David Norris 1004 Crockett Street

Amarillo, Texas 79102(806) 679-9326

www.DavidNorrisLeadership.com

©2017-2018 David Norris • All rights reserved • Unauthorized duplication is prohibited by law.

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3 Life-Changing Actions to Create Success in Every Area of Life

How to Overcome Obstacles by Engaging Mentors and Coaches

IntroductionG

I truly believe that we all want success in our lives, businesses, health and relationships.

And, more importantly, I KNOW you can have that success in every part of your life, without having to sacrifice some areas to succeed in others.

Some people believe that to thrive in their business, they must neglect their relationships or health. Others struggle financially because they’re afraid that success in their career will leave them with no time or energy for their loved ones.

But the truth is, even if you’ve been struggling in some parts of your life for a long time, or if you’ve experienced a certain level success and found that you couldn’t seem to climb above that point, you can have all the prosperity and joy you’ve been dreaming of in EVERY area of life.

In fact, you can have more than success. You can have significance.

I believe we all want more than just to succeed. We want our lives to mean something, and we know deep down that we were born to have a positive impact on the world.

The challenge is that very, very few people know how to get there.

The path to success and significance isn’t taught in schools, but it does start with you.

You may have heard that everything is created twice. First it’s a thought, then it’s a thing or event.

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Your thoughts control your feelings and actions, which in turn shape your reality. If you want to create the circumstances you desire, you must first take control of your thoughts.

The first step in this journey is self-reflection: noticing what is going on inside your head and your heart, recognizing what is holding you back, overcoming those obstacles, and finding or attracting the people, mentors and coaches that can help you achieve the success and significance for which we each have a burning desire.

My purpose and mission in life is to be the absolute best version of myself, so I can empower and teach people just like you to create a life they love living.

To further that purpose, I created this e-book for you.

In the pages that follow, you’ll discover how to:

1. Identify and overcome the obstacles that have been blocking your success, so you can turn your dreams into reality with more ease and less effort.

2. Harness the habits and actions that successful people use to quickly achieve their biggest goals.

3. Choose a mentor or coach who will help you to create success in every area of life, and to make a difference in the world, faster than you ever thought possible.

Thank you for letting me serve you through this book.

To your success!

David Norris

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Table of Contents

1. How to Overcome the 5 Things that Block Success for Most People ................... 6• Why is it so Important to Recognize Your Success Blocks? ........................... 7• 5 Things that Block Success & How to Overcome Them ............................... 8• How to Achieve Success ............................................................................. 13

2. 7 Powerful Success Practices that Turn your Dreams Into Reality .................... 14• Be Grateful ................................................................................................. 15• Givers Gain ................................................................................................. 16• Ask the Right Questions ............................................................................. 17• Be a Courageous Non-Conformist .............................................................. 17• Think About what you WANT, Not what ‘Makes Sense’ ................................ 18• Invest in Yourself – and No, I Don’t Just Mean Money ................................ 19• Ask for Feedback From the Right People..................................................... 20• And there is an Eighth Practice… ........................................................... 21

3. 10 Things Every Entrepreneur and Executive Should Expect from their Master Leadership Coach ................................................................................................ 22

• How the Role of Coaching has Shifted ....................................................... 23• What makes a Coach a Master Coach? ...................................................... 24• 10 Things to Expect from your Master Leadership Coach ........................... 25• Making the Decision to Hire a Master Coach .............................................. 30

About the Author .................................................................................................. 31

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How to Overcome the 5 Things that Block Success for Most People

Whether you think of yourself as average or as successful, you are blind to some of the things that are holding

you back from the success you desire.

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When people want to achieve more success, I often find that they’re stuck in a default pattern of thinking and habits, and it keeps them from making progress no matter how hard they work.

Even successful people who are on their way to significance can and do get caught up in their own unconsciousness and lack of awareness, and find that they’re no longer moving toward their dreams.

They’re trapped on a plateau from which they can’t seem to climb any higher, and what worked in the past no longer works.

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But why?

The reason is simple: their current pattern created their current state of life, and as long as they continue to follow the same pattern, they’ll continue to create the same life.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, and that’s why so many people do it. They do this unconsciously and automatically, because they’re not awakened to living a life they design.

