Hey, what's up guys welcome back to the podcast today's a solo show, so i think this is going to hit around. I guess the week of thanksgiving in the u.s, so for my canadian friends, happy belated thanksgiving uh for all my friends in the u.s happy thanksgiving. If this uh, if that's when this is landing um, the thing i want to talk about today is like how do you plan out the year and - and that's maybe for you it - you know you're already in process, maybe for you, you've already set your business planning Goals for the year, maybe for you, your listeners, you're, like oh 2020, was so rough. It was such a challenging year.

What i want to say to you is no matter where you are in the process right, no matter where you are and how you feel. First of all, thank you for listening this. My hope is that i can just share some of the things that i go through, that have allowed me to to really sustain happiness, to sustain growth, to sustain my relationship 27 years by the way. Just you know a couple days ago, you know connection to the people that matter most my business partners, sometimes when i, when i stop and think about my life, there's just probably like how you feel there's just so many balls in the air there's.

So many things going on, how do you keep it all together, and the only way that i know how to do it is to plan right is to reflect is to decide is to schedule, is to operationalize is to make it happen, um and from in my Case it's. You know, it's two, kids, it's a wife. It's multiple businesses! It's lots of business ventures. It's living in.

You know uh in dallas and then you know occasionally going back to orange county and, like then traveling all over the world like it gets a little nutty without a plan. Now i know for you, you might be listening to like tom. Like i don't. I don't travel that much, i'm not living at that level, but i want to say to you, like every person i know, has a level of busyness like tristan who i'm looking at over here who's.

You know, filming and recording this. You know he's married right. So he's going into you know, you know he said middle of year, two about right, like middle of year, two right so and they're talking about buying another house. Steph's got this great job right, so he you know crushes a bunch of stuff.

For me, he's traveling with me: we you know, we do all these events and then you're traveling back and forth uh. You know to film content and then he's got his parents he's got his brother he's got all of his friends. He's got super 73, which he does a ton of content, for he creates a kind of a ton of content on his own. Would you say you have a lot of balls in there? I don't know anybody that doesn't have a lot of balls in the air.

So don't compare it to me or to you just it's just acknowledge if you want to have sustainable happiness right, if you want to feel fulfilled in a lot of different areas of life, that's really how i've architected the things that i do around this time of The year so so i hope that resonates for you. I hope that you get a lot of value out of this and, as always, you know give me feedback, give me comments and and i'll be super transparent with you, as always. So for me, the first thing i do is i start with reflecting on my 20-year vision, so i wish i had my laptop in front of me. I think one time i'm just gon na have to read it.

I think my wife would be really freaked out. If i did that, but i'll just give you kind of high level um if you've, if you've been around me before, you know that i just believe um that there's just two kinds of people. There's people that like declare what it is they want for a long period of time like they have a vision for their life, and that sounds like cliche and motivational. You know what i have.

I have a freaking target for how i want my life to end up and not just like for a one year goal, but for a 20 year goal - and i've talked about this before so so having this document that, by the way, is not set in stone. Right, but instead it's just hey in all these areas of my life. If my life was as good as it could be, if i could go for it as much as i could, what would it look like and the opening of my 20 year letter, which is like by the way, goes to 20 35 because i wrote it in 2015. um, so i'm reviewing it and - and i read it - it's like you, know, kath and i've been married right for like 47 years or 37 years, whatever the number is sorry baby for listening.

I don't remember the exact number but, like you know like this, this 43 years, it's this enormous amount of time that we put into our love life into our relationship into the bond that we have together and by the way, do you think when i read her That 20-year vision. Do you think that creates more certainty or more uncertainty? Do you think it creates more think about interesting, like does it create more? Like oh he's thinking about me right, you think that was intentional. Of course it was right. Like i married her three times, i don't want to divorce her.

I want a relationship to be awesome, so the very first beginning of my letter is like kath and i together for this much time more love today, more joy, more happiness, more connection appreciating each other's differences. I literally spell out sort of emotionally and logically what our relationship and lifestyle looks like together at this point, then i go to michael and stephen at 35 and 37, and i remember like reading that recently on a plane with my older son flying to dallas, and I said i just want you to like read this letter and he was like wow and i remember he said to me like how do you like? How do you know like this, like you're you're, making this up and i'm like right like michael here's, the key like some people make up how they want their life to be, and then they operationalize around it, and then they set goals and plans and schedules, and They go after it and they attack it because they're building a castle right metaphorically of their life and some people just go about life and there's no right or wrong. It's just how i was you know so: unclassically trained by mentors and friends and coaches, and you know people that i looked up to and said. How did you get there and they said i wrote letters like this.

