That’s why I’ve compiled a list of the best podcasts for entrepreneurs and executives. You might have heard of more publicized podcasts like The Tim Ferriss Show and Entrepreneur on Fire, but this list covers a wider range of podcasts and includes a lot of new and noteworthy examples, like Powderkeg: Igniting Startups and Breaking Into Startups, that you shouldn’t ignore.

Here are the 24 best podcasts for entrepreneurs in 2017.

Image credit: martin-dm | Getty Images

The post The 24 Best Podcasts for Entrepreneurs In 2017 appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

There may not be anything more important to ensure future success than to adopt world-class habits and master them daily.

Habits of the Highly Successful

Here are four habits that the highly successful have mastered.

1. They use failure and adversity as a springboard to greater success

No matter how big or small it may be, we have the choice whether or not failure and adversity is going to serve as a roadblock for lack of achievement or springboard to greater success.

The highly successful use their failures and adversities throughout the course of their life to help them grow and reach new heights of success. If you can adopt this often-challenging but greatly rewarding habit into your life, you are putting yourself in a fantastic position to win and become the best version of yourself.

2. They are obsessed about energy management

We hear all the time about time management and how important it is, but I strongly believe that energy management is more important than time management. You can manage your time well, but that does absolutely no good if you direct all of your energy towards low-rewarding and tedious tasks. The highly successful are fanatics about time management, but they also are even more obsessed with where they direct their energy every minute of every day.

Something that I am always looking at is ROE (return on energy), and that’s how I eventually decide what gets my attention on a daily basis. Time management is important, and I think you should constantly look for ways to better manage your time, but don’t forget about the importance of energy management. Stop wasting valuable energy on low-rewarding tasks that don’t inch you closer to the achievement of a major goal of yours or living out your purpose.

3. They never stop learning

The highly successful are lifelong learners. I have never met someone at the top of their game and doing magnificent things in the world who weren’t lifelong learners and always searching for ways to develop the skill set and expand their knowledge. A sad reality is that most people stop learning the second they finish their formal education. Don’t be like most people. Commit to becoming a lifelong learner, and join the ranks of a very small percentage of people that get to reap the tremendous benefits of doing so.

4. They have an incredible vision for their life

Having a great vision and seeing yourself beyond your current circumstances is a habit, because it is something that you must do every single day. The older we get in life, the more we experience failure and adversity. One day you can be extremely happy and then the next day you can be completely miserable. Having an incredible vision for your life must be an everyday habit that you not only incorporate into your daily life, but also work to carry out that vision every minute of every day.

The highly successful visualize themselves succeeding and achieving their loftiest goals and dreams in life way before they actually do so. This is one of their essential daily habits. Having an incredible vision for your life is only half the battle, believing that you fully can make it come true and then working daily to bring that vision to life is what brings everything full circle. Start to create an incredible vision for your life if you haven’t done so already, and then develop your self-belief while working diligently to bring that vision to reality.

Conclusion: It All Comes Down to Your Habits

Becoming the best version of yourself and reaching your full potential all come down to your daily habits. Incorporating the above four habits into your life can be a complete game changer for you.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Habits the Highly Successful Have Mastered appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Most people are the furthest thing from being intentional about how their mornings go and what they do first thing when they wake up. Jim Rohn famously said, “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who run their days. Instead, they let their work, other people and technology rule their every move in the morning. They neglect themselves and forget about the self-love that is needed in the morning to set yourself up for a majorly successful day.

I am fortunate that in being a former athlete, I am ridiculously obsessed with structure and having a plan for my mornings before I do anything else.

Here are three simple ways to dominate your morning.

1. Don’t check email for the first hour upon waking.

For some of you, this may seem like an impossible task to follow through with, but I promise that it will completely shock you at how it makes you feel over time. What do you do when you check your email? You respond to what everyone else wants from you or is asking you to do.

Instead of being proactive and setting the tone to how your day is going to go, you are spending precious and valuable time being reactive to everyone else’s wants and needs. I put this practice into my own life two years ago, and I was blown away by the results.

It’s amazing what can happen when you leave your phone alone in the morning and don’t check your email while you go to work on yourself doing things such as meditating, working out or reading before doing anything else.

