Setting and Achieving Goals: Professional Ambitions Or Personal Milestones182

It's the first podcast of 2024. And for all my podcast peeps out there looking for more, after today's podcast, together we're going to be looking to kick down the door in 2024. We look at the first hand importance of writing things down, because resolutions might be cliche, but having goals is an important way to live each day. Let me tell you something. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you. You have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. What it do? What it do how diggity, damn. Am I so excited to be back with you. Episode 182. More importantly, welcome to the first episode of Share the Stronger Podcast in the year 2024. I hope you all are looking for more. I hope you all are dreaming and shooting for more, forecasting goals, for more, looking to kick down the door because it's 2024. Man, I haven't really had time to process and calculate all of my goals from last year and all the things that I wanted to do. I really haven't had time to process and calculate all of those things, but I took a sneak peak back at what I was thinking last year and in previous years. I want to discuss some of those things with you today. I want to focus on the positives of what was last year because, as you all know I've said it many times over the past few months it was the hands down most difficult year of my life. But today I'm going to focus on the successes in my life. I'm going to focus on some of those high point victories from last year. It's not going to be all about me, because I'm really going to be focusing all about you, because together we're going to pull through. I've got some real high hopes and dreams and aspirations. I'm not even done forecasting 2024 because, as I've said so many damn times, I'm looking for more. I'm really spending time. I'm starting to really dedicate time to carving out what's really important, like what I really need to focus on. We're going to get into some of that you guys know that every year around this time, we get into some goal forecasting, we get into having a plan, we get into the OKRs objectives and key results. We talk about the golden circle. We talk about all these things that are important. I don't want to recap all of those things because y'all can go back. We've got a track record now, america. We have a track record. We started this podcast in July 2020. We got a little chronological cabinet, a book cabinet, a bookcase, an armoire of episodes. Feel free to go back and grab some of those goal episodes. I want to build upon those. So I'm going to share something with y'all today. That's where we're headed. Today I'm going to set the tone for a good 2024. Before then, I wanted to share some what's happening in life, some funny things in life, and take a moment to give thanks for some things in life. Just to put things out there, to really continue the streak of dog shit that I've been on. As we've discussed, we've dealt with some difficult times Getting out of the service and all those things for my dad and the first round of holidays without him between Thanksgiving, christmas, new Year's, all those things. The mix of all that and the mix of trying to really keep and carry on and build traditions. The wife and I also dealt with a little bout of COVID, that's right. The wife and I ended up with COVID for the third time on this little road trip of COVID-ness that we've all been a part of. That was fun to factor that into the holidays as you start getting things behind you and you start to make progress. I've been lucky enough that it's been warmer in Maine than it would normally be this time of year. I say I've been lucky for a couple of reasons. Number one it's allowed me to get some things done outside working in the driveway, getting comfortable with some new equipment, all those cool things. The fact that it's been a little bit warmer has also been helpful because I'm without heat and hot water currently, which is great. I love that for me. The other day, wife and I at night noticed hey, it's a little cold in here. I've got a propane boiler downstairs. My mom's house has an oil furnace right. She's got heat and electric hot water and all that stuff, so she's good we go over there to shower. The digital display on my propane boiler wasn't working. I started to investigate things To give you a little detail on this. Basically and I'm in no way shape or form an HVAC specialist or repairman, but I'm going to try to give it to you with as much redneck wisdom and technical speak that I possibly have here there's a pipe that comes out of my boiler. It's like a condensation drain pipe. Basically, moisture comes out this pipe. It goes down out the back Actually, it goes through my stairway, underneath my staircase it comes out the back of my house and drains. That pipe always freezes in the wintertime, so we have to disconnect it and then basically drain it into a bucket, which, yeah, there's got to be a better way to design this right, especially for a house that's only I don't know six years old or some shit. It's a pretty silly scenario, but maybe that's common, maybe that's how it works. The deal is, my dad is the one that always says to me hey, buck, you got to switch that pipe over on your boiler so it doesn't freeze on you. Well, my dad hasn't been around to say that to me. My wife was the one to think about it and she had said hey, by the way, pops would be telling you to switch that pipe over right now when I went out there and look, this was a couple of weeks ago. That thing was frozen solid. Then it actually melted or cracked under my staircase and started to like water was coming out through the stairs in the basement in the garage, like, oh, this is great. I switched the pipe over, get things straightened out. It seemed like we avoided tragedy because heat's been working and hot water's working. All those things have been good until Saturday evening when all of a sudden we didn't have heat and I took the panel off of my boiler and noticed water inside the boiler. Then I undid the tray that houses the electrical and has the LCD display on the front and that had water in it. That display panel was toast Between Saturday and Sunday. It was a matter of running around trying to find fuses and dry out the electronics and replace fuses and to see if I could get my heat to come back, to get hot water to work, and no such luck. Compadre, I've got a buddy that's a real good friend of mine Actually I just did his wedding not too long ago An important figure in my life. He's a sales manager for a heat and AC company, but they don't house and work on the boilers that I had. But he's looking into parts for me. But holiday weekend, right, so I'm not going to call somebody out and pay the bill for the night call situation when I know I can manage. When I say manage, I have a finished garage so I have a heater in the garage, I have some electric heaters up in my house so I can keep things in the mid-60s and I can shower at my moms until we figure it out. But when it's the slowest part of the season for me, when you're not making money and you're coming out of the holidays, when you spend money, that's when things break right, that's when things happen. So for me, christmas we did the best we could with everything. You guys have heard me say that. But you sprinkle on a little COVID, you sprinkle on no heat, no hot water and some bills racking up and such. That shit can get you down, that can get you down. So it's about focusing on positives and trying to handle what you can handle, to control what's right in front of you and what's out of your control. You can't think about controlling it, right, because that's the whole thing. We can only control