Gettin’ “It”

Thousands of words I’ve read. Hundreds of hours of video I’ve watched. PDF’s, .mp3’s, workshops, webinars, E-books too. I get email updates of blogs. I’m registered on several community websites. Magazines, hard-cover books, pamphlets and home-made folders and binders full of information. All of it, I devour in order to help me understand Success.

Oh there are sub-genres and specific niche items too. I am really in love with learning, with digging deeper, with growing and stretching and seeing new possibilities. You all know that I’ve made radical life transformations in the last few years…

A lot of that progress has to do with things I’ve learned, and been taught by great mentors and masters and leaders; some ancient, some cutting edge.

And then last week I had my first live coaching session. Wow. One hour on the phone and I took six pages of notes. My mind was reeling for days; mulling over the ways to implement everything we discussed. It was fantastic, scary as hell and did crystallize one very true and tough pill to swallow.

In fact it was pointy…

“The Point.”

And that is what tonight’s blog is about. I can save you the hours of scouring the web for articles, .mp3’s and free pdf downloads. You won’t need TED talks or blogs to follow, if you  have this one thing clarified.

What is your point?

What is that one short sentence? Maybe even just a verb and a noun, that explains the exact thing you want in your end result?

You see, during my hour long, highly enlightening conversation with my coach, Steve Chandler. He did a tricky thing. When I would tell him a story about what I was doing, and the result I was getting, in hopes that he would encourage my efforts and assure me that I just needed to keep trying; that wasn’t typically his response.

Many times, he simply referred back to it. To the Point.

In my case, as I have enrolled in the Coaching Prosperity School, which is designed to offer coaches all the tools and training it takes to build a successful six-figure coaching practice, they really only have one point. And in relation to this conversation with Steve, it has now become my one point.

Create Clients. 

See, I’ve been “trying” all the ways I know how to inspire people to want to work with me, ways that I’ve learned online through podcasts and go-to-meetings and workbooks and all that other stuff, and guess what? Reading all that stuff, completing the workshops and courses, even building a website and handing out business cards doesn’t “Create Clients.”

So, back to the drawing board, back to suggestions. Time to break my routines, build new ones. Get out of my comfort zone, where the real progress begins, with this one clear end in mind. Time to figure out that when I keep doing, what I been doing, I’ll keep getting what I been getting 🙂

His suggestions were fantastic, insightful and I believe will prove helpful to my end goal.

But it only works that way, because we started with “The Point.”

I’ve had 6 deep conversations this week, with men I admire, respect, trust and believe to be capable of setting the world on fire, if they so choose to. In every conversation, I was practicing my coaching conversation skills to encourage free and open sharing that will result in us finding out what really matters to these men, and how we can make steps together to get them the ultimate results they’re working so hard for…

And yet, because these conversations had a less formal nature, because I kinda sprung it on ’em, because I can’t always pop out this answer perfectly myself, when I would slide into the middle of our talk, a question like “What is the Point, we’re driving at here?” There wasn’t an immediate, confident, clearly defined two-word answer response. In fact, some expressed “I don’t know.”

Well… Heck-a-mile!

Would you believe, that I took the career leap of a lifetime, and have been doing this somewhat insane version of self reliance in the freelance world, without a clearly defined “Point” myself?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Yes, I meant to do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (the punctuation that is 🙂

Somewhere along the line, in life, it wasn’t explained clearly, to me, or these other 6 Highly Respectable Men, that we need a single “Point” to be clearly defined in how we are conducting ourselves in any given endeavor.

I think we could have multiple points, for different parts of life, but again, the simpler the better. When trying to figure out the answer to my career conundrum, or the different real-life, really understandable and really important situations that I’ve been discussing with these guys, we’re kinda spinning our wheels without a “Point”.

We can spend a lot of time talking about symptoms and causes of our problems. We can discuss how one technique could come across different than another. We can rationalize why we need A, B or C, and not D, E or F in our life, but none of that discussion is really making progress unless we know what the “Point” is.

The word “Purpose” could be transplanted in here as well. Although, it sounds more like a phrase or sentence, maybe a small paragraph that has some grandiosity to it, so maybe just “The Point” is better.

