Do you ever feel you are not making progress in life? In this episode, Jimmy and Lori share a simple, yet powerful, approach to taking back your life and accomplishing your most important goals!
Episode Keys
- The most important reason for setting and accomplishing goals is that make you uncomfortable and require growth.
- Why you must have goals! The world is depending on you to be the best you possible.
- When to start the process of restarting your goal achievement progress (hint: today!!!).
- Why you should never compare your progress to someone else’s progress (frontstage v. backstage).
- How to initiate your biggest goals today for achievement in 30 days!
Podcast Transcript
JW:
Lori, I gotta tell you this morning, I am on fire.
LF:
Fire?
JW:
Abolutely! Man, you know, this year has been a big, big, big year and I am literally on fire. Yesterday, it was 103°.
LF:
Well, good morning and welcome to another episode of Live a Life By Design. I’m Lori Few and we have Jimmy “I’m On Fire” Williams with us this morning. Literally.
JW:
Good morning, everyone.
LF:
Jimmy, I can’t, I don’t need that visual this morning that you’re literally on fire, but I mean, can’t help it now. It’s in my head. So everybody’s just gonna have to take a mental moment. We’re gonna put Jimmy out. He’s not literally on fire, but we are gonna have a hot topic this morning, shall I say.
JW:
Oh, that was good, Lori. I like that. I’ll tell you what it’s gonna be so hot today. Folks. I hope you’re wearing your flame retardant shoes. Cause this is gonna get pretty hot here.
LF:
Woo man. Nothing, no, you know, no pressure or anything but this morning we’re gonna talk about, you know, people often ask us how we stay so focused with all the distractions in the world and how we’re accomplishing our B a. Okay. So let’s rewind in January. Thanks to Jimmy. We all sat down and decided that we were going to make a B a for the year. And of course, if you’ll remember all of you loyal listeners, Lori decided that she was going try to attempt to become more financially literate or financially savvy, I think is the word that I used. Well, I was off to a great start and then low and behold, thank you. Inflation and interest rates and all those ugly, other financial words that have gotten me so discombobulated and so confused that I’ve really had to kind of take a step back and go, oh, I don’t know if I could do this BHA. It might be too big for me. I was doing really well and then wham a distraction of the government and all the other big words have infiltrated my mind and my brain. And I’m just, it’s honestly, it’s just mush. But today we’re gonna share with you a powerful approach to accomplishing your goals, despite what the world they throw at us. Okay? So, you know, I’m not a big sports person, but to use a sports statement, see we’re doing all kinds of fun, different things this morning. We’re just mixing it up around here.
JW:
If Lori’s not uncomfortable, she’s not growing. That’s what its,
LF:
That’s it tell you I’ve been very uncomfortable financially, lately. So I must be growing at exponential rates, but you can’t win the championship by only playing defense. Instead you must take a few moments and evaluate with great honesty where you are on your annual goal and next implement the three steps of our offensive strategy for accomplishment plan. So big words this morning, we’re calling it the O S a
JW:
Not to be confused, Lori, with the AAP, as soon as possible, we wanna put a little urgency here as well, but folks you’ve been on defense, perhaps you don’t feel like you’ve given your best effort toward those big, hairy, audacious goals you set in January. You know, we all get that pin out on that nice Molo skinny notebook. And we write at the top goals for 2022 and they’re life changing Lori. They are moving us out of our shell and giving us a bigger realm of people that we can reach, maybe a greater wealth goal, whatever it might be. And then you look at it and you go, Hey, June 30, God, your awful quick. And Lori, I don’t wanna say this out loud, but I guess I will, as I get older of those six months go quicker.
LF:
They absolutely are going quicker. And that’s why I feel like I haven’t accomplished nearly enough because I look at, and I’m thinking, huh? The year’s halfway over what? Now
JW:
I’m gonna help you, Lori. And all of our great listeners, we have Lori and I have got this plan, this offensive strategy for accomplishment plan OSAP. We’re calling it. And maybe it could be O snap since we don’t have anything accomplished much
LF:
Well, yeah. O snap. Yeah.