what we can control. Whatever we can't, then you just got to do the best you can, right, and you put it out there and all you can do is try. And if you can't control it, if you can't fix it, then you got to get help and figure that out. But the point I'm making is I can't stress about the things that I'm really not in control of. I mean, did I screw up and not change that pipe over? Did that screw up my heat? Most likely, I guess it's a lesson that I had to learn, but I can't just dwell on that. And some of the ways I was able to overcome some of these things over the past week was actually carving out some time for friends and friends that I consider family, because it's hard for me to walk away from responsibilities, it's hard for me to walk away from a to-do list and then carve out time to spend with some people, and this week I was able to do that. My mom and I met up with Scott and Lindsay, the pet and gills. Scott, owner of Freedom Resigns and their son's high school, did a big custom order with me, so I was dropping that off and we were able to spend a few hours just catching up and reflecting on things. That was great. And then New Year's, matt and Sarah they offered us a little night out on the town to celebrate New Year's, which is something we really haven't done in a while. So, matt and Sarah, perkins, ledger Bay Farm you guys have heard me talk about them many, many times and how much of an inspiration they are to us, and both of these families are just extremely important people in our lives. So it was nice to be able to spend time with both of them. But, funny story for y'all, matt and Sarah invited us out. We went up to their house to check out the farm and to see the soap operation and all those cool things and to go to dinner and spend some time and we went out to. It's a really cool place for New Year's that you buy your tickets to go in which, matt, I never paid you for my ticket there, pal. So, anyways, we go to this party and this is the coolest thing about it it's BYOB and BYOS. Bring your own booze and snacks. You kidding me, bring your own booze and snacks. There's all these tables set up. It's like a community family style situation, right, where you sit down at a table and you probably don't know everybody at that table. So where we were. We were kind of in the middle, so we were making friends on both sides of the table. A few of them wanted to be more than friends I'll just put that out there. But it was really cool. You bring your own cooler in. They had a really awesome band for that night. People were coming in with crock pots and snack bags and it was awesome. We had a great time just dancing it up and cutting loose and getting after it. What I'll say is, apparently I got after it a little too much, just a little bit. A little bit too much, because I was excited from the moment that we arrived at Ledgeway, cracked a couple of beers with Matt, went out to dinner and had a few more beers there, went to the actual event, got deep into my 12 pack of high life. This is what I've established Two beers with Matt previous to going out, let's say, two Mick Ultras I want to say that's what they were and then three PBRs at dinner and then, based on the remainder of my cooler 10 high lives at the actual event. So what's that? By the art of boss math, that's 15 beers, which is a good number for me, although I haven't really been drinking much, so I probably could have stopped there. The trouble is we started the night with a round of pickle back shots, which is Jameson and Pickle Juice, which is fine. But we made some acquaintances at said establishment that brought bottles of fireball and Dr McGillicuddy's and solo cups and they were just passing the bottle around and you're just filling up a solo cup and just pounding warm temp cinnamon or should I say room temp, room temp cinnamon and mint House calls and cough balls Ugh, fireballs. They taste like cough balls. It's like a mixture of cough medicine and Fireball candies, house calls and fireballs. Oh, that was a bad combo, america. That was a bad combo. I didn't realize that I was that drunk when we, when we were there or when we left, I knew, hey, you probably had enough here, right, I have a tendency to Leave a party, go home and then maybe have a couple more beers and and that I didn't. I knew I didn't need to do that. I didn't need to do that. So I go to bed. Everything seems to be fine. I just would wake up every half hour or so being like I don't feel so good. But I was. I was fighting through in the morning rage and headache, not feeling all that great. But we're sitting around the table, sarah, matt and the wife, and we're just chatting it up and having a good time and all of a sudden I start sweating, I start to get a real sweat on and then I, yeah, just start realizing something doesn't, doesn't feel right, something's not sitting right and my mouth started to get a little warm and I was like having a hard time kind of Drinking this water. Maybe I drank too much water right now, because, yes, that's the problem dip shit. It's not the alcohol, that's the water, the H2O's fucking problem, you moron. Anyways, I'm saying to myself, if we're on the road in the next 20 minutes or a half hour, there's a chance I might have to pull over on the way home and throw up. There's a chance. There's a chance. As I'm paying closer attention to my watch and timing, my contractions, my mouth contractions between the rising temperature and moisture content in me mouth, the excessive perspiration, I Started to realize You're probably, probably ain't gonna make it pal, you're gonna have to. You know, throw up At your friend's house first time you've been at their house. That's, that's, that's a house guest you want back, isn't it America, the? You want the person that when you invite to the house for the first time, they just throw up. That's, that's the one you want. Now. I had Thoughts about opening the slide and door, just going outside and yakking, because that would have been my preferred method. So I didn't, you know, dirty up a place. But then I realized cold temperatures and a frozen pile of throw up in the lawn not necessarily Something you want to leave as a as a parting gift, right as a housewarming scenario. So I Get up calmly, head to the bathroom. As I approached the bathroom I knew things were just not good. I started, I took my hat off, put it on the bed, took my glasses off, put them on the sink. I didn't want to throw either one of those in the toilet. You know what I mean. So I throw up and the thought had crossed my mind about keeping this silent, right, just going. You know what this is an embarrassing situation. I'm not gonna point that out to anybody. I knew at this time I needed to brush my teeth. So I go out to the wife and I asked her if you know, she'd pack the toothbrush and she did so. I take care of that. And I came out and I said to myself self you got to own up the things in life. You know when you make poor decisions, life's about accountability. They got to own up to it. And I also didn't want to be the guy that Puked in the bathroom, came out, pretended nothing ever happened and then, on the way home, had your wife say to you, did you throw up? Because all I could hear was you puking in the bathroom. So I didn't want to be that guy, so I came out and owned up to it. My apologies, this is what happened. I will say I did feel hell of a lot better, but it's been a long time Since something like that has happened. And to think about throwing up on New Year's, that's got to go way back, that's got to go. Man, at my age, that's got to be at least 20 years. Yeah, yeah, oh, struggle is real. I don't think that hangover went away till dinner on Monday. But the man, sarah, I had a great time with