Are you tired of chasing success on everyone else’s terms?
If you want to succeed, you’ve got to put in longer hours at work, hobnob with the right people, have the right hair and makeup, and be seen in the right places. You’ve got to keep up with the Joneses. Otherwise you’ll end up slipping behind.
Professional and personal development coach trainer Jordan Mercedes, ACC, thinks it’s high time we redefined success.
No one else can tell us what it means to win. That’s something WE get to define for ourselves.
And she’s developed a system to help you do it, called the Win Code™.
In this week’s YBTV interview, Jordan explains what it really takes to succeed in life on your terms. She reveals the secret to resisting pressure to go in directions we don’t want to go. And she lets us in on a useful hack to turn any feelings of envy into a positive force for change.
Get ready to discover the Win Code™!
What You’ll Learn
Is it wrong to want more?
Shouldn’t you just be grateful for what you have? At least you have a job and a roof over your head, right?
But maybe there’s a stirring inside you. A yearning for something. Maybe you’re asking yourself the same question Jordan Mercedes gets asked:
I feel a bigger calling inside of me—is it okay to answer that calling?”
This question is what brings women to Jordan for coaching.
Jordan’s coaching clients come from all walks of life. Some have just started living their dream. Others have already achieved high levels of success. But they all have something in common:
The lives they’re leading aren’t quite enough, and they’re not sure why.
“One of the questions I’ll ask women is, ‘What do you REALLY want?'” Jordan says.
“Believe it or not, the first response to that question is usually tears. Usually they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, Jordan, I know what my husband wants, or what the nonprofit I volunteer for wants. I know what my kids want. I know what my mother wants! But I have not stopped to figure out what I want.”
What Do You Want?
Helping women figure out what they want is part of Jordan’s work as a professional and personal development coach.
But knowing what you want is only half the battle. The other half is going after what you want and making it happen.
Not all of Jordan’s clients were able to immediately go from defining what’s important to them to putting a plan into action.
“After about 15 years of working with clients on all levels, I got to see the ones who would make a decision and soar … and the ones who would get stuck in place,” she says. She wondered what distinguished the two groups. Why were some women getting bogged down, while others hit the ground running?
At last, it came to her.
It was when her clients “got to the point where they were willing to do it THEIR way, when they’d had enough of” trying to do it the way everyone else was doing it, that their success truly took off.
That insight led her to develop her program THE WIN CODE.™
What is a “Win” to You?
Your Win Code™ is a system designed to help you uncover what a “win” feels like to you, based on your core values and the truth of who you really are.
“You get to define the win,” Jordan says.
It doesn’t matter if the thing that’s a win to you isn’t a win to anyone else. Your win may be more time at home with family, peace of mind, or work that exercises your creativity.
No matter what her clients want, Jordan always tells them: “I believe whatever you want for your life is possible.”
What makes the Win Code™ unique is its emphasis on redefining success and achievement. You may have felt pressure to go into a higher-paid career, apply for that promotion, or take on more clients. But Jordan wants you to realize that YOU have the right to define success—and it doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
In fact, pursuing success in terms defined by someone else can make you struggle. It feels hard to get anywhere. You feel like something’s wrong with you.
“When we’re stuck in comparison and trying to do life like someone else, we can’t really get traction,” Jordan says. “Because guess what? We’re NOT someone else!”
Once you know what winning means to you, you can set yourself up to win.
Teach yourself to say, “I win every day.” Notice how it changes how you feel.
Try saying, “It’s normal for me to win.” Feel the difference?
Avoiding the Comparison Trap
Today, Jordan’s greatest joy is helping women create and live in their own Win Code™.
“For women, it’s important that we speak a language to each other and about each other that says, ‘You have radical permission to be amazing right where you are. You have radical permission to shine,'” she says.
She recognizes that women will compare themselves to others. They might not feel as successful as another woman, and that feeling of envy can push them off the path of authenticity.
Jordan equips women to have a more productive way of dealing with that comparison by encouraging them to ask themselves:
How can I create a life that is as fulfilling and satisfying for me as that life is for her? Because I see it’s possible.”
The Benefits of Clarity
One of the benefits of getting clear about your own Win Code™ is that you’re no longer as vulnerable to pressure from other people who want to move you in directions you don’t want to go.
“When you speak with someone who is very confident about who they are and what they’re doing, people don’t tend to try to move you along,” Jordan says.
But when you’re not really sure what you want, or you’re operating from a place of doubt, it’s “almost like this invisible invitation for someone else to step in and say, ‘Okay, then, I know what you should do, and you should do this.'”
She explains, “When you own all of your space, all of your decisions, all of your greatness,” it’s like closing the door on other people’s opinions.
The Win Code Coaching Experience
Jordan offers “non-directive coaching, where I act as a collaborative partner with my clients.” She helps her clients explore what’s most important to them, and then they brainstorm.
“I may not give you the answer and say, ‘This is how you should live your life,’ but if you say, ‘This is how I want to live my life,’ then what are the processes [and] questions that can move you closer to getting there in a way that’s most meaningful to you?”
The Win Code™ program involves one-on-one coaching with Jordan as well as group coaching. “That camaraderie is really powerful,” Jordan says.
Want to find out more?
No matter who you are, believe that there is a win specifically for you.”
Jump to Topics of Interest
2:01 What coaching means to Jordan
2:33 When you feel a calling
3:29 My Win Code™
5:09 How do you define what winning means to you?
6:46 The comparison trap
8:40 How to resist the pressure to pursue success on other people’s terms
10:35 Radical permission to shine
12:06 The importance of confidence and clarity
15:09 The coaching process
16:57 How My Win Code™ works
17:58 There is a win for you
Jordan Mercedes
Jordan Mercedes, ACC, is a professional and personal development coach instructor and has a private practice where she mentors and teaches leaders how to bring coaching into the workplace. She is the creator of Leaders Coach Forward™ training and My Win Code™ coaching partnership. Jordan started coaching in 2004 with a women’s retreat to help prevent burnout, and she enjoys working with clients and new coaches to help them grow in clarity, stand strong in confidence, and embrace their unique brilliance.
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