Name
Jeremy Williams

City, State, Country
Kingwood, Texas

Company Name
Red Hawk Coaching
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https://www.RedHawkCoaching.com

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Transcript

Welcome back. This is your host Jeremy, and welcome to Season 2 of the Survive Scale Soar podcast. Thank you for tuning in and I trust the content being shared is showing up to you the listener in a way that is helping you to soar in both business and life.

43 episodes. That is what happened this last year with 28 amazing guests, business and thought leaders from around our great country in our SUCCESS TALKS series, and 11 REAL TALKS with me sharing my personal thoughts on what is happening in the world and the impact that has on business owners. 

I am thankful for you, the listener, and as we step into 2023, I am honored to be a part of your world. My goal is if one person is impacted by an episode, that is one more person in this world that can impact and influence change in the lives of their businesses, family, their church and our country. 

A reminder that this show comes in two formats. SUCCESS talks are where I get to interview extraordinary people doing amazing things, and we have conversations around what has made them successful in their journey. REAL Talks is where I take control of the mic, and you get me talking about things happening in this world and strategies and lessons learned that may become a blueprint in your own personal journey.

If you like the show, if it makes you think differently, makes you laugh, or you know it might impact someone in your life, share the show. 

What’s different this year, not only will you be able to find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, and Spotify, you will also get video on YouTube. 

Alright, enough intro and catching people up on what’s happening, let’s jump into today’s REAL Talk.

Have you ever been tripped up by a squirrel? No, I’m not talking about walking down the street and tripping on a tree rat scurrying across the trail in front of you…I’m talking about that shiny object that is put out in front of you, and the pitch is that it will solve all your problems. 

If you’ve not had that happen, you’re a liar. It’s happened to us all. You’re going along…following a plan…and then bam…a squirrel. Like my Catahoula Leopard on the hunt, you take off barreling for the tree with the false assumption that the squirrel will easily give up. It skirts to the other side of the tree, mockingly, chatters at you, and in pursuit of the squirrel you’ve lost complete attention to the path you were on.

Waiting in hopes that the squirrel scales back down the tree…it’s not by the way…you notice another squirrel only feet away from you, and you're off to the races again with the same false hope that the squirrel rolls over. Not going to happen, right?

One of the biggest challenges I see with individuals pursuing their personal or professional goals is that they get distracted by the squirrels that come along their paths. In business, I’ve seen it with hopping from company to company always in pursuit of the better widget cloaked in the words of “OPPORTUNITY”. I’ve seen it in the pursuit of personal goals like health and fitness where an individual may know they need to get to the gym, it’s even on their schedule, and…BAM…along comes a squirrel like I’ve got to go do clothes shopping for my kids, I rather watch this new Netflix series, or I am going to spend more time in the office today. So the squirrel might not only be a shiny object, a quick fix, or a new way to do something, and it also may be those internal conversations where you are fabricating squirrels to chase to avoid what may be more painful. 

See if you are chasing squirrels, you might just be avoiding the pain, the work that must be done, to get what you want. I know how it makes people feel when intuitively they know what needs to get done, they chase the squirrel, and then the guilt sets in that they just did not want to put in the work. I know you feel this because at times in my professional and personal life, I’ve felt the same. 

I posted this week on social media asking what people felt about ChatGPT an Open Source Artificial Intelligence site that is capable of writing complex coding, social media content, term papers that are undetectable for fabrication because each one is 100% unique and more. It was interesting the comments and engagements that happened on the post. I see coaches and other service professionals offering online courses and training around how to effectively leverage ChatGPT and other AI platforms to create content, which leaves me to question a lot, and the engagement around these social media posts are things like “it’s cool” or “if you don’t adopt it, your competitors will destroy you”.

When I hear and see things like this, I think SQUIRREL. I ask the question is this a distraction from my core competency and the goals I want to achieve. The shiny thing is often a distraction. 

I love to fish. I don’t get much time to go fishing, but when I do, I enjoy being out on the water or the bank somewhere quiet and still. My favorite type of fishing is bass fishing, and the lure I most often use is an artificial spinner bait. Attached to the spinner bait is a silver spoon that spins as you reel in the line. It is shiny…it is the squirrel to the fish. The shiny spoon presents itself as a better meal than the live minnows scurrying by, the spoon is the distraction that attracts the bass away from its current state to chase down the spoon and swallow it whole. The squirrel for the bass might be its fatal mistake depending on my mood of whether or not to clean fish that day.

What’s the remedy? How do you avoid the squirrels in both business and life? 

Ask yourself, does this squirrel move me closer or further from my goal? If it is moving you away, stop chasing it. Like my Catahoula Leopard, you’re not going to catch it. If it moves you closer to your goal, pursue it…but pursue it with caution. For the business owners listening in today, was that squirrel on your business plan?

Having coached 1,000’s of hours since 2010, what I’ve found is often best is to water where you’re planted. Stay committed to your plan. Be a person of action and not just talk. Let the squirrels pass by and the others remain in pursuit of that which they won’t catch.

What squirrels do you have in your life? What are you allowing to distract you from your business? You know. Deep down you know and you’re probably having conversations with yourself about why you continue to pursue squirrels. Stop. Water where you’re planted.

2017, I realized I had been chasing squirrels looking for greater leadership opportunities. What I found in chasing these distractions was they moved me further away from my goals and purpose. It was when I made a decision to stop going after what I was not going to catch was to launch my coaching business; Red Hawk Coaching and to water myself where planted.

Do I have distractions with my business? Absolutely, yet I made the decision to not allow those distractions in my world. I made the decision as a coach to serve my people with everything I have so that they too get to experience both their lives and businesses at their fullest. No more chasing squirrels here. 

If you feel like you are being pulled in many different directions, you feel like you are being taunted by the squirrels of life and business, and this message triggered that small still voice in your mind that a change needs to happen, I invite you to a coaching call with me. We can discuss a plan that will get you back on the path of pursuing your dreams and goals. In the notes of this episode, you will find a link to schedule some time with me to discover strategies that will help you move forward in your journey.

Until next time, share the show, and onward and upward.