These 12 things helped me generate multiple millions
This week has been absolutely packed, so this newsletter is going to be a bit different than the prior weeks’ versions. As a reminder, you can always catch up with every newsletter by signing up here.
Rather than dive deep into a single topic this week, I’m sharing 12 mantras that have supported me in growing a multiple-7-figure business over the last 12 years.
These are timeless, and they’re going to become more and more relevant as entire industries are uprooted by AI in the next 3-5 years.
1. What does this make possible?
My mentor Dan Miller, bestselling author of 48 Days to the Work You Love, taught me to ask this question whenever something unexpected or unwelcome happened. And while Dan passed away a few years ago, I continue to live by this quote. One thing that's certain in business is that there will always be unexpected challenges. Your attitude toward dealing with them will absolutely make all the difference in what you are able to achieve.
2. What got you here won’t get you there.
I've had a number of business owners drill this mantra into my mind over the last twelve years. What this really means is that the actions you take to get to one level of success are usually not going to be the same actions you will need to take to get to the next level of success. This can be really confusing when you're going to a new revenue level. Often, you'll try to use the same old tactics you've been using that have worked really well, but they no longer work to get you to an even higher revenue level. You have to switch gears completely. This mantra can really be reframed as "stay adaptable." It's really important to grow a successful business to stay nimble and flexible.
3. However someone acts toward you is simply a reflection of how they feel about themselves.
After running a business for 12 years and serving more than 10,000 individual clients and customers, I have probably dealt with almost every personality type you can imagine. That means I've had customers and clients who behaved in an absolutely lovely manner toward me, and every once in a while (thankfully, rarely) a customer or client who behaves incredibly poorly toward me.
It's easy to take it to heart when someone is rude, condescending, or downright nasty. Really, their actions are just a reflection of how they feel about themselves. When someone is harsh toward you, it's almost never about you. It's about how they feel about themselves or what's going on in their lives.
4. Make hay when the sun shines.
This one is incredibly relevant right now. I learned this in my law practice days: the practice of law is cyclical. There will be a certain trend in litigation. You'll have more cases than you can fit into a 40-hour workweek, and then you'll have some dry spells. I learned to make hay while the sun shines, which means capitalize on your opportunities when they're there.
Right now, if you're doing something that's making you revenue and generating profit, you need to triple down on it. There's no guarantee that the same thing is going to continue to make you profit and revenue in the next three years, especially with AI disrupting so many industries. Don't get complacent when something is working. When it's working is exactly the time to squeeze every last drop of juice from it.
5. It’s good to be popular. It’s better to be respected. It’s best to respect yourself.
I really need to write an entire newsletter about this one mantra. This is something my dad told me when I was 15 years old. I did something stupid, and my dad asked me why I had done that thing. I told him I just wanted to be popular, and he explained to me that yes, it's good to be popular, but it's even better to be respected. The best thing of all is to hold respect for yourself. You have to have a standard for yourself and honor it, and that's going to be much more rewarding than just going with whatever the crowd is doing.
6. 100% responsibility, 100% of the time.
This is a mantra I have lived by in my business, particularly when it comes to growing a team. It's a value that I do my best to instill in every team member we have, and it's a value that I also hold.
100% responsibility 100% of the time means there are no excuses. Ultimately, all of the responsibility for my business rests on my shoulders. If a team member is underperforming, yes, they individually hold the responsibility for that underperformance. I also, as the business owner, hold the responsibility because I'm the one who recruited them, hired them, and continue to give them a spot on the team despite performance issues (by the way, I am not referencing any of my current team members, who are all absolutely dynamic).
100% responsibility 100% of the time is very uncomfortable because the human thing to do is to blame someone else when things go wrong. As a business owner, you have to accept that every single decision is ultimately your responsibility.
7. Sales is service.
I think that part of the reason my business became successful is because I have always seen sales as service. Ultimately, business is just about solving problems. When we're selling something, the only way it's going to work is if we're actually solving a real problem for someone else who sees that problem as important and needs to solve it. Truly making an offer that's going to fix that problem for someone is in deep service to them. If you can adapt this one mantra in your business, it can absolutely revolutionize your profit.
8. Get resourceful.
Resourcefulness is another one of our company's core values, and it's a mantra I've personally adopted that has helped me continue to grow even in tricky seasons.
Getting resourceful means knowing how every piece of your business runs and being able to jump in wherever you need to. It means seeing a problem and not knowing the solution right off the bat, but trusting yourself that if you look at it from a few different angles, you'll figure out something that can solve the problem. Being resourceful means you can always stay confident that you're going to figure it out, no matter what.
9. People who pay, pay attention.
I learned this mantra from Michael Hyatt. He taught me that when people pay, they pay attention because they're invested. When they make a payment, they are now invested in the process and in showing up to get the solution. You might think that giving away as many free things as possible in your business is really in service, but often when you're giving something away for free, people simply do not value it. It's good to always remember that people who pay have skin in the game, and they tend to show up for themselves at a much greater level than people who are just looking for freebies.
10. Everything is always happening for me.
I have repeated this statement to myself more times than I can even remember. This is one that I lean on every single week, because every week there's going to be something that happens that absolutely feels like it is not happening for you.
When you believe, as I do, that there is a good God who is ultimately mapping out your steps and has a good plan for you, then you can confidently state that everything is always happening for you. Even the setbacks are actually set ups for your next success.
11. Be like a Swiss army knife.
Being like a Swiss Army knife means you are multi-faceted in the skills that you hold and your ability to jump in and exercise them. As the CEO of your company, you need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty in any department. I remember hosting my very first larger live event with 50 clients in Atlanta back in 2019. The night before the event, I was personally setting journals on the chairs, stuffing plastic holders with name tags, making out a playlist for the walk-on music the next day, and finalizing the contracts for the offers that we were going to make.
It was an extraordinary amount of work, and that event ended up being extraordinarily successful (we generated $243,000 in sales in just 36 hours from a room of approximately 50 clients). The best successes in business will come when you're fully prepared to and committed to helping with every single part of the process.
12. Do unto others as you would have done to you.
Business is about relationships and people helping other people. It is critical for you to treat your clients and customers the way you would want to be treated as a client and customer. If you keep just that one rule in mind, you will set yourself up for extraordinary levels of success.
And there you have it! One mantra for each year that I’ve been in business.
I trust that you found value in reading through these principles, and I’d love to know which one resonated most.
Send me an email, and let me know. I read every response.
To your success,
Anna
P.S. Many of the mantras above were values I learned from mirroring my mentors throughout the years. If you’re currently seeking high-level mentorship to grow your business to the seven-figure mark, I have one spot available in my Private Advisory services. Hit reply to request more information about this 1:1 support.