Preparing For The Arena

How to be ready for the next call

Welcome to The Arena

This article is designed for people who’ve joined The Arena - for those who haven’t it will give you a taste of what you can expect.

NOTE: The Next Arena is scheduled for May 30th. We will open the cart to join The Arena a few days before, for 24 hours only (get on the waitlist so you don’t miss the window). The only way to receive the link to be able to join is to be on the waitlist. We will also have limited spots opening up.

Join the waitlist here: https://guardianacademy.io/arena

Consider this article to be an ongoing updating resource for How to Prepare for Your Next Arena Call

What you get out of The Arena depends on how you show up in The Arena. It’s up to you to show up and say “I tried this and that happened.”

So, here’s how you can do that …

For your quick reference, here are all the sections in this article:

The Arena Structure

How to Ask Effective Questions

But, What if I Look Dumb?

On Observation vs Solution

On What to Work On

Sources to Reference

Ideas to Explore and Implement

Examples of People Doing Stuff (In The Arena)

Ready to Join? Here's What You Need to Know

In addition to the content in this article, also be sure to review the following:

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The Arena Structure

The Arena is NOT a class. Many of us have been exposed to the kind of "coaching" or "mastermind" where you show up and a bunch of stuff is taught to you.

This is not about more information.

This is about action. And more specifically it's about showing up with action you've already taken.

Our basic format, which we ask everyone to show up with (those who wish to work on their stuff live and get help) is this:

1) You'll present the idea you're working with, and ideally the source you got the idea from.

Example: I read Raise the Floor in TGA and now I'm thinking about how I can Raise the Floor in my freelance business

2) Heres how I implemented that idea In the Field

Example: To raise the floor this month, instead of trying to get a new client, I went to my oldest client and added on another component to our project

3) Here's what happened

Example: Adding that component to the retainer increased my retainer with that client by 20% and ultimately had almost no impact on my time spent

4) Ask or Share

Example: I'd like to reliably continue raising the floor and hopefully surpass my best month. What are some other ways I can raise the floor?

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How to Ask Effective Questions

We want to do our best to ask Effective Questions in The Arena so that we can get Effective Answers and move closer to what we desire.

The less effective we are in our questions, the more difficult it is to move forward with clarity.

We have a fantastic resource in learning how to ask effective questions (and answer them!) in The Adaptive Dilemma: Part 1 Language and Self Efficacy.

The Adaptive Dilemma Pt. 1: Language and Self Efficacy

For the full picture, I highly recommend reading that article.

Here's the short(er) version.

Precision:

You want both your questions and your answers to be precise. What are you really meaning to ask? and Are you really answering the question being asked?

If we're clear and honest with ourselves, the questions we often ask aren't really the questions we want answered.

For example, we might ask "Is Facebook Advertising good?" When the most precise question we could ask, which we want/need the answer to is "can I sell my product using paid advertising on Facebook?"

Imagine how many different ways "is Facebook Advertising good?" could possibly be answered. Not a good question.

Then when it comes to answers, you also want to be precise. If someone asks you "Is Facebook Advertising Good?" How would you answer? Can you even answer an imprecise question, precisely?

The answer we often start with, when people ask a question, is "It Depends." Because most people ask imprecise questions.

That's ok. We just want to be aware of what we are asking, and what we are answering.

Colloquial Speech:

You also want to be aware of colloquial speech patterns and self efficacy.

Here's a quote from the above article which explains this well:

“Oreos make me fat.”

This implies that a sleeve of Oreos snuck into your apartment and tied you down while you were asleep and then forced themselves down your throat against your will.

That’s probably not what happened.

Contrast the above statement with:

“I don’t have very good self control around Oreos, I can’t eat just one or two of them. So, it’s best for me not to keep them around the house”

In other words, be aware of the words you are using and what they really mean. Think literally, as that will help you drill down to greater precision and clarity.

Valid vs. Useful

The final frame which is very helpful in learning how to ask more effective questions is Validity vs Usefulness.

This often comes up when answering questions or responding to someone - am I being truly useful in the entire context of what's going on, or am I just making a valid statement?

You can ask yourself this of your questions.

Am I seeking validity?

Or am I seeking usefulness?

A question that seeks usefulness is well constructed to get a specific answer that will lead to clarity in your next step.

Example.

"Is it a good idea for me to run Facebook ads for my business?"

That is not a useful question. The context and answer are highly subjective. You are seeking a yes or a no so that you can have a burden of determining certainty OFF your shoulders.

"How can I determine if Facebook Ads are a good idea for my business?"

THAT is a much more useful question, because it can lead to specific answers and actions that can be made, which can ultimately answer the question FOR YOU.

