success - Cortney Sargent, Sr.

21 Questions That Will Change Your Life

November 29, 2017October 24, 2016 by Cortney Sargent

These 21 thought-provoking questions will change your life if you honestly and transparently look inside of yourself. The key is to be bold enough and decide to take action on what you see.

What is it that is keeping you from being great?
What area of your life are you not giving all of your effort to?
What are you not doing that you know you should be doing? And, why? For most people, there is only for a few years of life when you’re trying to figure out what to do with your life. The rest of your life is the real challenge…actually doing it. When you do what you know you’re supposed to do, your life can go to another whole level.
What are the small foxes that are hindering your progress? When you’re faithful over the small things, you will find that the bigger things that you’re striving to accomplish, actually comes easy. Be faithful over the few…
What is your purpose and are you fulfilling it? Your purpose is the reason you were put on this earth. When you pursue purpose, you discover success.
What is your gift and are you using it? You gift is the tool that will help you fulfill your purpose. It’s what you the absolute best with the least amount of effort.
What are your values? Write down the 3 most important aspects of each of these areas in your life: personal development, family, relationships, work, health and spirituality. These are your values.
Are your “shoulds” and “wants” getting in the way? The desires of our ego are often in conflict with the values of our heart. If we allow what we think we SHOULD do and what we WANT get in the way of what’s actually right, that will lead to destruction.
What did I learn today? Who did I help? What made me laugh? Ask yourself these 3 questions at the end of each day to help you maintain clarity in your life.
How can I make today better than yesterday?
Am I over my past? Yes, the past happened, but it can’t be changed so get over it. It may be difficult to do, but you have to make the most of what’s in front of you– the opportunities, people and moments.
What company do I keep? Birds of a feather flock together. You are the company you keep. It’s impossible to consistently hang around someone and one person not change the other. Are you changing them, or are they changing you?
If you weren’t afraid what would you attempt? If you knew you would be succeed, what would you do? Whatever that is, go do it! The only limits and boundaries to success that exist are the ones you create.
If I were dying, would I worry about this? So often and so easily we lose perspective on what’s important in life. We allow so many small unimportant things consume our attention and life. We’re all dying. The older we get, the closer to the end of life we become. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of this in order to enjoy living.
Have I forgiven all the people who hurt me?
Have I asked for forgiveness from all of the people that I hurt? Things happen. People hurt us and we hurt people. That’s a part of being human. But learn to forgive and don’t hold grudges. You can’t move forward in life if you don’t.
What’s your WHY? Why do you do what you do? If your dream doesn’t scare you, it’s not big enough. If your why isn’t big enough, you’ll always use the what and how as an excuse to failure.
Who did you make better today?
What legacy do you want to leave for the generations to come?
What do you want people to remember about you when you die?
What would Jesus do? This may sound cliché, but it is a serious question we should ask ourselves because Jesus was the epitome of a perfect human.

9 Characteristics of “The Grind” and Success (#7-9) + Live Periscope Broadcast

November 29, 2017August 24, 2015 by Cortney Sargent

Read part 1 here

7. The grind produces productivity. The grind is not about just being busy. It’s not about consuming time. The purpose of the grind is for results/productivity. If you’re not being productive, you’re not grinding; you’re just busy wasting time. It’s not enough to just be busy; you must be busy with the evidence of results. Without productivity, there is no progress. Failure is also a part of the grind. In every failure there is a lesson. When you fail at something, you better draw out the lesson. When you don’t draw out the lesson you’re a failure, but when you do you’re a victor. That’s why you can be productive when you fail because you actually learned a valuable lesson that can prevent further failure.If you’re not being productive, you’re not grinding; you’re just busy wasting time.

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8. The grind teaches discipline (most of the time the hard way). Be honest: there’s something that you need to be doing right now. Something that you know will make you a better person. Something that will change your life; change your family’s life. But you haven’t done it yet because you’re not disciplined. Until you become discipline you will never be successful.

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9. The grind keeps you on your toes. It keeps you alert, focused and ready to respond to any situation that may come up. Always be ready in and out of season. Preparation is key because if you’re grinding correctly, some things will happen that you didn’t expect and if you’re not ready, you’ll miss the opportunity.If you STAY READY, you won’t have to get ready.

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Do LESS More Effectively

November 29, 2017January 5, 2015 by Cortney Sargent

DON’T USE LESS IS MORE AS AN EXCUSE

You’ve heard the saying that “less is more”. Well that could be true but there are some requirements and prerequisites. First, let me say this, sometimes we take that saying and use it as an excuse why you’re not doing something or why you don’t want to do something. For me, it was exercise. I made up in my mind that instead of exercising 7 days a week, I would only get in 3 good days of workouts. Less is more right? Instead of stressing about trying to workout every day, I would only try to do 3 days. But, the problem with that logic was that I used that as an excuse why I didn’t want to workout every day; I wasn’t even doing LESS right. I didn’t even fully commit to doing the 3 days of workouts.

