EP #390: Bring Your A-Game Every Day - with Machen MacDonald

This week’s episode is about bringing your A-game every day. Machen MacDonald, founder and lead strategic business coach at ProBrilliance talks about what it truly means to bring our A-game and what holds us back when we have those days where we don’t. We’ll dive into understanding self-awareness and how that affects our ability to perform at our best.What You’ll Learn From This Episode:2:59 What does bringing your A-game mean3:59 Self-awareness and how that affects our ability to bring our a game4:49 Our emotional dashboard6:19 The six A’s to develop your ability to bring your A-game consistently15:28 Identifying and understanding Automatic Negative Thinking20:10 Final piece of advice to advisors who want to start this pathQuotes:4:39 “Our emotions are a wonderful dashboard to that. If we’re upset in any way. If we’re mad, sad, whatever it might be, that’s code for something’s not going according to expectations. And so let’s pay attention to that and let’s back into what could be improved.”9:15 “Sometimes there’s just crazy, bad, confungled things that are going on. We can’t control that. But what we always have the power is to choose the healthiest perspective, the healthiest meaning of what’s going on, and then operate from that place.”13:39 “So the trick is looking at the results. If the results aren’t favorable, we can back into what’s the thinking that’s going on. And oftentimes, there’s a lot of ANTs [Automatic Negative Thinking] scurrying around in the dark that we’re not even aware of and it’s causing us to feel less than and from that feeling of less than we don’t operate at our full potential. So if we come back into noticing, what are those negative thoughts that creep up? Once we’ve got our list, then we can create alternative thinking.”17:17 “Look for a new meaning that can shift how we feel. And then from that feeling, from that higher wisdom or attitude is where we make the next best decision or action.”19:46 “This wiring with these automatic negative thoughts has gotten pretty thick. And we might be able to affect it for a while but it may fire back up. So we got to make sure over time that we’re constantly redirecting our thinking.”20:48 that thing that people are waking up with, that they think if they did or did differently, would change their life. That’s what they need to be aware of. That’s what they need to work on.