In fact, if you are reading this because the title caught your attention, the chances are very high that you have some awareness blind spots, just as I do.

Let’s wake up to a harsh and very real truth here: most people’s lives start decaying long before they are pronounced dead.

Oftentimes this starts very early in life. So many people die at age 25. It just takes another 50 or 60 years to bury them.

Other people live to be 90 years of age, but instead of growing and reaching their dreams, they live the same one year – a year they DON’T spend doing what they want or making a difference in the world – 90 times over.

In fact, according to recent research, only 9.2% of people actually felt like they achieved their New Year’s goals. You can check it out yourself at http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/ if you wish.

Why Is It So Important to Recognize Your Success Blocks?I have a client in the energy industry who engaged me as his coach. He was already doing well, but he desired more success in growing his company.

During our strategy session coaching call, we discovered that his blind spots included procrastination and leaving things undone or only done halfway.

After one year of coaching with me, his attitude about himself and his business has really matured.

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His main business has grown from three full-time employees as a small $3 million shop to over 10 employees and a $200 million private equity commitment.

Many coaching sessions were dedicated to leading his team through this growth spurt, and as a result, his 2017 revenue right now is 34% more than what he earned in 2016.

That’s the kind of transformation you can create just by removing a couple bad habits from your life.

5 Things that Block SuccessRegardless of their current level of success, the vast majority of people are held back from creating the life they want by five primary success blocks.

In this chapter, I’ll tell you what those blocks are, and how to overcome them.

Success Block #1: Staying Asleep at the Wheel of Your Life

The first thing that keeps most people from reaching their goals is the fact that they haven’t chosen a clear destination, and they aren’t continuously steering their life toward it.

They let their life be controlled by outside circumstances and the things that happen to them, to one degree or another. And while they often know what they DON’T want, they don’t have a specific, honest and actionable picture of what they DO want.

This unawareness of your own desires, and of your capacity to design your life and turn that design into reality, is often the first obstacle people encounter when they start trying to increase their success.

HOW TO OVERCOME IT:

Your first step is to become intentionally curious about what you would love.

Don’t ask, “What good things do I think I can create?”, “What can I afford?”, or “What do I have time for?”

Ask yourself, “What would I LOVE?”

Awareness of ignorance is the beginning

of wisdom.SOCRATES

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Apply this question to every area of your life, including your career, income, relationships and health.

When you answer it, be completely, fearlessly honest. Shoot for the stars. Discover, and write down, EXACTLY what you want, even if it seems impossible.

The last thing you want is to spend your life chasing a dream that isn’t what you really want because you weren’t honest with yourself.

Notice the desires you have, and the things you want to create or change in your life and the world. Pay attention to your feelings of discontent. These are not random; they’re the road map to your purpose and the life you were meant to live.

When you know what you truly want, you can start to see the possibilities for achieving it as they come into your life, and you can create a concrete and actionable plan for turning it into reality.

Success Block #2: Not Thinking About the Right Things

You may have heard the saying, “everybody has thoughts, but not everybody thinks”.

Even if you do think deeply and frequently, you might not be thinking about the right things to grow your success.

Thinking is the hardest thing anybody will ever do, and that’s why so many people don’t do it. To make matters worse, we’re often trained to think about the wrong things.

Failure to gain control of your mind, and therefore your thinking, is the fastest road to decay, and it will never be the road to success.

HOW TO OVERCOME IT:

Each morning, before you get sucked into the busyness of your schedule, choose one desire you have.

Then, take five minutes to give serious, focused thought to what you can do that day to either experience the thing you desire, or to move toward the life you want.

Your life is a reflection of

your thoughts. If you change your thinking you will change your life.

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Don’t focus on the reasons why you “can’t” have it. Instead, ask yourself, “If it were possible, what is the first action I would take to make it happen?”

While you’re thinking about the thing you desire, let yourself really feel what it will be like when this thing you want is yours.

This feeling will help to inspire, motivate and encourage you, and it will empower you to attract the circumstances and opportunities you want into your life.

