It's goal-setting time! Nat and Pete like to take time at the end of each year to set goals for themselves and their businesses. Over the years they have tried many different methods and have refined their style. But they are also still learning!
This episode details what each of them does to accomplish his goals each year and how you can apply some of their techniques to your life to become a successful franchise entrepreneur.
Here's a Full Transcript of Our Podcast Episode on How to Set Goals and Franchise Entrepreneurship
Pete: Well, good morning Nat, how are you?
Nat: I'm doing great, the sun is shining, life is good.
Pete: Yes, absolutely. Well, I wanted to have a big shout out to all the healthcare heroes, they're really getting taxed with all the stuff that's going on. And really became apparent my daughter was in the hospital yesterday, but for major surgery.
And those are such just great people. The people in the healthcare industry, the care that they provide to people, you have to be a special person to be a caregiver, I think.
Nat: Yes. I totally agree with that, you're always putting others first and putting yourself last.
Pete: Yes. And they're getting maxed out, it's crazy some of the stuff that's going on. So we'll do that. Well, welcome to the higher yourself podcast Nat myself. We're two business guys that love sharing ideas. And today what we'd like to do is we'd like to talk about, because it's this time of year, right? Now it's goal-setting time, right? You do goal setting every year, correct?
Nat: Yes. You do?
Pete: Yes, absolutely.
Nat: Someone told me one time.
Pete: Yes. When did you start doing goals?
Nat: Oh, a long time ago, probably actually with like the Stephen Covey in the front, so I'm dating myself a little bit. But you remember the Franklin planner, it's like that seven ring binder thing. So probably in 90, 1992, 93, 94, 95, whenever that was a popular, that's when I started.
Pete: Yes. I was in a leadership class in college, and Dr. Hallett, I think, was the teacher; and he took us through goal setting, and it was pretty amazing. So I've always tried to incorporate the stuff that I learned there. So goal setting is a big thing, and this is the time of year to put a plan in place. So let's talk a little bit about the different types of goals, so let's first talk about personal goals. So you set personal goals every year?
Nat: I do.
Pete: Good. And what kind of process do you follow to set those goals?
Nat: Well, maybe explain a little bit more what you mean by personal goals.
Pete: Well, personal goals, so there's all different types of personal goals. So it could be I want to focus on relationships, or I want to live a healthier life. Or I want to get my bank account up to blank, or whatever it may be. So kind of those, it's a whole list of different categories. So whether it's fitness, wealth, religion, whatever works for people. But there's a whole list. So what do you do to kind of formulate your goals?
Nat: There was, a long time ago, I remember like for personal goals, there's kind of like that circle with the, it's like a wagon wheel with the spokes, and then you kind of like, you indicated how you felt like you were doing like one to ten for each one.
So like health and fitness, so I'm a seven or relationships oh I'm a three, and then you can kind of figure out like what you needed to work on or focus on for that year. I sometimes get a little bit conflicted; I feel like we spent a lot of time trying to work on our weaknesses. I a lot of times encourage people to work on their strengths, but it makes the wagon wheel a little bit more lopsided sometimes.
But I think just trying to get a benchmark of where you're at, and trying to figure out what you want to work on, and then putting together a daily, weekly, monthly plan is a good starting point.
Pete: Yes. And I think I mentioned this last year; if you haven't got one before that, living your best life ever by Darren Hardy is an absolutely amazing tool you can use, right? So you kind of talked about that, the ring where you rate your different skills or things that are important to you.
And then really kind of focus on that. The other cool thing about this is that it has a daily rhythm or a weekly rhythm, so you check if you're doing whatever you're supposed to be doing. And then it also has where you have a weekly stuff, and it essentially shows you put in there all your information.
So this is my new book for this year, and you put in kind of your top three for the week, and you kind of focus on it, and you're tracking your performance. It's a great tool, they're not really expensive, they're like 30 bucks. But I've used it last couple of years, and I've been pretty pleased with it.
Nat: Yes. I think there's some huge value to going old school and using paper. I also was writing down kind of that concept that don't begin your day until you finish it. So it's like you actually, you kind of know what you want to accomplish for that day or for that week or for that month with written goals, and then you go after it all. It's amazing how much more efficient, more focused you are when you have like daily goals.
Pete: Yes. Well, I think it's that term, if you don't know where you're going, you don't get there, right? It's hard to get there. And I think that's right, so goal-setting, and I just was reading as I was preparing for this, only three percent of people set goals, it's crazy. So it's a good habit to get into each year putting together your personal goals.
Now I was reading something also, and I believe this is like keeping your goals positive. And kind of to your point of your strengths, but it's like if you wanted to lose 20 pounds, the goal wouldn't be I want to lose 20 pounds, it would be I want to take my weight from, I want to weigh 190 pounds at the end of the year, right? So if you're at 210, so putting it in a positive way opposed to something negative.
