinking about being an entrepreneur, we all need people around us that are in our corner that like Eric said are like-minded. You know, these people are moving in the same direction as us, hopefully is up, not down. And it's important to surround ourselves. with those kind of people because you're going to fall.

You know, that's the one thing that I always guarantee my clients is, hey, you work with me, you're going to have some adversity come your way. Because when you're out to do good things, more, it seems like more things are just trying to come right back after you. So I'd love to learn when you first started speaking, because I know a lot of our listeners are speakers or some of them are just getting started and they want to start getting those paid speaking gigs. But I do want to kind of like shed the light on the reality of the business. So if you wouldn't mind when you first got your first gig versus fast forward to today,

what was the difference in revenue for your business and how many shifts did it take to get you from A to B? So it was interesting. You know, you think when you start speaking, you're going to be, you know, Zig Ziglar, right? you're instantly going to be out there and he makes it look so easy you know the late zigzigler he made it look so easy he's out there in front of 15,000 people or less brown but it's a process and you know when you first start out you have to really be strategic and think about speaking for free but be strategic and really the key to really jordan to making this work is really again clarity knowing your audience you know so i'll speak for free if it's somebody that's in my, if my audience is seven figure entrepreneurs, you know, and I know that these people are going to be in the audience, yeah, will I speak for that group at no charge? Absolutely. And one of the things I'll say, though, is you have to think leverage as well. So you have to be thinking about,

okay, what's the next step? Okay. So I get paid for the engagement. I go, I talk to the people. What is the ideal outcome? Do I want them to purchase my book? Do I want them to purchase my book? Do I want them to purchase my product. Am I looking to bring on coaching clients? And that's where I've had a lot of success as far as getting coaching clients from people who, I mean, they still see you speak. And that's just such a powerful authority when you're standing there speaking. So I would advise someone, even if you're saying speaking isn't your main thing,

getting in front of a group can be huge. It just really amplifies your authority. and the next thing you know, they're like, how can I get more? You know, do you take on clients? Do you this? Do you that? So I've gotten a lot of those opportunities that way. So that's something.

But just I would just going in, if you're going in from the beginning, the best thing is to get that experience. And then over time, you'll be able to charge more. Yes. Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's all about the reps. Even though an engagement may not pay you something, there is a way to get an ROI out of that event.

And you mentioned some really great things, whether that's negotiating to let them sell your book at a table, right, where you're going to drive revenue from there. And then if your book is dialed in the right way and it has the right call to actions and funnels people to a back-end offer, then those minimal $20 to $30 transactions can actually build a relationship with the reader and turn that into even a higher-paying client, as well. So yeah, no, great ideas, Eric, and those are definitely some things that I've personally

used. And really, it's about your presentation as well. How are you telling a story that gets them to connect to you and to see their problem in you, right, that you're able to actually help solve their problem. Because if you can achieve that, like Eric said, I mean, you've already have literally the, you have the space, you know, you have the room, and you have the authority, and you literally are what the folks could be potentially looking for. Absolutely. And I would say this, too, is that you really have to dominate wherever you are, right? I mean, you know, and funny thing, I've gotten a lot of breakthroughs from small audiences

and small situations where I've gone in thinking, I could have easily thought, oh, goodness, this is just a waste of my time. Oh, my God, I'm just going to go ahead and just get this over with it mailing it. I have learned you just never know who's in the audience. You can have five people, and one of those people can give you a game-changing opportunity. I've seen it so many times. So literally, you have to, if your goal is to speak in a 20,000 person arena and have it full, you need to visualize that while you're speaking to 10 people.

And speak to those people with the same passion, the same urgency you would if it was 20,000. And you'd be surprised they may get to the point where it's $20,000 one day because of that talk you're having right then and there. So I think that would be a great piece of advice for the person who's watching or listening to us to write down. No, I completely agree with that. And I've had rooms of 15 or less that have turned into multiple clients, right? Because what's nice about an intimate audience is they have access to you right there. and people are going to take advantage and the questions that they ask you and the answers that you give back going to those people. I mean, that is like deep, deep connection.

