Click to Call Text Us
Vargas & Vargas Insurance

1133 Washington St
Dorchester, MA 02124

 Get Directions

Motivation

Morning Motivation – Week of October 22, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

As you know, I try to start every week with some words of wisdom:

I have been talking about doing what makes you money and getting someone else (or don’t do the other tasks) you can read the past messages here.

There is the law called Pareto’s Law, Pareto’s Law goes like this:

  • 80% of effects come from 20% of causes
  • 80% of your income comes from 20% of your efforts
  • 80% of your headaches come from 20% of your clients and referral partners

Important to know so that you are doing the right 20%!

Pretty eye-opening, right?

So the question is, What is the exact 20% of your efforts that are producing the 80% of your income? If you don’t know the answer to that, don’t worry, it’s not your fault.  Most of us have not heard about this before or taken the time to go step by step through this. So that’s what we are going to do right now.

Start putting your focus on the highest leverage activities to grow your business, while keeping these statistics in mind:

  • We aren’t nearly as important as we think we are!
  • Our clients just want what they want, and they want it on time, they don’t care who does it

So, if you’re delegating tasks to your team, which money-making ones should you keep for yourself? Here are some examples. In my business, there are the highest paying activities:

  • Build referral partners that consistently feed your business
  • Office presentations
  • Meeting and deepening relationships with referral partners.

Next week, we will put together the last several week’s worth of messages to recap the Three Steps to Freedom, and how they will help you succeed.

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of October 15, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

Let’s start the week with some words of wisdom:

We have been talking about getting freedom in your business, check out last week’s message here.

Step #3: Delegate tasks you feel you shouldn’t be doing

  • Which tasks should you simply never touch—meaning you could eliminate them from your schedule entirely, making way for more important tasks?
  • Which low-level tasks could be easily given to a virtual assistant as part-time work?
  • Which tasks are you handling that could be taken over by a professional who knows exactly what he or she is doing? These are tasks where the potential harm outweighs the cost savings of doing them yourself.
  • Which tasks are stopping you from really focusing on the strategic growth of your business?

Next week, working on the 20% of your business that brings in 80% of your income.

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of October 8, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

As you know I try to start every week with some words of wisdom:

We have been talking about getting freedom in your business, check out last week’s message here.

Step #2: Eliminate tasks you don’t know how to do

Be honest with yourself. Don’t let superhero syndrome kick in here. I remember trying to design and develop my first blog on my own using a premium theme. I spent 8-10 weeks trying to figure it out, and in the end I was never happy with it. Why? Because it’s not what I do! I don’t have that type of mind or patience.

So I urge you to ask yourself:

  • Are there tasks I am currently doing that could be completed faster AND better by someone else?
  • Are there projects you’re handling that could be wrapped up in a better, more professional way?
  • Are you trying to cut costs by dabbling far outside your areas of expertise?
  • Is it even important for the success of your business?

Next week we will cover the third step toward getting Freedom in your business. Don’t miss it!

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of October 1, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

As you know I try to start every week with some words of wisdom,

Have you been keeping up with my weekly motivation posts? The last couple of weeks I have been talking about doing what you do best, what you are gifted in and get someone else to do what you hate to do or are not good at. Check out my last post here if you need a refresher.

Answer the following questions about your involvement in your business:

  • Are you trying to put your own blog together?
  • Are you trying to create a nice Facebook header?
  • Are you trying to complete a nice profile outline about YOU for all your social sites?
  • Are you trying to post 2-3 times a week?
  • Are you trying to keep up with your emails?
  • Are you trying to keep up with your voicemails?
  • Are you trying to keep up with your clients?

When it comes to keeping up with clients, I am talking about any and all of the following activities:

  • Babysitting clients
  • Putting out fires
  • Updating clients
  • Managing the client database
  • Creating mailers for clients
  • On and on and on….

If any of these tasks sounds like something you do, don’t despair! There are three steps to getting some freedom in your business:

Step #1: Make a list of the tasks that you hate to do

These are any task that makes you cringe or procrastinate. Anything can be on this list—except for selling.

Selling needs to be one of your top priorities because it’s the lifeblood of your business, and no one should know your product or service better than you.

Look out for the post all about step #2 next week!

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of September 24, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

Would you like some words of wisdom to start off your week on the right foot?

If you remember, last week I wrote about how to identify your innate strengths. For all the things that aren’t your strengths, here is my advice: automate the repetitive tasks. Hire a Virtual Assistant to do those things for you. If you want the information of who I use as Virtual Assistants, please let me know.

My feeling is that no matter how hard you try, it is unlikely you will ever be more than average in areas where you do not have an aptitude.

Working on developing your natural talents is self-rewarding and motivating and allow you to continually realize higher and higher levels of ability, achievement, and success. Invest your time and energy in being great at something really great. You will be happier.

What a great combination: doing what you love and having people pay you for it.

Next week, working your “Triad of Awesomeness.”

So focus on your strengths, my friends.

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of September 17, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

As you know I try to start every week with some words of wisdom:

If you remember from last weeks, message, I started talking about the natural gifts that we all have. Check out last week’s message here.

First, write down a list of those things that you do that seem easy for you. These are the things that you can do that seem almost effortless. Often, the tasks that are easy for us are those where we have a special aptitude.

Second, make a list of all the activities that make you happy. These are the things that make you smile. These are the tasks you would do just for yourself, with no promise of gain, just because they are fun.