Nat: Kind of an interesting example of goal setting is my son is a sophomore in high school, and so the football team has the 750 club. And so 750 is combined weight for bench, squat and heckling. And so he got in his mind he wants to do the 750 club, so he's been going to the gym and drinking protein and eating chicken. So they had the kind of the max, the one-rep max, last week.
And he, believe it or not, he was five pounds short. So he said, coach, can I work on it for another week and then redo my max to see if he could get it? I just thought that was so awesome. He's got this goal, it's motivating him every single day. What he's eating, what he's working out, like how he's working out. It's measurable; I see him with his little notebook; he's writing down how many reps.
Like, oh, I just did five reps at 215; he's like, it's so exciting. I think actually, for us as dads, it's kind of fun to remember what it was like to be a 15 or 16-year-old male, right? And how simple life actually is.
And we think about goal setting for ourselves; maybe we need to kind of take a page out of that playbook and be like, hey, if you were 15 years old or 16 years old and knew you couldn't fail, like what would you do. And just keep it simple, and tackle it every day.
Pete: Well, and we've always kind of talked about those smart goals, right? Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound, and I guess that's right. And to keep it as simple as possible, and stuff that you can do. The idea is don't make something too big of a goal, certainly want to aspire for things, but you want it to also be attainable or without a world, so for sure, that standpoint.
So there are short-term goals, and we put those in place for a year. One of the things that I was introduced to, and I really hadn't done it; I was introduced to decade goals. Have you done anything with that? I'm really new to decade planning individually, but how about you? Have you been involved in that?
Nat: You know I always, I was kind of more like the new year's resolutions was kind of my goal setting plan, so kind of the concept of a decade ago is newer to me also. It's interesting, I was reading the book the one thing, and they had this headline I thought was genius. It was like how billionaires set goals.
And so I'm like I want to learn a little bit more about this, and kind of the concept is like billionaires set goals by look, they do two things, they look backwards in life and figure out like how did I get here. And it was kind of like these series of events or decisions along the way, so it ends up kind of being a straight line.
And then what they do is, because then when you're, like it's today, right? And you're like, what do I want to do in the next 10, 20, 30 years there's so many choices and options. Like, let's be honest, we could do almost anything that we wanted to, right? It's like how do you get the clarity and find figure out the one thing to do.
And Darren Hardy talks about it in the compound effect too, it's like depending on what path you take if you're like an airplane, if you're one-degree difference, it's the difference between ending up in New York or ending up in Florida over enough time and distance. So billionaires, a lot of times they'll kind of like time travel, and they'll think about like okay, where do I want to be and let's call it 30 years, right?
And then they start to work backwards. Well, if I want to be, I do this in 30 years. What do I have to do in 10 years? Where do I have to be? Where do I have to be in one year? What do I have to accomplish this month? And then you can get it; you can doubt all the way back to today.
Like what do I need to do today? Like, what's the one thing? And that's why I really like that, the book the one thing. It really helps you like give focus and clarity, whether you're setting one-year goals or 10, 20, 30-year goals. And I think you can really, compound interest or compounding time is just such an amazing force of nature.
Pete: Well, yes. I mean, and I'm a big fan of Darren Hardy's book the compound effect, right? I mean, I think he just released a new version of it. But yes, it's the little things, right? It's the little actions that you take that build up over time that have that compounded effect.
And so what you're telling me is that billionaires basically figure out where out they want to be, and then they work their way back. And it's the little things each day that ultimately get them to where they want to be 20 or 30 years from now.
Nat: Yes. And I even remember reading like about Steve Jobs at Apple, and I think if I remember correctly, he made this statement like what's your proudest accomplishment? And he said it actually isn't what we accomplished like he's most proud like of all the things he said no to, because that's kind of like that refining and like trial by fire.
Every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. So when you know where you're going, you get clarity about what you need to say no to, even though sometimes it's super painful or there might be peer pressure or what have you.
Like when you're starting a business, like your peers might be like, well, you're crazy. You have a great corporate job; you can work from home, you have benefits. But if that's not what your goal is.
Pete: It doesn't get you where you want to go, yes, absolutely. I mean, I've read a lot too about this idea that keeping what you focus on to like three things, and everything else you just park aside.
And you hear like Warren Buffet same kind of thing, they just focus on three things and then everything else they just kind of park it. And I think that's really important as you go through this stuff. So the one thing, I'll have to get that book, that's pretty cool.
Nat: Yes. They were sending me some emails, and I signed up for a goal planning, like an online goal planning workshop. So I'm going to start doing that, and I'll let how it goes; looks pretty good.
Pete: Very good. No, I know we have a like a goal setting template for people to use on our website. So that's certainly available for people to use. We probably should do one for; I don't even know how we create one for decade planning, but we should probably extend that out to decade planning.
Nat: That is zero. Instead of one year, it's ten years.
