Happy New Year!! Wishing you and your family an incredible 2021!! 

If you’re like most people – you’re eager and excited to get stuck into the new year. You’ve left last year behind you, you’ve had a relaxing break, you’ve done your goal setting for the year and your raring to go! 

But goal setting is only the first part of the equation if you want to succeed this year.

By the time February comes around, most people have forgotten about their goals and are back to old patterns, old values and old ways of thinking, operating and behaving. 

In today’s video I walk you through a really simple concept and process called ‘6 Week Sprints’ that ensures you are consistently taking meaningful action towards your goals and your vision and ensures that you are incredibly intentional about the results you want to create in 2021. 

If you want to learn more on this topic, follow the link below to watch the video. 

Click Here  to watch now. 

Josh ‘6 Week Sprints’ Stone

PS: If you’re intereste...

Wow, what a super interesting year! Right?!

If you're like a lot of the engineering and construction industry right now you're still madly running around trying to get things finished and wrapped up before the Christmas break. 

Things work wise are likely to be quite intense and busy right up until Christmas this year and then you'll be jumping right into family get togethers, parties and the holidays which also can be quite full on.

Today I'd like to remind you that it's incredibly important for you to create some space in all of the craziness and intensity of work and life to really reflect and evaluate the year you've just had. 

Before you can look to 2021 and the year ahead, it is so important to evaluate the year that’s just gone - including its successes, failures, lessons and themes - before you think about next year and your goals and how you want things to be different. 

You really want to understand what happened this year, why it happened and how to improve for next yea...

In last week’s webinar - Your Best Year Yet - we explored the importance of confidently positioning yourself, your team or your business strongly in the marketplace to allow you to win more work and attract the best talent into your team or business. 

Click Here  to check out the webinar recording if you couldn't attend live.

There were a couple of statements that we explored with the group from a mindset and thought process point of view that are really important when it comes to elite level positioning. 

“It’s OK for me to put myself out there and be seen as an expert and a thought leader”

“It’s OK for me to position myself in the marketplace as ELITE – the best of the best” 

You see, one of the biggest blocks I see with leaders and business owners in the engineering and construction industry when it comes to positioning their team or business as elite, the best of the best, in their chosen field or area of expertise - is them! 

It's their own mind, their thoughts and their bel...

Are you a perfectionist? Do you have perfectionist traits? 

Engineers by nature have a deep desire to get things 100% correct and perfect. And don't get me wrong, this personality trait is completely functional and needed when it comes to de-risking a project, system or process. In fact the general population who use or are affected by the things you design and create WANT you to use your perfectionist so that nothing goes wrong! 

However, sometimes this perfectionist trait can cause friction within yourself as well as your clients and your team. 

Let me explain. 

Have you ever had a client call you up and ask you to get your deliverables done more quickly? Or a client bring forward a project deadline by a week just because they can? Have you ever had a team member get frustrated with you that you're taking too long on the element that you're working on and it's delaying them getting started?

And when this happened, did you FEEL yourself getting frustrated, overwhelmed and maybe e...

Well here we go - we're into the run into Christmas! What a year!

What I notice at this time of the year is that leaders and business owners start to get complacent and take their foot off the pedal. 

It’s been a hard and full on year - I know. But if you want to finish this year strong AND set the start of your 2021 up right - then you have to keep going. 

This is where consistency matters. 

It’s the little things you do every day that really matter and allow you to build momentum - and momentum generates results!

Watch and listen for those little voices in your head that tell you things like:

• It's been a hard year - just take the rest of the year slowly.
• Don't worry about following up that client / proposal / opportunity - leave it until the new year.
• I can't be bothered having that hard conversation with a team member or client - I'm tired and don't want the angst. 

Use your calendar to your advantage here. This way you are physically creating the time and the space in ...

This week I ran a webinar called Clients By Christmas where we explored strategies to help win work and increase revenue by Christmas. 

I ran an interesting exercise towards the end of the webinar where I asked the group to tell me the first thing that came to mind in response to this statement: 

"Marketing, sales & business development is....."

The range of responses was SUPER interesting! Here's some:

• Hard
• Painful
• Enjoyable
• One of my KPI's
• Difficult 

You get the point. 

The really interesting thing for me was the differing range of responses with respect to such a critical and important element of running and growing a team or business. 

For those people whose default response was - enjoyable - take a guess at how they will apply themselves to marketing, sales & business development? You got it - Joy! Fun! Curiosity! 

For those people whose default response was - hard or painful or difficult - take a guess at how successful they will be when it comes to marketing, sal...

This week I went live on LinkedIn and talked about the steps to building resilience.

If you'd like to check out the recording on LinkedIn - Click Here  

At the moment your team, your business and the industry in general needs leaders who are resilient. 

We need leaders who can stay calm, focused and rational in moments of crisis and in prolonged periods of uncertainty.

Mental resilience isn't something that we obtain overnight or by hanging out in a cave by ourselves for 2 years. It's something we build over time and it's absolutely a skills we can learn. 

Here are the 4 steps I covered in my live video to building resilience and mental toughness: 

1. Lean In
   Instead of running, hiding or shying away from difficult or uncomfortable situations or situations that require effort and energy - do the opposite. Lean in! Look at them as opportunities to learn something new, grow as a person and develop yourself as a leader. 

2. Stay Present & Conscious
   When you're in the midst of difficu
...

Something I am noticing more and more - particularly since the whole Covid thing started - is the tendency for wanting to hide until this whole thing is over. 

I get it. This is unchartered territory.

No-one really knows how the rest of this year and into next year will play out. 

This fear of the unknown and not knowing how things will work out is causing people to want to hide, shy away, not take action and just generally procrastinate. 

At the moment - the whole leadership piece is really real. It's actually needed more than ever.

Your team and your business need you to be charting the ship and steering them into calmer waters. They need you to be guiding them, making decisions, speaking your mind and making things happen.

.....and you can't do this through in-action and procrastination. 

A big fear in a lot of my clients that I'm working with at the moment is not wanting to stand out and make a decision for fear of making the wrong one.

I completely understand this logic - ...

Today I'd like to explore with you a really simple, but highly effective technique my clients are using right now to set their weeks up so they win. 

It all comes down to being really intentional with how you start your week. 

Most leaders and business owners get to work or get to their office on Monday mornings and they just start 'doing'.

They just start answering emails or phone calls and get stuck straight into delivery mode. 

I'd like you to do something completely different with the start of your week. I'd like you to block out 2hrs somewhere on Monday morning which will be your time to get intentional and strategic about your week. 

In this 2hr block I'd like you to think about, strategise and get clear on your actions around the following:

1)  Business development. This could mean reaching out to a potential client for coffee or lunch, strategising about who you're targeting next with your BD strategy or even sitting down to write a proposal.

2)  Existing client relation...

As an engineering leader or business owner in the industry at the moment - building and showing the traits of a resilient leader is so critical right now.

The people around you need someone to steer the ship. They need someone who is calm under pressure and who makes decisions quickly when they need to. 

Your team and your business can't afford to have someone at the helm who is unsure, hiding and cracks under pressure. 

Now resilience is a difficult skill to master - particularly when you are trying to navigate your own emotions, thoughts and feelings through this pandemic as well as being there for your team and your business.

Today I want to give you 3 strategies to become a more resilient and more effective leader during these challenging times. 

1) Build Awareness

The first step is building awareness of yourself, your thoughts, your feelings and your emotions in any given moment. The easiest way to do this is to set reminders for yourself on your phone throughout the day as ...