JW:
That’s probably more appropriate, but no. Hey, step one. Let’s talk about how this works, Lori and I have got a plan here. That’s gonna help you accomplish those big hair, audacious goals in a way that you go now on offense. So like she said, you know, the championship can be lost if you don’t play defense, but you can never win the championship by only playing defense, you have to go forward. Sometimes you have to do like the salmon. You have to swim upstream. It’s not easy, but you become stronger. You become better at what you’re trying to accomplish. So step one, review your goals for growth. Are they still even relevant for you? Do you truly wish to grow in the manner necessary to even accomplish the goals? It is not what you receive by accomplishing the goal. That really matters. It is what you become.
JW:
I got that from Jim RO, you know, he’s my mentor, Lori. And I love that. He says, it’s not the matter of accomplishing wealth. It’s the type of person you become in learning how to accumulate wealth. That to me makes a lot of sense. Are your goals even balanced for life? Lori, we get out of this. What I call the will of life circle. We have so many facets to life and sometimes you can be running on a flat tire. If all you’re worried about is financial stuff. There’s a lot of other areas, right? So did you address something in the areas of spiritual, professional, educational, family, financial, and for me, I love this area and I always have a goal in this area. It’s a big one for us, always charitable, Hey, listen, too much has been given to those much is expected in the world, right?
JW:
And so as a human, you should be seeking balance in your life to fully grow as a person. You know, one of my friends made a statement early in our career. I’ve been doing this now for 35 years. And I’m telling you this friend of mine started out with me at the same time, about a year younger, I think. And he made a statement on, he said, I’m going to sacrifice everything I have to, to become a partner in an international firm. And I looked at him back then, you know, when you’re only 22, 23, you kinda look at him and you go, Hey, you know, that’s, that’s cool. That’s something good. But now as a dad, 57 years of age, looking back over my career, I realize he may not have made the best of choices. The money he earned in the process of becoming a partner of an international firm was truly an accomplishment.
JW:
It is remarkable how much money he’s made, how many toys he’s collected and how many assets he’s gained. He’s got about three homes that I’m aware in different places throughout the United States and Canada. And he sacrificed though, not just his time to gain these assets. He sacrificed what is my primary goal and objective in life. He sacrificed his family. You thought I was gonna say health in you, Lord, cuz that’s my number two. But if I don’t have my family, I’m probably not gonna take care of my health because it’s so inspirational for me to be healthy for my family. If that makes sense, he lost his wife. He’s now been divorced twice. His children are estranged from him and it seems to me to be terribly unhappy for God’s 56 years of age and rich now hear what you’re saying? Everybody’s going, wait a minute.
JW:
You can buy your happiness. I don’t think so. I think you can lease it for a short period of time but I don’t think you can own it. Lori. And I think the thing here that bothers me the most is what was the ultimate sacrifice to gain a few more pebbles of rocks, diamond stones, whatever, you know, a few more houses. What was the challenge now I’m not gonna leave here and say, I’m not saying to you, well just go out and don’t worry about being ambitious. No, no, no. We’re talking about the will of life. Do everything with balance, right? And so you can still have all of this and the other stuff that’s most important as we say on this podcast as well. And so it seems to me that he accomplished his big Harry audacious goal of being a partner of an international firm.
JW:
But did he really experience wealth? The things about wealth that we call on this podcast live alive by design cannot be counted in a bank account or investment account in houses out money and assets. And I can’t believe I just said that I’m a wealth manager, Lori, but anyway, my point to this is, is it’s not all on the balance sheets. You know, some of my largest assets are my two daughters that just make me so proud. My wife that has tolerated me for 35 years of September on the 19th, these are truly assets. Have we been blessed on top of that? Absolutely not gonna say we’re not, we’ve got more than we deserve, but we’re thankful. And I will say this that in time, my big Harry audacious goals of family are paying off to where the other matters such as those assets and things come in secondary, but they’re being added to as well. So you can truly have it all Lori,
LF:
You can truly have it all and you can have your wheel out of balance. Or if you’re me, your wheel can be flat. Your life will that it’s been flat. It’s been outta balance. It’s just been worn and yeah, we’re still, we’re still working with that life wheel and all those statements are absolutely true. We talk a lot on this podcast about how people are, you know, people first, we want to make sure that we have healthy relationships and everything else falls into place behind that. It’s so easy to get caught up in the financial situation and the, and the situations that infiltrate your everyday life, whether it’s personal professional community, but it it’s, it’s really true. It sounds cliche, but you know, people first and those tend to those that tend to do that really do root the benefits of that. And it’s important, which kinda leads me into step two.
