Now remember, for an idea to be a goal it has to three parts, just like a great movie script. First, an idea has to have a definitive final scene. This is something that is measurable and precise. The script doesn’t say at the end of the famous Ghostbusters movie that the good guys win. You can’t do that either. You can’t just write goals that are broad. A goal stating you will get healthier does not enable you to formulate a road map. Rather, you might say that your one mile run time that is currently 11 minutes and 20 seconds will decrease to 9 minutes and 55 seconds. A goal written like that will give you a traceable, definitive finish line. Next, you have to set a time in the future that you will accomplish the task. Most movies are broken into scenes that are structured around budgets and timelines based on the storyline. Using our same example your storyline would say that you are going to cut my one mile run time from 11 minutes and 20 seconds to 9 minutes and 55 seconds in the next 90 days. You almost have everything you need to get started towards down the path. The very last set is to commit this to paper. Committing your goals to paper will cause you to focus and keep you on the right road map. Congratulations you can celebrate your first written goal!
This is your movie. By writing goals you now know where you are and what the final outcome will look like at completion. Straightaway you have the opportunity to write the script for your movie. Beginning to write the script of your story, as well as writing your goals, you have to be very clear which means you have to be unquestionably specific. Why do you have to be transparent? Why do you have to be precise? When writing goals you have to be clear, so that you can be specific! You have to be clear-cut. It’s not enough just to write down on the piece of paper some generalized idea and think woo hoo, the job is done. It’s like saying a prayer and hoping that everything just falls into place. I often tell people you can’t pray from your couch and expect great results without actually getting off of your couch.
Numberless spiritual people think about it like this, all I need to do is say a prayer and expect a result. My mission will be accomplished! Well, that is not exactly how it works. They believe I’m going to pray and that’s it. Unfortunately, there is often a little bit more of a requirement on your part. Prayer plus work equals results. Prayer plus actions equals results. For the sake of this conversation, you can liken prayer to having an idea in your head. Until you commit that Idea to paper, it is just another great wasted idea. Are there some things that you care about and believe for that you have no ability to impact? Absolutely there are. However, we’re not talking events that are out of your control. We’re talking about business goals. We’re talking about writing the script to your dreams and your life. We’re talking about building your company. We’re talking about scaling your empire to where you dream of it someday being. You say it’s not good enough to be at $5,000 a month in sales, or it’s not good enough to be at $10,000 a month in sales. That voice in your head will tell you to expect $24,000 a month in sales. Let’s make a road map to enable you to get there! Today, however, you might be only doing $2,000 a month in sales. If you want to reach another level you will need to write the script, pave the way, create your road map to the next level.
By intentionally being very clear in your goals, you open the pathway internally to be very specific. The reason it is important to be specific is because the exact details will dictate what you do next. In writing a really great movie your first step is to build out the wire frame or the outline. In other words, you map out the general scenes working backwards from the closing scene rearwards all the way to the opening credits. For example, you have one sales person and that one person is doing $2,000 a month in sales. You feel like they have the capacity to get to $8,000 per month. To reach the goals of $24,000 in sales you will eventually need three sales people performing at an $8,000 per month rate.
Being very clear in your goals will cause you to expand and grow your business. In order to support three sales people with incoming leads, phone calls, with the paperwork you are probably going to need a receptionist. Okay that’s clear. Now, let’s look at another leg on here. In order to sell more products you are going to have to beef up your infrastructure in all areas: inside of manufacturing, inside of warehousing, inside of distribution, and inside of advertising. Every single leg of the very clear, very specific, written goal set now has to be orchestrated around your “end game”. We have to internally dig deep and document. I’m getting this feedback internally, in my mind, now I have to take this feedback from my mind and apply it to paper.
What’s happening the entire time that you are doing changing business levels? The story is getting more and more clear. The end results is becoming more and more evident. The final scene is becoming more and more transparent, and you can’t help but begin to take the necessary steps today to make it come to fruition. As you become more clear on the end game you enable yourself to see where steps are being missed in the front game and you’ll find that those missteps will drive you crazy. You are wondering if your business partners have read the script. Don’t they know the story? I know how this ends.??
Mastering your script is essential. Creating your storyline to fit inside of your business is essential. As your storyline becomes more and more clear, you are able to direct the ship. You’re creating a wire frame, scene one, act one, scene one, act two. You have realized the number of characters that are essential to have in each scene. You’re realizing their roles and what you as a director expect them to do, and then your business can begin to hire. Now again, there are some steps in there. Hiring the right employees is like a coach forming a team. They all need to work together for YOUR movie script.
I will use the same example as I did earlier, you have somebody that does $2,000 a month in sales and you believe they have the capacity to get to $8,000. That means you, as the owner of the company, have to figure out a way to provide them with enough leads to enable them to sell to $8,000. You have already established internally, in your mind, that you believe you could do $24,000. That means you have an idea of what it’s going to take to make it rain.