Success Block #3: Following the Crowd

Average people have a highly vested interest in keeping you average, and they’ll go to great lengths to get you to stay with them in a “herd” state of general malaise and decay.

This can be well-meant; they might want to protect you from taking risks, or it could be because they like the person you are now or the relationship dynamic they currently have with you, and they don’t want either of those to change.

But whatever the reason for their desire to maintain the status quo, giving in to it means giving up on your dreams.

Breaking away from what others are doing, or ceasing to do what others say you should be doing, can be as hard as thinking for yourself, but it is necessary.

HOW TO OVERCOME IT:

Once you have an idea of what you want to do, have or experience, you must DECIDE to do it.

One way to do this is to write an “I am” statement that declares who you are now being or what you are now doing. Read that statement often, and commit to acting on it, especially if you again find yourself following the crowd.

Charting your own course in life regardless of what others say, even if your circumstances aren’t perfectly conducive to your plans and dreams, is the most challenging yet most rewarding thing you will ever do.

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Success Block #4: Procrastinating Too Often and for Too Long

When you make a decision on something, you might make it slowly and change it often, because you want to make sure you get it right the first time and every time.

You follow the adage, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”. Or, even worse, “Let’s schedule that for some other time to be determined later”.

“Good things come to those that wait” is another phrase we’ve all heard too often.

The only thing that comes from waiting is slow decay and eventual death from standing still while waiting for something else to change.

HOW TO OVERCOME IT:

If you’ve followed the advice in the previous steps, then you need to take action.

Immediately after coming up with an idea worth acting on, and deciding that you will act upon it, schedule the time to do so in your calendar and honor that appointment with action.

If you don’t think you can complete the entire action at once, then break it down into steps.

For example, if you’re creating a webinar, you could say, “I’ll create the script from 3:00 to 4:00 on Monday. From 2:00 to 3:00 on Tuesday, I’ll turn that script into slides, and from 3:00 to 4:00 on Wednesday, I’ll record the audio”.

Success Block #5: Being Afraid! Being Very Afraid!

Change and growth are scary, which is why so many people believe they are to be avoided.

“Better safe than sorry” and “look before you leap” are the battle cries of the average and common person.

Most of us were taught to focus our thoughts on what’s reasonable, what’s safe, why we can’t, what’s missing, what problems we might face, and why it won’t work.

One day or day one…You decide.

UNKNOWN

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As Jim Carrey once said, “Fear will often disguise itself as practicality.”

Somewhere along the way to adulthood, average people stopped giving themselves permission to fail.

HOW TO OVERCOME IT:

Highly successful people do what they desire even when they are very much afraid.

We celebrate these people for what they practiced privately for years, and that is choosing faith over fear.

This practice isn’t easy. In fact, doing it alone is nearly impossible to sustain for long, especially when you’re exploring new and challenging territory.

Practicing faith in the face of fear requires a partner in believing, or even a coach.

Most successful people have one or more coaches – not because they are successful, but because the coaches help them see what they cannot see and believe what they cannot believe about themselves, and thus help them to become even more successful.

If you want to be successful, find a coach who can see you for who you really are, and who is willing to believe in the things that will be possible for you when you get out of your own way.

I’ve had a lot of worries in my life,

most of which have never happened.

MARK TWAIN

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How to Achieve SuccessSuccumbing to the gravitational pull of the familiar, and subsequently collapsing back into the normal of past habits and thinking and living, is what is now commonly known as our “comfort zone”.

A comfort zone can actually become physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually painful when you ignore it or let it keep you from creating the life you want to live.

There is a way out of this trap, for those who are awake enough to actually listen to what is going on inside them.

It’s being awake to the feeling of longing for something we haven’t yet created, and the discontentment with current circumstances that sparks us to grow, to change something, to create something new, or even to rise up out of the ashes.

The possibilities for any of us are infinite.

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the

ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire. T. Boone Pickens

GIf you are ready to give up your default thinking and living, and to live a life where you’re making all the money you want by doing what you love, where you can do what you WANT to instead of what you HAVE to, and where your health and relationships are thriving, the time to act is now.