LF:
We’re gonna pick three of your goals and write down the first steps necessary to create forward momentum of those goals. Don’t pick more than three, just three you’ll need to prioritize which ones you want to focus your energy for the next 30 days. We’re just doing short term next 30 days, top three goals. It’s not necessary that you accomplish the goal unless it is truly achievable in the next 30 days. But rather that you make a significant progress towards this goal. Once your mind has a picture of the goal being accomplished by taking the first few steps of the goals, accomplishment, the dopamine in your brain will kick in and you’ll be well on your way. So at this point we don’t allow distractions or comparisons of your progress with someone else. You know, we talk about quotes a lot on this podcast and we talk about how comparison is the thief of joy. And we wanna ma remain joyful as much as we possibly can. So three goals, 30 days don’t compare the progress. Are you still with me? Okay, let’s keep going. We’re very oriented this morning.
LF:
I will follow the rules. I love it. So we don’t compare, but this is your life. This is your opportunity. You decide how you wish to grow and how much. So this is how each of us works on the planet. We do our own unique part. Are you ever gonna win a championship? Cuz you know, we’re talking about sports this morning, but that championship can be personal to you. It can be accomplishing a goal. It can be setting a goal. It can be maintaining that goal for a week, a month, 30 days, remember that’s where we’re going. So are we ever gonna win a championship, Jimmy?
JW:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That hotdog getting contest at Nathan’s they just had a week ago? I’m gonna train for that.
LF:
No way.
JW:
I’m gonna train for that. I think I could make happen. I don’t know. This guy ate like 50 something, hotdogs or something. It’s crazy. I may, I’ve got that number wrong. I didn’t read the whole story.
LF:
I don’t even like even imagine.
JW:
Oh my goodness. Do you
LF:
Think that he, you think how long do you think he’s worked on that goal?
JW:
I don’t know how long he kept it down. You know what I’m saying? I mean, after how long he, so do you actually have to keep it down for it to count or do you, you know, after guy purging behind the stage, right?
LF:
Oh my gosh. I, I cannot even imagine, but what a goal, what an accomplishment to be on a national stage. I mean, if you can be on a national stage for eating hotdogs, you can be on a national stage for just about anything.
JW:
I gotta tell you, I can just see this guy’s trophy mantle and his grandkids come up. Oh Papa, what what’d you do in life? Well, I hate to brag. I hate about a hundred wieners a year and won a contest. I mean, give me a break. It’s a lot of hotdogs.
JW:
H.G. Wells had a, has a quote. I love talking about your pick three goals, write them down and get those first. This steps. What we’re trying to do here is like Lori said that momentum and H.G. Wells reminds of man, what a great quote to what really matters is what you do with what you have. It doesn’t mean you have to have it all to start doing something. Lori, you could start doing something now, whatever that is one small step, right? But the world needs you to be the best Lori possible. We’ve said that on this podcast many times. And I love the fact that we don’t have to have it all together to distribute from our well of, of vastness that we do have. Right?
LF:
That’s the great thing about being part of a community is that you rely on other people to fill the gaps where you don’t have a, a skillset or you don’t have a talent. You don’t have a connection. That’s, what’s great about building that community of people that help you achieve those goals. We’re never doing it alone.
JW:
And have you ever seen a rock on the top of a hill and you just wonder, wow, that rock. I wonder how fast it rolled down the hill. Have you ever noticed that once the rock, it, it, you barely get it moving. It just takes a lot of energy, a lot of energy to get it moving. But once it’s gotten some momentum going downhill, what happens? Gravity takes hold, right? And boom, this Rock’s leading down and crashing wherever it’s gonna stop. The same thing can happen on your progress for your goals. Right? I didn’t, I didn’t think that we need to figure out how do I get from a to end, right? Like Lori said, what we need to do is just get the first two or three steps. What’s it gonna take just to get this thing rolling. This idea of how this goal’s gonna accomplish. And big part of that is working through our mind first, see the picture in your mind and then how I want it to turn out. I will tell you it never turns out exactly Lori, how I have it pictured in my mind, but the end result is I’m the better person or I’ve got a better habit, or I’ve done something to accomplish a, a goal. That’s a stretch goal for me. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters, right?
LF:
It’s all about that. Positivity. Moving the needle forward in the right direction. We’re not looking back. We’re not going backward. Can’t change it. Don’t fix it. Leave it where it move forward.