I decided i want my life to be so long answer short. Is i take the time to review where i'm at in relationship to that letter? And again it covers every area of my life where we live our lifestyle, our business, our finances, our spirit, our health and vitality, everything's inside there and it's like seven or eight pages long and it's on evernote, so i'm kind of guessing at the page numbers. But it's it's long, it's lengthy, it's clear and i stop and say: okay, so where are we at? How am i doing i'm five years into this journey? And you know it's fun for me because we just moved to dallas and you know making that transition. My son goes to smu we're technically empty nesters.

My other son stephen, is uh back and living in apartment in southern california and playing tennis and doing his thing and traveling back and forth. And what if i told you that in 2015, i declared i would be living out of the state of california and it actually said in a high-rise in seattle, dallas or new york city, and - and you know, seattle we didn't want to do. It was too cold and rainy, which funny, because dallas is pretty cold and rainy, also new york city. As much as i would love to live in new york city, it didn't make sense from a travel standpoint.

Dallas, just was the natural thing and i got a son at smu, so i didn't know i was gon na have a son at smu in 2015.. I just knew i wanted to live in one of these three major cities in a high-rise and that's where we ended up so so my my thought, for you is, do you know where you want to be in a year in five years and 10 years in 20 years, and what, if what? If what, if like just like having the conversation with my son, he's like how did you do it, i'm, like son, i just i don't know, i didn't pull it out of my ass, like i've jokingly done that in seminars before and i'm like, you know, how Did you set that goal like whoop, you pull it out of your butt right? No, i pulled it out of inspiration and then i put it to pen. I put it to paper. I decided like hey.

If i could just go for it. What would i want? It to look like tick, tock, tick, tock, we're only on this planet for a short amount of time. I want as much joy and happiness. I also want achievement.

I want growth, i want contribution so by listing all that out it just it inspires me and if you've not done this, i really challenge you to do so. So the first thing in my planning is, i review that. Where am i at? Am i on track? What adjustments do i need to make? Do i need to set some goals for myself in any one of those areas if i've fallen a little bit short or feel like hey, i've only got 15 more years to get there. I better, you know, put my foot on the gas, so that's the first thing.

Second thing i do and - and you know again, you maybe you've seen this on a tom, ferry, show or someplace else where i talk about the eight equities of life um and i do a review of where i'm at so you know i've seen this work done. A lot um, you know tony robbins did it. The very first person i saw do this was mike vance so mike. If you've heard me before a million times talk about mike, he was my mentor for a long time and passed away.

He was walt disney's like right hand, guy. His business card actually said like mike vance in charge of people and ideas for the walt disney corporation, and he was there with walt for eight or nine years before walt passed. He launched orlando um. Then he went off and he worked with people like her mentor.

People like jack welch and you know steve jobs and he created the salad bar and he was friends with mother teresa, which every time i say it, it's just so bananas. To think that i had all that time with him. I just sitting here as i'm recording this. I wish i would have filmed every session.

You know what i mean, i don't. We didn't have flip video cameras. When i was doing this uh, we certainly had audio cassettes. I i really really just sitting here reflecting wish.

I would have done that. Fortunately, i had lots of journals and i kept all those journals. So i have all the notes captured, but mike was the very first person that said to me. You know you have like these equities of your life and he kept it very simple.

Just five equities he's like spirit contribution and he said spirit, health career, uh mindset intellect and like relationships. I think that was the original five and, and what he would say to me is you need to set goals in each one of the equities of your life too many people over index on one equity right, we've seen this before you've seen the guy. That is really super buff right and he's like the strongest guy on the planet, but it can't keep a job or a relationship right. He would say that person's out of balance right or you see the person that just so overly index indexes compulsively on on their business and they go through multiple relationships and either they're miserable right.

So he said the goal is to go for it all. He was the first person that said to me. You know too many people on this planet. They live in this world of like this or that right like like they can't have both and what he said to me is.