Now that we’ve explored what holds you back from success, let’s take a look at the practices that empower you to create the life you desire.

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7 Powerful Success Practices That Turn Your Dreams Into Reality

“One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others cannot see and to help them

navigate a course to their destination.” John C. Maxwell

GMany years ago, I attended the funeral of a long-time friend.

Wynon was a character in every sense, and she attracted great things and great people to her. She was always encouraging, always had a smile, and was always willing to offer a helping hand.

Nobody ever really knew Wynon’s age. We all knew her birthday, but her birth year was a closely guarded secret. According to Wynon, age was just a number and hers was unlisted.

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At her funeral, her grandchildren and great grandchildren told us a story: when they were growing up and would spend Friday night with her, Wynon would wake them up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, admonishing them to “Get up! Get busy! It’s later than it’s ever been before!”

Think about that!

All we really have is right now, and regardless of the time, it is later than it has ever been before. The clock is ticking.

This was simply Wynon’s way of teaching her family that life is short, and that it’s meant to be enjoyed and lived fully, abundantly and joyfully, while making a difference in the lives of her family and the people they affected.

Wynon was a great mentor, and an example of how to live with vigor and intention.

I have had many mentors over the years. Here are seven of the most powerful daily success practices I learned from them:

Success Practice #1: Be Grateful

Be grateful at all times, in all places, for all things, and remember that everything happens for a reason.

I know that sometimes it’s hard to be grateful.

Gratiutude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

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Most people are taught to live with a victim mentality, believing that the bad things that happen to them are completely outside their control, and there’s nothing they can do to change their situation or the way they feel about it.

But the more you stew in your feelings of helplessness or pain, the more you’ll attract the same type of circumstances, and the harder it will be for you to take control of your situation.

When things are really tough financially or at work, or you’re going through an unpleasant situation or painful emotions, cultivate and keep a sense of gratitude about you at all times.

Be in a continual state of gratefulness for the tough stuff, and focus on the lessons you learn, the skills you cultivate, or the inner wounds you discover and heal through the experience.

Be grateful even for great things that have not yet come to you, because that teaches your subconscious to believe that the wonderful life you’re envisioning is yours, so it works for your dreams instead of against them.

I’ve learned that, through the daily practice of gratitude, I bounce back faster when unpleasant things happen. Gratitude will build your resilience.

Success Practice #2: Givers Gain

When people hear “givers gain” or “be selfless”, they often take this to mean they should give until they have nothing left, and hope that an external source replenishes them in return.

That isn’t how it works. Selflessness doesn’t mean hurting yourself, or making yourself dependent on others to take care of your neglected needs.

Taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, and yes, even financially, before you take care of others, is not selfish.

You’ll do more good for the people around you, and be happier, healthier and more successful yourself, if you build a solid foundation in each of those areas, so you have plenty of time, talent and treasure to give instead of trying to pour from an empty glass.

Only by GIVING are you able

to receive MORE than you

already have.

JIM ROHN

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It’s all about keeping harmony between your levels of giving and receiving.

We’re taught that it’s more blessed to give than to receive, and that is true. It is in our giving that we are blessed with receiving abundantly, but we must remember to give to ourselves as well.

Take care of yourself and your needs, so you can give from a place of wholeness and abundance.

Success Practice #3: Ask the Right Questions

The vast majority of people go through life looking for answers to questions they have not even asked or don’t know how to ask.

This is a problem, because the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask. Solving our problems and challenges cannot be done on the same level of thinking that caused them.

If you think things like “What can I afford?”, “What do I have time for?”, or “What will my circumstances allow?”, those restrictive questions will limit your success.

It’s only through asking empowering questions like “What would I love?”, “What can I do to earn or raise the money?”, or “What do I need to do to make this a priority instead of letting other activities push it to the side?” that any of us progress to success.

Questions are your primary means of unleashing your creative potential.

Success Practice #4: Be a Courageous Non-Conformist

Statistics are for groups. You are not a group – you are a powerful person who can rise above the average results that other people get.

As I mentioned earlier in this book, statistically average people have a highly vested interest in keeping you average.

