Swimming Upstream - Vision, Strategy, Execution, Results

By Antoino Bravata

This Ebook is designed to help you grow as a leader. We will discuss, Strategy, Execution and Creating your Visions. You will learn different psychological techniques of being leader and how to be a better version of yourself. As a business coach my focus is to help you optimize and maximize your business, and that always starts with the owner. Different isn't always better, but better will always be different.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387583485

Book preview

SWIMMING UPSTREAM

-Vision, Strategy, Execution, Results-

Presented by:

Written by:

Antonio M. Bravata

Business Strategist & Coach

Copyright © 2022 by AMBCO, LLC

All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written consent of the author, expect as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

Published by Antonio M. Bravata

Printed in the United States of America

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This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……6

WHY DO PEOPLE GIVE EXCUSES... …13

TWO TYPES OF BUSY PEOPLE.......23

WHY PEOPLE WAIT, TO PACK…..29

PLANNING FOR TIME…..35

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR MIND…40

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE….50

KEEPING SCORE IN YOUR LIFE….55

YOUR MIND & ADDICTION…64

MOTIVATIONAL STORY #1…68

WHY OUR MILITARY IS SUCCESSFUL. 69

TIME TO MAKE YOUR CHOICE….76

MOTIVATIONAL STORY #2…84

POWER OF THE MOMENT….88

OTHER SIDE OF LEADERSHIP…97

MODESTY….119

WOMEN IN BUSINESS…..124

BEING AUTHENTIC…127

THE ALPHA WOLF…..130

MOTIVATIONAL STORY #3….134

EXECUTION & PUTTING IT TOGETHER….137

STRATEGIC THINKING….143

DEADLINES….160

CRITICAL OBJECTIVES….162

DEVELOPING YOUR PLAN…..173

MOTIVATIONAL STORY #4….186

COMITMENTS….188

GREATNESS TODAY…...192

WHEN LIFE KNOCKS YOU DOWN, WHAT WILL YOU DO?

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must first turn his back on the crowd. – Max Lucado

INTRODUCTION

Hello, thank you for taking action and picking up this book. Since 2008 I have been working with business owners helping them create results in their life and business. I work with individuals; the business is usually. The means by which their individual life will be allowed to function the way they want.

I think that when Tony Robbins coined the term Coach as it relates to the business world there have been a lot of people who just don’t understand exactly what that is. If you played sports growing up, you had a coach. Your coach was there to guide you and make you the best possible athlete you could be at your position to better the overall performance of the team. Your coach could not get on the field and play for you, they could only work with you to develop your skills and develop the strategy to allow you to perform at your absolute max.

As a business coach my job is to do the same. On the business side of things, if you have ever started a company, grew sales, as sales grew you needed more infrastructure to support your new customer base. As time goes, there are quite a few people who just can’t seem to figure out why they are growing, yet the net cash in the company seems to never be available to them when they need it. They get caught in a circle of needing additional capital and may take loans and although the company seems to be growing and sales seem to be increasing their net cashflow does not. Maybe you have a great product, but your sales team just can seem to perform? Maybe you have a hard time leading the company and recruiting the right people. Whatever the problems are, my job is to solve them for you and show you how to fix them by utilizing a strategy I will put in place for you. Your job is to execute that strategy and through weekly or monthly coaching I will help you stay on track and execute that plan.

Every business has a life cycle just as the human body. Each stage of the cycle is critical for the business and provides all the information you will need to determine if the problems you have are normal, abnormal, or pathological. There are mistakes made very early on in most companies that will kill your cashflow. The first stage is birth, this is when the business owner decides for the first time to invest their money to start the company. The next stage is an infant. If you think of a baby, can the baby survive without the parents? Can the baby support itself? Can the baby feed itself? The answer to all of course is no. the parents (business owner) need to care for the baby (the business) and it needs to be fed regularly (cashflow). If you have food in your fridge or on the table, and the baby is hungry would you as a parent eat first? Or would you feed your baby first? I think the answer to that is obvious but just in case, you would feed your baby first, otherwise the little piggy the parent would be can likely kill the infant. The mistake a lot of people make in this early stage is when the sales start to produce revenue, they take a portion of that revenue for personal income, even though the business is not yet ready to support itself.

Next, you will grow to a toddler and in this stage a toddler can now crawl and start to grab things. However, it still needs the parents to survive. The toddler could crawl downstairs, grab a knife, eat something it shouldn’t, and of course cannot yet cook and feed itself. The parents must still be active to make sure the toddler can keep healthy and grow. Again, at this stage if the toddler needs food, the parent should make sure it is fed before the parent gets to eat.