And so, yeah, I completely agree with that that even smaller groups, it doesn't really matter the size. What matters is your ability to navigate the room and to be able to help them in real time, which is great. So let's shift a little bit into you're speaking at Toastmasters, you're winning awards, which is amazing, kudos to that. And now you're picking up bigger engagements, I'm sure, going from free to fee. At some point where now there's an investment for people to bring you on, and maybe you're packaging it now with other offers. So walk us through that timeline, if you will,

and then how much effort and energy and what types of investments outside of Toastmasters did you have to make into yourself to help you accelerate and actually grow? Yeah, great questions again. So I had a speech coach who is very, I mean, he won the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. And he speaks, he's all over the world. I had a speech coach and I would literally send him my videos. And it was, it's a humbling experience, Jordan, because a lot of times I, you know, someone would give me some feedback on how I was speaking. And I would, I don't believe that.

And I'd send the video to my coach. And he said, yeah, he's right. I'm like, oh, okay. But yeah, the coaching really helped. And not only that, being in a National Speakers Association was very helpful as well because you're in, you know, a meeting with all these great speakers. So a quick story. So like I had, there's a guy.

His name is Dr. Willie Jolly. He's a very well-known motivational speaker. He's in the Speaking Hall of Fame. When I was first starting as a speaker, I told my dad I wanted to be a speaker. And he said, you know what? You need to follow this guy, gave him his book and everything else, this guy, Dr. Willie Jolly. So he's like my first picture of a professional speaker.

And so as I get to my journey, I get to my first National Speakers Association meeting, Dr. Willie Jolly's there. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. We're sitting at the table, we're talking, and he would go on to write the forward for my book. the discipline of now. So it was like a complete full circle moment. But investing in that group, I mean, they just, I mean, he would just give me so many tips. So, so Eric, you know, when you do an event, you need to have this type of brochure. Here's what you need to say. Here's what you need, who you need to be targeting. Because there's so many little nuances. The people that are

crushing it, they make it look easy. But there's so much nuance to get to that next place. No, I agree with that completely. And there's so much strategy that you have to build in on the front end in order to get to the offer on the back end. And I think a lot of people discount it because it does look easy. And if it looks easy, it means that the people are really good at their craft, you know. And it also means that they've done it over and over and over again. And that's really one of the things that I've seen has been consistent, Eric, in your journey. journey is you have become a practitioner of each thing that you're diving into.

And I would love to get your thoughts on that. Like, you know, how important is it for you and the people that you work with that they become a practitioner of not procrastinating? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you have to take action. I mean, that's the key. But it's not just about taking action. It's about taking the right actions, right?

Because you can just be doing the wrong things. You can spin your wheel. right you can yeah i'm working so hard oh man i'm burning them i'm burning i'm grinding i'm burning the candle at both ends but are you doing the right things and so i think becoming a practitioner is yes there is a required work ethic you have to put in the work but you also have to know what the right work is and be taking the right steps and that's why again a coach comes in they can point out to you some of those blind spots. Hey, you're doing this, but you should try that.

And it helps to have someone who has done what you are attempting to do, right? And they can tell you. I never forget, so have a coach now. And for the podcast, you know, I'd been sending out invites to certain specific people in my niche to get them to be on the show. And nobody was responding. Like, it was just crickets. I'm like, man, what is going on here? And so I was talking to my coach.

It was recent. I was talking to my coach. And she was like, you know, have you considered this, this, this? You should probably say this in the message. And I did that. I added, like, one line to what I was saying. Complete game changer. All of a sudden, just about everybody I was pitching this to now.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And all I changed was that one line. I could have kept working hard, right? I could just sit that to 100 people, but having the coach, again, it made me a better practitioner. So now I can communicate, I can work with effort and efficiency because I'm doing the right things. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's just that one kind of subtle switch, right? It might not even be almost visible to the human eyes.

It's that small, but it can make a world of difference. And, you know, I have a buddy recently paid $75 grand for 15 minutes of someone's time. And a lot of people might say, like, that just seems like a stupid investment. And it's like, well, if that 15 minutes gives you that one slight tweak in your business that brings you from $50,000 months to $100,000 months, I would say that that $75K was well worth it. 100%. So, like, my coach, she's in mastermind groups where it's like $100,000 to get in this group. You had to pay. So you said, just for what you said, you know, to get.