These people are acting like everyone

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else without a clue as to why, and they don’t like to have their comfortable and familiar world view challenged.

Have the courage to be a non-conformist and break away from the common herd. Forge your own path. Be the man or woman you want to be. Choose to do great things; it is the hallmark of a great being.

Success in anything takes courage, even in one’s thinking.

But that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. You may have heard that you’re the average of the five people with whom you spend the most time, and it’s true.

That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with other courageous people who are willing to defy the norms and limitations that other people place on them, and take bold, consistent action for their dreams.

Success Practice #5: Think About What You WANT, Not What ‘Makes Sense’

Asking yourself what makes common sense, what is reasonable, and what is practical and prudent will help keep you safe and perhaps alive, but you will not truly live until you think your own thoughts of abundance and greatness.

The penalties for failing to take control of your own thinking are deadly. Just ask anyone who lost their health due to stress because they stayed in a “safe” but soul-sucking job, or who went to their deathbed without ever having lived the life they truly wanted.

Taking control of your thinking, instead of letting your peers or fear disguised as practicality control it for you, is the path to vibrant aliveness and abundant prosperity.

Make it a daily practice to think:

“What would I love?”

“What would have to happen for that scenario to become reality?”

Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives.

It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity

more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society

is not cowardice, it’s conformity.ROLLO MAY

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“What actions do I need to take today to make that happen, even if it’s just to put the next few action steps in my calendar and commit to doing them at those times?”

Success Practice #6: Invest in Yourself – and No, I Don’t Just Mean Money

Most people only look to grow themselves if it’s easy, convenient, and free or paid for by someone else. But real change is never easy, convenient and free.

Success in your life takes two types of investments.

The first is continuous learning to expand your skill set in whatever you do. You must be constantly focused on getting better, so your ever-growing abilities can take you further.

The second investment is mindset transformation. This is even more difficult than expanding your skill set, because you and I are surrounded by calls to conform to what is normal for everybody else.

Intentionally and consistently studying in your chosen field, taking action, and evaluating your experiences to see what you can learn and where you need to improve, will empower you to develop the skills and knowledge required to realize your dreams.

Both of these investments require your own time and money, and the will to implement what you learn.

Other people can teach and support you, but nobody else can hone or apply your skills for you.

I have a client who engaged me to help him change his business model and expand his retail truck parts business. Once we got into it, it became very apparent that everything was ready to go except for the mindset around execution of the plan.

“Everyone tells you what to do and what’s

good for you. They don’t want you to find your

own answers. They want you to believe theirs.”

SOCRATES

The best investment you can make is in

yourself.WARREN BUFFETT

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My client’s belief that he did not have the time to execute the growth plan was the only thing that held him and his company back.

By investing in himself and hiring me as his coach, he was able to finally achieve the success he desired.

I helped him to develop an awareness of his mindset around what he was doing on a daily basis, and to master his calendar

instead of letting it control him.

As a result, he had more days with accomplishments that moved him toward his business goals rather than just doing the same routine activities throughout the day.

Success Practice #7: Ask for Feedback From the Right People

Finding somebody to provide honest, well-informed and compassionate feedback can be highly difficult, because most people, even those in leadership positions, seldom know how to give that feedback.

Oftentimes, their advice has their own hidden agenda and bias behind it, whether they mean for it to or not. Even worse, they might tell you what they think you want to hear instead of what you need to hear.

Finding a support system of people who love you, are willing to point out your blind spots, and will show you areas you need to work on in a manner that helps you become the person you want to be, is the only way for feedback to work.

As the former Chief Operating Officer of a bank with ten bank mergers and acquisitions and countless new branch openings under my belt, I found that the feedback given to me and amongst my team during and after each objective contributed significantly to the overall success of the company.

By bringing people into an environment of trust where they could be open and vulnerable with each other, we were able to constantly improve our processes for the next objective. We got better each time.

Average players want to be left alone.

Good players want to be coached. Great players

want to be told the truth.DOC RIVERS

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This is because we focused on becoming very good at providing truthful feedback to each other, even when it was unpleasant. Our trust in each other and the process helped us move through the unpleasant feelings to find value.