I want you to live in a world of this and that and this and that - and he said, and then you got to put it to to put it to writing like get out your workbook, get out your you know now, evernote or however, you keep track. Google docs or piece of paper journal and write it out. So the second thing that i do is i go through all of the equities. So even as i sit here, i'm like health right, like you know, getting my baseline done.

If you saw the the facebook live show i did or my podcast with pam jacobson my wife and i's uh, certain health and nutrition coach right we're literally i get my blood work done. I do spit and yes, we do. This thing called the poop test, but what it helps me understand is where, where are my vitals in all, like my adrenals, all of my hormones and how's, my gut doing because gut health is so important right, so doing that? Looking at the last 12 months of my sleep, am i getting more sleep, leslie, better sleep, you know. Am i on track with my workouts like do i feel better as i'm aging or do i feel like i'm in more pain, so i literally go through all for me all of those equities relationships.

How are kath - and i doing how am i doing with the boys? How am i doing with my friends right like i got a lot of friends and a lot of acquaintances, and you know like you. I want to stay connected right, whether it's a text message or shooting a video or getting together for lunch or just seeing people i'm a social creature right. So i want to be around people that i like um. So how am i doing there? How am i doing with my business partners? I got a lot of business partners and all these ventures that i've invested in.

I refer to myself as a business partner. In many cases, i'm just an investor, but i don't take the mindset of investors. I take the like: hey i'm a part of this company and if i can contribute, i want to contribute. So how am i doing reaching out to the ceos of these companies and checking in and seeing what they're doing and how i can bring them value, or at least just say how are you doing because it's so funny? I just had this conversation.

I can't say the guy's name because he's in the middle of a new startup, but i talked to him yesterday and i know he's grinding and i know he's under pressure and i know he's just raised a ton of money and i think i'm the only person That calls me and says: how are you doing? Do you want to be interested just like hi? I'm, not i'm not calling you because i gave you. You know x, millions of dollars, and i want to know where you have the plan and how your okr's and what's going on, and i'm not one of his his new teammates. That's like what do we need to do and what's next and what are the big projects? I just call like: hey man, just how are you like, as a guy like how? How are you with your family like what's going on he's like i'm, not sleeping well like just just being that way for a friend right? It makes a difference, so i go through every single one of those for me, it's spirit and it's fun and travel and adventure. It's contribution, it's growth, which is learning wisdom.

How many books did i listen to? How much did i learn this year? You know. Did i increase my vocabulary? Do i decrease my vocabulary? Yes, i actually track that and then hey. How was my business? Like my you know my primary businesses? How did we do in the middle of pandemic social unrest so much challenge a crazy presidential election. All the drama, how did we do right so so gut check there, and then how did you on my my wealth? I have a 20-year vision for where i want to end up financially and guess what so i'm checking in on that too, and i'm looking at all this stuff.

You know the note i wrote down, so i know it's funny because i'm talking to you as you're driving right now or working out, thank you by the way uh for listening this, thank you for just being in my community, i'm looking at tristan. So i'm going to remind you that socrates, at his trial, he was put on trial for corrupting the youth, because he was educating them to examine their life right to take stock of their life and to to not fall into the social norm of if your parents Were bread makers? You were destined to be bread makers. He said you can be whatever you choose to be right, which was radical right and at his trial, where he was sentenced to death, plato heard him say, plato being one of his mentees heard him say the unexamined life is not worth living. The unexamined life is not worth living.

Think about that, so all i'm doing is just examining like. Where am i at? It's almost like, you know an x-ray. If you will of the goals and ambitions and plans and intentions and mindsets and beliefs, i just examine everything to say: okay, how am i doing 365 days in one more rotation around the sun? How did you do? Let's examine it now interesting? I wrote down behind that my buddy jay abraham who's, also a mentor and a pal, and maybe you've heard him on a podcast with me or something or you haven't check out one of his books he's just amazing. He would go on to say a business that isn't rigorously examined and re-examined time and time again is destined to fail and is definitely not worth investing in or owning.

Think about that for you and your business right. This is also the time where we're examining and lifting up the you know the the curtain. If you will and saying, okay how's my lead generation, look like how's. My marketing look like how do my skills look like you know.

