5% Increase

Hello and welcome to episode number forty-nine of the Strategy Corner, where our goal is to get you to take action. I’m your host, Michel Zink, the owner of Intentional Solutions Corp. Today’s strategy is all about five percent change. Now, I know you guys have heard about these incremental changes. How looking at a goal, looking at something you want to accomplish and not taking the humungous view of it, thinking I’ve got to do all of these things, but looking at the small shifts that you can make in your life in order to achieve it and then building upon that, that’s what you want to talk about today. So I know there’s books out there. I know there’s a lot of people who talk about it, but I’m really interested in it right now because I’m living it. I’m trying to figure out based off of my big, bold goal, based off of how I want to live my life, how can I make these small changes? Because I know with small changes that doesn’t create anxiety, overwhelm.

It creates actually abundance and creativity and excitement. So give some examples of things that I’ve been focusing on lately. So for my business, I’ve been thinking about my YouTube channel. I created one to share strategies. I actually created the YouTube channel during COVID and was sharing a strategy every day for 30 days. And then after I did that, I realized, OK, I don’t want to do that every day because it’s a lot of work and I just don’t want to do it anymore. And so I decided, well, what do I really want to create? And so I decided I wanted to create a strategy corner weekly. So this way I can share strategies that I’m actually working on currently in my life as they come up during the week because I’m always thinking about different strategies on how I can get what I want by doing things. So I created the Friday strategy corner. And when I started it, I was trying to I was taping it on my laptop like I still am, but I was taping it without any type of microphone. So I tried to use this microphone that I’m using right now for my podcast with the YouTube channel. But the thing is, is that this microphone is one where I actually put my mouth right on top of the microphone. I’ve got like a cloth thing over top of it to help with the tone. But besides that, it’s got to be right on top of you. You can’t have it, you know, sitting down on a table while you’re talking above it.

So what I did for the five percent change, I was like, well, what else could I do? So I actually just ordered a lanyard or not a lanyard, a microphone that goes on your collar of your shirt. So this way I could have a microphone by my face so they could have better audio than my computer. Now, I haven’t tried it yet, so I’m going to try it actually as soon as I’m done with this. I want to tape a Friday strategy corner, but my five percent change was I don’t need to go buy all this expensive equipment. I could just buy this one microphone that was thirty dollars and test it out and see if it works. There is no additional software I needed to download. All it is is it plugs right into my USB on my computer and that’s it. So that’s how I increased and hopefully increase the quality of sound by five percent was to purchase this thirty dollar microphone.

Another thing I did for my Friday strategy corner is my marketing person was talking about you need to brand it a little bit more. So the video, I have it on YouTube and then I actually post individually. So not from YouTube, but post directly to Facebook and to linked in. So she said it’d be really great if you could have something with your Web site on it. Logo of some nature. So I figured out how I could actually put my Web site at the bottom of the video. So where I tape it through Logitech, I was able to just type in my Web site and then it always comes up every time I tape a video. It’s at the bottom there. It just stays at the bottom so people can see it. So that was my little five percent change. I could have went out and bought a banner. I could have went and thought about purchasing a separate piece of maybe a piece of art behind me that had it on there. But I just went ahead and utilized what I had right now. And that five percent change was to just type it in so that it actually fit on or comes up naturally, automatically when I tape a video. So those are some examples of how this five percent change can really add up to some big changes. Another thing I’ve been doing when it comes to working out is I am back at Pilates. Yes, I’m so excited.

And so one thing I noticed was when I was going to Pilates before, I would actually not leave my house to the last minute and then rush in there. And they’ve already got the warm-up done and sometimes I’d be late. And so I just decided that my five percent change when it comes to my health and my happiness is that I’m going to leave the house 50 minutes beforehand because right down the street that way and get there in plenty of time to, you know, get my socks on and get all my stuff situated and be ready for the class and fully engage with the class. Right. Because the thing is, is like with these classes, you can go and you can fully engage or you can go and be thinking about, oh, man, I rushed here. I’ve got all these things to do. So I’ve been allowing myself some more time so that I can fully engage with my workout. So that’s a five percent increase that I made when it comes to my happiness and my health, by increasing the amount of attention that I give to my workouts when I get there, because of the extra time that I have a lot of myself.

So the call to action on this podcast is very simple. I just want you to think of something that you would love to learn, do, start. You know, think about it. If you want to learn how to cook, you don’t have to learn how to cook a filet mignon or a baked Alaska to start off. You could just learn how to boil an egg. Same with if you wanted to go ahead and think about a new career. You don’t have to go ahead and set aside 90 hours and think about this new career and really decide, you know, really quickly what you want to do.

You can just decide to set aside a couple hours a week on creating some space where you can dream and Google and just think about the career you might want to look into. Same with if you wanted to write a book. You don’t have to sit down or write 50 pages. You could each day say you want to write one paragraph. So the goal here and now with all the podcasts is to help you, to get you to take action. And what I’m trying to do is get you to see that you don’t have to hold yourself back from doing things because you have this mindset that you have to do all of it, because in reality, Rome wasn’t built in a day. We know that. And we need to slow down, take the pressure off ourselves and just ask ourselves, what do we want to create and what is the one next best step? What is the five percent I could do towards achieving the bigger goal? And then just do that just five percent. That’s all I’m looking for you guys to do. And just five percent, then another five percent. And the other five percent almost like compounding interest when you’re talking about investments. As you do these little five percent increases, you’re going to build up good momentum and you’re actually going to build something, you know, build a skill. You’re going to build a business. Like I’m trying to do. There’s so many things that you can build by starting small.

So that’s my call to action this week. Think of something that you have been holding off on doing because it’s such a big task. And break it down into small increments and just decide one thing you can do towards it. One five percent increment, one five percent increase. If you already doing something and you want to take it to the next level, you don’t need to go in and spend thousands of dollars. What’s like one five percent thing you can do. And then if you want to, you know, share, I’d love to hear what type of small incremental five percent shifts increases that you’re taking in your life to create amazing results.

In the meantime, please go to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and subscribe to the Strategy Corner. Also, go to my Web site. Once you get there and you just stay for just a second, a box will pop up and you can go ahead and sign up for my weekly newsletter, which has my latest blog and podcast. Until next time, remember, through action and growth, progression happens. Let’s take action together. Thank you. And create an amazing week.