So just ask yourself,

Am I seeking usefulness? Or am I seeking validity?

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But, What if I Look Dumb?

Its not an uncommon feeling. To feel like whatever question you have is too simple, too obvious, too plain, too boring.

Understand,

You are not alone.

There are MANY people who will have the same question you do. They will have the question with regard to their own challenges. They will have different ideas of what the question is and can mean and what the answer can be.

By asking the question, you will look like the smartest person in the room to those people who also had that and similar questions in their mind.

They wanted to ask that question but were afraid to - maybe they didn't fully know how to articulate it, or felt like they would be judged by it.

Give those people the gift of the question being asked, of being able to go second.

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On Observation vs Solution

Observing your thoughts and ideas with the intention of not solving the question is an important practice.

When we talk about learning in this cycle:

Consume

Reflect

Engage

Reflect

Repeat

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Reflect is the point where you think about what you consumed or did, where you observe questions that you have, experiences that you had, what came from those experiences, etc.

So I encourage you to think about getting good at observation, and letting those observations sit.

This will open up greater levels of possibility in what you can get out of this process, because it's not about the outcome ...

Its about the dang process.

For example, you might decide that you're interested to figure out what impact Dopamine is having on your life. Like I did, which you can read about in The Real Cost of Dopamine.

The Real Cost Of Dopamine

You can approach the entire learning process like this:

Consume - you read my Dopamine article, or watched videos from Huberman (like I did), or heard about it being discussed elsewhere.

Reflect - I wonder how much Dopamine is impacting my day to day? I have noticed that I interrupt myself while working frequently to fiddle with my phone.

Engage - I'm going to remove all easy dopamine outlets from my periphery during working hours for the next week and see what happens.

Reflect - in logging my work, I have noticed that I ended up writing more

Notice how it's all observation. Observation initially based on the new idea. Then observation of what occurred from Engaging the Field.

Get good at observing outside of any outcome you expect. For example, in my own Dopamine experiments, one thing I observed which I didn't think about at the beginning, was how hard we snapped back on Dopamine after cutting it out completely.

That observation led to different approaches in ultimate outcome, as I continued experimenting, Engaging the Field more and more as I learned.

I share all this because,

You may feel like you need to get a specific outcome from this process, from The Arena.

The Observation is enough.

If you can bring your observations, both of your initial ideas, and of the action you took, to The Arena, we can help you progress with clarity and certainty.

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On What to Work On

Entering The Arena requires that you Engage the Field with your ideas/challenges/questions

Engage The Field

You may have joined The Arena knowing, believing, or just feeling like you ought to be working on something.

So.

Let's make the best use of your time and energy for growth and figure out what that something is.

First, what's the point of all this?

Ideally to learn and to grow.

We talk about learning as same situation different behavior. That is, you re-enter a situation and exhibit different behavior than you did before - you learned something.

Example: You walk up to a hot burner, put your hand on the stove, and burn your hand. Next time you walk up to the hot burner ... if you put your hand on the stove again, you learned nothing.

Learning is a process of Engaging the Field - of putting our hand on the burner - so that we can have the opportunity to change our behavior.

You can't change your behavior if you don't Engage the Field. You can't learn. You can't grow.

So,

What do you want to change?

That's the big question.

Do you want to make more money than you are now?

Do you want to lose weight?

Do you want to be happier?

Do you want to stop having foot pain?

Do you want to be able to sit on the floor and get up with ease?

Do you want to cook more impressive meals?

Find the big overarching broad thing you want to change that has driven you here - you probably know what it is - and then ...

Ask yourself questions about that.

Why do you want to make more money? What does more money even mean? What is more to you? is there a specific number? What happens when you have that more money?

Keep asking. Dig down to the root of the thing you think more money is going to get you.

Your digging might not take too long.

I want to cook more impressive meals, because I love tasty food and sharing experiences with the people I love through food, so I just want to have the joy of doing that more frequently with ease.

And then

Ask yourself - What do you think you need or can do in order to start doing that?

Maybe you, to make more money, I think “I need to start a business.” To start a business, maybe I think I can sell a service to someone specific. To sell that service to them, I'm going to have to have a conversation with them.

To cook more impressive meals, I'm going to have to cook more, but I'm also going to have to prepare more in the kitchen. To do that I'm going to need to plan around types of meals, make sure I have everything I need to make the meal ... and then cook it. So next week I'm going to do one fancy meal and plan it the whole way through.

The Action Point

At a certain point, you will find yourself up against fence, a wall, a junction point. A place where you are saying something like "well, I think I should or I want to do this thing because if I do this thing then xyz will happen."

