I hope you’re having an amazing day. 

I’ve just finished reading Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, it’s an incredible read and I highly recommend it. 

In their book, they talk about a concept which is that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

This is a super interesting concept for me, and one that I want to explore with you a little bit more in today’s post. 

This teaching element is based on the premise that every leader and every business owner needs to take absolute and extreme ownership for everything that is in their life and for everything that occurs and happens around them. 

So, if a team member or an entire team is performing poorly or fails to hit a deadline or gets a terrible outcome on a project, it is actually not the team’s fault, but the leader or business owner’s fault. 

Instead of blaming or berating the team for what went wrong, we need to stop, pause and ask ourselves “how...

A topic that has come up a lot recently in my group coaching programs is how do you influence, motivate and inspire those around you to perform at their best. 

It’s a super interesting topic and one that has a number of angles to it. Today I want to explore with you one element or angle that makes a significant difference to being able to motivate, inspire and get the most out of your team and the people around you which is - Create A Community. 

You see many leaders and business owners fall into the trap or the assumption that just because their team and the people around them are working and have a job, that they’re automatically inspired and motivated to perform at their best all the time. This simply isn’t true. 

It is the role of every leader and every business owner to be looking for ways to constantly inspire and motivate those around them to continue to push themselves, to get outside of their comfort zone, and to perform at their best. ...

As we come into the end of the year, there is a really important concept that I want to remind you of in today’s post. 

And that is, you need to be really conscious of looking after yourself and fitting your oxygen mask first.

Let me explain. 

You see sometimes as leaders & business owners, we get caught up in feeling hyper responsible for our team, our business and everyone around us. We feel like we need to be working the hardest. Working the longest hours. Wearing the brunt of all the issues and challenges and taking that all on for ourselves. 

Today I want to remind you that if you don’t look after yourself first, then you’re no good to your team, your business, your family and all the people around you. 

If you’ve noticed that you’re slipping into saying yes to everyone, trying to be all things to all people, and spreading yourself thin to keep the people around you happy, then this post is for you.

Today I want to remind...

Do you feel like you are constantly missing the mark with your clients? 

Do you always feel on the back foot even when you think you've done a good job? 

In today's video I would like to walk you through the concept of expectation vs. reality. 

Today I want help you address this issue and help you turn your clients into raving fans of you, your team and your business! 

Click Here  to watch now. 

Josh ‘Expectation vs Reality’ StonePS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:

1. Join the Leaders In Engineering community designed specifically for engineering leaders and business owners
   It’s our new Facebook community where engineering leaders and business owners are learning the strategies and leadership skills to step up and thrive right now – Click Here to join

2. Download our FREE PDF guide – “How To Build A High Performing & Highly Profitable Engineering Team”
   Learn the...

In my most recent webinar, we explored a whole bunch of strategies and tools to help you avoid competing on price, get paid more, increase your profit margins and have happier clients in the process. 

If you’d like to watch the replay - follow the link below: 

https://www.coachignite.com/how-to-avoid-competing-on-price-replay-25-08-2021

One of the key elements we explored in this webinar, was a concept called Value Not Price. And in today’s post, I want to explore this concept with you a bit further. 

It's such a common issue and such a common frustration in the industry at the moment, where leaders in business owners feel like they’re always having to compete on price. They feel like their clients are constantly price checking them in order to win the next job with them. 

What I say to all of my clients when they’re frustrated or annoyed and feel like their clients just want them to be the cheapest, is if the conversation has moved to...

Today I want to explore with you the three core traits I see as being critical if you want to be a successful leader.

Everyone has their own flavour and their own spin on what it takes to create a successful leader. The following three core traits are what I really see working right now for successful leaders and business owners in the engineering and construction industry. 

The first trait is Strength. 

At the moment in particular, but in general, being a strong leader is so so important. In order to lead others, in order to have others buy into your vision and your strategy and in order to build a really inspired, motivated and high performing team of people around you - you need to be strong. 

You need to be firm with your non-negotiables and you need to be prepared to have hard conversations and stand up for what you believe in and what you believe is the right course of action to be taken. 

You need to have a strength of character to be able to have hard...

Would you like to know how to get more done in your days and weeks?

Do you want to learn to do things differently and enable the growth of your team and business in the process? 

In today’s video, I want to help you explore something new, something different….a concept I call ‘Your 80/20 Rule For Getting Stuff Done. 

If you want to learn more, follow the link below to watch the video. 

Click Here  to watch now. 

Josh ’80/20 Rule’ Stone

PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:

1. Join the Leaders In Engineering community designed specifically for engineering leaders and business owners
   It’s our new Facebook community where engineering leaders and business owners are learning the strategies and leadership skills to step up and thrive right now – Click Here to join

2. Download our FREE PDF guide – “How To Build A High Performing & Highly Profitable Engineering...

Today I want to explore with you when you should be talking about fees and getting paid for working with your clients. 

The simple answer is as soon as possible and as early as possible in the process. 

This week I was working with a client in my CLIENTS coaching program and they were in a bit of a situation with their client. 

You see - a whole bunch of work had been done on a project and they were then tasked with trying to get paid for the work that they had already done. 

Asking for money and trying to get paid for work once you’ve already started - or even worse once you finished - gets harder and harder the longer that you leave it.

A lot of the times we don’t like talking with our clients about fees and getting paid for work because we view it as an uncomfortable conversation and we don’t want our clients to not like us.

The simple fact of the matter is - if you don’t talk about fees and you don’t talk about getting paid for...

This week I ran a process with my clients in my coaching program around getting really clear on the key focus points that they need to work on in the next 4 to 6 weeks to really make the biggest difference. 

My coaching framework is built around three core pillars being – 

Attract - meaning business development, winning work and attracting new clients.

Perform - being the performance of your team, the performance of yourself as a leader and developing amazing key client relationships.

Grow - meaning focusing on the activities that will grow your team, grow your business and elevate yourself into a truly strategic leadership role. 

So 3 x 3 works out to be nine core areas that are key focus points for helping my clients win in these core pillars of Attract, Perform & Grow.

The activity that I ran with my clients this week was looking at these nine core areas and scoring themselves honestly out of 10 as to how they’re going in these nine areas. 

A...

 Today I want to explore with you a super interesting concept that I’ve been playing around with in my own life and in my own business. 

It’s called the 80 / 20 rule for getting ‘stuff’ done. 

This concept is all about being conscious, being intentional and accessing the appropriate energy and emotions within yourself to get done what you need to get done. 

Let me explain. 

You see most of us go about our days and our weeks not been hugely intentional with the energy, the state and the emotions that we’re in in order to get things done. Most of us stay in fairly comfortable emotions and a fairly comfortable state of being, acting, operating and behaving. We like being this way because it’s familiar to us.

And most of us, if we really analyse the energy and the emotions that we operate out of every day - it’s one of being nice to others, it’s one of been quite laid-back, it’s one of not wanting to do...