y'all, wife and I had a blast. Appreciate you for For having us out, for inviting us over, and I promise y'all I kept things clean. I didn't I very cautious of where I puked. Oh, what an unwelcome house guest. I am good freaking lord. But the good news is, and the moral of the story here is number one Stay in school, kids. Alcohol is bad. Number two life's about making time for friends and family and, as much as you don't want to do something sometimes, where you know you think about all your responsibilities and all the things you have to do and and how difficult it is to do certain things for the first time In a long time, to kind of get back to that normalcy in life. Once you do it, it feels right and when you have great people in your life, it really puts life on the perspective and you realize that you're not alone in this life, that you have support, that you have friends, that you have family and those things are key, those, those are important and we're not much in life without, without the support that we have around us. Right, that's true for all of us. I think we tend in life to really only go as far as your support can take you and I'm blessed by the support I have, and over the past week it was nice to spend some time with some people I care about and put life under perspective and to realize that I and you and no one are alone. Good, lao proud American is a lifestyle brand, dedicated and determined to represent the American spirit, with an unrelenting commitment to provide made in the USA products. If you would like to join the 2% of Americans that buy American and support American, head on over to wwwLaoProudAmericanshop. Together, we can bring back American manufacturing. All right, all right, all right. Welcome back y'all. The Lao Proud American podcast, properly precisely, perfectly beautifully named share the struggle, episode 182. How do you do? Don't forget to find all things podcasts related as share the struggle podcast dot com. Oh yeah, well, it's a new year, y'all. And Whether 2023 was a good year, a great year, a bad year, your worst year, your best year, it's no longer here. Good news, bad news America, you got a clean slate. You start over. It's time to re prove yourself. And sales and in sports we've always had this saying that goes your only as good as your last day, and that's truth, right. And sales, you could set records, you could set absolute sales records, and then the next day you don't sell anything and and the previous week was all for nothing, right, you go in that clothes slump. And Whether you had one month where you were the greatest sales person in the history of the company. If the next month you fall to the bottom of the charts and you're the worst sales person in the company, they're going to assume that you can't sell right, your only as good as your last day, not your best day. America, same thing goes in sports. You might win today, but if you lose tomorrow, that's what they remember, that's what they think about, right? So if you go one of the playoffs as the number one seed and you're undefeated all the way, or let's make this hurt a little bit more for the folks in New England let's say you go to the Super Bowl and you're undefeated, but you lose the Super Bowl, did they talk about the previous 18 games? Or that one loss? Right, 18 and one giant loss. That's really what you think about. I think that's the record, right. So the point I'm trying to make here is whether you win today, but if you lose tomorrow, you're only as good as your last day. So if we're starting a new year with a new plan, then we can learn a lot of things about yesterday. We can Use a lot of what we've gone through, what we've, what we've grown through over the course of the year, to forecast our next year, but it's up to us to prove ourselves. So there's good news. Bad news here people, you could have had a great year. Bad news is it's a new year. Right, you have 365 opportunities to fuck up this new year. That's the reality. But you also have 365 opportunities to make this year your best year, to make this year a greater than last year, to make it your absolute best freaking year. I Feel like in the wintertime we start things off so Optimistic, right, like you're seeing things come to fruition in front of you. You're making your plan, your forecast in your year, and it's almost like, at least for us that live in New England this is how I feel about things. You go into the winter, you almost start to hibernate, right and Around the holidays I tend to let myself go a little bit, and we'll get into that in a second. But then when I get into January, I start to kind of buckle down, to find myself, to channel myself, to better myself. So you start to make these life-changing decisions, right, you start to try to create good, positive habits and Maybe you join the gym, maybe you start eating better, maybe you start doing those things and as you're starting to change and you're trying to better yourself. The fall is going well, the seasons are starting to change, right. You start to see the snow melt, you start to see the sun come out, things start to grow with the, with the promise of spring becomes the promise of a brighter tomorrow, right, and you just feel like, as the seasons change, like your outlook changes and you feel like it's time for me to show the world and prove to the world everything I've been working on. So, for me as a, as a vendor, as a traveling small business, I spend so much time in the winter working on production and getting things done and new plans and new ideas and and all these big grand illusions in my mind, and you're getting ready for them, but you're waiting for the sun to come up, you're waiting for the, for the weather to warm, you're waiting for the seasons to change to give you that opportunity to get out and show everybody what you've been working on. It's like those of us that trained for bikini season. I can't say that I've ever been much of a bikini goer myself, but I mean I'll take a look, dad joke. Anybody I'm trying to make here is like so many people think about their, their summer beach body for bikini season. So in the wintertime they work their ass off right, and then you need opportunity to shine for you, to show the world what you worked on. So if you're somebody that every year you say I'm gonna get, I'm gonna be in a bikini, I'm working for beach body season. You work your ass off in the wintertime and they're waiting for that first sunny day, first warm day. So in Maine you probably want to see that till June or July, really, before you go to the beach and then Celebrate the work that you did in the dark, you understand. So that's how I kind of feel when it comes to resolutions and goals and planning my year. That I feel like a lot of the heavy lifting Happens, no pun intended, during the winter, whether that's physical heavy lifting because you're trying to get into shape, or it's a mental heavy lifting as you're Working on plans and goals and ideas. You're doing all these things to form a plan and to put it into action, and then you're waiting for the opportunity to see that plan come together. And the offseason and football they're. They're drafting new players, they're getting new coaches writing new playbooks and they're learning all these things and Eventually, when the season gets here, you just kind of let it happen, right, you get out there and execute the plan that you've been practicing. So now is the time for us to make our plan, to write our playbook, to prepare ourselves for our season, our season of life. And as the seasons change, we change, and For me, now is the time. So, for me, as a small business owner, and just the way my business operates and runs, I do those things now, but I also apply it to