a Top 1% Life.
I share this because any great book journey requires a brave, confident heart. You and I are about to go on a journey back in time. We will go back to the place where I started to help entrepreneurs, like you, accept their call to arms, stand strong in the chaos of their lives, and face the storm with a realization of who they were and what they could accomplish and with the clarity to take action. They had to stand in who they were before they could see and act on where they were going.
This book is a bridge back to the beginning of coaching, supporting, and choosing to build a life that focusses on working to power up people and support leaders, like you, opposed to building a life that focuses solely on serving expansion in myself.
I used to lie on the floor of my bathtub with the shower on as a child. I would turn the water to cold to envision children without proper food or shelter. I can’t explain why I did this, aside from wanting to not only envision their pain and struggle but also to feel some small taste immersion. I wanted to sample that state of pain and despair so I could envision overcoming it. I would write endless essays, stories, and poems on the rights of children, and the need to fill this missing voice and void of the child.
Of course, it makes sense that I would write of rights betrayed and focus on limitations because I was fascinated by growth and expansion. I wanted to be free to face challenges, to learn, and grow. I wanted to eliminate the ceilings I perceived in the way of freedom, because I mistakenly thought only when I removed the ceilings could I be free to plant the seeds of my future. I was wrong.
I spent over half of my life educating myself about bias, rights, privilege, and discrimination in order to understand power in the context of voice, control, force, power, and privilege. I spent so much time focused on the things that limited me that I dulled my ability to hear my call to arms, to see myself as the warrior, and to honour my real weapons or my ability to walk away from anyone who I perceived to hold power over me. When I finally realized that the odds may have been against me but I was no statistic, victim, or any other label which may have prevented my growth, I also realized that I was strong and could plant, cultivate, and harvest the seeds of my future. I choose to spend the rest of my life nurturing that expansion into leadership, with not only myself, but with everyone around me who will listen and accept the call in themselves.
It’s why I started working with good people who are very successful, but need time, energy, and health. Frankly, they need a life, and I can say that because everyone who knows me, knows sometimes I need time for a life too!
These people did not start out with mega teams. They were not teams at all. We built step by step together. Some grew to mega team status, and others just wanted enough help to be organized and take their time back. Now I often work with mega teams, but I started by building them. We built with our clientele to bring our community into existence. We are still building.
This book is my bridge back to build with some of you. The stories are not identified by my clients’ names, but they are similar to the stories we all know in the team space today, before admins, agents, or any help to expand with the overflowing opportunities we created. At the end of this book, I will invite you to continue our journey face to face, by attending a complimentary webinar as a gift to you, which is located on my thank you page on the last page of this book.
This journey is for people who are serious about getting strong in any of life’s storms, knowing who you are, what you stand for, and that you are now ready to use this new found clarity and strength to harness methods to expand into a reality where you can thrive in business and live your personal version a Top 1% Life.
I have spent over 18,000 hours personally one on one with leaders at the heights of their industries who needed a change. In addition, my coaching teams have spent tens of thousands of hours supporting leaders with the same Ultimate Expansion Journey we will take together in this book.
Achieving what you truly want is not only quicker, and easier, with the support of a proven path, but it also requires a like-minded community around you. That community is a necessity for fulfilling your ultimate expansion. We are not simply who we are, we are the interpretation of our thoughts echoed back to us by those around us. We become what we surround ourselves with, so I highly encourage you to connect with others for a monthly book club, online community conversation, and to compare valuable takeaways that you have committed to take action on in your life. I have needed a team of like-minded people my whole life, so I built one, and I would like to invite you to join us at the end of this book.
I want you to know that when you accept your call to arms, you will become the warrior you need to be to make the changes you want. You will be able to build a business that is the natural progression of your clarity and choices. Until you choose to arm yourself, you will wait for the world to deliver you an ideal life, you will wait for the promotion, the change, and the acknowledgements that all lie externally outside of yourself. You will be waiting for a while if you choose that path – potentially forever. The world will not even know what you are waiting for because the world responds to who you decide and believe you are. The world cannot promote you. That power only lies in yourself.
Stop waiting for a promotion to your ideal life, and, instead, build it for yourself. You will have to do the work and fight for it. I am writing this book because I am addicted to leverage as a natural by-product of my fascination with expansion. My niche lives in powerhouse sales teams, and I am excited to arm you with the experience and path of thousands before you in building your very own Top 1% Life.
Chapter 1
IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
Remember that time you hustled to make it to your family dinner on time? Usually, you’re late or miss dinner altogether, but you were determined to make it to this one. You hustled to get there only to be glued to your phone, constantly excusing yourself for calls, emails, texts, and personal messages. The frustration was mounting for everyone. You couldn’t help but feel the shame of a business that was so “successful” it was out of control.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment when things moved from working so hard to build your business, to making enough to support your family, to getting to a place where you just want a break. How does it shift so quickly?
I remember meeting with clients on New Year’s Day in a snowstorm. It was my first year in the business. Mark and Nancy really needed a place to live. They were desperate, scared, and worried. They had a family and house to look after. They had little children and were going into a brand-new year that should have been full of what all New Year’s days should hold: hope, excitement, and anticipation for the beautiful gifts a fresh start would bring. Instead, they were paralyzed with fear, and I was feeling the pressure. They were given very little notice to leave the rental home they lived in for several years and were never confident enough to buy. They just got by financially with the rate of rent and family expenses. Now, they had no choice but to move, and without the resources to buy, they would once again succumb to a rental market where rates skyrocketed. They would now be further behind with less monthly cash flow.
Here I was, driving through streets void of cars or people, hoping their vehicle would make it through the snow, that we would find them a place to feel safe and rebuild; and that I could be enough to solve their problem, take care of them, and figure it all out. If this was year two in the business, I would not have been there. A single mother myself with two young children, I knew the pressure of having to make one minute into two. I knew how to get by with not quite enough, and my heart went out to these people. In year two, I was no longer the woman I was in year one. I built better boundaries. The world knew Mark and Nancy needed help,