Eventually, we came to look forward to the feedback in the interest of growing not just our company, but our team and ourselves.

Success Practice #8: Do It Now!

To wrap this up, I will now add an eighth powerful daily success practice: do it now!

Just like Wynon exhorted her grandchildren: Get up! Get busy! It’s later than it’s ever been before!

Waiting for the time to be right will keep you waiting your entire life.

Being stuck because of conditions and circumstances is the greatest lie we can tell ourselves. There is always something you can do with what you have, wherever you may be, and you always have way more than you think.

Greatness and success in business and in life are not functions of time. Rather, they are functions of priorities, and of understanding that activity and accomplishment can be two different things.

If you are ready to forge your own path, and to live a life where your vocation, health and well-being, love and relationships, and what you do with your time and money are by your design and not somebody else’s, the time to act is now.

It’s later than it has ever been before!

If you want to start living your dreams as soon as possible, instead of spending years struggling to find the path to your goals, one of the most valuable things you can do is get a master coach.

This one step alone can save you thousands of hours, and vast amounts of money that you would otherwise have spent on strategies that didn’t take you where you want to go.

So how do you tell if someone is the right coach for you? Let’s explore that in the next chapter.

You can’t leave footprints in the sands of time if you’re siting on your butt.

And who wants to leave butt prints in the sands of time?

UNKNOWN

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10 Things Every Entrepreneur and Executive Should Expect from their Master Leadership Coach

A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.

Zig Ziglar

GI have long believed in the power of having a coach to help me develop myself as a leader and entrepreneur – so much so that I now serve entrepreneurs, business owners and executives as their coach.

I will always have coaches in my life so I can get better at coaching others.

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How the Role of Coaching Has ShiftedIn the business world, coaching was long thought to be something to correct under performance. But today, leaders consider the hiring of coaches to be essential, much like professional athletes do.

Coaching in business is now used to support top producers and to generate immediate results, especially in times of change and challenges and in situations where you’re pursuing new opportunities.

The coaching industry has grown rapidly in the last ten years.

Unfortunately, the demand for coaches is creating a supply of fresh, inexperienced ones who have minimal training and hide that fact behind fancy websites and ads, which leads many people to hire coaches who can’t really help them.

Finding a master coach takes effort. You have to know what to look for, so you can tell the experts apart from the ones who lack the necessary training and skill. But that investment of time and energy will pay exponential dividends.

Just as a professional athlete’s career can be transformed by the right coach, having a master coach in your corner can make you millions of dollars, save your marriage or other important relationships, help you build a legacy that you’re proud of, and more.

A former business client of mine is a perfect example of this.

He had struggled with consultants and inexperienced coaches, and had spent tens of thousands of dollars on office hardware and software systems, only to stay stuck in the same place.

He then hired me, and we quickly discovered that his problem had nothing to do with his system and everything to do with how he was thinking about his people.

We worked to build an awareness in his thinking, which changed his perspective on his employees. As a result, his employees became more engaged.

In less than six months, his issues were creatively solved and his company’s revenue increased tenfold.

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What Makes a Coach a Master Coach?Master leadership coaches first work on themselves unceasingly. As an example, I am constantly open to new ideas and philosophies, and I participate in specialized training for coaches several times per year.

I study coaching seriously and take coaching seriously. I totally care about the person across from me. That’s what it’s all about anyway: helping people.

I am not shy about claiming to be a master coach, because I constantly seek to get better so I can help you become who you want to become more quickly and with less effort on your part.

I continue to invest the time, energy and money to be trained.

I have also been a leader, serving first as an officer in the US Marine Corps, and then as an executive in a corporation for years.

Neither of these alone are sufficient for my claim of mastery.

However, when you combine my investments and my experiences with the visible results enjoyed by the employees and clients I have worked tirelessly to coach over the past 35 years, you can see that I have helped countless people to achieve what they deeply desired in their businesses and lives.

When I consider the coaches I chose to guide me, I find that they all have three things in common:

1. They care deeply about people, especially me.

2. They each have incredibly high personal standards and ambitions.

3. They have a high level of self-knowledge.

These are the top three things you should look for in a coach. However, there are more criteria a coach must meet before you can trust them to bring you the best results in the shortest time.