When it comes to success, or financial fitness, or health, or career, or even spirituality, I feel like the very first thing that needs to come before all the hard work is this one little piece, that may be a naturally implanted God-given known-truth in our life, or maybe it will be something we search for, for years. Either way, I now am starting to see, that all the progress comes, after we discover, determine, choose, receive or invent, Our “Point”

All other advice and counsel relates to that. Steve (my coach) told me his Point was to Help Me Create Clients. Okay, that works for me!

A couple closing thoughts. Our Point, isn’t Society’s Point. It isn’t something we’ve been sold by an organization, or something that was handed down to us from someone else. Not a parent, a teacher, a boss or even Pastor, can tell us what our Point is… we gotta figure that one out ourselves.

When we then adjust and adapt ourselves to start heading not in the directions of what we’ve been doing, or some new technique, but a direction that gets us closer to the Point, then we’re about to see some miracles happening! Combine yourself with some other people who’ve decided that their Point and your point are similar or identical and watch out! Really super-huge mega-fantastic things are on your horizon.

And when you reach your goals, materialize your Point and are a huge success… (or whatever size you chose to be 🙂 Then you get to write blogs, and books, post videos, host webinars and teach everybody all the unique techniques that took you there…

And, you even tell them your Point too, but I wonder, if it will get lost in all the digi-trash??

I’ve said before, I love the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He expounds deep truths, he recognizes and teaches attitudes and actions of greatness, and he wrote the book as a journal, as Notes to Myself…

Now… it’s time that I work on clarifying more of my Points… It’s gonna be fun!

You know, I want to hear from you, what your thoughts are, and what Big Points you’ve set course toward in your life. However, if my point was to make a blog that had tons of reader response, I’d be a failure and have to give this sucker up 🙂 Instead, I’ll just understand that since you’re here again, there must be something worthwhile on this screen that keeps you comin’ back for more. So thanks again for stoppin’ by 🙂

Take Care Y’all! G’night!

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols


9 thoughts on “Gettin’ “It”

  1. A- Years ago I made a wall quilt- sort of traditional but with a twist- blocks off center and lots of points inserted where you would not expect them- and I named it- “… And Your Point Is?” Even now when other quilters see it they wonder why I didn’t do it traditionally- thats just not the way I saw the work at that time. I know I still haven’t figured out what my point is even after all these years in business- but I’m still loving what I do – the people I’ve met, learning and changing every day and the way my craft/art has evolved and weathering all kinds of business storms – and I have learned “you don’t go to the grocery store to get a haircut”- so interpret that however you want!! Love you and your terrific talent–

    • Chris!! Thanks for sharing your take on this post today 🙂 You know I have a big heart for what you do and Live as someone who truly loves their craft. What a blessing to recognize what that is! Thanks for the Love, and I would love to have your input for a guest post here sometime, whaddya say???

  2. Aaron, good “POINT” here! Way to get “THE POINT” across….
    Seriously, I’m probably more in the “I don’t know” camp. It’s easy to go through live in a mediocre way, not REALLY knowing WHY (the point) you’re doing what you’re doing. My main POINT overall is TO SERVE my family. Others come after that. But I think life would be more meaningful and purposeful if we did have a point. There we’d be “getting down to the nitty gritty” (to quote Nacho Libre).

    • Michael – in your mission “To Serve”, I acknowledge and respect your ever diligent and caring work in that area. I also appreciate your diligence in keeping up our weekly chats. I’m glad to be able to share this kinda thinkin’ stuff with you. And as far as having a Point, a Purpose or One Goal… Nacho would say “I am the gatekeeper to my own destiny and I will have my glory day in the hot sun!”

  3. Aaron I’ve been thinking on this for a few days and I really feel like my “point” is to give people a new perspective on their money. It sounds simple but yet we as a culture have such a different way of how we handle our money compared to God’s way. But keep up the good work, looking forward to see where all of this is going to take you Aaron!

    • Jon!! Thanks for checking in here and it means a lot that you thought on this topic for a couple days 🙂 I feel that puts you among the few, the weird, the leading edge group, who are really willing to dig into the tough and valuable subjects! Let’s get together soooooon!

      Skype me sometime @ aaron.online

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