Jason Berkes Blog

Hello and welcome. Jon Berghoff here. Before I start I need to acknowledge that as an business owner one of the things you don’t necessarily get paid for is your time. I you that you get paid for profits that you generate within time. I’m saying this because I want you to know that I’m doing my best to ensure that this secret will be worth your time. I also recognize that as an entrepreneur myself, you probably share the opinion, that being a business owner feels like you’re all alone in the world, but being the person in charge, I think we both know that the value of a decision can be life changing. The difference between one decision and another is the difference between thriving and surviving.

One of my personal goals is to learn something from everything. I mention this because the tip that I’m telling you right now is an example. In my day to day work I’m a peak performance coach and I teach the science of influence. There are different types of influence – there’s influence over others, which is the kind most people think of; but there’s also the influence over the self. If you’ve ever faced the difficulties of running your own business, you know what I’m talking about. Much of what I’ve learned in business as a coach and as entrepreneur and as a sales person has also helped me in running extreme marathons. Last year for example, I ran 100 miles on an ultra marathon through the Shenandoah Mountains on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year. It was 100 degrees up and down these steep mountains and a lot of what got me all the way to the finish line were the lessons I learned in business and sales.

Right now I’m going to give you the fifth of 6 profit producing decisions that are critical for every small business owner to understand.

Decision 5:

The fifth profit producion decision that I’ve learned on the running trail, especially with my current 400 mile extreme marathon. It’s to be on a mission. Now what do I mean by be on a mission? When I coach influence, there are three forms of influence. I call this an intrinsic part of the model of influence. Most people when they hear I’m a peak performance business coach and I teach the science of influence, they almost always think it has to do with influencing other people, in a sales presentation, knowing psychology, leading a team, and those things do play a large part.

However I believe in a holistic approach because in my personal study I’ve learned that the most influential business leaders approach influence in a holistic way. Meaning they just don’t focus on how to influence others; they also pay attention to the things we’ve been talking – how to influence themselves to perform at a peak level. This is what happens when we improve ourselves and we work on ability to influence others. It’s our influence over the world. So when I say be on a mission, what I mean by this is to find something outside of yourself.

Find a mission; find a cause. When I say mission I’m not taking about that statement you put on your wall a year ago that’s collecting dust instead of eyeballs. I’m talking about the mission of your life right now. When I say there are three forms of influence and I say one of them is our influence over the world, so many people get caught up thinking, ‘the world Jon?’. Well your world, however you want to define that. When I say that peak performing entrepreneurs focus on their influence over the world, all it really means is that they ask themselves the question, what’s the legacy I’m leaving? What are the footprints behind me for people to follow? How am I going to leave an mark on something bigger than myself? Because choosing to affect something larger than ourselves is how we feel true fulfillment.

Let me tell you what I mean by this because I do a lot of work with private coaching clients who’ve figured out how to be known for their achievements. They’ve mastered the achievement game. But one of the challenges they have is that in the process of trying to achieve more and more, they’ve forgotten how to feel fulfilled. This is just my personal opinion, but what does it matter to try to achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, if you’re not feeling good about it?. When it comes down to it, the reason people fail at the achievement part is because they don’t work at fulfillment along the way.

I know this is pretty general. But I’m hoping you can figure out how it applies to you? One of the basic human needs we all have is to be significant to someone. This is just a primal, primitive human need. We want to feel important and significant. Often times we search for that significance outside of ourselves through what others say about us, through getting recognized, publicity, through these external achievements. These aren’t bad things. But sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the rat race and get caught up in basing our happiness on these external factors. At the end of the day, having a mission, having a cause, wanting to influence the world. It’s not about being significant because of what other people think. It’s about being significant because we’re making a mark on something larger than ourselves. That significance that comes from the inside out. It seems like an insignificant distinction but it’s sometimes the difference between making it or breaking it. It’s the difference between being able to make it through hard times because it’s real fulfillment within that can’t be taken away.

Having that mission will drive us when we want to give up. That’s true when you’re trying to run 26 miles or the 400 miles I’m training to run right now. I’m on a mission. My mission, if you saw the website, is to ignite America’s engine. What does that mean? My customers and friends are entrepreneurs and I’m running this extreme marathon as a reminder that it doesn’t matter what kind of economy we’re in. We each create our own micro economy. To me this run is symbolic that we can do what we want, produce what we want, and we can achieve what we want no matter who tells us it is impossible. I can promise you that I’ve had doctors and others tell me that running 400 miles is not possible.

To learn all 6 profit producing decisions, visit my website: www.400milerun.com