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To help make your search easier, I created a useful list you can refer to when you’re evaluating a coach you want to hire:

10 Things to Expect from Your Master Leadership CoachFor a master leadership development and personal growth coach to help you create the highest level of success in every area of life, they need to meet the following criteria:

1. A master coach will bring you into a system of structure and support.

Coaching is much like working out: if you do it sporadically now and then, you’ll get little or no results. That’s why a master coach is highly organized, and has a planned coaching schedule to help you stay on track toward your goals.

This demonstrates the coach’s commitment to your success and the fact that they know what they’re doing.

Steer clear of coaches who try to use randomly scheduled, intermittent sessions to help you reach big goals.

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2. A master coach teaches you to stay accountable.

You don’t want a coach who promises to hold you accountable for what you say you want. That type of coaching won’t help you grow, and you’ll always be dependent on them for your accountability.

A master coach will bring you into a system of structure and support where you will build the desire and discipline to want to be accountable to yourself, and they’ll help you understand the high cost of excuses, so you can keep moving toward your dreams even when your coach isn’t pushing you.

3. A master coach is someone you can trust and be vulnerable with.

Entrepreneurs, business owners and executives usually have teams of good people around them, but it’s highly unlikely that these people can provide the insight, care and candor of a master coach with whom the real issues can be unpacked.

You want a coach who is not tied to your organization, friends, family, or anybody else. This gives them the ability to be unbiased and totally objective.

You also want to make sure your coach will keep your discussions private. In order to be open and vulnerable, you need to feel safe and your coach needs to be trustworthy.

4. A master coach will challenge your habitual thinking.

A coach can answer questions and provide insights, but a master coach’s primary job is not to answer questions – especially not the kind of questions that don’t lead to success.

Your coach’s duty is to bring you into a new space where you can learn to upgrade your level of thinking and ask

Trust is being vulnerable, leaning in, and becoming a stronger, more interesting individual.

You can have results or excuses.

Not both.

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empowering questions of yourself and others. As I stated above, the quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions.

It’s only through asking highly-calibrated questions and using up-leveled thinking that you can discover new ways to attack old problems, so you can finally overcome the obstacles that have kept you stuck for years.

5. A master coach will not agree with your limiting conditions or circumstances.

Conditions and circumstances are inevitable. We all have them in our businesses and personal lives.

But while we all have them, a master coach will help you learn to not let those conditions and circumstances have you.

Coaching works well when you know what you’re struggling with, or when you know where you want to go but you just don’t know how to get there.

A master coach brings different perspectives and alternatives to your awareness, so instead of being limited by your circumstances, you can choose the action steps and make the decisions that will change your business and life.

6. A master coach is not your cheerleader.

A master coach will be encouraging and inspiring to you, and will promote celebrating your wins along the way, but that is where it stops. They won’t celebrate settling or doing less than your best.

Your coach will keep you moving in the direction of what you say you want, and will deliver an empowering energetic supplement (figurative kick in the butt) when needed.

What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.BRUCE LEE

All conditions and all circumstances in our lives are a result of a certain level

of thinking. If we want to change the conditions and circumstances, we have

to change the level of thinking that is responsible for it.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

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7. A master coach will equip you with the mental and emotional tools to grow.

Many business owners and executives plateau in their influence and interpersonal skills, and find that they don’t know how to keep growing from there. This is often not because of weaknesses, but because of undeveloped strengths.

That’s why master coaches, including me, focus on helping you to develop the strengths you already have, rather than trying to overcome your weaknesses.

In fact, many of the things you might think are weaknesses are actually undeveloped strengths, and that misunderstanding often causes those strengths to remain undeveloped.

The master coach teaches you, trains you, and helps you develop the resources to move beyond your plateau and continue to build up your strengths, including the undeveloped ones.

8. A master coach will provide intentional growth.

In my experience, clients typically do not want to wade through all the info, much of which is conflicting, to figure out what is the best way to achieve the result they want.

You don’t want to figure it out or become the expert. You have better things to do with your time. You just want the result.