JW:
So Lori and I have given you the two, you know, the two steps of the three that’s gonna make this really move the needle for you to go on offense for your goals this year. You know that first one review your goals for growth. Lori just said, pick three of those goals, write down the first steps necessary to create forward momentum. This third one, this is if you will, Lori, the $6 million man thing. This is, we can rebuild you. We can make this happen. If you just do this one thing. Now too often in school, they have this thing called tests. Does your son know ever come home and say, well, we had a test today in math does ever,
LF:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
JW:
So how does he know if he’s making progress in math? What happens after he takes that test?
LF:
He gets a grade.
JW:
He gets a grade. So here’s what you gotta do for yourself. Lori, on goal setting and goal accomplishment, you’ve got to be serious for yourself and track your progress. Step three here each day and find your rhythm in the process. So, you know, what’s important to track your progress, to help feed your mind, the vision that you already have accomplished this goal in your mind. And now you’re bringing it to a reality. You know, I use a full focused pocket planner. That’s put out by the full focus group over in well near Nashville, Tennessee here in the United States. And this planner has everything I need to go. Yes, analog and Lori don’t laugh at me. I’m a big tech guy. I love all the stuff that works. You know, I use Evernote professional. But I love just paper and Lori, I’m gonna go on record today at my newest book.
JW:
I love, you know, I’m a book hound, you know that I love books. My wife’s about ready to kick me out, but I’m gonna have to build a new library or something. But this one’s called “The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter” by David Sax. So I’m getting into really what I have been doing. And now I understand it better. Mr. Sax has said, don’t worry, use the technology for that when you need to communicate and share with your team, but bring back your analog to help your brain process in the way to be very honest, we were created. If you write things down, you remember them more better than keystrokes on a keyboard. And so I use this full focus planner to ever no professional to help me create document, track, and celebrate my goals each year. Lori. So I don’t laugh. I actually have a party every 90 days. And I I do myself a little party. I’m gonna be honest with you about myself, a new month Blanc riding instrument here to celebrate my first quarter goals back in April. And my wife said, wow, what were your goals? And I shared them with her and she says, well, that’s, that’s worth the amount of money. I’m not gonna say how much it was. It wasn’t cheap. But she was okay with that.
JW:
And she was, and so, you know, you gotta find a system that works for you, Lori. So what I’m doing works for me and I love the mixture of technology and analog. It just works for me so I can automate some of it. And some of it I don’t want to automate because it triggers my mind every quarter on those big goals. You know, the only caveat is that you must track your progress and you must review your annual, quarterly and weekly goals. And I do this every day. Now I put them in the shower. I know what you’re saying. Here we go again with the shower thing, not trying to get graphic here, folks, but the one thing you’re gonna do is you wanna post these things somewhere where you’re gonna see them every morning. And I hear a lot of you go, we love to mush share at night. Hey, so what take it at night, go to bed with him on your brain. But at least bathe every day, that’s all I’m saying here on the podcast, right?
LF:
The way it’s very important. It’s hot it’s summer. Please make sure you are bathing.
JW:
Zig Zigler had a famous quote, Lori, I love this. He said motivation is like bathing. You must do it every day for you really help.
LF:
Yes, absolutely true.
JW:
So, so the way I do this on Lori, I find a quiet spot. Now Lori’s a coffee, not a coffee hound. She loves coffee, right? So I find a quiet spot, a coffee shop, a library bookstore, wherever. And I spend an hour each week, usually on Sunday evenings. That’s my day to go plan for the week. And I check my weekly progress.
LF:
And do you do it digitally or do you do it analog?
JW:
I do it analog. I do it analog because what I’m trying to do is my brain is say, okay, where am I? And don’t laugh. I’ve got some things set up routines and Evernote to track things. And I do input the information there after I do an analog. The only reason I do that is because I want to archive and I research and go back and go, Hey, what a year I had in 2021 or 2020 or whatever year it was. And I can look back and see my specific accomplishments. And also Lori, I can see where I might wanna challenge myself more or maybe I bit off a little too much, maybe with every everything I had going on in life. Sometimes your perspective changes. Right?