Less only is more only when it is done right – with efficiency and sufficiency. You can do something with the less is more in mind, but if you don’t do it right, it’s in vain. If it’s not done with sufficient effort and drive, you’re wasting your time. Everything that you do should be done to the best of your ability. Don’t slack off just because you’re doing less; you should actually give even more.

DO THE RIGHT THING

Entrepreneurs always want to do less work and be more productive. Well that only works if you’re doing the right thing. First of all, you can’t expect to get great results with little effort. People want to be successful but don’t want to put in the man-hours it takes to get there. People want success but don’t want to make the necessary sacrifices to get there. People want success but don’t want to make the required personal character adjustments to reach success. You can’t expect to have something that you didn’t earn.

THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS

I often see posts and hear people talk about becoming wealthy in a short amount of time, getting rich from working at home for 2 hours. I’ve seen people post screenshots saying they earned $12,352.12 in a matter of hours. I’m not saying they’re lying but what I am saying is that there’s no way that you can put in $50 work effort and get $12,000 results. It just doesn’t work that way. Now being gifted and talented at something is different. I’m gifted at graphic design. I can design a logo in 45 minutes and $250. But, you better believe I’m gonna put everything that I have into that logo design. It’s not strenuous work because I’m gifted at it; I’ve done it long enough that it doesn’t take long to do. My point in saying all of that is that you must put forth the work and effort to get the results you want. There are no get rich quick strategies– if there were I would know about them. There are no shortcuts to success– if there were I would’ve already taken them and told you about them. If you’re going to do less, make sure that you take more time and put in more effort to making it excellent.

LESS IS JUST AS IMPORTANT

Don’t be guilty of having the mindset that says: Just because I’m not doing as much I can give less effort. Just because I’m doing less, what I’m doing is less important. That’s wrong! Just because you’re doing less, doesn’t mean it’s not important. Sometimes the less is more important than the more. Just because you’re the janitor at the company doesn’t mean you have less value to the company than the CEO. Sure the CEO has greater responsibilities but if he doesn’t have someone to clean the bathrooms and empty his office garbage can, the bathrooms would be musty and his office would look like a pig pin. You are important!

Start a Business With No Money

November 29, 2017November 4, 2012 by Cortney Sargent

Anyone can start almost any business with no money. All you need is the right idea, a few basic principles to follow and a dead-on focus that leads to success. In this business development guide, we’re going to give you some tips, advice and some guidelines that will help you start the business you’ve always wanted to or just make some extra money from your favorite hobby.

1. Identify your passion or idea. All of us have passions and ideas. We were all given some sort of gift, talent, skill or idea. Believe it or not, but that thing can actually make you money, and possibly rich. So, what is that thing you’re passionate about? The thing people always ask you to do. The thing that when you do it, it makes you feel the happiest. The thing that you will do for free? Whatever your answer is, that is the thing that can take you to your wealthy place.

2. Eliminate expenses. Now that you’ve figured out what your passion/idea is, the next step is to figure out what the expenses are and find ways to eliminate them. With any business launch or operation, there will be expenses; that’s inevitable. If you can not eliminate the expenses, then you can not start a business with no money. However, there is an alternative, which is investors. If someone invests in your business, you won’t have to pay for anything yourself. So, to a certain extent this method is still considered starting a business with no money. (it’s just not your money)

3. Make the business pay for itself. The number one key to truly starting a business with no money is figuring out ways to make the business pay for itself. If you can figure that out, then you won’t have to pay for anything out of your pocket, or anyone else’s (including loans). Nine times out of ten there is at least one way that any business can pay for itself.

4. Write the vision and make it plain. It is extremely vital that you create a business plan. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate plan that has yearly financial projections and investment proposals. It just needs to be something where you can see where you want your business to go. Holding something in your mind and writing it down is two different things and yields two different results. Writing allows creative ideas to flow. When you write down your thoughts, they become more clear and you’re able to see the end in the beginning. This also allows for better planning. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

5. Re-evaluate and invest. After the business has started making money, take a step back and re-evaluate it. Is it going where you wanted it to go? Are your time investments equalling the return of business that you’re receiving? If so, continue to more forward and invest money back into the business. At this point you may want to form your business as a company. In that case, you will need to register with your city and/or state to get a business license and get an Employee ID number and/or Sales Tax number. In setting up a company, there can be a lot of “red tape”, so make sure that you cross all of your “t’s” and dot all of your “i’s”.

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