What's my systems like? Am i creating five star reviews? Am i generating a beautiful experience for the customer, or is it still wonky and every time i do it it's by memory right, jay would say to you that kind of business needs to be rigorously examined, and that's how i look at my life right just trying To figure out again, i got a tiny amount of time on this planet. How do i have a consistent amount of happiness? Joy contribution, growth, fulfillment fulfillment. You know what i mean like the feeling of like oh, like we're doing good like it's working out and - and i got ta tell you that's hard as an entrepreneur um. But that's what i'm working on and that's the kind of stuff that you see here or the things that i'm talking about.

So i review basically where i'm at then it's like the obvious stuff right. I set goals. I do all the personal stuff so inside of the aid, equities, i'll, look and say: okay. So what are my relationship goals and, yes, i actually write down like hey.

Should i renew my vows again with kathy this year now? I think i need to wait. Let's see, maybe i can do it at the end of the year. I don't know so. If i'm uncertain, it doesn't mean i'm a goal because remember goals are like how much of what and by when a goal is like how much i want to save a hundred thousand dollars how much of what money, by when december 31st 2021..

So on that note, just i'm going to share our conversation from earlier, as we think about you know, sort of setting goals for next year. You know with the the craziness happening in the u.s, the the sort of cultural divide, the emotional divide, cancel culture. All these things that are happening in our world. The thing i want to stress to you is uh what i said to tristan earlier, like i made money when bill clinton was the president and and not just made money, i made a difference.

I grew. I improved right, i did all the things i wanted to do and guess what i did the same thing under george bush and, and there was policies and things about both those two presidents that some i was in favor of some i thought were, you know, didn't Align but one of the things i'll say to myself repeatedly is i don't look to the president of the united states for, like my spiritual guide or like my like how i'm gon na live my life like right, moral compass right, thank you like they're, just doing Their job and i'm doing my thing like so it's i don't know, maybe just a different mindset. Maybe you have a different one you'll. Let me know in the comments um, but but at the end of the day, whether it was clinton or bush, and then you know, obama and now trump like i just don't - allow the person in that seat to dictate my future right.

I am the captain of my own ship. I decide how i want it to be. So how do i do that? I set goals. I say in my business: this is what i want to do with my money.

This is what i want to do with my health. This is what i want to do, and i would challenge you whether it is creating out a list of like 10 things you want to accomplish for the year, which is always a great idea. I think of like my my mentor and someone that i just i grew up on and had so much appreciation for brian tracy. He would say just just list out the top 10 things you want to accomplish and just whatever it goes.

I look back like on my journals, tristan of all the like journals i have in there and at my house and literally i can go back to like 1991, like my journal, where it said like buy a new suit like that was on my list right, because I didn't have the money and i think i had like one hand-me-down suit for my dad and i wanted to own my own suit. So wherever you are in your life right today, that's no longer a goal for me today, it's like hey. How could i raise more money for miracle for kids and really help save more lives or make, as even as i even think, about this uh, the the passing of a child, which is what miracles for kids? Does they help the families that are dealing with a child that has you know a life-threatening or in this case many taking their life illness? So you try and help the parents that are, you know in many cases financially distraught as they're going through this process like how can i help them more right, like maybe it's time for my kids and i to take on another project, so i just said to Yourself, like what are your goals like what inspires you and and whether it's a top 10 list, you look at all your equities. All i know is this: if you don't write down, this is what i want to happen.

You do not have the right to complain about what's going on in the world, because you basically said hey man, the world is going to keep wagging the dog, the tail that whole sort of example. I always screw it up, but like the world's going to keep worlding along, you just got to say this is my place in it. This is what i'm committed to whatever it is taxes this that blah blah blah i'm moving forward. This is what i'm committed to because think about the alternative.

What's the alternative, you get pissed, you get upset right, and then you spend time on that. You spend energy on that. That is a downward spiral. You know it and i know it.

This is why i cut off like things like the news like mike vance is actually the guy that really first turned me out of this chris and he would say to me turn off the news and i'm like okay, but shouldn't you stay informed, he's like if A world war happens, someone will let you know, and he said it like so casually, and i know he was being cynical and probably a little flippant, but the reality was it's true and i say yes, i want to know what the interest rates are. I want to know what's going on in the capital markets, i want to know what's going on in the financial industry. I want the things that really me but, like i don't care like who's sleeping with who, in politics or like i'm, focused on my goals, and i would ask you just to consider just consider, especially if you've never done it before. Maybe just this is the year that you go for it.