LF:
Well, and I think that’s true too. And I will say that I’m glad that we have lived. I, I love technology. I’m a very I, I, I love technology but I am really glad that our forefathers and our history buffs before us wrote things down they literally have thousands and thousands of documents. And now I, I worry because we keep everything in the digital cloud and in the digital world, hopefully someone along the way is downloading those and saving them to, you know, make the future history books of, of what has transpired so that when people, you know, go before us that they’ll have something to look back on.
JW:
Now you do know, and I’ve said, this I’m gonna live be 124. I think I told you my longevity plan, right? Yes, yes. I got a lot of things, a lot of books to write things to do. And I will tell you one of my things I’m looking for. And I, and I mean, this sincerely is I do believe we’ll probably have people living on Mars over the next 50, 60 years. I do believe that I’d also believe, and I hope and pray that we get, this is I want a transporter beam. Can you not see this being helpful? The bit say, you know what? I’d love to go to Anchorage and Alaska and eat fresh salmon. Boom, beam me up there sitting there. You come home night and sleep in your own bed. I mean, it’d be great.
LF:
It would be amazing, but I don’t know that I’m ready for that. I, I am much more. I’m not I still consider that a little sci-fi and I will stay firmly planted and travel by necessary means not teleportation beam. Just saying.
JW:
Listen, I know what would happen though. This happens sometimes even the greatest of people on Star Trek is they would beam me up there and I’d probably land in front of a polar bear between her cub and her. That’s just my luck, you know.
LF:
That’s it. They would send you to the wrong place.
JW:
That’s it, that’s it.
LF:
So in talking about different styles of, of goal setting, one of the things that we wanna look at is if you wanna truly be a different leader for your team at work or your, for your family, it’s like Jimmy said, it’s critical that you discover and document the areas where you are not progressing on your goals. And then take action to go on the offense. Remember we’re using that word this morning instead of defense. So time is the most valuable resource you possess and it’s, and it’s liquid time. We all say it. We’ve all heard it. Our grandparents said it to our parents. Our parents say it to us. We’re now saying it to our children. All we want is more time. We just need more time. You cannot manage time much to the charging of thousands of authors with book titles, that state you can, however you can manage your energy in the space of time that you’re growing as a person.
LF:
That’s what you can control. Think about your energy flow during the day. If you’re me, I’ve gotta be caffeinated or there is no energy flowing whatsoever. Are you a morning person like Jimmy, or are you a night out? There is no right or wrong answer. But if you work on your self through goal achievement in whatever time of the day, you are most attentive and most alert and you check those boxes to the important details of life. It’s only one opportunity that we live on the planet. So we’ve got to make it a great one. We talk about that a lot, but we mean it. And it’s an honest, true statement, and it’s so heartfelt and it’s important. And as listeners, we want you to walk away every time you listen with something positive and something impactful and something meaningful,
JW:
Gotta tell you Lori, another book that I’ve read, very small paper backing, reading a weekend, a dear friend of mine, Randy Carver wrote this lives up in Ohio. And he says the name of the book. The title is only this
LF:
Fourteen hundred forty fourteen hundred and forty.
JW:
It relates to 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day. We all have the same 1,440 minutes. So why is it that people can create the theory of relativity that can create rockets and send ’em to the moon electric car batteries, all this great things that come out of life and you go, wow. You know, I didn’t do any of that. They had the same 1,440 minutes, but they probably had goals that they looked at documented, tracked and made sure they stayed on progress so that they could accomplish them the same amount of time. You and I did. You know, one thing I’ve always said is, is I’m not an anti TV person. I got a daughter that’s on TV is I’m not an anti TV person. I am though. An anti TV takes 14 hours of your day person. If, if you’re spending more time than an hour or so a day watching TV you know, we probably need to reevaluate our time went, right? So if you wanna spend your days reaching the big Harry audacious goals and changing the world for which you are capable, then you keep those progresses noted on the goals and keep those goals flowing
LF:
Well. And that leads right into our challenge for this week. This week, we ask that you take one of your goals for the year, physically write it down the next few steps to accomplishing or progressing on that goal. And remember a journey of a thousand miles starts, but with one small step from the person in the right direction. So how are you gonna use your 1440 whatever you do go make great week and live a life by design.
JW:
Lori, I’ve got my 140 lined up for the next 24 hours.
LF:
And?
JW:
I’m going to Starbucks with you.
LF:
Let’s do it.
JW:
Have a great week, everybody!
