The brute force of consistent effort, coupled with strategies to maximize and maintain motivation and the sense of making progress.
Jim Hjort, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist and the founder of the Right Life Project, where he helps people overcome roadblocks to self-actualization as a psychotherapist, Right Life Coach, and mindfulness meditation instructor. The Right Life Project helps you understand the ways you can work with the different dimensions of your life (psychological, social, physical, and vocational) to be happier and more fulfilled, and to reach your full potential.
Where did the idea for the Right Life Project come from?
It grew from my efforts to cultivate meaning and fulfillment in my own life. Having spent decades researching and testing various theories and approaches, I felt compelled to share my findings and help as many other people as possible achieve the richest, most fulfilling life possible.
What does your typical day look like?
I get up early (since, as a morning person, I want to take advantage of my hours of peak productivity) and begin the day by responding to social media and email communications, and prioritizing the day’s work with an eye toward looming editorial deadlines. I spend a portion of the day working with individual or corporate clients or cultivating leads for new ones. A portion of each day is also devoted to developing new program material for presentations, classes, or work with clients. Then, I allow time at the end of the day for decompression and self-care.
How do you bring ideas to life?
The brute force of consistent effort, coupled with strategies to maximize and maintain motivation and the sense of making progress. I also engage professional guidance and assistance in supporting roles, which better enables me to focus on my mission.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
The increasing mainstream acceptance of mindfulness meditation, because it improves acceptance of my approach and also provides ample opportunities to clear up misconceptions/misinformation for clients, readers, and audiences.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Always checking to make sure that the work I’m doing is aligned my most genuine, core self. This way, the hard work of bringing my mission to fruition comes more readily and doesn’t feel like a chore that I need to whip myself to complete.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
A worker in a frozen yogurt shop. I learned that the best long-term strategy for business success is keeping the customer happy, even (and sometimes especially) if that means not adhering to well-meaning but rigid policy.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
Exercise more caution around those who claim to have my best interests at heart, because self-interest ultimately trumps altruism too often for altruism to be taken at face value.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
It’s critical to become very clear about what values, needs, and capacities of yours are most genuine, and then set out to express, meet, and exercise them, however difficult that may be. And periodically take time to reassess your values, needs, and capacities and adjust your action plan accordingly.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
In-person talks and other types of engagement. It’s more difficult to reach large numbers of people that way, but in my line of work, it’s important for a potential client to experience a personal connection with me. It’s difficult to replicate that experience for the client in other ways (although I do also make extensive use of online channels).
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
Despite my best preparation and efforts, my base of email subscribers was slow to grow initially. I remained flexible and continued to experiment with different types of content, other means of connection, and enticements to subscribe to improve my results—and I remain vigilant for ways to improve.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Don’t have one—sorry!
Tell us something about you that very few people know?
I attended four different schools for fifth grade.
What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?
I’m happy with my Drupal websites, Bluehost hosting, and Aweber email marketing service; I find it to be more user-friendly and robust than the alternatives I have explored.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
My e-Book and audiobook, The Right Life Guide: Start Crafting the Rich, Fulfilling Life You Want. Because if you’re interested in achieving your full potential and realize that easy, one-size-fits-all approaches can’t accomplish that, then we should be in contact. (Available as a free download for email list subscribers, for a limited time!)
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others
Viktor Frankl, Joseph Campbell, Harry Harlow, and many current researchers and theorists in the life and social sciences.
Connect:
Right Life Project on Facebook:
Right Life Project on Twitter: @rightlifeproj
Right Life Project on Instagram:
Right Life Project on Pinterest:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.