my life and the things I want to change about me and the things I want to achieve for me Now. I know that New Year's resolutions can really be cliche, but there's no harm and foul and jumping on the bandwagon and using a defined date in the calendar to forecast a year, to spend time thinking about what's important, to really focus on what could improve your life, what could make changes in your life, and then to write these steps and implement a course of action To achieve those plans. So now's the time, y'all. Now is the time to take action. Now, many, many people are Going to take action and then they're going to very quickly stop taking action. The difference in doing that is putting a purpose on why you're taking action. So, as I'm starting to talk to you guys about resolutions and goals, I want you to think about what's important to you, what's something that really means something to you, something that makes a difference for you. You guys have heard me talk many different times about the Golden Circle and If you're new here, if this is one of your first episodes with me, then then the Golden Circle might be something new to you. But the Golden Circle comes from Simon Sinek and if you haven't seen the video, you can go out on YouTube and Just sort of Google or whatever, and just Google or YouTube search Simon Sinek, the Golden Circle or Simon Sinek. Start with why and it's gonna give you some keys. It's gonna give you some keys to to marketing as a business, some keys to to set goals. Some keys to me if you're asking to really live by and it comes down to starting with why, to always start with a why, and what I mean by starting with a why is why do I want to achieve this goal or why should I buy into this goal? For me, when I was a sales manager and a general manager, I always had to plan, preach and push things based off of a why and If you want to drill into the sales side of it, there's another thing called with him, and with him is what's in it for me. And If you're gonna roll something out to a team, if you have, you know, if you're let's say, you're in the position of Influence, where you have the ability to cause an effect and influence people's days, you're you're a manager of some sort, you need to have a buy-in. And for you to have a buy-in you need to have a clear understanding of what is in it for me. If you're trying to roll something out for me, if the boss has this big, grander plan, how does it benefit me? If it doesn't benefit me, I'm not gonna chase it. So, anytime you structure something, if you're in a position of power and influence, if you're going to Roll out some big plan for your team this year, if they don't understand what's in it for them, they're really far less likely to chase it. Now, to Center in on that, to really drill in on the center of that onion, to peel the onion, to get to the core of the problem. Here it comes down to why, why gets you the buy? And for me and Sales, why gets you the buy. What does that mean? Well, why do you want to buy for me? Why do I need this? If there's a reason, if you can convince them why they need to do something, they will buy something. But it also goes into Buy as in purchase or as an buy-in. Why do I believe in something you need to have, buy in and something? So I need to understand the why. Why is this goal important to you? Why should I participate? Why should I buy into chasing your dream? So look up the golden circle and you'll understand. But the circle basically has Three layers to it. At the very center of that circle is the why. Why are we doing something? And, as I just mentioned, for the example, if you're pushing a message to a team, then that why it cannot be a profit or a loss reason okay, I don't need that to be a financial gain. There needs to be a purpose there. That needs to be a reason why I'm buying into something. And then the next Layer. So imagine, I Guess how could I explain. So let's say, an egg. Okay, you have the yolk, you have the egg white and you have the shell. So the yolk in the middle is going to be the why. Why am I doing this? The egg white is going to be the how. How am I going to do this? And then the shell is what? What am I going to do? Does that make sense to you guys? For example, if I was going to rough out a little bit of a golden circle for you guys, for my brand, for loud, proud American, let's say I have a Goal for the brand that may be on the shell, on the outside of the egg I have, I'm going to build a brand and I'm going to build it to this amount of money in revenue. Okay, now you just heard me say profits, not about the goal when you're talking about the why. Well, the why can't be profit related, but the what can be, if that makes sense to you guys. So what are you trying to accomplish? I'm trying to build a brand and I want X amount of revenue. And then you go into the how and that's going to be step by step. How am I going to achieve that number? Right? What's the course of action? What am I going to do? New, is it new product lines? Is it a new website? Is it email blast? Is it new events? Is it new locations, what is it going to be? But in the center, the most important part of this, that yoke, is the why. And if you're asking me why is it important, I Would tell you that it's never been more important to be allowed proud American to have something to stand for, and you do your part to support American manufacturing. So for me, the why in my brand is it's never been more important to be allowed, proud American, to stand for something, to believe in something and to increase American manufacturing. Right, that's my why. That's my why, behind my brand, we're going to grow American manufacturing, we're going to show our support, we're going to be proud, because in this day and age, it's never been more important to be somebody that is proud of your country. Without those of us who are proud and willing to stand up and to say what's happening is not correct, is not right, without that movement, we could be lost. Right? If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. That's my why. So this is why I'm doing it. And if I can hold to that why, if I can stay steadfast on that why, then? It Helps me answer the other questions, right? So when you're forecasting these goals and you're thinking about things in your life. I want you to Really focus in on the why why is that goal important to you? And then you can take the steps forward to understand it. So like, for example, new Year's resolutions and goals for so many of us, for me included. One of them is always I'm gonna lose weight. Right, you need to establish a why. Why do I want to lose weight? Is it you know that I'm pre diabetic? Is it you know I've always struggled with weight loss? Is it maybe the Beach bikini scenario we just had a few minutes ago For me to share something that Is extremely personal to me and and and a reason for my why that is very transparent, because this is how our podcast has always been when I Forecast it, and it's to kind of let you in a little bit on my goals that I've had written down and my list for a few years. One of them is losing weight, and For me to find my why as to why do I want to lose, why do I want to lose weight. It was because I wasn't comfortable. I wasn't comfortable with myself, and that gets to be a little more difficult, right, that gets to hit a little different. There's a much more powerful impact For me when I understand the reason why I want to lose weight. It's because I'm no longer comfortable with myself. I'm not comfortable with how I look and how I feel when I drill in on that factor. It's not just I'd like to be two sizes smaller, I'd like to go from a 3x t-shirt to a 2x t-shirt. It's not I want to fit into a bikini. When it comes down to