Mike Haydon
From Zero to a $5m per year Business

My emotions before meeting ABA

I had a lot of anger. There were days I would get so frustrated. I was disappointed with a lot with people and I would take it to take everything to heart.

Why I felt resistance hiring a business coach?

The number one thing that was confronting for me straightaway was money. When I was considering ABA's program, I had no money. I decided to make the commitment, and the question for me was 'What can I do to make it work?'

It's four years ago this week that we moved to Lismore and I started working with Mike. We'd spent all our money moving to Lismore. I took the last 3 grand I had available and put down as a bond on an office.

Back then I made the commitment to put every single employee I hired through the ABA predictors and to engage in work with Mike.

The other commitment I made was to pay myself a wage. I've never missed a wage in four years. That was a big key. It's interesting because the most common people have is about money but you can always turn up and work it out.

The other resistance I had was from finding out things about myself I didn't want to know. However, once I knew I was the problem, I made the changes and that allowed me to change my reality.

That’s a very real thing for me these days. I can always see everything that happens and look at what role I played to make it happen, whether it is a good thing or not.

It's interesting to see how often the problem you have is what's stopping you solving your problem. I had the problem of not enough money, and I solved it by investing in ABA. I've found if you want something enough, you'll always figure out how to get the money together to get that thing.

What got Mike to take the first step?

I felt like everything in my life was upside down, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I had tried everything to change my life, and I had nothing else to do other than to hire a coach.

I was either going to choose to work with you, or keep going round in circles the rest of my life. I could see that if I really wanted change to occur, then it was necessary for me to do something different, or I was going to end up in the same place over and over again.

What did Mike like about ABA's initial approach?

I didn't feel like I was pressured at all when I made my decision to start was because I was ready to do it. After doing this I really wish I joined three years earlier, because I would be a lot further ahead in life.

What was Mike's expectation of what he would receive from ABA as an outcome?

I wanted to feel different. That was the biggest thing.

I have a different reality now. I used to get upset, go home and be pissed off for a week, and now when something goes wrong, it takes me a couple of minutes to work out a plan to resolve it. Feeling different is what I wanted to feel and that happened very fast.

It's funny the degree of troubles it takes to stress me out these days. I don't take things personally any more, and when you're not feeling that stress it's so much easier to work things out.

I didn't realise how highly stressed my life was before working with ABA. Now if I do get stressed it's a serious situation. I just don't worry about the small stuff anymore because that's all it is. And it’s all small stuff really.