2. Give your body the fuel that it needs.

The second thing that most people do in the morning after waking once they have checked their email is consume a ton of sugar and drugs to get their day started. Scarfing down sugar and caffeine first thing in the morning believe it or not is not the most beneficial way to start your day. You may feel energized and ready to go, but that same feeling is the main culprit as to why so many crash and feel sluggish after lunch and later in the day.

Give your body the fuel that it needs. I start each morning with a glass of warm lemon water to jumpstart the detoxification process, a green juice from Suja Juice and hydrate myself with water before I do anything else.

I’m not telling you to not drink coffee or indulge in your favorite drink, but I am encouraging you to give it a try in giving your body the fuel and energy it needs to sustain peak-performance all day long.

3. Work on yourself before you start your workday.

Working on yourself could refer to exercising, journaling some sort of spiritual practice or reading, among many other things. Find a routine that works best for you and execute on that routine every morning. The only requirement is that it involves working on yourself somehow, someway before you begin your workday. To me, this is the ultimate game changer that can be included to anyone’s morning routine.

When you set aside the time to work on yourself before you start your workday, you not only will begin to grow as a human being, but you will increase happiness levels, drastically decrease stress, anxiety and other negative emotions that rob so many of us from keeping a peaceful and healthy mind.

Find something that fits well with your schedule and goals, and then formulate a plan to follow through with that every morning. Over time, the results will be astonishing. Working on ourselves is something that so many of us forget to do in this fast paced and strenuous world that we live in. Self-care, self-love and self-growth are three wonderful gifts that you can give yourself each morning — and you do just that when you work on yourself.

Instead of talking about specific morning routines which has been written about so much, I wanted to share three practices that have added great value to my mornings and life since I have incorporated them. They are extremely simple things to do, but pack an incredible punch of excellence when you religiously follow through on them. Remember, when you win the morning, you win the day.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: Getty | jean-marc payet / Contributor

The post 3 Ways to Win the Morning and Save the Day appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

What is the most important question in life? The answer to that can vary for each individual, but it often revolves around the power of choice. We choose our habits. We choose the action or lack of action that we are going to take on a daily basis. We choose how hard we work. We choose what we think about all day long. Every thing that you do on a daily basis comes from a choice. Living a better life, building a more successful business and becoming happier all comes down to making better choices.

Here are three questions that can greatly benefit the direction and quality of your life if you begin asking and answering them regularly. These could help guide you towards answering what is the most important question in life for yourself.

1. Where am I right now?

This is an extremely powerful question to ask because most people don’t take even five minutes out of their days to think about where they currently are in life. They know deep down that they are miserable but they just continue to coast along the path they are headed down because they fail to ask this important question.

The key when asking this particular question is to be honest with yourself. When you are honest with yourself, you are offered the opportunity for growth that will in the long run help you get to where you want to go.

Some days I have setbacks and don’t take strides forward, but as long as I am honest with myself when asking this question before I go to bed, I am able to know where I stand and what steps need to be taken to move forward. Take the time to analyze your life and really take a long and hard look at where you currently are.

2. Where do I want to be?

This question is all about what you want out of your life. What are you putting in the long hours for? What gets you so excited that it keeps you up at night? Once you know where you currently are in life, you then must analyze where you want to be.

Most people have no clue where they want to be. They wake up in the morning 30 minutes before they have to be in the office, go to work, do enough to get the job done and then head home before they have to do it all over again. They follow this exact pattern for the next 40 years.

If you don’t take the time to think about where you want to be, the circumstances of life and other people’s agendas will determine that for you. You deserve better.

3. What are the steps needed to bridge the gap?

This third question is the one that requires the actual work and action, so it’s the one that is easiest to neglect. After you discover where you currently are and where you want to be, the next question that you must ask yourself is what are all of the things that you must do to bridge the gap between the two. This is going to require several sessions of strategic thinking on your part, and may even take several weeks.

Another thing to note is that your answers to this question will never stop. As time goes on, more answers will come your way. The more you strategically think about what you have to do to get to where you want to go, the better and more efficient answers will begin coming to you.