the point of I'm no longer comfortable with who I am. I'm no longer comfortable in my own skin. When I lay out all the details that, when I see myself in photos, it makes me depressed. If I see myself in a video, it lowers myself esteem because I realize how I look. I'm no longer comfortable, right? So that's my reason why. Why do I want to do this? Because I want to be comfortable being myself. I want to be comfortable with who I am and how I feel. And then I have other layers to that that I tend to break out to make like more of a visual right. Because this whole thing for me is about creating an image, painting a picture, because I got to paint the picture to pave the road. So for me it was about losing weight will make me healthier. Being healthy is key to living the life I deserve, so drill into that. It's not about losing weight because I want to, because I want to look better. I'm not comfortable with who I am. Losing weight will make me healthier, and being healthy is key to living the life I deserve. Wow, that's a big difference, right, there's a personal impact there, and then I have to break down all the different layers into how I'm going to attack that. So that's my why. Now I go to number two how, how am I going to get there? And I have it all listed out in here about posture control, stop late night snacking, more water, vitamins, getting back to the gym, all those things. So there's a bunch of different things on here, but that's just kind of one of my examples about about the Golden Circle and when I started thinking about my plans for the year and you guys have definitely heard me say these things before, so I'm not going to try to pound on all the details on this, but I kind of want to put a rough outline out there for those of you that have never heard one of my talks on forecasting goals and having plans. There's a few things that I've learned or that I've come across in my research that I think really lay out goals and opportunities for me, and I put them into categories. So the first category I have is, in no particular order, what do I want to do. So these categories are all questions for myself and I think about all these things that are important to me. So number one what do I want to do? Number two is what do I want to be. Number three is what do I want to see. Number four is what do I want to have. Number five where do I want to go? So those questions form categories for me. So this time of year I'm going to lay out these categories what do I want to do, what do I want to be, what do I want to see, what do I want to have and where do I want to go. And then I start taking those categories and, as I'm thinking about it and I'll do this over the course of maybe even a couple weeks I'll start to write things down in those categories, like what's important to me, and then, as I do that, I'm going to really key in on like a priority level, right, and one way to do this is to think about your goals and then think about one year, three year, five year and ten year. So you could put all these things down and we know of all the things we want that a lot of times it's not realistic to do them all in one year. So, for example, one of the things for me is like where do I want to go? And I've had four things in my box that I religiously put in there every year and you'll find that a lot of these goals and so you start achieving them. You might keep on repeating them and for me, some of my goals on like where do I want to go, I had Nashville, texas, louisiana and New York and New York specifically for a Yankees game. So these things you write them down and then you go through and you score them one year, three year, five year, ten year, and that gives you some structure on am I going to achieve this goal this year? Am I going to achieve it in the next three years? If it's a three year goal, then the steps that I take towards that goal on my three year goal is not going to be as aggressive on my one year goal. But it's nice to structure these things out. It's not at the end of the year. If you go back and look at it, maybe you start looking at some one year goals that you've crossed off, that you've attained, and you start seeing how close to my to that three year goal have I taken the right steps to get to three years, or is it a massive goal, like, for example I'm going to throw this out there and I know that this is going to sound really unrealistic for so many people and it really is for me too, but it's a goal of mine. One of my goals on my ten year plan is to write a check for my mortgage. I want to be able to write a check that pays off my mortgage. So you think about these things. Right, those are some of your goals, so you start to break them down. Now. The Pareto principle is something that we talk about all throughout the year and you might have heard it in many different ways and forms, but it's the 80-20 rule and basically there's so many ways to look at the 80-20 rule. But if we're looking to look at goals, what you need to understand about the Pareto principle on goals in the 80-20 is that your top 20% of your goals will yield the 80% of your results. So let me explain. If you have, let's say, ten goals written down on a piece of paper that you want to achieve, if you can narrow those ten goals down to your top two goals aka 20%, if you could achieve those two goals, those two top goals, your two most important goals of the ten, those two goals would give you 80% of your results. Does that make sense to you guys? If I have ten goals and I only hit two goals, those two goals is 20%. So you're saying you only hit 20% of the goals you forecasted for yourself, but after 20% that I hit was the most important goals that I have on my list. I've achieved 80% of my results. Does that make sense to you guys? I achieved 80% success rate only off of 20% goals because of those 20%, those two goals. They had an 80% importance level. Does that make sense to you guys? If your biggest goals are the ones you achieve, you're going to yield the biggest results. So if you're going through everything like, for example, I'm not saying that this year my goal is going to be to write a check for my mortgage, but if that was my biggest one and I attained that one. What's the trickle down effect of that goal? What's the trickle down effect of me paying off my mortgage? A lot of things right. There's some financial freedom. Can you imagine how much less stress you're going to have if one of your goals is to have financial freedom? If a goal is to be less stressed, are you less stressed when you don't have a mortgage payment? If you had a goal on there about getting a new vehicle, could you afford a new vehicle if you didn't have a mortgage payment? Would you be willing to go on that vacation? Would you buy tickets to the Yankees game and travel to New York if you didn't have a mortgage payment? You understand what I'm saying. I can achieve more goals, I can reach more hopes and dreams if I achieve the two most important goals on my list. There's a trickle down effect 80-20. It's the 80-20 rule that you're going to yield 80% of your results from the top 20% of your goals. So as you start putting these goals and you start putting them in these buckets that we've established what do I want to do? What do I want to be, what do I want to see? What do I want to have? Where do I want to go. You start to really put thought and effort into one year, three year, five year, 10 year. You really start to narrow in on what might be my two most important goals, what might make the biggest difference for me, and then you start to attack those goals and we could spend many different ways to explain how to go about those, but some of the basic things is being really specific and strategic about your