As the toddler gets a little older it will reach its teenage years. Here is where things can get a little scary, although most business owners (who are the teenagers here) don’t see it. Also, why a coach is vital. You see if you have a teen in your household, or if you remember what it was like to be a teen, you will remember the feeling of invincibility. You are superman and nothing can hurt you, you test your limits because you are at the stage of life trying to figure out what you are capable of. You do dumb things, and you go 100 miles per hour trying to accomplish everything. Although you are capable of feeding yourself and communicating when things are wrong, the parents still need to be around. They don’t need to be around quite as much, but there are still life lessons the parents need to pay attention to. As it relates to your business, your business will start to see sales go up, you will be hiring people, you will have cashflow, and most will misgauge how much to spend and what to spend it on. At this stage you are still an operator, you will have staff and some divisions of your company built out, however all the final decisions will still end up on your desk to make. This is how you know it’s still a teenager.

The teenager when ready, will transition to a young adult. It is at this stage you finally have made the decision to be an owner and hire a professional management team to run your company. Your sales are continuing to rise, your cashflow is strong and things are starting to go. At this stage you can finally start to pay yourself what you deserve, your sales, will generate revenue, that revenue generates profits, the profits will go into Cap X to invest in more growth for your company, but there will also be what is called free cashflow. The free cashflow is what you can use to pay dividends and owner income. Now you are not taking it away from the person anymore, you are living off what the business is providing you. You have finally created a system.

The young adult will eventually age into its prime. At the prime of its life, it will have its peak sales, it will have its peak cashflow, it will have its peak profits and everything you have built and nurtured along the way is paying off. Your professional management team is balanced with control and creation, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Responsibility and authority is structured not based on you as the owner, but based on the culture of the organization. There are problems here though, too many systems begin to lower people’s intensity, bureaucracy can start to be recreated and the owners tend to develop other interests spiritually, in their relationships or with other businesses.

Then, you will enter your mid-life. This is the stage of transition, as you age, things will begin to deteriorate and fall apart. You will begin to experiment because you see sales starting to fall off and revenue starting to decline. Your profits will be strong, because at this point you are likely beginning to make adult decisions and thinning areas of your company that you realize are a waste of financial resources. However, you are experimenting with innovation because you can feel that what you have been doing isn’t working anymore and your customers need new ways of doing things. Your management staff and some key employees are likely aging as well and may have different focuses on their own personal lives and may not have the same level of commitment as they once did.

This will bring you into the aging, elderly stage. Things will begin to breakdown now, if you fail to transform, the breakdown will accelerate. Most people go into a state of denial that the problems they see are not as big as they are. Both your sales and revenue are dropping, you have people problems, process problems, customer problems. Which will lead you into the final stage, of hospitalization. You are just trying to keep things alive a few more weeks, months, or years.  The focus is on preservation of what things once were.  And then you eventually die.

There is of course much more to each of these stages, but instead of writing a book on that, this book is about helping you change your focus. Become a leader and sustain that role. Showing you how to adjust your mindset and control your focus.

We will focus a lot of strategy and execution throughout this book. Before we really dive in, ask yourself a few things.

What business are you in?

What business are you (Really) in?

Who are you?

Who do you need?

Where are you, or your business in the life cycle?

And most important, why are you here? Why did you pick up this book?

I am curious to know why you entered the business you are in, why you are still in the business today and finally what is next? What do you want?

Although is book is a lot of strategy and mindset, don’t make the mistake that the how you do something comes first. First, you need to decide what it is that you want. And then you will figure out why you want it. Why is it important to you? After you know those two things, then the how will fall into place.

With a compelling vision for the future, you will begin to shape the way you think. The way we think will subconsciously alter the actions in our day to day lives, and the results you start to see in life will change. Although we cannot control our results, we can strongly influence them by our actions.

All of the strategies, how-too’s, books, movies, news, podcasts and knowledge in the world however, are useless, without MASSIVE ACTION.

The key secret to anything you do is, all how you execute. Just DO something. Learn from mistakes, and remember always:

Different is not always better, but better will always be different.

A life that is defended by Excuses has become comfortable in defeat; it has settled for mediocrity and is destined for failure.

WHY DO PEOPLE GIVE EXCUSES?

Am I a PhD or professional psychologist? No…So this is a blend of my personal experience and opinion blended with research that I have reviewed from multiple sources, psychologist and doctors and scientists who study the mind and the reason why we do the things we do. Over the years I have studied and mastered the mind when it comes