Pete: I was thinking a little bit more than that, but that's probably a pretty good start. So we have our regular personal goals; we have decade goals, right? Or long-term goals. And then both of us are in business. So each year, you also sit down with your businesses and set goals?
Nat: Yes. I kind of started this interesting process of I'm pretty aggressive every single quarter; we set pretty aggressive goals. And I try to accomplish in one quarter what would take the average person a year in business.
So I set quarterly goals every year; every quarter, I treat that like a year. So we'll do a complete goal planning process team meeting, and then we'll get on board and go for it. And it's pretty amazing like my senior career has actually doubled in business this year. So that is a pretty good accomplishment for one year.
But if you look at like each quarter, growing by about 20 or 25 percent, that's what you kind of would expect for a year. But we just really compressed it, and it makes a lot more fun.
Pete: Now, do you use any kind of tool to kind of focus on that? Like I think the book traction that I've read about?
Nat: Yes, that was a huge help. And then so every week we have these weekly pulse meetings, and everybody has a number, and they're like thumbs up, thumbs down. So we know how all the key indicators are going every week.
Pete: Oh, that's pretty cool. Yes, Darren Hardy, you think, does the same thing with his A team, right? Thumbs up and thumbs down, in terms of their daily, excuse me their weekly numbers, yes. That's pretty cool. So you focus on basically a quarter at a time, trying to have explosive growth based on doing in a quarter what you do normally for a year, right? Okay, got it, that's pretty cool.
Yes, I put together mine. I really don't have a team, so that really doesn't work for me. But I do like the idea. When I had a business coach, he gave me a tool it was called a ten panel, and basically, you pick the ten things that you want to work on and how that impacts your business. And that's been very effective for me to use. So it's a tool I've carried forward for about the last eight years.
Nat: Yes. I think for people that are like coaches or consultants or maybe even corporate, and tend to be like workaholics. I think it's pretty helpful to when you're doing your annual planning, is actually get your calendar and blackout when you're going to take time off. And whether that's some three day weekends, or whether it's a week with a family over thanksgiving or what have you.
Because what I found is people that are type a hard-chargers have a hard time making time for themselves. And if you don't put it on the calendar and then basically plan everything else around that, you end up like being like, oh my god, I just worked like six days a week all year and didn't really take any breaks.
Pete: Yes, I had a big calendar, and I did that, right? I planned out all my vacations and stuff like that. And it was a dry eraser one, right? So I'd have all these things planned, and then also I would just wipe out the little time off and put some more things to get done and stuff like that. But I think it's a great thing to map out time for yourself, to time to do the things that you want to do. And so yes, there's some great wall calendars from that standpoint.
Nat: Yes. If you don't take care of yourself, you're not going to be able to take care of your family or your business, right?
Pete: Yes. Well, that's true too, so absolutely, so that's good. So goal settings is big; if you don't set goals, you're not going to get there. And so three percent people do it, so we need to all do a better job of setting goals, whether it's personally and long-term goals and business goals from standpoint.
When you think about this class you're going to take, what do you hope to get out of this goal-setting seminar or classes that you're going to be taking? What do you hope to get out of it?
Nat: Most people are pretty competent or capable, so there's like lots of paths that we could do. What my goal, my goal for the goal-setting class, is actually the name of the book, the one thing. So it's just like to get some clarity, and then to know what to say no to better basically, right? To make better choices and use my time better. And then once you're able to do that, you can just get a lot more leverage, a lot more efficiency.
And then you get a lot more energy. And then you can be working out, eating, spending time with your family. And your business or your career will continue to go if you're not super distracted. So that's my; I'm hoping to get clarity.
Pete: All right, good. So you're going to find your one thing?
Nat: I'm going to find my one thing, yes. It's kind of a genius title, it's like that concept of the dominoes, right? Like if you have like a domino, if you have a two-inch domino, it will technically knocked over a four-inch domino and progressively getting bigger. So it's kind of compounding a penny every day for 30 days. Like by the time you get to the 30th day, you're knocking down a domino that would reach the moon type scenario.
Pete: Absolutely amazing. What was it the movie city slickers when we were younger, right? And was it curly?
Nat: Yes.
Pete: The one thing?
Nat: Yes.
Pete: All right, yes. I'm going to go get that book today, the one thing, so we'll give it a shot. And I encourage you if you haven't bought living your best year ever by Darren Hardy, it's a great tool.
Nat: Excellent.
Pete: So Nat, I think as we look towards 2021, can't get there fast enough, in my opinion. Bottom line is I think we'll do a fun webinar in January. So maybe we'll do that around the 19th; I think it was; we'll get together and do another webinar.
Nat: Yes, I hope we have nowhere to go, but up, 2021's got to be better than this year.
Pete: Oh, absolutely. So everybody's going stir crazy, and so we'll get through this. We will; we always do.
Nat: Yes.
Pete: Well, Nat, have a great week, and always fun to chat with you.
Nat: All right, go set some goals.
