Let’s start off with what extreme ownership is.
How would you explain it?
My personal definition of extreme ownership is taking ownership of everything in your life, business, family, and especially your mind. Not allowing anyone else to take responsibility for anything that happens in your life.
Yes, you read that last sentence right.
NOT LETTING ANYONE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN YOUR LIFE!
That means that you are ultimately responsible for everything.
If someone quits, you are responsible for that.
If you gain or lose weight it is your fault.
If you can’t afford to pay your bills, you are responsible.
Get the point?
No matter what happens you are the reason it happened.
That also includes your thoughts!
This means that if you think that you are not attractive, then it is your responsibility to change that thought.
The next aspect of extreme ownership is not making excuses.
WHAT!!!! I don’t ever make excuses.
YEAH RIGHT!
We all make excuses.. Yes, that definitely includes me.
Excuses are a huge limiting factor when it comes to taking extreme ownership. Every time we make an excuse we are giving our mind the “OK” or a reason that we didn’t accomplish what we wanted to.
Why is that so important?
Because when we give our mind an out, it is going to take it. One quick excuse leads to another one then another one, and another one.
I think you get the point. Once you win it becomes easier to win, once you lose it becomes easier to lose.
Take a moment to think about the last excuse you made. Was it big or small? How did you feel after you did it?
The entire point of this is to get you aware of the fact that you made an excuse.
Mine was not launching a webinar, because someone quit and I had to pivot and have not made time to get the slides completed.
I am allowing outside forces to take ownership in parts of my life!
But I want you to notice 2 things about that last sentence.
The first is that I did not say I was busy. Avoid that word at all costs. BUSY!
The second is that I am taking ownership of the excuse by saying, “I have not made time to get the slides completed.”
I did not say that I have not had time, I said that I have not MADE time.
That my friends are taking extreme ownership, even as an excuse. And that is the first step of changing your thoughts and a great way to stop making excuses.
Now let’s switch gears.
One of the things that I struggled with forever was getting my team to take extreme ownership.
It seemed that even though I was pretty good at taking extreme ownership. Some of my team was struggling to follow my lead.
So I took time and invested in their mindset. We get together one day a month and brainstorm about the business!
It is WAY more than that though.
During this day it allows me to see how the team is doing and where they are struggling, mindset-wise.
Then we do a few exercises to help them start taking control.
You are probably asking, what are they taking control of?
The answer is their mind. Because once they can conquer their minds, nothing is impossible.
We usually do about 5-6 exercises throughout our team day that helps to break limiting beliefs and next build back new beliefs that allow us to take extreme ownership.
What I found by doing these monthly get-togethers is that our productivity skyrockets! I mean SKYROCKETS!!!!
Everyone is excited because they can feel the presence of something bigger than all of us. They can feel the excitement that we bring to the room. It renews their passion for our cause.
Then without even knowing it, everyone, including me, starts taking more ownership of everything.
We stop passing the buck and start saying, “Hey I’m good at that, I can do it.” Or, “Hey I might have misspoken to a client about ______. Do you have a way that I might be able to fix the situation?”
IF you ever want me to come to your office for a “TEAM DAY” reach out to our team because we would be happy to arrange for this to happen.
But before we do that, we have to talk. Because if you don’t drink the kool-aid, neither will your team! You have to buy-in 200% in order to make a real difference.
Until next time, keep the rubber side down.
Dan Greer
COO
Eclipse DOT