Whether we are talking about an individual or organization, these are three questions that when answered carefully can dramatically increase efficiency, performance and motivation. I often write the above questions in my moleskin journal to constantly remind myself of my progress, then start the process of transferring all of the things that I have to do to my daily task list.

When you take time out to answer these questions regularly, you give your life meaning and purpose. The power of choice is truly extraordinary.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post 3 Questions For a Better Life appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Take Jack for example. He was a young man in Ohio who wanted to play music professionally. All through high school, he played the guitar and wrote songs. His teachers, friends and family loved his music and told him he was very talented. Finally, he entered a talent contest and came in third. It depressed him so much that he decided to quit music and go to college to obtain a business degree.

This was what his father wanted all along, and the young man just surrendered his dream. He gave up. He let this tiny failure derail him. Instead of recognizing that it was a major accomplishment to win third place, and that if he applied himself and continued to hone his craft he could actually win the contest the next year, he just gave up. That young man will more than likely go to his grave with many, many regrets.

Jack was not in a “variable” state. He was rigid and negative. It’s essential for the health of complex systems, and Jack, like you, are a complex physiological system. If you’re “variable,” then you’re going to see your failure as an opportunity — as a gift to unwrap and use for success.

I remember once talking to a taxi driver in Los Angeles. He explained that when the city experienced earthquakes, the super highways would actually bend and curve with the wind and rolling grounds. I thought this was strange and tried to imagine how solid objects could be fluid.

But when you think about it, everything is made up of atoms and atoms are movable. After some research, I discovered that when architects design bridges, buildings and highways in California and other parts of the world, they create designs with the right amount of variability so the buildings and roads will bend with the earthquakes or with high winds.

Too much variability or flexibility and the roads and buildings will be unstable and crumble. Too little variability and the buildings and roads will be too rigid and brittle and the first serious earthquake will destroy it.

The same is true in sports or business, and really in all of life. If a business leader, teacher or coach is stubborn and refuses to make changes despite evidence that what they’re doing is not successful, then their efforts will eventually end in failure. If an athletic coach never changes the way he designs plays, then the opponents will quickly learn the team’s game and conquer them.

The coach, the leader and you must know how to attain a state of variability. If Jack had been able to attain this variability, he would have more than likely gone on to win music contests and eventually obtain a recording contract. We’ll never know.

Keep this in mind: Variability is not only important in sports and business, but in all areas of life. When you fail in life at whatever it is you’re trying to do, you have to demonstrate flexibility and stick to it to help you achieve the success you desire.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post The Power of Variability appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Here’s what one highly successful woman had to say about the “F-word:”

“Eventually, we all must come to a decision, for ourselves, about what represents failure. However, the world is very keen to put failure on a schedule, and give you a set of decisive factors, if you allow it. A meager seven years following my graduation, failure had hit me on a grand scale. A fleeting marriage was dissolved, I had no job, [I was] a single parent and as destitute as anyone could possibly be without living on the streets. My parents’ fears for me, and those I had for myself, had finally transpired, and according to the book of failure, I was the biggest.”

The above paragraph is a summation of a speech given by J.K. Rowling at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

The whole purpose of using J.K. Rowling as an example about the importance of failure is to emphasize the point that failure is not unusual. In fact, it is very ordinary and has been misunderstood throughout time.

First, understand that success means something different to different people. However, there is something everyone has in common who has succeeded at what they set out to do: They have failed at one time or another. There is no way to live life without failing from time to time. The only way you won’t fail is if you live so guardedly that you are barely living at all, wherein, you fail by default.

Failure drives us to change. Without it, where would we be today? Thomas Edison produced tons of light bulbs that did not work. If he had not tried again and again, we’d still be using oil lamps and candles for lights.

Winston Churchill once stated, “Success is based on going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

Of course, some individuals are sardonic. These types of people never pick themselves up from failure because they did not grow. Failure courses through everyone’s lives. The SBA states that more than half of small businesses fail during their first five years. However, failed entrepreneurial pursuits are as vital as successful ones.

One specific industry that thrives on failure is technology. There’s hardly anyone over the age of 25 who is not familiar with the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. He was the perfect example of someone who found the “gift” in failure. In his first attempt at a mobile gadget, it failed. It failed badly and he was thrown out of the company. Nonetheless, he has one of the greatest comeback stories of all time.

