The Leader’s Leader - Tracie L. James

When you get to zero excuses, you’re at a magical place of being empty of excuses yet full of possibilities.” Tracie L. James

Occasionally, we experience difficulties in organizing our lives in the way we want. We always have something else to do, or we are just not in the mood to perform. By doing this, how do we become leaders in our own lives and others? This is the question our next Role Model in Women’s History Month is trying to find the answer for. Tracie L. James is a Sales and Marketing professional, a speaker, the author of “The Zero Excuses Challenge: 21 Days to Better Results in Your Life, Career & Business”, a leader’s leader.

1. Overcoming the issue of excuses to get the solution

One of our biggest problems is excuses. If there is a problem that has to be solved, it is advisable to ask the question: “is it out of my control?” If so, there is nothing we can do. However, if there is anything we can do to help, why bother finding excuses? According to Tracie, these excuses are reasons why we don’t take action and procrastinate.

Tracie says her driving force is the fear of missing out on a good opportunity. She believes that God provides us what we want, but we must accept the offer without excuses. Failure can prevent us from experiencing good times in life.

2. Show people what you can do

People like saying what we can’t do: “You can’t have two workplaces at the same time, you’ll be too tired,” “you have to choose, it’s either children or career.” Ultimately, you cannot fail when you start doing something because you will learn even in the worst case. Lessons can vary: sometimes the only lesson we learn is to try harder or differently, yet we always end up learning new things.

According to Tracie, excuses always come up, but if we think wisely, they cannot stick in our heads, so we just do what we have to. We can start doing our tasks without thinking about excuses.

If we have good friends and people around us, they’ll help us find out about the problem and find a way to support us to feel better. Once we are back to normal, they’ll kindly push us in the right direction. There are individuals, who don’t surround themselves with the right caring environment, so in this case, it’s wise to look for professional support: a business coach, a financial advisor, or a psychologist.

Praying is always an effective way to get guidance regarding who your true helper is, advises Tracie. In some cases, the coach is a professional but does not provide personal enough service for us, so it can take some time to find the proper support.

In some cases, it may take more time to figure out what we truly want. “My purpose is to find your purpose,” says Tracie. As she helps us to discover the reasons behind our excuses, we also discover who we are and who we might become without the excuses we create.