Hey welcome to the tom ferry show it's the week of thanksgiving here in the u.s, so for my friends around the world and right here in the states today is about gratitude. I'm giving you a little insight on my podcast, which has been blowing up so enjoy. 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 2035 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 steven at 35 and 37 and i remember like reading that recently on a plane uh with my older son, flying to dallas And uh, i said, hey 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 year 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 steven 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's 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 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's 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 - 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 uh. 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'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 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 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 he 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 you know 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 uh the facebook live show, i did or my podcast with pam jacobson my wife and i's sort of 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 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, less sleep, 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, so how am i doing there? How am i doing with my business partners? I've 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 him and says how you you want doing be interested in just like 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 do 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 to this.

Thank you for just being in my community um, 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 to 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 you.