Maybe this is the year where, like you do the second thing which is i wrote down, then you go from goals to what new routines are required, and this is where i got to tell you if there was anything you get out of this this message, it Is asking yourself what are the new routines required for me to achieve, maintain or make it happen for this? Because, like it's one thing to say, hey, i want to cut ten pounds. It's another thing to put in your calendar. Stop eating every night by seven o'clock and you know: try intermittent fasting. You know four days a week or go to the gym and exercise six days a week right, you put it in your calendar, you make it a routine and that's when it comes to life.

That's when it goes from like this goal to this thing that i do every single day and week to make it happen, so so think about it. What are the routines required for you to achieve what you want and now remember this is like in your health. This is with your spouse. This is with if you're single, this is called prospecting, time and follow-up time and going on dates and closing the sale you're with me.

Like i literally look at my calendar as i was just you know chatting with my wife and she's like all right so hey. I know we have our date night on this. That, yes, cause date night is in there, management meetings are in there. Working out is in my schedule, reviews golf with my friends.

You know getaways trips, everything is inside my calendar. Everything is inside my calendar because you've heard me say 8 million times before. If it's not in my schedule, it doesn't exist. Think about it.

So so what have? I said to you review your life plan. Second, do a gut check on your equities? Remember a life that isn't examined isn't worth living. You got to be honest with yourself and if you have areas of your life, where you've got pain, do something about it right, whether it's get more information right, i don't know, get get the the information or the resources you need to move forward. Powerfully right.

You are not on this planet to suffer in any way, shape or form you are on this planet. It's you versus you to find your greatness and go for it and whatever that means to you so review your life then set some inspiring goals, personal goals, ambitions and look if you're sitting on debt. I want you to pay it off. If you don't have enough savings, i want you to save more.

If you need motivation in your business to improve right there, i want no debt and i want big savings. I want investments because i'm telling you right now when you pay off all your debts and you've got the cash whatever is happening around the world. It just has less stress you with me, like there's less stress when you're, like i, i've saved enough money. I've made all the right choices, i'm in a good way, i'll.

Let them just deal with what they're dealing with, and i don't take it as personally, but when i don't have enough because i've over leveraged, because i've racked up the debt, because i don't have the discipline of saving, then those things really matter, they impact you. You know what i'm saying so set some goals that inspire you right and whether it's goals for you or goals for the people, that you love or a group or an organization, your church or whatever, that you want to do something for maybe it's that then ask Yourself, what are the routines required and get it in your schedule? I have every management meeting in my company scheduled for the rest of the year. That's just an ongoing automatic one of the things we're playing around with now is no meetings on wednesday because we found ourselves. I know you've ever i'm sure you've dealt with the same thing like we're, so busy doing doing meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings that we don't have time to actually like do the work.

So we said wednesdays are no meetings. We just do the work on those days. Super fun just a little side note all right, then i wrote down uh. I would encourage you, as i mentioned a minute ago, get it all on your schedule, including ready scheduling, all birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, right, family time, family trips.

I put all that stuff in there because if i don't my team, god bless them. My team will fill my calendar with events and webinars and traveling, and next thing you know like hey. I didn't get any time off. I didn't get the vacations.

I need the note that i wrote down that i want to stress to you is. I know me well enough to know that every 60 days i need recharge time. Let me say it to you again. Every 60 days i need recharge time and whether that is like getting in my car and going to a hotel down the street, where i unplug and i put on instagram that i'm somewhere else around the world.

And i just get away for a couple days. Or it's time with my boys or time with my wife or time with my friends, you got to get it in your calendar, so you schedule all that stuff in advance and by the way, a little side note, if you don't have a shared calendar with your Family, that's a mistake: if you don't have like a family calendar versus like tristan, has his calendar and seth's got her calendar, so nobody knows right, family calendar, everybody sees it. Everybody knows what's going on. I know when steven's tennis is.

I know what michael's classes are. I know my wife's doing her thing. She knows when i'm doing my thing saves a lot of problems and then the last thing i would tell you is get your goals up and visual, get your goals up and visual, get your goals up and visual and whether that's like a vision board for you. If that inspires, you, that's awesome.