A master coach will guide you to that result, rather than dumping a bunch of information in your lap and expecting you to sort it out.

The growth and development of people is the highest

calling of leadership.

HARVEY S. FIRESTONE

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.STEVE PREFONTAINE

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9. A master coach will help you evaluate experiences.

Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is.

Most people long remember the feeling around an experience, but quickly forget the learning that could have been gained from it.

Your level of success seldom exceeds your level of personal development and growth, and this growth is only done through learning from evaluated experiences.

10. A master coach will hold your hand.

You’re a busy, smart career person. If you had the time and specialized training to figure it out yourself, you would have by now.

You aren’t paying a coach to tell you what to do and say “go”, any more than you’d hire a tour guide to hand you a map and say “walk north”.

A master coach will hold your hand and guide you to your Promised Land, step by step.

When you go for what you want, fear will naturally come up, so the hand-holding is super important. You don’t want to feel like you’re in it alone. My clients tell me that when they do it alone they do not get what they want.

One of my clients, who is an economist, independent financial advisor and aspiring author, is a great example of this.

While he did enjoy a certain level of success, his previous efforts at increasing his business and writing his book without support and coaching were producing virtually nothing for him.

After engaging me as his coach, coming inside my system and structure of support and accountability, and having me hold his hand through the process, he has since made great progress in all domains of his life, including having a book published.

Experience isn’t the best teacher –

evaluated experience is.

JOHN C. MAXWELL

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Making the Decision to Hire a Master CoachThe decision to engage a master leadership development and personal growth coach can be a real game changer for people who want to move from success to more success, or from success to significance.

Successful people make decisions quickly and seldom change them.

Unsuccessful people are slow to make decisions and change them often, and they also look for paths to success that are easy, convenient, and free.

But free and cheap information is not enough.

No book, internet site, app, or any amount of free Googleable information will ever replace a skilled master who will help you to create a customized plan that fits your values, personality and goals, and who will hold your hand and keep you moving forward every step of the way.

Free information won’t restore your confidence when obstacles arise, things get tough, or your subconscious mind and social circle clamor for you to retreat back into your comfort zone.

When you are ready to achieve your dreams, the most valuable thing I have to offer you is the experience of mastering a proven system of support that has helped thousands of people just like you to reach the success and significance they deeply desire.

If you’re ready to reach your goals in every area of life, and you want to have a conversation with me to see if we’re a good fit as client and master coach, send me an email at David@DavidNorrisLeadership.com to schedule an appointment.

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About the Author:David Norris is a husband, father, grandfather, leader, Rotarian, and former banker, and has served as an Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps.

He has extensive experience in leadership positions in both banking and Rotary, and served Rotary as a District Governor and as a Rotary International Coordinator responsible for developing Rotary leaders for the purpose of growing Rotary membership.

Having once worked as Happy State Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, David’s 35 years of bank operations experience covers the spectrum of bank operations, including investments, asset-liability management, interest rate risk, enterprise risk management, balance sheet management, loan operations and administration, mortgage lending operations, information technology, corporate trust, wealth management, human resources, accounting, facilities management, regulatory compliance and audit.

For 25 years, David helped Happy State Bank grow from a two-location company of $20 million in total assets to one of the largest banks in Texas, with 35 locations in 24 communities and nearly $3 billion in total assets.

He has also been the team leader in ten different bank mergers and acquisitions, during which he specialized in bringing together the resources needed for the compassionate takeover of another company, and in introducing and mentoring the new and recently acquired employees and teammates into the culture of Happy State Bank.

Now a full-time C-level executive and entrepreneur leadership development and personal growth coach, David has dedicated his life to empowering, growing and developing those around him to be better leaders and better human beings.

His passion is leadership and helping others to discover and realize their dreams through his speaking, coaching and mentoring.

David is also a co-author of The Change 7: Insights Into Self-Empowerment, the fastest growing personal development book series in the world.

David’s education includes a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University, and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Chapman University.

If you want to experience the same immense growth that he’s brought to Happy State Bank and numerous other companies, contact him today at David@DavidNorrisLeadership.com to schedule a consultation.