Some questions that often arise in every business are: Well, should I get the product first? Why, you don’t have the sales? Should I ramp up advertising? The answer is maybe. Is my marketing strong? Again, the answer is maybe. Could it be my social media presence? Definitely need to think about that, but that’s just part of the scene. Typically all of these different little elements are going through your mind as you’re looking at each individual scene. Currently, we are focusing on sales, getting from $2,000 to $8,000 for this one sales person so you can hire the next person that you envision in the scene.
You can see how strategically you can take this process of writing and really evaluating your business internally. This is what coaches do. Numerous amounts of entrepreneurs hire coaches to assist them down this internal path. Essentially, all you have do is write down your goals, right? This is where all these jokers who call themselves business coaches and leaders tell people to just write down goals. Suitably, just think about that as you’re thinking why am I writing down my goals? You’re making a movie. You are creating your very own movie with a specific storyline.
Now fast forward because I am not going to bore you to death with all of the crazy intricate details of this right? You’ve got to build the set which means the environment has to be conducive to the movie. You must have the right people in place. Like I imagine I can probably be an actor. However, I can’t imagine that I could walk in and do what a Brad Pitt can do. I couldn’t walk in and do what a Tom Cruise can do. There are crazy talented actors that excel at their career.
There are crazy talented actors that excel at their career. A good example that I need to share is Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Do you know what they have in common? Other than they acted in the Batman franchise? What I love about their acting styles is that they are what’s considered method actors. Which means that they shift into these different roles. You’ll see them in one m
ovie crazy buff like Bale was in Batman and then in another one when he lost 70 pounds. He had an extremely scrawny look in the Machinist. The effort that these men put into creating a role that needs to be filled to make the movie.
I couldn’t do that. I have no desire to bulk up and get crazy strong just to lose it all. Often actors will shrink down to look like a homeless person who hasn’t eaten in thirteen weeks and is on a thirty day drug binge. However, as entrepreneurs we have to be able to mentally switch between very dramatic roles. There has to be a willingness to dive deep into each role. Assuming the identity of that role is required until you understand the multitude of necessary nuances you will need to be as successful as that character in your story. As I’m progressing in my own movie my mind controls me going too far outside the bounds in any given role. In other words you’ll need to recognize your ability to play most of the characters in your script. It is necessary however to remind yourself that unless you want to just be self employed, you will need to stay in the directors chair. Hire those brilliant people that can do the things you aren’t as gifted. Maybe you can’t do what they can do or sometimes you hire people because you don’t want to what they are the tasks expected of them.
Grandpa used to say to me, “Lad you’re so busy looking at the top rung of the ladder, you can’t see the rung that’s right in front of your face.” And I so eloquently challenged my grandfather, like I always did, I said, “Grandpa, I’m not just looking, I’m jumping at it. And if I miss it, I still land three rungs higher than the one that was right in front of my face which is where everyone else is fighting for.” I was visualizing my goals, envisioning the necessary rungs on the ladder and sprinting past everyone else that wanted the same things. Eventually Grandpa saw that I had an aptitude for business and would give me advice then hear out my response. He encouraged me to write down even the most obscure thoughts. Today I have a pile of journals that contain my goals. It is always fun to look back at those and marvel at how when I map out the script the universe moves to make it happen. Early on I didn’t know why it was so important to write my goals. I didn’t understand the movie that was being written.
Now I understand that every time I start a company I am writing a new movie. I’m creating a production and the end game is my goal. And everything in between are the details necessary to product the movie. I’ll expand on certain bits of this later, but at its core this is why you write your goals. I get that this sounds very cosmic and sort of corny. Try it. What do you have to lose? Savvy?
If You Prepare The Soil A Tree Will Grow
You now have several fundamental tools floating around that ought to give you a basic due north that is, and will continue to be, necessary as we navigate the final few sections of Savvy. By now, I would expect that you would have your why clearly defined. You should also have listed the mentors that have influenced you. You should be constructing a list of mentors that you would like to surround yourself with, books you want to read, and mentors that you could pay to help you elevate to the highest levels in your industry. You should by now understand that breaking ourselves physically gives us the ability to step out as an entrepreneur with confidence and clarity knowing that you will not allow your mind to sabotage the goals that you will set for yourself.
I am trying to till up the ground in your mind. I want Savvy to prep the soil, so that together we can plant the seeds of your gift and watch as you bear your fruit to the world. I want the roots to go so deep that when the harsh winds of reality smack against your canopy you will have the capacity to stand firm, taller than ever, and remain completely unbroken.
Before we are ready to implement the plan, it is time to crush some habits that I see in almost every person that I talk to. Lets establish a couple of truths. First and foremost the thoughts that you generate in your head are no different from fresh bread from your local bakery. They spit out of the oven of your mind long after you have dumped in the ingredients. You see, what you put in your mind will 100% dictate what your mind produces as a final produced thought.
