Mindset Monday: Start With Why

Mindset Monday: Start With "Why"

read time ~7 minutes

Happy Monday! This is Greatness on Demand, the newsletter for Streamers that's bringing you actionable ideas to help grow your stream and yourself towards greatness.Here's what we have for you today:

• A little background story

• Quote: Find your "why"

• What's our "why"?

• What's your "why"?

• Book of the month

• Monday meme

Today is Monday and this is my favorite day to write to you because it's all about my favorite topic, mindset.Why do I love this stuff? Well, it changed my life... 

Many of you know me as a DJ Streamer on Twitch but what you may not know is that prior to 2012, I was lost and a bit stuck about where my career was headed. What changed in 2012? Someone saw something in me and gave me a shot. Those people were my wife's parents. They owned a bunch of Massage Envy locations in Virginia and wanted to get involved with a newer concept that was taking off down in Miami and in other parts of the county. You may have heard of it, it's called European Wax Center (EWC as we called it). Our first location was in Virginia and we wanted to expand to Florida where we were living at the time. We started with 2 EWC locations (Clearwater and Largo) and grew our portfolio to 9 locations between Florida and Virginia. So there I was, running a company in an industry I knew nothing about. I knew I was going to have to grow as a leader and as a business man for this thing to work. My "why's" to figure it out were 1) I wanted to be there for my team and be able to help them succeed, 2) Rissa and I had just had our first baby together that year and we were trying to figure out our path for the future, and 3) Rissa's parents had taken a chance on me and I wasn't going to let them down. For the last 11 years I've been reading books, attending seminars, taking courses and anything else I could get my hands on to learn and grow. The results have been tremendous. I was able to lead the company to the successfully sale all 9 of our locations a few years ago and I now I'm able to take the knowledge I gained from that experience into my streaming business on Twitch and other businesses I get involved in. I tell you all of this because I love to learn and grow not only to improve my own life but so that I can help others do the same. My favorite part about running EWC was being a part of the growth of my team. The things I've learned helped our team members develop into top sales people and many into managers to run new locations. These are the types of things I want to share with you on Monday's. So without further ado, let's get to it. 

Quote

What's Our "Why"

It was March of 2020 and I was at a self-improvement seminar in Tampa with my mother-in-law called The Landmark Forum. The situation with Covid-19 was starting to escalate and there was talk about about shutting down the airports. We were living in Puerto Rico at the time so this news had us concerned. My wife and kids were still on the island, as was my father-in-law and brother-in-law. If we got stranded in Tampa, who knew how long we'd be there. We had already completed the course and were supposed to come back the next day for the graduation party. We decided to skip out on the party and catch flights home, just to be safe. We made it back to PR in time, thankfully. At the time, I was building a coaching and consulting business that taught spa owners and managers how we had been so successful with EWC. However, the pandemic forced all of the spas to close down so this business was now dead in the water. I had no job and no clue what we were going to do. We had some savings but it wouldn't last long and we had no idea how long this covid thing was going to last. I saw some of my old school friends DJing on Facebook for fun and as a business-minded person I thought, "hmmm, maybe there's an opportunity here to create something bigger". After a few weeks of streaming on Facebook we realized we'd never be able to build a sustainable business there and decided to fully make the switch over to Twitch. That was nearly 3 years ago and we've never looked back. I love music so much and I love spinning but I stopped DJing because I didn't want to be out in the clubs anymore. I had (have) a family at home and am just in a different place mentally than I was when I was spinning 5-6 nights a week in the clubs and hitting hospitality nights on the other 1-2 nights. Streaming gave me the opportunity go back to doing something I love, while not having to leave my house and hopefully, provide a way to support my family until the pandemic blew over. Those were (and still are) my "why's". 

What's Your "Why"?

What does it mean to define your "why" and why does it matter? Your "why" is the reason you do anything. Your "why" is your north star. Once you have your "why" you can always look to it to find your way, should you get lost. It's what will keep you going when things become hard. When we first start doing something we're usually excited, motivated and have big dreams about what could be. Motivation is a temporary state though, so what keeps us going when it fades away? (which it usually does)The truth is, streaming is tough. It's not only time consuming but it's a mental game as well. You're not always going to feel like streaming; maybe you're tired and just want to chill and watch some TV, maybe you're feeling discouraged, maybe it's another reason. When you're motivated, it's easy to push through those feelings. In fact, if you're still buzzing from motivation, you probably won't even have these feelings. Once you do start to get those feelings though, that's a sign that the motivation is wearing off. Now it's hard. Now you have to push through. How do you push through it, though? By having a "why" so strong that not pushing through would be more painful than persevering. Having a strong "why" will give you the fuel you need to keep hitting that "Start Streaming" button in OBS, even on the days you're "over it" or "not feeling it". If you're fairly new to streaming you may not be experiencing these feelings yet but eventually, you likely will. So what's your "why"? Why did you start streaming? or, if you haven't started yet, why do you want to start streaming? Is it passion? Is it extra money to help support your family? Is it to gain fame and popularity? I challenge you today to take 10 minutes to really think about why you're doing this. Your why needs to be powerful enough to get you through the tough times. If it's not, come up with something better. Once you have your answer, use that as your fuel every time you don't feel like doing it or want to quit. 

Book of the Month

I thought it would be fun on Mindset Monday's to give out book ideas if you'd like to start developing yourself more in this area. On the first Monday of each month I'll throw out a different book or two that you can pick up and read. You can buy the hard copies, listen on Audible or read it on Kindle. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle app for your phone, purchase the Kindle version from Amazon and read it right from your phone. The Kindle app works great and I read from it all the time if I don't have my Kindle with me. My book recommendations for February are Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Start With Why by Simon Sinek. These are both great books and I believe Think and Grow Rich is one that every human should read at least once. 

Monday Meme

We streamers are grateful for every bit but this is still funny 😂

Future Topics?

That's a wrap for today!Reply back and let me know what topics you'd like to see us covering in future editions.

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If this email was forwarded to you, consider subscribing to receive them in future!Have a great week and we'll see you in the next edition!Peace,Chad & Rissa