And these are, I mean, again, if you can just spend $100,000 to get into a mastermind group, you're at a certain level. But they're interested in getting to the next level. And they know all it takes, like you said, is that one little tweak that can take you from where you are to where you're trying to get. Yeah, yeah. And I love when clients that I'm working with have those epiphanies. I was helping a client recently and in her, I think, third call with me. I just said, you know what? Like we need to do something with your pricing because it just seems too good to be true. It's too cheap. And we basically, I said, are you willing to give yourself a 50% raise? And she said, that sounds great. Let's do that, right? And so she had to see the value.

you, right? Because I said, listen, you've been doing what you're doing longer than I'm doing what I'm doing. And this is where my rates are. And when I said that to her, the light bulb kind of went off and she started to then see the value in everything that she put into it. And I got a message, a DM, and she said, hey, I was able to sell it for the $9,500. And how cool is that, right? When it just took me saying there's value. in it, here's a scenario to look at to where she then saw it, and now she just doubled her revenue. I mean, and she can do that with the next client and with the client after that. And so that value becomes exponential.

Yeah, it's funny you say that. I had a similar experience, again, with another coach I had years ago. And I had somebody reached out to me wanting me to speak at this government agency. And I was planning to charge this. I just mentioned it to my coach at the time in passing. And she's like, oh, no, no, no, that's too low. You need to charge this. And I'm like, really?

You sure? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you should charge that. I'm like, oh, okay. And I offered, they were like, okay. So it was thousands and thousands of more dollars that had I not had a coach, I would have missed out on. Yep, 100%. Yeah.

So let's dive a little bit into the topic of becoming an author. Because I know that's a lot of people have that on their wish list or their vision board or their big, hairy, audacious goals, something that a lot of people want to check off before they check out, so to speak. So I'd love for you to share a few tips. Maybe there are things that you did when you decided that that was an avenue or something that you wanted to get done. But what would be maybe your top three tips on becoming a published author? So I would say number one, get clear. Again, really get clear on, you know, who are you writing to? You know, really have that avatar. Like it should be, you know, it's a 42-year-old person who works at corporate America,

but wants to have his own business. He's got to, I mean, really get that level of clarity. Give him a name to Eric. It's entrepreneur Eric. Eric is 42 years old. Eric wants to get from where he is now to being a full-time entrepreneur. So if you can gain that level of clarity and then you're writing exactly to Eric. What is Eric's problem? What is Eric's life like? So I think that would be one piece, really getting your avatar clear and you're talking to that person because guess what? Eric will raise his hand and like, oh my goodness, he's talking to me.

and share the book as well. I think number two, for me, too, is really going about it and just having an outline as opposed to just sitting down and just trying to start writing. That's what I did wrong. When I first started, I was going to sit down and just start writing. But as really, you know, okay, what's the title? You know, what are the, you're going to have 12 chapters? What are the 12 chapters going to be?

And then you just kind of having bullet points for each chapter. And then things evolve, you know, as you're in the. mix of the writing. You may think the chapter is going to be this, but as you start filling out the bullet points, you say, oh man, no, it's really about this. The same thing with the title. Number three is that you can take the existing content that you already have, and that can be really become a big part of your book. So, for example, if you have a podcast, which I would encourage everybody to get a podcast. But if you have a podcast

and you if you've got 100 episodes, you can pull out 12 episodes that are on a topic or theme that you're really passionate about and there's all kinds of tools like the script

and other things, but you can get it transcribed into words and then get an editor and you start, and that's your book. So that's because a lot of times

we, you know, we again, try to sit there and look at a blinking cursor and now you've got writers block, But you don't really have to do that. You take advantage of the technology. Look at content.

If you've been writing articles or things like that, you probably have a lot of the things that would go for books. Hopefully I've answered that question. Yeah, I love it. Love those tips. Those are definitely great. And I'm in the process. I've co-authored a couple books.

And right now I'm actually working with a publisher and writing my first solo book. And a lot of the things that you mention are some of the things that we have been doing is part of the process. You've got to have that outline, you know, before before you really even put pen to paper, having that just a little bit of structure really helps you keep things organized. But like you said, there's going to be some, it's going to be some ebbs and some flows, and there's going to be some changes and some shifts. But by having that table of contents, it really does help keep everything dialed in for sure. And other tips were amazing. And so I would love to really share with everybody. When did the kind of main transition into what you're doing now occur?

You know, I know speaking on stages was something that you started doing, starting getting, bringing in more revenue doing that and then, you know, becoming an author. So just give people a little bit of, you know, what was it for you that brought you into full-time entrepreneurship? So just having the book and then having the podcast helped as well. and then just I've been focusing more recently, especially after the pandemic, focusing more on like coaching. So that that's really been kind of my, the main thing, the coaching and the podcasts, and I'll do speaking here and there. But it's challenging to establish your authority without being an author. It's not impossible, but I'll just say it's challenging.