I've done that many many times in my life, where i was like okay, i want this book to be a new york time best seller and i built an entire vision board around that and achieved almost all of those goals. Right. I don't know if i ever showed you that tristan, but it was it hung in my home office and it was, you know, find your writing partner, laura morton. This was like before i've met laura like find a writing partner.

Then it was like create the the manuscript, and this was just on a vision board. It almost looked like a like a game. You would play as a kid like shoots and ladders, but there were no ladders. I was only going the right direction and then it was like get a deal and i actually wrote i'm going to get a check for 250 000 right from a publishing company, and i remember i remember like having uh lauren, who was one of my marketing team Members then make out a fake check payable to me for the publication of this book.

That was not even didn't, have a title for it yet and putting that on the vision board. And i got exactly that amount of money and i remember telling brian tracy just total side note brian was like, like brian, like my goal: seven year time of seller he's like oh you and every other author on the planet. I've never even had one i've written like you know: 28 books. I write a book every single year and i'm like okay.

Well, i'm gon na do it like i'm gon na make it happen. Like i i it's my intention. It's my plan. I appreciate you're saying my mentor, my friend, but i'm going for it anyway and i said by the way i'm going to get a check for 250 000 to write the book and he's like never going to happen tom.

I love you just listen to me. It's not going to happen, i'm like okay. I got a check for 250 right. Thank you to the company that wrote that check uh now spacing on their name.

I apologize right. I could see jeff in my mind, but can't give his company random house and and get this the check for 250. The next one was launch the book and - and i actually had a photo of me at like a barnes and noble - ended up being at the javits center in new york city. With a couple thousand people.

It was bananas. The next one was me. They superimposed me on the uh on the set with oprah winfrey right and like that was the vision like i want to be on oprah, because if oprah says read this book, everybody knows what happens and by the time i met laura. They had cancelled.

The oprah show - and i just kept it on there right. I just said i'm just gon na just keep putting it out there and she cancelled her show i didn't i didn't so i didn't get that one i didn't get to be on larry kings. He also canceled his show, but all these other things happened, but here's the thing there's something powerful about showing the visual of what you have to do and what are the milestones along the way versus just, for example, the photo of the new house, like the photo Of the new house is inspiring for some the journey of you making the phone calls the journey of you, some late nights, the journey of you doing the work, the journey of you at your desk, you know hammered it out the journey of you meeting another client, The journey of you breaking through some barriers, you with me that got you. The new house, i think, is a more inspiring visual than just here's, a new house, if that makes sense for you, so that's how i do vision boards and then.

Lastly, i would just say to you in closing, get all your goals up in visual, as i mentioned before, like i put them up in my bathroom mirror, i literally take a dry erase pen and i write them up on my bathroom mirror. I put them inside my evernote and evernote just says every week, it just pops up in front of me. Here's your goals, here's your goals, here's your goals, here's your goals, here's your goals and, of course, yes, i give them to my coach and i'm held accountable, and my wife knows so like that's it. I don't know like i starting out this uh, this podcast.

First of all, i'm also just reflecting on how much i just enjoy doing interviews, but i also just enjoy this just having a conversation with you, so my hope is that you found some some insight in this. This isn't a me versus you thing. This is a you against you thing, and i just want to give you my process right, so you can say okay kind of do a little that, and i do a little this and tom. I do something even better by the way, if you do something even better, let me know, maybe you should text me 949-216-5466 or put it in the comments and, let me know 949-216-5466, if you're, not a part of my texting community.

Do text me for sure. Let me know because, at the end of the day, like i'm, not perfect, i'm working to get better and better every single day, like that's what it's all about for me, going back to those eight equities. So as i wrap it up, i hope you, if you're in the u.s, have a wonderful thanksgiving with the people that you love, uh lots of friendsgivings and all that other stuff. I actually did nana giving, which is my 93 year old mother-in-law, inviting all of her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids over to the house for an early thanksgiving.

So i thought that would be cool. You know things you do for your 93 year old mother-in-law. All right hope you crush it. Keep up the good work share this with a friend or two that might need to hear this.

Give me some comments below and thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being inside my community see you soon. You.