goals. You need to have steps on how to achieve them, how to attain those goals, key objectives along the way. One of the biggest things you're going to hear from me when it comes to goals is to celebrate small victories, and that's one of my philosophies for life is that you need to celebrate small victories. When you achieve a milestone, you must embrace it because far too often in life it really is the journey that is the most rewarding and if you're anything like me, you've had a goal in your life before that you put so much thought and effort into that. When you achieve the goal, it was great for a moment, but very quickly it went away and you realized, man, this goal wasn't as rewarding as I expected. But had you stopped and celebrated along the way, you would have really enjoyed that goal even more. For example, when I became an owner of a Harley dealership, I actually sat down and said this is it Like? This is? Why do I not feel so excited? Why am I not so fulfilled right now? And it's because you didn't celebrate along the way. Think about some of those things, as you're kind of planning out your goals and and it's one of those things where you use the counter to your advantage Everybody's planning new years resolutions, right, but a resolution is often expressed as interest and there's really no real commitment. You understand what I'm saying. A new resolution is expressed as interest, I'm interested in doing this, but there's no real commitment to achieving it. Some, many people on new years might say something like I'm gonna lose weight. They might say I'm gonna get a promotion, or and I think New Year's resolutions are a little more superficial than then goals right, it's um, I'm gonna quit coffee. Or I'm gonna stop eating chips. Right, I'm gonna cut salt for my diet. Those are points of interest. There's no real commitment to that. So, for me, when I started thinking about a goal that I'm gonna make for myself, I find myself always going back to something I heard from Tony Robbins back in the day and I'm not sure where he heard it, but he says that Decision when you make a decision to do something, it comes from a Latin word, incision Meaning to cut off. So Tony Robbins says when you make a decision to do something, it comes from the word incision. If you decide To lose weight, then you are making the incision. You are cutting off those bad habits in your life. You are committing to what it is that you want to do. You're cutting off all those things that are holding you back. That's the incision. When you make a decision, there's incision there that's made that to cut off. You understand what I'm saying. So when you think about a resolution, it's like, yeah, I'm interested in doing this, I'm interested in and getting better, but I'm not committed to it. That's a difference. When we start thinking about being committed and have an action items and putting priorities and accountability on things, it makes a difference. So while doing this, I wanted to sprinkle something different on it, because Every year I've gone over these things like a golden circle or key objectives and all these different new Markers and ways and categories and buckets, and I Always want to think of something different and think of something that maybe could Offer a different perspective to myself. So I was doing some research and I found this study from this place called fast company calm and they did a survey with a surveyed 1,000 people on New Year's resolutions and they said that by February, 94% of those people Already gave up on their resolutions and their goals. You understand that 1,000 people they surveyed and tracked a thousand people by February, 94% give up on their dream. 6% there's only 6% of the population surveyed that is chasing their goals, their resolutions, literally a month after making them Think about that. How quickly do we give up on things in life? How quickly do we give up on relationships, on friendships, on careers, on dreams? Oftentimes things get too difficult, they get too uncomfortable and we go back to what is comfortable and if you want to be one of the six percent in this country that can chase a dream, then you need to make some decisions, some incisions and make some commitments. They listed a few things here and I'm just gonna run over their article real quick, and they had, I think there's six tips on how to be in the six percent. Number one is to Choose one thing. So, as we were just talking about the Pareto principle that you're gonna get your biggest results from Like 20% of your goals. So for us, if you say, hey, you have 10 goals, pick your top two and chase them, they're saying find that number one goal for you what's the most important goal for you and chase it, because it does fall in line with their 80 20 rule that if you could achieve Just the biggest goal on your list, that's reasonable, that you could get to. That difference that it's gonna have in your life is by default you're gonna achieve other goals, right. Number two is to be very specific about that goal. We just talked about the golden circle. Simon Sinek's always start with why. If you're gonna be specific, you know, watch that video, find out your why and then lay out all the ways you're gonna get there. They have a number three as milestones to have milestones that like these markers, these checkpoints on the way to your goal. They have a thing called a habit loop for number four to do things that are repeatable offenses, right to force positive habits like. One of their examples is if you want, if you're gonna be a runner, if you're gonna run in the morning, then Put your running shoes next to your bed when you go to sleep, so in the morning that they're right there, that's your forming positive habits, and they talk about those milestones and those positive habits, about celebrating those milestones and and Really being thankful for those habits as you start to really lay down a successful habit loop. Number five is, they say, to have a purpose, have a real purpose for your goal. Again, I think that goes back to having the why. What is the real reason for me? I want to lose weight because I want to be comfortable in myself, I want to feel confident again, right? Number six is one of the biggest one and it's accountability. You need to be accountable to your goals and you need to believe in yourself, right? You need to believe that they're, that they're attainable. And if you believe they're attainable, then you're gonna be more willing to hold yourself accountable because you realize that the goals are realistic. I think that having goals, that's really important to make them realistic. If they're not, then we're gonna Really fall off track here and that's actually their. Their last one is to be accountable, have accountability and to believe in yourself and that once you start to really achieve these goals, that it can have a real positive effect on the rest of your life, as you start to hold yourself accountable, to hit these milestones, to celebrate them, and the moment you start achieving those things, there's a trickle-down effect of positivity. There's a Saying, an acronym, that I used to use all the time when it comes to goals and and I used to have all my managers use it when they were forecasting goals or writing things up for their team, and it was to use the smart philosophy. So it was the acronym and I'm gonna try to think, if I can Remember it off the top of my head smart. So the S in smart is Specific, to be very specific about your goals. M in smart is measurable. You need to have a way to actually measure the goal, like they just mentioned, like having those milestones. You need to have like checks and balances along the way. The a in smart I had Attainable. It needs to be