If you’re a local business owner that is looking to show up more frequently in Google Maps, organically, this article is for you.

Google My Business is a powerful tool that all local businesses need to use and below I will give you tips on how to maximize your listing. Side note — while GMB is critical for local businesses, it’s still very important for all companies and I’ll explain why in a bit.

Before we dive in, what is Google My Business? From Google:

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. If you verify and edit your business information, you can both help customers find your business and tell them your story. …

On Friday, May 22nd, 2020, Frances Mastropolo left us for what, I hope, is an even better life. She was my grandma and she was due to turn 97 in just a few months.

It’s weird to think we won’t be able to talk to her anymore, but we had her in our lives for a long time. She also got to experience 6 grandkids and 19 great grandchildren…and she lived a good and fun life. In fact, she was the one that turned me onto possibly the best summer beer ever, Bud Light Lime. …

Self-education is critical — learning should never stop. The most successful people make time every day to learn new things, personally and professionally.

Try to form a habit to consume content every day:

• Going for a walk? Listen to an audiobook or podcast.
• Driving somewhere? Listen to an audiobook or podcast.
• Have a morning routine? Add in 10 minutes of reading.

One important note before we continue to the 15 books is that consuming content…learning new things…self-education, etc…are all super important. But so is taking action. Content consumption with zero action won’t give you the results you’re looking for.

OK, here are the 15 must-read books for business and personal growth. These are in no particular order. And for full transparency, I’ve read A LOT of books over the last 15–20 years, but I obviously haven’t read every book available. So this list is based on the books that I’ve read and have had the most impact on me. …

My goal with this article is to convince you to try meditating for 30 days straight because I think meditation is an amazing habit to develop and is needed now more than ever.

Meditation — What and Why

Before I explain how and why I meditate, it’s important to talk about what meditation is exactly. There are many types and ways to meditate, but boiling it down for simplicity, meditating is spending time by yourself…eyes closed…paying attention to your breath…and bringing yourself back to your breath when your mind wanders (which it will do!)

How can something so simple be so powerful? …

There are dozens of different strategies and tactics you can use to generate leads and increase sales, but effective marketing relies on 3 crucial elements:

1. What is your positioning statement?

2. What is your offer and what value does it provide?

3. Who are your customers and how do you reach them?

The strategies and tactics are definitely important, but you first need to get these 3 ingredients right so your marketing recipe tastes delicious! Yes, I know that’s corny, but I had to tie together the article title with this opening section.

Let’s dive into each ingredient so this makes more…

I’m not sure why, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this blissful dissatisfaction with where I’m at in life overall.

I say blissful because I’m not an unhappy person…and I’m grateful for the life I’ve created…but nevertheless, I’m never fully satisfied. It’s a nagging feeling that never goes away.

I know this sounds sad…and I realize it can be taken too far…but because I’m conscious of it (and putting myself out there by writing this article), I believe an ongoing quest for self improvement is a good thing.

In my opinion, the opposite of this is a lot worse. If you have no goals…if you’re not working on yourself…and if you’re just flowing with life…I think you could potentially find yourself 20–30 years older with a very large gap of where you are and where you want to be. …

Over the last 2 years I’ve belonged to the Iron Sharpens Iron mastermind. I think masterminds are super important for both business and personal development…so much so that I decided to write this article to share my thoughts with you in hopes you’ll consider finding and joining a mastermind that’s right for you.

First off, what is a mastermind?

It’s a community of people that join together to regularly share, learn, help, grow and improve. …

About 9 months ago I started taking cold showers and I’ve managed to create a habit out of it.

Why? I’ll get to that in a second.

Now to be fair, I don’t take a 100% cold shower — it’s lukewarm for most of it, but then at the end, I completely turn off the hot water and grin & bear it. I’m from New Jersey and the Summer is MUCH easier than the Winter. When the ground is frozen, that cold shower feels like liquid ice.

So why do I take cold showers?

Because I don’t want to take cold showers.

• It’s about creating a habit around confronting things you don’t want to do and doing them anyway. …