This was a hard lesson for me to learn. At my mom’s house we were conditioned to either sit in the living room and watch TV like everyone else or go play. The only inputs that were available to me were the school, radio, TV, family, or local neighborhood kids. There were no cellphones, no Google, wiki-what is that?! I’ve already expressed that my mother and step father didn’t have the human bandwidth to invest in 5 children, work full-time jobs, and maintain their sometimes rocky relationship. Just directing traffic was a hard enough challenge for them; let alone invest in deep meaningful conversations that would teach us how to think and process like rational adults.
Grandpa’s house, however, was entirely different. There was no TV. No one ever said, “Go play.” Sometimes you would hear top country hits playing on an old-time radio. However, if I wanted to be entertained I was expected to pick up one of the magazines, newspapers, or books that were laying around the house. Grandpa’s house gave me the opportunity to focus on a global perspective of what was happening in the world.
I was always very fascinated with Grandpa’s ability to discuss current events. His knowledge base seemed to dwarf anyone else I had ever met. The truth is, he didn’t waste time filling his head with garbage. He filled his mind with intelligent media only. When he would step out of grind mode, he was a brilliant communicator who was versed in most all of the current events. I know he didn’t invent the phrase, “Readers are Leaders”, but he was the first person to ever say it to me. He recognized that our minds were mixing bowls. What we put in determined what we would get out.
Now we live in a world where media is literally attached to our hands. Where you never have to wonder, about anything! You can try to imagine the absolute most absurd nonsense ever and you will likely find a multitude of extensive content that supports it. YouTube videos show talking fruit. Television shows that have been broken up and scattered across our social landscape, mountains and mountains of digital garbage are ready for human brain consumption. The sad part is that most people can’t consume it quick enough!
You have to decide if you are committed to not only filling your mind with the correct ingredients, but also ensuring that you follow the cooking times and temperatures to a tee if you plan on successfully preparing your mind for wealth. This will prepare you for success. When the things that come from you are produced for the world, they actually taste good! The world will want what you have been creating with your thoughts.
Consequently why do I have to worry about what I watch? What I read? What I discuss? What I allow myself to think about? Who I surround myself with? What I do in my free time? What I allow others to say to me? And mostly what I say about myself?! Every input and output that is created around us, or from us, leaves a trace inside of the neurons of our mind.
Grandpa and I would sometimes drive through the different fields around the farm. He had established acceptable paths that we were supposed to stay on in order that we wouldn’t hurt the planted crops. I was around eleven the first time he let me drive the old Chevy truck around the farm without him. As soon as I was over the hill and out of sight, I began to think that I could save some time by cutting across the field instead of following the given path grandpa had created. I remember it so vividly, because I didn’t realize that everywhere I drove in the field would leave a trail. Our minds are no different, even though you go through it pretty quickly, it leaves traces of you having been there. If you do it one time there is a chance that it could recover and fill in most of the gaps. In time you might not even be able to tell that you had veered off the path. Accordingly, what happens when you back up over the same spot or you drive over that same path multiple times? A distinct path is created. One that impacts the productivity of that crop all the way through to the harvest. You can imagine how surprised I was when grandpa asked me if I had stayed on the path! I quick thought, “Did he see me or did I leave a trail?” Either way I couldn’t lie to my gran
dpa, so I just told him the truth. Grandpa explained to me that just like the hay, the places we go and the things we do leave tracks. We have to make sure that we use that information to our advantage.
I don’t pretend to understand how the mind works in relation to the results in our life. However, I can just tell you that everything that I have been building in my life would be pointless if I didn’t have the correct mindset. One of the things I have spent hundreds of hours studying is the human mind. How it consciously and sub-consciously responds to the cues presented to it in our everyday lives is intriguing. This skill has allowed me to train my mind for success. I have also learned how the environments and word tracks we create in our companies create a safe place with controlled stimuli for our customers. Environments where specific cues are created with the intent of moving our customers and potential partners to a place where they are more easily influenced. I could write an entire book on this one principle. For the sake of this conversation, I want to focus on how we can support our mind’s capacity to allow scale and growth in your life.
You have to recognize that everything you experience leaves a trace in your mind. This means that everything you see, everything you learn, every conversation you have, and everything you confirm with your mouth creates connections between the neurons in your brain. This alters the way you think FOREVER! This information is invaluable! You must invest in yourself and in what goes into your mind.
Some of the thoughts you have are short term; some of them are long term. The more travelled thoughts and the ones that are mixed with higher intense emotions, generally speaking, are stored in the long term part of our brain. Our long term memory will affect how we handle short term situations almost always. Short term memories are like firecrackers. They leave little bits of debris in our minds and a slight ringing in our ears; however all of that fades away pretty quickly.
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