something that's attainable. Other people use achievable, like there has to be the possibility of Achieving that goal. Right. And then art is relevant. It needs to be a relevant goal like. It needs to be something that you're gonna see a benefit from. Right. And the T is time bound or Timeline. There needs to be an actual timeline that you need to chase To hold yourself accountable, as these guys are just mentioning. You need to be accountable to things. So having a timeline on them, like we just talked about that one year, three year, five year, ten year, having that timeline, that's all that all really helps. So think about that smart acronym when you're rolling out goals for yourself or even if you're working on goals for your team and things like that. So this conversation today on goals number one, it's really happening, obviously because of the calendar, but it's also happening because of a couple of conversations and realizations and life. So let's get into them real quick. First off and foremost, today that I'm recording this podcast it happens to be January 2nd and this morning, as I break the confidentiality agreement here that we have, I got a text message from a real good friend of mine somebody already mentioned earlier today, scott Pettengill and a brother from another mother. Scott sent me a message and he sent me this message first thing in the morning and he told me that I did two miles on the bike this morning. Now, if you listen to the beginning of the show, you heard me say that Last week I made some time for some conversations, and one of those conversations in times with with Scott Lindsay and Scott telling me that he signed up for the gym. So he messaged me this morning early and said he did two miles and I was so pumped for him and I was, I was, I Was so ecstatic because I didn't number one and never expected that text message today, right, and I reached back out to him on it and he sent something to me and I started having this conversation with my wife as soon as he texted me that I was talking to Ali, she was getting ready for work and she was super excited about it and I said, man, sometimes I feel like I can be an accountability coach for for friends and family, and it really ramps up the Priority that I have to put on myself to be accountable for myself, because If somebody else can look to me for inspiration and accountability, if I don't do that for myself, that I'm very hypocritical. So it's one of those things where if someone around me is trying to better themselves, it really forces me to do the same thing. So I appreciate that and and I was having the conversation with my wife about it and Scott sent me another text message and I'm gonna say these things because I know that he's okay with me saying them and he said I almost didn't go, but I remember from one of the episodes that someone told Ali to just go there and I shared that with her and she got really emotional and excited about that. Because, number one and we're gonna really focus on this this podcast is powerful and the messages that we share here. They're powerful because we're making a difference in each other and it's about sharing stories with each other. What's also powerful about these podcasts is that the messages and the meanings in this podcast comes from All of us listening to the podcast. We participate, we put things into the podcast. So Ali came on here and shared a story about our weight loss journey and the fact that she got a lesson and information from her brother, and their brother said if you're ever having that tough time when you don't want to go to the gym, just go. Vow to yourself hey, I'm just gonna drive there. Like if you say I can't do it, I can't go in, just drive there. Just drive yourself to the parking lot. That's the first commitment get yourself there, because when you get into the parking lot You're a hell of a lot more likely to walk into the gym and actually work out because you made it there right. So the fact that my brother-in-law, zach, his message to his sister, my wife, was repeated on this podcast and it landed on the ears of one of my best friends who, in the morning, on the first opportunity to go to the gym, use it as motivation to make sure he went, who left that gym feeling confident and proud of himself and left me being proud of him, and he sent me a message as we were talking today that he said you know he has all these other goals for himself and things he's gonna do, and I'm not gonna share those confidential things, but he did say it's pretty good for a guy that's never stepped foot in the gym. Man, that's it, y'all. That is why we are 182 weeks strong, because Moments like this, it's messages like this. I Got a brother from another mother that's never been in the gym. He used motivation and lessons from all of you, from those of us participating in this podcast, from us continuing to share the show every week, to share our message and our struggles. He used our struggles to implement in his own life, to apply to his own struggles, to better his own life. I Don't, I don't know, man, I don't. I Don't know if there's anything that can make you more proud or happy about what we're doing here than firsthand Messages, experiences from people you care about Changing their lives, taking steps to change their lives, based off of number one and, most importantly, their desire to do so, them finding their why and number two, being able to partake on that road based off of positive influence and motivation from this damn show. I'm stoked, y'all. I'm proud of us, man. I am so proud of all of us because it's those things in life, those are the small victories I'm talking about, that we must celebrate. Scott needs to celebrate the fact he went to the gym for the first time. Right, you didn't go in and run a marathon, but you went for the first fucking time and you banged out two miles on a damn bike. That is fucking awesome, scott, you're listening right now. Brother, you're this week's winning. Wednesday weekly shout out I love you and I'm proud of you, and I hope that these messages and these tips, tricks and techniques to forecast goals and to find out what's important and to identify your why and to get your buy, that buy-in that you need to chase that goal, to find that reason, I Hope that these things are a positive influence on you and, as I'm having this conversation with you, I really want to stress to you the importance of writing these things down, about spending the time to put pen to paper and put thought into plan, and One of the reasons why I'm gonna say this is I've already mentioned to you guys that for me, moving forward, one of my biggest goals for this year's is organization, because it's trickled down into my everyday life. I'm unorganized in life, in my relationship, in my family, in my business, right as I'm just trying to Hold it all together, I feel like an octopus. I'm just stretching all different directions. I'm stretch Armstrong, trying to balance everything and I basically I become a coordinator of chaos and my habitual habits of unbeing unorganized has created this chaos. So I Know it's trickled down to my wife and it's left her feeling rather unorganized and chaotic as well, because she's been cleaning and decluttery and going through things and the other night she found this book. It was a book that she got from my mother or I around Christmas time, probably the first year, a second year that we were in a relationship. She took that book and she started to treat it as a as a bucket list book. Everybody has their own way of doing things right. My wife loves to go about things on more of a bucket list. These are things that I want to cross off in my life. So this book man, this has got to start going back to, let's