There's other ways in that with the podcasting and everything else that you can create that authority in your space. but it is a challenge. I'll say, like, I noticed a difference from when I didn't have a book from when I had a book. So when I didn't have a book, you know, and I'm talking to somebody, I'd be like, hey, you know, I could speak to your organization about XYZ. When I had the book, people would see it and be like, oh, hey, do you speak to, can you speak to my organization? So they are more likely to proactively reach out to you once you have a book. But I think you have to keep it in. perspective, you know, being an author isn't the end-all, be-all. You have to think about, you know,

people really are going to pay more for implementation than they are information. You have to think about that, right? Because now you have AI, you got Google, you got this. People can get information, right? So you really have to think about they, people want help to implement. That's where coaching comes in. You know, if you're a consultant, that's where consulting comes in. People want to be held accountable. People want, you know, how do I really implement? I see what's in the book. I see what's on Google.

So if you really kind of go into it with that, that can help you to transition. And again, being strategic as well. Love it, love it. And so I'd love for you to share everything you do is centered around helping people to not procrastinate. And so I'd love for you just to share a few tips. that might help people that are doing it today. You know, they're just procrastinating everything. They're procrastinating, starting the podcast.

They're procrastinating jumping into the side hustle and opening up that Etsy shop or the selling things on eBay. They're procrastinating. They're having that cursor blinking on the book, right? Where they've literally written zero words. So what would your tips be for those folks? So the first tip I have is don't allow perfect to become the enemy. of progress, right?

So we always think that we have to have everything figured out before we get started. But you don't, right? You have to be in the military. They say you have to be able to act with imperfect information. They tell you, best case scenario, you're going to have 70% of what you need to know. And that's really best case scenario. But you have to be able to be someone that can act. and really you have to, instead of focusing on knowing everything, you have to focus on what's the next step.

Okay. So if I want to start a podcast, you know, I can't obsess and sell, but the microphone, the this, to that, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, the platforms. No, what's the next step I can take to start the podcast? Okay. The next step is I can call Jordan because I know Jordan is a great podcaster and he can give me some tips. Then Jordan gives that person tips. Then the next steps. And before you know it, you are podcasting.

So that's the key thing. Don't allow perfect to become the enemy of progress. The next piece of advice I would have for someone is to get in the habit of making appointments with yourself. So if you say, yeah, I'm going to work on my book this week. The typical thing that happens is life gets in a way. Before you know it's Friday at 5 o'clock, you haven't done anything to work on the book. So you should say instead, I'm going to make an appointment with myself on Tuesday from 2 o'clock to 2.30 to write the chapter in the book.

So I would say you need to, when you make the appointment, it needs to be the day, the time, and the place that you're going to do it. Is it going to be, are you going to write the book at your home office? Is it going to be at the cafe around the corner? Is it study show that when you include the place, you're 40% more likely to follow through than if you just say, I'm going to set the day and I'm going to set the time. And it's got to be literally a non-negotiable appointment that you make with yourself. So it's like if you have to think about it, if you said you're meeting your good friend at the cafe on Tuesday at 2.30, you wouldn't just stand your good friend up. Right. You wouldn't just not show up and not call.

Right. It's a non-negotiable appointment. If people do those two things, they'll find, like I work with clients that tell me they're chronic procrastinators. And just by getting in the habit and making appointments with themselves. Now they're starting to get more things done. That's great. Yeah, I know those tips are going to be so helpful for so many people. And I definitely want to give you the opportunity to share.

What are some things that you're working on that could be helpful for folks? And if there's any programs that you're up to, feel free to share that as well. Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing would be listening to my podcast, a 30-minute hour. We've got every week, I'm the host. Ted Phil's is my co-host. We're interviewing high achievers, and they're giving specific strategies to help overcome the common business problems. And we always, we have a segment at the end of the 30 minute hour that we call Write This Down. And we each go around, myself, the guest, Ted, and we talk about, okay, based off of today's episode,

what do the people need to write down so they can level up? And so a lot of times that it'll get you around the whole thing of, oh, I don't have all the information. You'll pick up specific nuggets that you can actually log off and go and implement. So that would be the best way that people can get help as far as overcoming procrastination. Start tuning in to the 30-minute hour podcast. Perfect. Awesome. And we'll make sure that we link that down in the show notes.

Well, hey, Eric, I really appreciate you. on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. Continue to blaze your own trail out there. And you're also helping other people blaze their trail through procrastination. So thank you so much again for coming on the show. Hey, thank you for having me.