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"After doing the Crush Your Career 5 Day Challenge, I now have a clear plan and the control of my future back in my hands. I have a renewed sense of what my ultimate goal is and specific areas of life and learning that I want to focus on. It's a great kick start to the new year, and definitely gave me the boost I needed!"

- Tara Lambert, Commissioning Manager

Ditch the short term sugar-hit New Year's Resolutions and make a plan for success that will *actually* work.

CRUSH YOUR CAREER IN 2022

EPISODE #175 TRANSCRIPT

Happy New Year, everyone! Well, 2021 is now behind us, and we are looking forward to what 2022 will bring. We first created the Crush Your Career Challenge for the New Year of 2020 - just before the COVID pandemic struck. Now, obviously the changes that have transpired since then have challenged the way we think about our careers and our lives. Many leaders who get in touch with us today are still talking about the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over their heads. Well, in 2022, the time for uncertainty is over as is the case with any disruptive change. The people and companies that are successful are the ones who understand the ambiguity and complexity for what they are. They recognise the things that are out of their control, and they map a bold path forward regardless. In fact, it's the very process of making bold, decisive moves in an uncertain environment that is a key source of competitive advantage. Wherever there's great uncertainty, there is even greater opportunity. It's time to move beyond the ambiguity that the last 18 plus months has thrown up at you and attack those opportunities. That's why just as we did last year, we are re-releasing the Crush Your Career Challenge to help you set up for this both mentally and emotionally.

leadership is hard work

Now it's fair to say that 2021 was an absolutely cracking year for both Emma and me, and the Your CEO Mentor business - but that's not to say that it was all laughter, rainbows and gum drop buttons. The business grew extraordinarily well and we achieved everything we set out to and more, but we were both still incredibly challenged in a number of ways. Although I don't wanna speak for Em, I can tell you that she was under an incredible amount of stress and pressure as the business grew. The amount of ground she had to cover in this high growth, high intensity phase would've challenged even the most battle hardened leader. During this period she started building a team underneath her, dealing with the issues of scaling and delegating, while not dropping the ball on anything customer-facing. On top of this, she runs the Green household with two teenage stepdaughters and her husband running his own established business. 

Now, because Emma is so incredibly hard working, passionate and productive, there were times when I really felt that she was flirting with burnout, but she managed to push her way through it with incredible resilience. What an unbelievable asset she is as CEO of our business! The way she managed to handle the incredible pressure of 2021 has enabled her to grow leaps and bounds. I feel as though personally, there's nothing she can't do. 

For my part, the move from Australia to the USA took a much greater toll than I could have possibly imagined. The stress of selling our house, giving away our worldly possessions and starting from scratch was a way bigger deal than I anticipated. Just navigating the physical, legal and emotional challenges of making the move in a time when most countries had closed their borders, and every week brought about another changeable feast of restrictions, was incredibly stressful. So even though I managed to remain pretty calm and level throughout the process, the rituals, habits and disciplines that have - to this point - equipped me to handle virtually anything that gets thrown at me were definitely put to the test. 

For about eight or nine months, I was completely out of my routine as we lived by the good grace of our friends before we exited Australia, and then with family when we came to Boston. It was all pretty challenging. Just the simple act of navigating the time zones with Australia can be a bit tricky, as many of you would know. Em still runs Your CEO Mentor from our head office in Sydney. So I've had to shift my decades long body clock habit of waking up at 4:45 AM and getting to bed by 10:00 PM. Now I'm spending much more time in the afternoon and evening zones working, and getting to bed and waking up much later. The book publishing and keynote speaking market in the USA are also completely different from Australia. We had to navigate both of these, but managed to do so pretty successfully - No Bullsh!t Leadership, as you probably know, became a Wall Street Journal Bestseller, which is an incredibly difficult feat to achieve, and one that we worked on for almost three years. But driving forward hard when the uncertainty is this great can be pretty sobering. 

You've probably heard my philosophy that the harder something is, the more I love it. Why? Because that's when everyone else turns around and goes back because they find it too hard. I'm always reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Frank Shorter, who was the gold medalist in the Men's Marathon at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Shorter was well known for his gruelling training schedule, and his uncompromising adherence to it. When it was 20 below and snowing in the streets of New York, Shorter still didn't take a day off. Once, when Shorter was asked by a journalist why he was so fanatical about his training, he said, “Because those are the days the other guys stay inside and eat pies.” 