In your world, what represents failure? Ask yourself that question and really take some time to answer truthfully. Just as Rowling said, we all must come to the decision about what failure and adversity represents in our lives. Our answers to that very important question greatly determines our levels of achievement and what’s in store for us in the future.

The greats, the champions, the best to ever do it view failure and adversity as their friend and something to help them grow and ignite their creativity and desire to be the absolute best.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Failure Is a Gift appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Planning your life must happen if you want to win at the long game, 20 or 50 years from now. Planning your life is all about finding out who you are as a person, what makes you tick, what your values are and what deeply satisfies your soul.

After my keynote presentation a few weeks back for a sales organization, I had a lengthy conversation with one of the national sales leaders and he expressed his sincere gratitude for the wake-up call I had given him when I was on stage. At first I was unsure what he was referring to, but then he went on to say, “I have worked and planned 30 years to get where I am now and not one hour went towards planning my own life. Everyone from the outside views me as a major success, but something deep inside feels missing.”

This happens because what we think will give us instant gratification, things such as making more money, landing the big promotion, purchasing our dream cars or where we are going to go for the next big vacation means absolutely nothing if we don’t know who we are as a person, what we really want out of life and what our values and priorities are.

The belief that taking the time to plan life and get serious about what’s meaningful is a waste of time will eventually eat you alive and leave you unhappy. You have to get your inner life right before your outer life is right.

Just because you may make a lot of money, have an excellent career or drive a nice car doesn’t mean anything in the long term. It may temporarily put a smile on your face and make you feel good, but without planning your own life first, it will leave you empty and searching for the meaning that has been missing for so long as life continually goes on and the older you get.

Every single one of us needs meaning. Plan your life and then translate that over to building your career. Don’t let life pass you by.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: Pixabay

The post Why It’s Vital That You Plan Your Life appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.”

Whether you believe in those sayings or not, an absolute truth that entrepreneurs and business owners can never lose sight of is that it really does matter who we spend our time and engage in conversation with.

I believe in those two sayings, and here’s why: I have lived it. I especially believe in the latter one, because when I was a complete mess and living in a dark, depraved world of drugs and low achievers when I was 16, that’s exactly who my friends were. Then, when I was fortunately able to get myself out and hang around those who wanted to achieve greatness and not mediocrity, my life was never the same.

I now make it a point to hang around those who are more successful than me, doing bigger things than me and have just as big of a vision as I do. This simple shift in how I approach friendship and who I choose to spend my precious time with has been extremely beneficial to the growth and success of my business.

According to research by Harvard University social psychologist Dr. David McCleland, the people that we speak with every day and hang out with on a continual basis determine as much as 95 percent of our success or lack of it. Think about that for a second — 95 percent!

Whether you are wondering if the percentage in that study is correct or not, that’s not the point. The point is who we chose to spend our time with. One of the first things I say to people when they come to me expressing how disappointed they are in life or how big of a rut they are in is to check their inner circles. This certainly isn’t the case all of the time, but more often than not, it’s a leak within an inner circle that has been sabotaging success and the opportunity to get to that next level of achievement.

The sad thing about all of this is that some of the most negative and energy-draining people in our inner circles are family or close friends. I have a very close friend who is on the brink of major breakthroughs in his professional life but hasn’t been able to get over some hurdles that have been limiting his potential. He has come to the realization that this barrier has been his mother and father.

I’m not telling you to immediately get rid of your close friends or cut off ties with beloved family members. However, I am hoping that you start to take a really long look and analyze the members of your inner circle. Are they helping you become the best version of yourself, build your dream life and allow you to live in a positive and healthy way? If the answer is no to any of those key questions, I strongly encourage you to start looking to make some changes.

Your life is too precious to leave any bit of your talent and ability unused due to any negative people in your life.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Don’t Let Others Degrade Your Potential appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

You can have a mastermind for every area of your life. There are masterminds where business owners and CEOs get together quarterly or yearly to discuss their current challenges and ways they can enhance their companies’ growth. Then you have personal masterminds, where people get together to help them become better in their marriages and with their families or help each other achieve personal goals and be a voice of support.