Look through the two lists to find the common activities. These are likely to be the areas of your natural aptitude and talent, and are the areas of greatest potential for you. Imagine if you could spend most of your time developing and playing at something that makes you happy and where it is easy for you? Wow!

So, my advice is not to get caught up in the old advice to work on your weaknesses. Hire someone who is good where you are weak. Delegate tasks that you don’t enjoy to others who do enjoy those things.

Want to know the best way to delegate these tasks? That’s a post for another week – stay tuned!

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of September 10, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

As you know, I try to start every week with some words of wisdom, like these:

In school, I tried to always sign up for subjects I already had some knowledge in.

Why? Because it made me feel great. “This is going to be easy,” I’d tell myself. (If you remember from my past messages, English is my second language, and late in life I was diagnosed with Non-Verbal Learning disorder. For the full story, click here.)

But what did my counselors tell me? “You should take classes in the subjects that you are weakest in.”

While learning new subjects is a great idea, striving to develop weaknesses can work against you. Conventional wisdom says we should work on improving our weaknesses, as these are missed opportunities.

Imagine what would have happened if Albert Einstein, Chris Evert, or Luciano Pavarotti had followed that advice. All these people devoted their entire life to develop their natural strengths. As a result, they each were at the top of their fields.

Highly successful entrepreneurs, as well as top scientists, athletes, and entertainers throughout history, have achieved greatness by focusing on their areas of strength.

Everyone has a natural aptitude for something. We all have a special gift.

Most of the time we don’t recognize our own gifts. The truth is that we are all very different – you are able to do something better than I can, and I can do some things better than you.

What are your natural talents? Get help recognizing them in next week’s email.

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of September 3, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

You know that I LOVE to start my week with some positive words of wisdom:

Have you been keeping up with my ‘fear series’ of Monday emails? If you’ve missed one, catch up my clicking here.

Fear-Inducing Habit #6: You make it harder than it needs to be to take action.

If you think that you have to take action in a big, heroic and risky way to overcome your fear then that may often lead to more fear and to not taking any action at all.

What to do instead:

A more helpful way to go about things is to not go all in at once. Instead, just dip your toes in and take a small step forward. The important thing is that you do it today (or as soon as you can.)

Take that first step slowly if you like – the most important thing is that you start moving. Start building momentum forward so that you can take more small steps forward. Doing things this way will not only build momentum but also self-confidence and will help you expand your comfort zone. All of this will make it a lot easier to take a bit bigger steps later on too if you’d like to.

Have a great week!

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of August 27, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

You know that I LOVE to start my week with some positive words of wisdom:

You can read last week’s MMM here to get caught up on my ongoing ‘fear’ series.

Fear-Inducing Habit #5: You push your fear away.

When you try to deny a fear in your life, you may try to push it away or not think about it. This can cause it to grow stronger.

What to do instead:

I have found that pushing the fear away can certainly work and help you to not be paralyzed from taking action. But I have also discovered that it can sometimes be more helpful to accept the fear.

To accept that it is there instead of, for example, trying to tell yourself to focus on the positive like a laser-beam. And by accepting that you may not be good at one task or activity will free you from the fear that may be holding you back from other aspects of your business or personal life.

That may sound a bit vague, so here’s an example of how I do it.

  1. Breathe. Take a few breaths and focus only on the air going in and out to calm and center yourself a bit.
  2. Tell yourself something like: “Yes, the fear is here. It simply is at this point in time.”
  3. Take that feeling of fear in and just let it be there in your body and mind. It will be uncomfortable. But just for short while.

If you do this you will find that after a while – often just after a few minutes of discomfort in my experience – the fear starts to lose steam. It becomes a lot smaller or just seems to float away.

I start thinking about all the happy moments, friends, and loved ones that I have been blessed with. This makes it a lot easier to think clear and constructive thoughts again.

Keep an eye out for next week’s email. It will focus on why you may be making fear harder than it needs to be.

Carlos

Read More

Morning Motivation – Week of August 20, 2018

Posted on by cvargas

You know that I LOVE to start my week with some positive words of wisdom:

You can read last week’s MMM here to catch up on the previous fear-inducing habits.

Fear-Inducing Habit#4: You misinterpret the information you have.

It is easy to take very few experiences – maybe just one – and start seeing evidence of something permanent and frightening in your life.

What to do instead:

Question your fears and what they are based upon. Again, sit down with that pen and a piece of paper. Think back to what evidence you have in your memories for a fear and a belief of yours. Try to see the situation(s) that created your fear with fresh eyes today. Instead of the way you may usually see them.
Doing this helps us to reduce our fear of business and social rejection. If you look back at some situations from your past that formed and fueled fear you may realize that:

You misinterpreted being rejected in some of those situations, or you were rejected because there was something wrong with what you did, but simply because you were not offering a realistic solution to the problem. Or because the other person had a bad day or because he or she simply wanted to push you down to feel better about himself or herself at that moment.

This will be an eye-opening experience that may help you understand that what went wrong is not all your fault.  And that our memories can often be pretty inaccurate and unhelpful if not reexamined at a later time and our minds love to create patterns and conclusions based on very little evidence or few experiences.

Next week, I will focus on the error of pushing fear away.

Have a great week!

Carlos
Read More

Our Services

Reviews

Partner Carriers

  • Arbella Insurance
  • Commerce
  • Mass Property
  • New London County Mutual
  • Norfolk and Dedham
  • Palomar
  • Pilgrim
  • Plymouth Rock
  • Safety
  • Travelers
  • Vermont Mutual