Now, despite this long held philosophy and my experience with how it plays out, there were still a few times where I thought, wow, this is getting a bit ridiculous. Do I really need to be dragging my wife, Kathy, out of a life we both love to pursue my purpose in this way? Maybe the universe is trying to send me a sign with all these difficulties and challenges, and I'm just not listening to it. But then of course, sanity prevailed. One thing, funnily enough, that always brought me back to earth was a quote that Samantha Wills used. When I interviewed her earlier this year in Episode 157, she said, “I didn't come this far only to come this far.” I love that. So as I've come to expect, things are working out just fine. And I often say, if you do the easy things in life, life becomes hard. But if you do the hard things in life, well, life becomes easy. 

Decisions that Em and I made about our business model in those early days, continue to pay us back in multiples. We believe in what we are doing, and when things get tough, we don't back away - we just double down. And there's no shortage of opportunities to capitalize on. Now that the world has become accustomed to the use of technology to engage and communicate, I reach many more thousands of people through virtual keynotes than I could possibly have ever done with my in-person keynotes. Everyone's a winner!

Here's a really important question. Why am I able to simply shrug off the challenges that stop most people in their tracks? Why didn't I wave the white flag at any of those points in 2021, where I absolutely could have been expected to? Well, here's why, because I know exactly where I'm going, and I know why. I understand my true nature and purpose. I know what draws me  - and there's a subtle distinction between being drawn and being driven. I have a profound grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. I remain open and inquisitive, and I still fundamentally adhere to the disciplines that keep me on track, even when my life circumstances give them a bit of a hiding. 

crush your career in 2022

So the purpose of today's episode is this. This is what I want for you. I've tried to capture all of my knowledge in this area into the Crush Your Career Challenge. I want it to be your roadmap to discovering these things for yourself. It truly opens a world of possibility and clarity when you're navigating a dark marais of uncertainty and doubt. The content in the Crush Your Career Challenge hasn't changed since it was released pre-pandemic. Why? Because the concepts are timeless. They don't change. And they're relevant to you, your life and your career, no matter what your current circumstances are. They’ll enable you to be more in control, more focused on the things that matter, and ultimately, a hell of a lot happier. So here's how it works in a nutshell: you'll get an email from me for five days that will have a short five minute video and some accompanying resources. Over these five days, I'm going talk to you about a bunch of stuff: 

• Why New Year's resolutions don't work. It seems obvious, but you might be surprised at my perspective on this. 

• How to work out what your strengths really are - and there's a great worksheet for you to use here. 

• Why visualisation is so critical in being able to set the long term outcomes for your life. I get some help on this from one of the world's most accomplished athletes. Most of us as highly rational leaders make this long term planning process a purely intellectual exercise. But when it's done really well, it's not just intellectual. It's an exercise of creativity and imagination. 

• How to create a corporate strategy for your life. The worksheet for this one is really useful, and it's something I've been working on continuously for a dozen years or more. 

• How to get more granular and work out what to focus on over the next 12 months. I have a really great question to help you to seriously put things into perspective. 

• I share a resource with you to help you figure out exactly what professional development you might need to boost your career in 2022, if that's what you want to do.

• How to create professional habits that actually stick. I get really personal here about my habits and routines, and give you my daily habits template. Bear in mind though, my habits weren't as strong in 2021 as they have been in the past, but because of my long term commitment to them, it didn't throw me off track. It just threw me a little out of balance while I dealt with the other pressing demands. 

• How to hold yourself accountable and actually execute on your plan. This is the big difference between this challenge and making a New Year's resolution. 

Look, there's absolutely no reason for you not to join this challenge. It's completely free, and I don’t really talk about this stuff anywhere else. So click here to get started. It's a New Year and I want you to absolutely nail it. With a shorter episode this week, why don't you use the time you were going to spend listening to this podcast to join the challenge now and watch the day one video?

RESOURCES AND RELATED TOPICS:

• Join the Crush Your Career Challenge 2022 - Here

• Ep. 157: From Kitchen Table to Global Icon: Samantha Wills Interview - Listen Here

• Buy the NO BULLSH!T LEADERSHIP BOOK - Here

• Explore other podcast episodes - Here

• Take our FREE Level Up Leadership Masterclass - Start Now

• Leadership Beyond the Theory - Learn More

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