The amount of success you have today with your work… the amount of success you have this week with accomplishing your goals… the amount of success you have this month this quarter, this year… is either limited by, or accelerated by your belief… Your belief in YOURSELF. your belief in your ABILITY. And your belief in THOSE around you. And you hear a lot of gurus talk about believing in YOURSELF. But that’s not good enough. My success in life, both personally and professionally came very slow in the beginning, until I started to believe in MYSELF, and my ABILITIES, and the PEOPLE around me. And it took a long time to do, because I didn’t understand how to do it. But if you start with the 3 areas we covered in this podcast, you’re decades ahead of where I was. What you’ll find is that when you begin to believe in yourself AND those around you, you won’t have nearly as much stress, and you’ll be significantly happier in every area of your life, and the amount of success you have in business and financially will start to amaze you.

Is there a way to know if an employee is about to start under performing? Is there a way to prevent it?  While most employee performance is related to the individual there is a tell-tell trait you're headed for a disaster and the simple solution you can follow to ensure your current rock stars don't head down the same path.  That's what we're diving into in today's episode.  I think there’s a lot of ways to tell if an employee is a poor performer, or if they’re about to become a poor performer. But without a doubt I’d say that – even without knowing someone personally – there’s traits that I’m hypersensitive to, because I know they’re traits of someone who’s probably going to slow things down for the other people in my company.  And the biggest one - I call – the tennis player.   Which is someone on your team – whether they’re an employee or a vendor or an independent contractor – who always finds a way to lob the ball back into my court.  So if they get handed a project, instead of taking ownership of that project and getting it done… they come back and tell me all the things they need before they can get started…  …or if they get a task to do, they ALWAYS seem to require someone else on the team to take an action BEFORE they take action…  And I’ll give you an example of this…  When I first started in business, I went through a bunch of personal assistants, because, I didn’t know how to find one that would literally make me more productive… but it was a process, and I learned a little from every assistant I had, and finally I found Emily – who’s now been with me for nearly 18 years.  But I remember one of my first assistant was a “tennis player” – I’d ask her to set up meetings for me, and she’d first need ME to send her all the contact details for each person in the meeting… instead of taking a minute herself, and figuring out how to log in and get those details… OR…  I remember asking her to order a new chair for my office – and I told her the kind I wanted, the color I wanted, and I thought I gave her everything she needed to get it for me by the end of the week… so she should have been able to order it THAT DAY… but during our morning meeting the FOLLOWING day, she brought pictures… now you have to understand - there weren’t multiple chairs to choose from – she brought pictures of the ONLY chair they had that fit what I wanted, so I could see it before she ordered it (lobbing the ball back in my court).  Now you might think she was just trying to do a good job and make sure she ordered the exact chair I wanted /// But it didn’t stop there. Because after I saw the picture and REMINDED her that I wanted the chair by the end of the week….  Instead of CALLING the company and ordering the chair – instead she EMAILED the company and asked if they had one in stock /// and waited a day for their reply, then came to our FRIDAY meeting and told me about how great the customer support is at that company, and she told me about the several emails they had back and forth (lobbing the ball back and forth), and her next questions literally made my eye twitch…  Because on Friday – the day we discussed having the chair already in my office, she said, “they wanted to know if I would like to finance the chair” and then she told me about the new finance option they have where I don’t have to pay anything for the first few months if I qualify!!!!!  Needless to say – that assistant did NOT make me more productive, and I did NOT get that chair that week.  Here’s what I did… I picked up the phone and called the company while she sat in my office… and I ordered the chair myself and had it rushed so it arrived by Monday.  And even though she did not last long in our employment, still to this day, when I sit in that chair I think of her (but not in a bad way :) I’m just grateful for everyone else on my team who are rock stars! Who take a project and run with it – thinking outside the box, getting creative if necessary – and getting it done.  A tennis player in business, is someone who keeps lobbing the ball back into your court, and never takes ownership of getting DONE what needs to be DONE.  And by the way – that’s a trait that is NOT exclusive to a new employee – your current team can fall into that RUT as well.   That’s why we celebrate everyone on our team for doing the DAILY tasks that help us reach our targets. Because when someone goes too long, without being celebrated or acknowledged for the good things they’re doing – they either become tennis players on your team, or they start posting their resume and looking for another business to work for where their hard work will be noticed.