I have a mastermind group of five close friends who are all doing exceptional things and looking to get to the next level. We reflect with one another, laugh together and support each other. The type of impact this mastermind has had on my life is something that is very hard to put into words.

There have been several times where something didn’t go as planned or failure unexpectedly came knocking on the door and the collective input and support I received from those in the mastermind led me to see things in a different light. That’s what masterminds are for — not only to talk about your goals and find ways to become more successful, but to reflect and be honest about what is going on in your life so the group can come together to create solutions.

I strongly encourage you to gather four to six people that you trust and share your drive to be great. Here are three guidelines to think about when you are in the process of creating your own mastermind group.

1. Find out what the overall objective is.

This is important especially in the beginning stages of creating a mastermind. For example, is your group going to be focused on the personal or professional side of things? Is there a specific theme for the mastermind?

These are just a few questions to help get the ball rolling for you, but finding out the overall objective is a mandatory process to get things moving in the right direction.

2. Choose carefully.

Be extra picky with the potential candidates for your mastermind. You want the other people in your group to be positive, motivated and hard-working individuals who really do want to take their lives to the next level.

Imagine getting your mastermind set up, and when you come together you have someone who is constantly being a Debbie downer about everything. Even worse is someone who tries to belittle a goal or dream of yours that you share with the group.

3. Meet regularly.

It’s one thing to create a mastermind, but it’s a whole other thing to actually meet on a regular basis. It does you no good to meet every other year or hardly ever talk to one another. Whether you meet quarterly, monthly or have weekly conference sessions, just make sure to meet regularly.

My mastermind consists of people who don’t live in the same city as me, but we don’t let that stop us from meeting regularly. If you have to, conference calls as a group can work as well. The bottom line is to make sure you and everyone involved in the group does whatever it takes to meet on a regular basis, even if that means going virtual every now and then.

These are just three ways to help you get started when you are pondering where to start getting your mastermind up and running. Creating a mastermind can do exceptional things for your life. It can provide new perspectives. Don’t wait any longer to discover the phenomenal benefits of having a group of your own.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Create a Support Group That Will Push You appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

I certainly have, and I know many others that deal with the same problem. It’s easy to forget about living in the present and direct our focus and energy towards the future, or even worse, the past.

Just last week I had the opportunity to speak to a large group of high school students. I always enjoy the opportunity to spend time with the younger generation and share with them not only the tools that will help them become successful, but some of the things I most regret when I was their age.

One of the main things I decided to focus on with them was the importance of living in the now. When I was their age, all I could think about was going to college, and in turn neglected my final days as a high school student. Those are days I’ll never get back. Once I got to college, the same pattern developed. I couldn’t wait to leave Indiana University and start my NFL career.

This was a huge mistake on my part. Sure, it may have worked to my advantage to an extent because I always had a vision of what I wanted in my life, but I didn’t take the time to fully enjoy where I currently was or savor the moment.

Yes, we must have a vision for where we want to go and take ownership of where we currently are, but something that we can’t let happen is to neglect the present. The present is here to help develop and mold us into the individuals we need to become.

Day by day, life is fleeing from us. It’s not just youth that needs to be reminded of this. We as entrepreneurs and business owners need the same reminder. It’s so easy to get caught up in the process of building a business that you completely forget to live fully in the now.

Twenty years from now, once you are where you want to be, you will be looking back thinking what a mistake it was to not be as present as you could have been.

We decide not to give our all at work until a problem arises. We wait to tell those we love most how much they really mean to us until we come face to face with death. We forget about our most important values and priorities all to make a living or get an extra bonus.

Regardless of our stations in life, we can absolutely benefit from learning how to live in the now and be as present as possible while still having those long-term visions and plans. One of the major causes of unhappiness is to not appreciate what we already have and focus all of our energy and effort toward what we don’t have.

The older we get, some of our most precious assets will be the memories that we have created throughout the course of our lives. Don’t forget to make a life while you are busy making a living and building a business. There is no better time to start living life to the fullest than right this moment.

After all, not being present and choosing to not live life to the fullest now just might be one of your biggest regrets while on your death bed.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Don’t Forget the Importance of Living in the Now appeared first on Matt Mayberry.