say, 2016, 17 Summer's around there. She finds this book and she starts reading off things that are on her bucket list from from big and small events, and as she's reading them, we've banged them off the list. Like she, she took the time to carve out a bucket list ranging from big and small. Like Honor bucket list was to go to Nashville, tennessee and the fully experienced Nashville. I. We've gone to Nashville twice already and more than experienced Nashville. She had Texas on her list. We've gone to Texas twice now. We actually just went to a wedding in Texas this year. We were in Nashville again last year. She had go to a zoo to like an actual real zoo, not like a local zoo. We've done that. We went to the Nashville zoo, one of the best zoos around. We went to the Fort Worth zoo, one of the best zoos in the country. All these different things run a 5k. She ran a 5k color run with her brother. Like all these different things that were in there on this list, I wish I could think of more of them, but as she starts to like read through this, you realize these were bucket list things for you that you've attained. There's no coincidence in the fact that you wrote them down, that you put time and thought and effort into this plan and into its purpose. And as I go to my book and I start to peel through the pages and look at my one year, three year, five year, ten year, and I start to look at all those categories what do I want to do, what do I want to be, what do I want to see, what do I want to have, and a lot of things repeated themselves from year after year after year. And I'm looking at this book that goes 21, 22 in here, like where do I want to go? I mentioned you guys earlier. I had Nashville, texas, louisiana and New York for Yankees game on my list. I've already banged out two of those four. I did Nashville in Texas, like I just mentioned, and the plan was and Another month or two to go to Louisiana to spend time with our great friends and family Spent, rachel and Mel, and experience Marty grow, which is also on my wife's bucket list, everything that's happened with my dad and the financial restraints and things that have happened. I don't know if we're gonna be able to make that happen this year it feels like we're not going to but the plans were in place, the action steps were there for us to cross that off the list right. So pretty crazy to think about and, as you heard me say earlier when I'm talking about, one of my most important goals was to feel better about myself, to feel more comfortable in my own skin, and there's all these details into how I go about doing that. But I'm proud to say I'm coming out of 2023 and the best shape that I've been in in Three years five years. That's a step in the right direction. Now I let myself go around the holidays, but I'm about to get back on it. I'm about to use the darkness to train for the light, so I'm confident in that man. I'm excited about that. My business has hit some goals that I've set for it. It's not as Like I fell within a thousand dollars of one of the biggest goals I've set for the business One of my first goals, I should say, which I've doubled what I'm shooting for now. But I'm just saying like there's milestones there to celebrate, there's small victories, to celebrate One of the goals that I had on my list Personally, like a personal goal for me that I had on a three-year plan when I wrote this one out. And which year was this one? This is a. This is the Out of 2022 list. Yeah, so I'm looking at a 2022 list. What do I want to have? And I put tractor. I wanted the tractor. That was my 2022 goals. Three-year plan was a tractor. Well, folks, I achieved that goal before three years because I took delivery of my brand new tractor this year and For the past couple weeks, every chance I get, I'm out there on that tractor. So the fact that I wrote that goal down and I've been putting that goal in my list for two years and I attained it this power and the pen, this power in spending time writing out your goals, having a plan and focusing on them. One of the things for the business that I wanted to do to grow the business, to better their business, is to be able to travel for the business and to expand my offerings by expanding my locations. Right the events that I can go to, and one of the ways to do that was to get a more dependable Vehicle for the business that can carry more inventory. At the end of the year, I bought a fucking school bus for the business. It's not ready to go yet, but I did it. I bought a bigger vehicle that will be more dependable, that will give me the ability to travel and to carry everything that I need. That's a big goal, that's a big milestone. These are the things that if you don't write them, you don't think about them, and and if you're not thinking about them, you're not going to attain them. And if you're writing them and you're thinking about them and you go back, you give yourself the opportunity to celebrate them when you attain them. It's a it's pretty damn awesome. It's pretty awesome. I know that I'm nowhere as near completing the goals that I want for myself, but it's really fulfilling to be able to see the ones that you have attained and to celebrate that and to take a moment to be thankful for that. And this all kind of came up with my wife Finding her bucket list book and going over the things we've already been able to achieve and to attain, getting a text message from a great friend that is telling me that he's he's on his way. He did something for the very first time today, and that's what it's all about, guys. That is what it's all about. Use this time in the calendar. Use the cliche, you know, new years resolution as an opportunity to think about what's important for you, put a priority level on it for you, make it accountable for you, make it attainable for you and, at all fucking cost, chase it. Chase it and if you do that, if you come out the gate, kick it in the door in 2024 looking for more. I Guarantee you, when we record this episode next year, when we're coming alive for 2025, you're gonna be so damn proud of yourself and everything you accomplished. So I truly hope today made a difference for tomorrow. I truly hope that you learned something today that you can apply today to better your tomorrow. Thank you for each and every one of you, whether you are a day one or your journey here on this podcast just begun. I appreciate you, I thank you and I look forward to another year with you. I look forward to another 52 episodes with you. That's well, 51. This would be the first one. 51 would make it. Carry you the one. Two, that's a year. You get it another year. Yeah, you know what I meant until then. Thank you for supporting my American dream. I've got wash your fucking hands. Yeah, that'd be savage. That's it and that's all biggie Smalls. If you're a loud, proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at loud, proud American For the face page, as my mama calls it. If you're fan of the Graham cracker, want to find me on Instagram? I'm not even sure you know me. I'm not even sure you know me. I'm not even sure you know me. I'm not even sure you know me. If you're fan of the Graham cracker, want to find me on Instagram? Or all the kids a tickety talking on the tick tock, you can find me on both of those at loud, underscore, proud, underscore American. I'm not talking about myself, big ol. Thank you to the boys from the gut truckers for the background beats and the theme song to this year podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, you can track down the gut truckers on Facebook. Just search Gut Truckers. Give them motherfuckers I like too. I told you so. Make it clean. I ain't gonna say I told you, so I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.