I think I want to have a situation with my business where all I need to do is send an email every day and make all my money through a daily email. (Example pulled from my personal experience)

Well, if I'm not already emailing every day, and I'm not already making money from offers I can put in those emails ...

I better start trying to email every day.

What happens if I don't like it? What happens if I can't do it? What happens if I can't make money that way?

Until you do something, you don't know that you can do the thing, and you don't know how that thing is going to work out for you.

That's why we always come back to Engaging the Field.

Once you start doing things - Engaging the Field - you start having a million and one other questions.

Those questions reveal new paths.

"I've been emailing every day for 4 months and I feel like I can keep doing that forever - I've figured out how to have endless entertaining emails every day - but my list is not growing well, I think I need to figure out how to make my list grow more."

You see how that reveals new paths. Now we look at all the options for growing a list. And we say "let's try that out."

So,

Find the thing you want to change.

Find the thing that you think you can, need to, or should do to move forward.

Then just do that thing.

That's really all you need to do in order to prepare for The Arena,

We've got your back.

You come to the calls, and you say

"Hey I wanted to change this thing. I thought this would be a good idea so I did it. Here's what happened."

That may sound simple.

But you will be blown away by what happens when you start doing.

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Sources to Reference

Here are a few sources you can reference.

Obviously we have the full library here on The Guardian Academy

For marketing you can dig through Man Bites Dog

For fitness you can dig through Commandment One

Books we have referenced and recommended over time (will update):

Bumpers

What's in it for Them?

Never Split the Difference

The Master Key of Wisdom (via The Gray Wolf)

Super Duper Profitable Ads

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Ideas to Explore and Implement

Slow Down

Raise the Floor

Dopamine Without Effort Will Destroy a Person

Clarity

Certainty

Collapsing Time

From Form to Function: How to Think Your Way to Clarity

Bumpers

The Path to Playing Your Own Game Starts Here

The System for Getting What You Want in Life

The Solvable Problem For Life

(And anything else in our Library)

These are all philosophical and principle based ideas which The Guardian Academy is built on.

They are all ideas which can be implemented into YOUR unique domain and situation.

They are all ideas which you can use to grow.

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Examples of People Doing Stuff

I'd like to pull some examples from recent arenas of participants who showed up effectively, so you can use their action as inspiration for your own participation.

From David Higdon, Arena #1 --

The resource he referenced - Bumpers and DALA

Here's what he did - After watching a DALA video, he got focused and tried to apply Bumpers to his life

Here's what happened - He discovered a challenge in scheduling his needs and interests (through the lens of Bumpers) and how that impacts his health

Solve or Share - He asked for help in how to resolve that and move forward

From Sean Anthony, Arena #1 -

The resource he referenced - In discussion with Nic, while trying to figure out a solution to a front end problem he was seeing, was introduced to Substack

Here's what he did - He created a Substack (Email Rainmaker) as a front end, low ticket option, utilizing a library of content he's made over the past few years, sent it out to his current list

Here's what happened - Close to 400 people initially joined

Solve or Share - Now he's trying to figure out what type of content the Substack should ultimately focus on so he can end up working with the people he really wants to work with.

From Kris Bradley, Arena #1 -

The resource - After a conversation, realized in her business, she had slipped into flash sales on the front end, short term thinking, and that she may be better served giving away more at the beginning

Here's what she did - Went through her catalogue of information and videos to pull out a ton of useful stuff she'd always kept behind a paywall

Here's what happened - She's currently in the process of executing on a publishing plan to put the free stuff out there

Solve or Share - (this was a share)

From Dave Montore, Arena #1 -

The resource - The Commandments, and Function over Form, alongside the idea that he may not be around when his kids are older, to pass on what he knows

Here's what he did - He started recording videos, talking to his kids, adding in Life Lens Progression from Dr Jeff to help them understand what they might expect in life

Here's what happened - This has led him to Fathering with More Intention

Solve or Share - Mostly a share, but he's also feeling disorganized about what he's working through, knows engaging the field is the way to go, opened the door for people with ideas to help him structure and move forward with more intent

You can watch these conversations and more in Arena #1 on the post below. It's a great way to orient and get familiar with what the conversations are like, and how you might show up in The Arena for yourself.

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Ready to Join? Here's what you need to know

Each month, we open the cart to join The Arena approximate 1 week before The Arena call.

When we open the cart to join, it will only be open for 24 hours.

There will also be limited spots.

The only way to receive the link to join The Arena is to be on The Waitlist.

You can join the waitlist here.

After joining The Arena, there will also be a private live orientation call, where we will walk you through what The Arena is like, what you can expect, and how you can prepare for your calls to get the most out of the program.

We recommend reviewing this article as well: