Creating a Superhighway for Success

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. Today's podcast is gonna be a doozy. I'm really super excited about this because it's one of those podcast episodes, Jim, that we can at any given time, any, you know, no matter what time of year it is or what you can actually, you listen to this podcast and you're gonna extract something amazing from it. That's my goal today, Jim. And it's already inspired by your thoughts around this process. And we're gonna talk about really the title of this. It's about creating a super highway to success. Now, why does that matter? Why I think it's important is that we all want success. Like if you're listening to this podcast, you are a person who obviously aspire towards creating success in your life. That's the number one thing. But the reality is though, is that it's not like dreaming about, and we'll start here, I think this is the most important. Like everybody who goes to the Olympics or everybody who wants success, they all have a goal. The problem is only one of them usually gets their goal. It's not like the 13th place winner the 13th place, you know, medalist or not, sorry, non-medalist, the 13th place person didn't have a goal of a crack at the gold medal, right? We all have goals. The difference is, is that some people will get it consistently over and over again, year after year, or every Olympics after every four years. Why? What do they do differently? And I think that we can have a conversation around how do you create success, more success in your life, not just once, but continuously and creating that momentum.

Yeah, and really the I guess the discussion today was really simulated by an event that we ran over the weekend where we had a lot of people coming to our event who wanted to get some clarity on aspects of what you're talking about and First and foremost, you know what we have to try and identify is okay great the superhighway We want to find out what that looks like for you and get real Very very clear on what is your definition of success or what's your vision or where are you? seeking to get to. You mentioned the Olympic athletes and, you know, in that example, everybody's aspiring to be the gold medalist. So that is a very clear goal that everybody is working towards. However, rank and file, general population, they may have different objectives and goals and things that are important to them. So really what we want to talk about today is how can you establish, as you said, a reproducible pathway to help you move towards that? But how do you help get yourself clear on what it is that exactly you want to do and what success looks like for you?

Well, the reason why I call it the super highways because you want to make sure that the flow towards the success of your goals and your dreams and the ambitions and the vision that you want to have is very clear of any obstacles in the way. And I find that most people's, and including my own in the past, and still do to this day, is that it's full of, the path is actually full of bumps, speed bumps. The path is full of like potholes, and sometimes it's a freaking dead end.

Yeah.

And what we're trying to do today is to kind of talk about some contextual things, our theories, and also just, you know, things, examples that we have helped our clients with, but also with ourselves to help steer clear of some of these speed bumps, steer clear from the potholes and, you know, avoid these dead ends if we possibly can. But sometimes some of these things cannot be avoidable. So I think the first thing we might want to do here is to kind of talk about what are some of the potholes, speed bumps and dead ends or brick wall that prevents people from achieving their goals. Let's start there. What are your thoughts on that?

Okay. Yeah. Look, there's, there's whenever I guess I'm paraphrasing some of the content that we covered on the weekend, which will make it, I've got a format and a structure that I can cover into it. But I think that there's a couple of things we break it down into three most important areas. The why, what and how. So effectively for a lot of people, their, their vision, their purpose and their mission. So their vision will be what is it that you specifically want? What, what, what does it look like? Where you're aiming? Where is your general direction? That's your vision. And the clearer that vision is, that helps a lot. So I guess the first stumbling block for a lot of people is they're not really clear on exactly what their mission is. They're taking action, but not necessarily in a specific direction that's helping move them closer towards that. So that's step one. The second one is their purpose or their why. So a lot of times you hear people, they're compelling reason why. So if you're gonna begin a journey towards that direction, you're gonna ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why am... I putting myself in this situation? What does it mean to me to achieve this outcome? So that's a really galvanizing important process because invariably the obstacles you talk about, which will come, are going to test whether you're committed to that process. And then the third step is the part that, I don't know about you Lawrence, but a lot of times people come to us initially and say, hey, this is what I want to do, tell me what I've got to do. And that's the mission, they're the action steps.

Mm.

And that's the pathway that gets you from where you are to where you want to get to. But the key, a lot of the times for people is they want to know the action steps, give me the shortcut course, but a lot of times they'll neglect those first two steps. So consequently they're taking action, but not necessarily moving in the right direction in terms of what it is that they ultimately want to get clarity on.

Cool. I really love the framework and I'm going to use that framework to kind of talk about what I feel some of the roadblocks, the, you know, that are like the potholes, the speed bumps and the brick wall. So let's talk about the very first one. You talk about clarity. You know, if we're trying to accomplish our goals and people are trying to go for success, the lack of clarity is definitely one of the number one things that stop people from actually getting to where they want. And what I mean, like I've coached, you know, hundreds of clients and most of the important things is that, or even looking at myself, the reason why I don't get to some of my goals is because

Yep. Yep.

I wasn't really clear on where I was actually going. And when I say clear is that it means that you either, and here's the framework, right? One is like, you either have a vague, it's a very vague goal. And if anything is that we're such a goal-orientated society because we've been talking about goal setting for so long, it actually becomes detrimental. And here's what I mean. It means that we actually set goals without actually, and then we try to think the goal is the vision. goals are not visions, right? Vision is goes beyond the goals. Goals are just the mile markers and the milestones to get to your vision. And I remember one time someone told me about vision is like the vision you need to see is that the vision is like the horizon that you're constantly looking at and chasing, but you can never reach it because you can't actually get there, right? And it's, so, I mean, that's the analogy. It's like, it's the sun, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

as the sun goes down, yeah, it's setting, but if you keep going towards it, like if you go fast enough, right, you know, eventually you can never reach it because the sun's actually not on earth, right? So the thing is, is like the vision is almost like that you cast it so far away is the world you're trying to create. That clarity, that, or that lack of clarity is what usually stops people. Let's talk about purpose, which is the second thing you kind of mentioned. I think the purpose is that oftentimes your why. I feel like people's whys are not big enough.

Yeah.

Meaning like most of the times I find the biggest obstacles there is that they usually create a why or what they think surface level of why they actually want to do or achieve this particular goal or go towards that vision. And it's not big enough, meaning like, they actually have an answer the five why scenario. And so anybody who does who doesn't know the five why exercise is like, whatever you think of, like to say, why, why do you want? Why do you want a million dollars? And then you go, well, I want to be rich. Okay, then what? Here's the five why exercise, you basically ask, Why do you want to be rich? Well, I want to be rich because I really want to be, I want people to feel confident about me or they want to, I want to be rich because I want people to know me. Oh, okay, so it's about being famous, being known. Okay, okay, but why do you want to do that? Well, I want to be known because I really want to, I want to know that I am significant to my dad's eyes. Okay, well, why do you want your, and you just keep going, right? Until you get to the solid answer at the end and you start to realize,

Yeah.

Oh, you rich is nothing you wanted. Rich was just the surface level. It's like going deep and going the core why, the core purpose is actually goes, oh no, what I really wanted to do was not about rich, not being about fame, it's not about my dad at all. It says that I really truly just wanna make so much money that I have to think about it and really help us all the people and use that time to help as many people as we possibly do, right? So maybe that's what it is. Like, I don't know what the purpose is, but dig deeper than what you think you are. And so I think sometimes it takes a lot of wise to kind of get there. So that's the second obstacle, I think. And the last one, you talked about action. Then this is the big one, Jim. I gotta say, like, the people that we talk about is that the actions they choose, right, are usually so vague and or in actual mode, doesn't really make any difference. But you also mentioned, say, people want to be told. And the biggest obstacle I find is like, they're looking, they want, everybody wants a shortcut. They're like, and.

Hmm.

I think of like, yes, should you find the shortest path possible to get to your success? Absolutely, right? That's why you wanna create a super highway. But it's not a shortcut, right? It's not a hack, right? You can't, I don't know, we talk about these hacks about wellness and health and longevity, like hacks are short-term things. I think there's a great book called Smart Cuts by Shane Snow from memory. And I love that concept. Smart cuts is not shortcuts, it's smart cuts. Meaning like those cuts that you make.

Okay.

are actually intellectually there to be more efficient at it, not because you're trying to shortcut something, to try to bypass the fundamentals that you need to do to develop whatever skillsets and ambitions that you need to have to actually get to the level of success. I hope that makes sense.

Yeah, totally linked it up. And just going back to what you said earlier about goals, I totally agree with you. That's the confusion a lot of people have is that a lot of the times the vision, the vision is the compelling, as you said, over the horizon, what you're working towards. The goals are the metrics or the measures of how am I tracking along this path? Am I on track or not? And they usually have to be along the path in the general direction, because a lot of times, if you set goals aimlessly and not connected to your vision, You'll achieve an outcome that's irrelevant to where you really want to get to. And there've been situations where you go, Hey, I did all these things. I've ticked all these boxes. I've achieved these goals, but I don't feel any different. I don't feel like I've actually moved anywhere closer to what I really want because they weren't in alignment with those. So that's why it's really, really important to get the clarity and get the direction and have everything humming in the right way to minimize the friction. Of you not achieving the things that you want. And what we're talking about is Even with those things, you've still got to do the work. No one can do the pushups for you. You've got to do them. You can have someone who's by your side, keeping you accountable. And that's the role that we have as coaches quite often is to say, great, awesome. Here's your plan, here's your strategy. What are you going to do it by? Let's do it, let's go. But at the end of the day, you still got to drop down and do those pushups because if I do them for you, I'm going to benefit, not you.

That's right. And I think the vision part when they're casting, they're not casting far enough. You know, they just because everybody wants short term results. And I think that's a big problem. Another problem I also see that could be an obstacle is that you create a vision and you stick with it and not realizing that you changed. You evolved, you got older, or you got more experience and realizing that vision no longer serves you and you're still chasing it, you know, and something be okay that your vision can change, you know, over time, like what you wanted in your 20s.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's gonna be different what you want in your 30s. And it's gonna be different what you want in your 40s and 50s and so on. It may be the same, I don't know, but it may be different and be okay that you can okay, to change it. I think I hope that gives people when they cast this vision the first time that it doesn't have to be set in stone, right? And it means that you can. And also the other one more thing is that once you cast your vision, as you get closer to your vision, you need to recast it. It's gotta be, you know, as you get closer, it's almost like you gotta go further, right? You gotta move the goalposts otherwise. You know, you're going to get there and go, okay, now what?

Yeah. You know, I want to highlight something about that vision as well too. And this is the area that's come up. I'm pretty sure it would have come up with you as well too. If you ask someone, what's your vision, there's a part of them at a logical level that they'll let you know what you think, what they think you want to hear or whether what you think is achievable. And there's another dimension where you have to get people past their own stuff. Where they give themselves position to really gap it and go for it because it's like, Oh, you meant like I could.

Yes.

dream anything. It's like, yeah, well, why didn't you, why did you achieve, why did you state something that you knew you could achieve without the stretch part of it? Was it because of fear, doubt, uncertainty, et cetera? So I feel that's the invisible hand sometimes that stops and prevents people from really getting clear on their vision. I talked to someone today and that was the take home message was we talked about, you know, interestingly about a vision but this person... probably down regulated it by 50, 60% either because of conditioning, expectations of what other people thought she could do. And so by just clearing that often gives you the permission to really go for what it is that you want.

You know, yeah, absolutely. The thing is that when they don't give themselves permission, like how many times have you heard of someone that when they tell you something, and it's like, you're just telling me what I wanna hear, but more importantly, especially in the healthcare industry, right? It's like they're too embarrassed. They go, you know, this is the typical. Or how many times have you ever heard, it goes, oh, why are you doing this? Let's just say we talk about purpose and your vision. It goes, oh, I wanna change the world. Or I wanna help as many people as possible. Or.

Yep, yep.

Like I don't do it for the money. I do it for whatever, right? And I get it, right? I get it. Like one, it sounds altruistic. It is the thing that we're supposed to say. It's what society expects you to say. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm not even saying that it's, that's not what you actually want. I do think that that's what you obviously want. But what you're not telling me though is what's the deep thing that you actually want? Like tell me like something that you

Yeah.

truly want like maybe like, I really secretly want to be a millionaire. But I don't want to say that because I know that's wrong. And so they're embarrassed about it. I'm like, don't be embarrassed about it. You're utilizing your own story and beliefs here in your life to dictate that that's wrong if you're a millionaire, or, you know, a billionaire, like it's like, I'm not and there's no judgment for me. I don't care. It's that your goal is not mine. Right. But I need to know so that you have it because I really want to own five properties. Okay, nothing to be embarrassed about. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, all we're just doing clarity is like, you know, how bad do you want it and why do you want it? And you know, once you can start to get people to talk about like the reasons why, it's so important. I've talked to people where they go, oh, I want to, you know, have, you know, a million dollars to say, I'm like, okay, well, why? I don't know, I just felt like a good number. That's not a good enough reason, right? That's, you know, like, do you know what it takes to earn a million dollars a year, right? Like, it's not a good enough reason. Like if you have a good enough reason, then yeah, it makes sense. Don't just pick a number.

Yep. Yeah. Yep.

out of a hat, like really think about this, this is your life here. Like you're creating a movie, so you might as well like write a good script, right? Not just like, oh, I hope this works.

Yeah, no, totally. You know, Lawrence, I was just gonna say, as you were talking, what reminded me of it was the work of Carl Jung, the psychologist who talked a lot about shadows and archetypes. I'm not sure if you've come across this kind of work before, but fundamentally, the values are really like a compass. You talked about that. They're the things that guide our decisions a lot of the times, which are really important when we're working towards a vision, we have to get clear on our values. And so there's a lot of work that... is important, you know, you dedicate in that area. And it is important that if you achieve your vision, that your values are being met. So that way you're feeling fulfilled, right? So that a lot of times when people get that, but what you talked about is what's a whole area of work called shadows and shadow values. Now shadow values are interestingly, they're kind of the things that we are true, but we don't really want to reveal to the world, right? And you touched on that because you achieve an outcome and you go, hey, I want to help people.

Mm-hmm.

But interestingly, there's some work that I did back in Australia with an organization called Authentic Education, and I talked about shadow values. And that really helped me get clarity on this because these shadow values are things we don't necessarily share with the world, but things like power, control, superiority, those kind of feelings, significance and connect and basically. You're not wanting to be abandoned. Those kind of are driving forces that really govern behavior. And a lot of the times it's subconscious behavior that you don't even realize. So when you talked about the why, sometimes you'll get to superficial levels of, yeah, that's what it is. And that's really nice and fluffy. But if you really have the courage to self examine self, you'll get to what the driving elements are. And when we don't make those wrong, You know, whenever you try and change behavior, you say, whatever you resist persists or whatever you reject, you know, like we only get upset when someone says something about what we're doing that we don't want to take ownership on. But the moment we do, we go, you're right. I have that element of those traits in me. You can embrace them and suddenly you don't get defensive. And what happens a lot of the times for people, which, which is what I took out of what you said, was that if people get very, very clear on what their compelling drives and reasons are really.

Absolutely.

and they take ownership on those that are okay with those, they can use those to get those outcomes and help other people, et cetera, et cetera, but their compelling need or value is being met so they feel fulfilled in themselves.

You know, one of the things that yesterday I hosted a luncheon, a luncheon for ultra high net worth individuals. And there was 10 people in the room and these are people who have sold companies, founders, creators, entrepreneurs, wealth managers, and they have incredible success in their life. Each one of them in their own ways. And they are the 0.01% of the world. and they have more money in terms of assets than most people can ever imagine in their entire life. And so, our conversation, my topic of theme for the luncheon was on legacy. And what's interesting about that is that, most of us kind of strive our whole entire life to make more money and gain more money. And we think that that's gonna solve our problems. I can tell you firsthand, knowledge. without disclosing names and stuff. But really the reality is that people have the same problems whether you have money or not have money. It's just your problems are different. And I'm sure some people are listening, oh yeah, but I want to have those problems. Those problems are exactly the same problems you have. There's no different, nothing changes, right? They still have imposter syndrome. They still have like, I don't deserve this money. I don't want to spend it. And they're frugal with anything, right? And... they're still going through the process of like, why? Like, what do I do? Like, now what do I do? Okay, so now I have like, you know, $50 million. What do I do? Right? And so, well, what was interesting was what I talked about earlier, which is like, you had this vision of like creating this biggest business and you rationalize to yourself, like I'm doing this for my kids. And you work your butt off, you work your ass off, and you kind of create all this, you know, creating this massive business, you sell it. Now you got, oh, okay, well, what do I do? And it's interesting that like so many different, I mean, everybody had different opinions. You talk about legacy, which was, you know, the difference between like creating a legacy to be known, like, and which is what they call like the second death. I love this concept. Someone talking about second death. It's like the first time you die is when you die, right? The second death is when the last person who talks about you dies. And I was like, oh, right? I was like, so true, right? So let's just say you're...

Mm.

legacy is as far as it goes as your grandkids. Well, as soon as that grandkids, that's your second death when like, no one knows about you anymore. And some people have obviously done so much well in the world and so much, you know, like have created so much fame or, you know, contribution in the world, their name lives on. And so they haven't experienced that second death, right? So, I mean, for some people, that's an aspiration, right? For some, most of them were just like, I just want to...

Hmm.

I really just want to spend time with my kids. I really don't care. My legacy is actually just being a good dad, a good parent. That's all I really care about. Absolutely, absolutely.

Hmm. But that's a legacy in itself. That's a legacy in itself, you know, because the spirit of the love and compassion that you share with your kids lives on in there. That's your legacy in a lot of times. And that's, you don't necessarily have to have a name on a building to leave a legacy. Your legacy could be the support and the love and the encouragement you provided a child that allowed them to go out there and live their life. I think that's a wonderful legacy, you know.

That's right. And I think the most important, I guess the concept is I wanna share is one, their problem's exactly the same problem as you. So don't think that money's gonna solve all your problems. But two, just realize that you're creating your own legacy here and there's no right or wrong. That's the beautiful part. There's no judgment from anybody to say, this is the wrong way of looking at things. No, there is no right way. You gotta look back and deep down inside of like going, who do I wanna be? But what's important to me? That's the question that no one can answer for you. We can ask the right questions to mommy get close to that. But you have to do enough self reflection to kind of figure out like, what am I doing all of this for? And I think we're starting here because I think fundamentally, if we're gonna create this super hard, the first thing I would say Jim was saying was like, you gotta know where you're gonna go. You need to have clear clarity of your vision. You need to know why you're doing this, right? And then now you're gonna create the action stuff. So I think that's those like those, that framework is beautiful. And I think that's the starting point. And those are the obstacles. You gotta know that people don't get to success is because of those three things.

Yeah. So there's a starting point. So, you know, once I think they're the good, great starting points and from there, you then begin your journey towards your vision, ultimately vision. And along the way you, you touched on those, they're going to be obstacles. Some of them are your own fears, doubts, uncertainties that are going to come a long way. And some of them are procedural holdups and disappointments, delays, cost. blowouts, all those kinds of things. So if you're starting to progress and move towards a particular path, things generally, anybody who's planned a house or designed a house or done any renovations always knows that whatever you think the cost of the renovation will be, double it, add 30%, and then you might get roughly, close to what that'll be. So it's never always what you expect it to be. It's usually, there's holdups, there's delays that always happen, whether they're time. money or energy always are in excess a lot of times of what you expect it to be. Yep.

Absolutely. And

Yep.

to build a super highway, you just got to figure out the logical steps in terms of, and hopefully we can create at least some sort of sequence for you at the end, for those people how people who need to know like step by step, and then now you're gonna have, this is the model and this is the instruction manual. Okay, so you just talked about, you know, being, I think what you kind of mentioned is that being able to adapt, being able to adapt and having a foundation. I'll add to that, which is I think the most, one of the important elements here is to. project yourself into future if you want to create your vision is to project yourself who do you need to be? All right, what are the components? What are the characteristics of the that version of you, you know, cast away? So say five years from now, right? That five year version of you, what does that person needs to be? I look at myself, I go, okay, like five years from now, I'm this age, I'm looking towards it. If I had to project myself what that person needs to and not like

Mmm.

What do I need to look like? What do I need to feel like? What do I need to, what would I enjoy? What am I, what are my interests? Where am I living? All those things are matter because now you're projecting of who the person you need to be. And I'll give you a story. I literally just saw a post today, a friend of mine, Dan Martell, he just said, he talked about, he was at a Tony Robbins for the very first time at event and let's say 2018, maybe five, six years ago. And he was talking about like how he was so inspiring. He just went to his first event and he threw out a b-hack, which is. BHag is just like the big hairy audacious goals, right? That's what BHag stands for. And so he created a BHag and he goes, one of these days I'm gonna teach a Tony Robbins business mastery. He just, he has no idea where that came from. He's like, I'm gonna write this down. And then he just, he just casted that vision. Okay, he just cast the vision. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna present for Tony Robbins and the business mastery. Not anywhere close to it. He, you know, he's created some success but that's what he wanted to do. And then, but here's the thing, right? Here's the other component.

Here they just go, yeah.

sort of steal your flunder here for a second, or kid's opponent, which is, once you cast your vision, you go to work, right? Let the vision go, right? You know what I mean? You don't have to stare at the vision. Like, you know what the vision is, just, but you gotta go to work. And so what did he do? He's not like, okay, that's what I wanna do. Yeah, he's clear that that's one of the things he wants to do. And then he just chipped away and just found he saw a picture of him today. He said he got an email three months ago from Tony Robbins to say, I want you to teach a business mastery.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And now his picture was him teaching in front of these like freaking hundred screens, you know, like right in front of my business mastery, in front of all these people. He fulfilled this dream like five, six years later. And it's like, awesome. Like, you know, congratulations. I was like, man, good on you, right? That's awesome. That's so inspiration, right? And that's the component. It's like, you know, you have these B-hacks, you have these visions, but it's the people who achieve them is not because they're constantly thinking about it, it's more because they get to work. That's an important component here.

Oh, wow. Hmm. Yep. I loved, I love what you said about who do you need to be because a lot of the times when you begin the journey, that version of you may be enough at that point, but somewhere along the way you're going to come up against some obstacle where that current version of you ain't going to cut it. It is not going to help you get through and you're going to feel like you're coming up against a brick wall. You know, for, for me, you know, I did a marathon, I last marathon when I was. just before 40. I was always said to myself, I'm gonna do a marathon before I'm 40. And then I turned the calendar over one year and went, oh, it's this year. And if I don't do it this year, I've lied to myself. So I honored that agreement with myself, but I always enjoyed running. But I always found that running up to half marathon pace, I didn't have to change anything. I could just kind of do what I was doing and not really much change my world. But the moment I said, right, I'm going to go to the marathon. Things had to change. I had to change. I had to change. my training schedule, I couldn't fit it into the normal times and slots that I normally had. So I had to change it, expand and grow. And I think that was a really good metaphor for what happens along the pathway where you, you future pace it. And sometimes you can look at it only from the perspective of where am I now? And you're thinking that that's the version of you going to carry all the way through, but you don't somewhere you'll have to develop a capacity, sometimes a strength, sometimes a resilience, sometimes a skill. an attribute within you, you didn't even know that you had, but you will need to do that. You have to find the right coach, you have to, whatever it is, it could be so many different things. Someone who will help you identify your blind spots, who will identify repeating patterns. So something has to happen for things to progress because how you are right now is only gonna get you to a certain.

Yeah. You have to find the right coach. Absolutely. You can't exactly it's you have to have the 2.0 version of yourself and you got to be very clear on what that is. I think on top of that, then the next tip will be is that you need to find your team. And unless you're doing something that's a very lonely journey, you're gonna have to find your team, you're gonna have to have the right team behind you. You know, you find your Avengers team, I guess, like it's like, you can't do this alone. And you might as well find the team. Now, sometimes the team is defined by, you know, it could just be like finding the right accountant, finding the right real estate agent and finding the you know, like, you know, the right lawyer to kind of be on your team. They don't like they work with you for not necessarily for you, if that makes sense. Or they like their contract up, but you'd still need that team. Like if you want, and I think that's really important because you need to have people you trust. You got to think about and not from the today, more in the future, who in the future do I need to kind of make that happen? You know, and for that, it's like, you know, you might need a house manager, you might need to have, you know, the right, you know, tax lawyer, all these things are important elements or you could be like, I need the right personal assistant, I need to have I need to have the right secretary, I need to have the right marketing guy, I need to have the right ops guy, financial guy. Like these are things that you need to think about depending on the sales size of your business or entrepreneur, you gotta figure that out. Do you need that? Some people don't. You might just be, I just need a couple of virtual assistants and I'm all good. The reality here is that you just gotta figure out the team matters and what does that team look like and where do you find them? And it's not like you need to go and hire all these people right now. Remember, that's like five, 10 years from now. I'm talking about like who do you need? So based on that region of the team that you have, who's the first person you need to get? If you think about Marvel, like Nick Fury doesn't go grab all the Marvels and superheroes and go, okay guys, put you together. No, he started with one person, right? Because I'm gonna get this guy and then I'm gonna get this guy, right? And the so on and so forth. To build that team is the same thing. You have to build that team.

Yeah, and you're right. You start building strategic allies along the way. A lot of the times, particularly when you talk about super highway to success, a lot of the times it's identifying what are your areas of genius? What are your areas of skill? And recruit for people that I think this was the game changer once I heard it and really embraced it was to surrender and let go of things I'm not really good at and either. surround myself with or partner with people who have skills that are either complimentary and compliment the areas that I'm not necessarily great in so that we can progress and move forward. Because if I dedicated just proportionate amount of times to things that I am not good at, at best I will be average. And so that was a really a big key thing that I've taken from some of the most, the highest, most, a highest performing people on the planet who don't waste time trying to develop. tasks and skills, I should say that they're not necessarily is the highest and best use of their time. It's optimization of their talents first and then bringing team who actually have complementary skills in the areas that they don't necessarily have.

I think the next thing here, once you've done all that, you know, you got your team, you got the expertise, you're bringing on the right, you know, the right elements and affiliations and connections. I think one of the most important thing right now is then you gotta learn how to find, you know, create your key objectives. You know, what are your objectives that are the sub goals to get to that vision? You know, this is where we're gonna start to cast the milestone markers so you know you're heading in the right direction. Right? And so I think it's really important to know when's the inflection points, when do we need to make a turn, when do we need to go faster, when, where do those milestones gonna be? What are the opposite objectives are we trying to achieve? And so if it's a 10 year vision, then you need to start breaking down what we call chunking, right? Chunking it down to smaller pieces, right? How do you eat an elephant? Well, one bite at a time. And so therefore you need to start chunking it down. So I think it's really important to at least have a, because the further out the vision is, the harder to find clarity, right? Right? Not many people have that vision. And I think it's only like 1% of the world are actually true visionaries. Like they can really see the world who can like just imagine the world in the future. Like Steve Jobs, I think is one of them. You know, Elon Musk is probably another one. But not many people have that ability to cast the vision. So first of all, we're already in the minority, unfortunately, to be able to cast the vision. So some people like, you know, we're just not visionary. So but we'll do the best we can. Doesn't mean you can't do it. Just means that you're not as good as they are. So then that's hard. So you might as well get clarity. So then. the further you go, so say it's 10 year, 20 year timeframe. So let's bring it back. Like maybe I suggest usually kind of go for the three year timeframe. The three year timeframe is like, it's long enough to kind of possibly see what's changing. Cause I mean, technology is moving so fast right now. I think it's important to kind of think about where, what kind of world are we living in? And then also based on that, is it's long enough to also make the necessary changes to adapt, as you mentioned before. But it's short enough that it's actually, that you can still see it. So I think three-year visions are really important, and three-year goals or three-year plans or three-year objectives, and then bring it down to one year.

Yep. Yeah, I think that's great. And you know, along that way, Lawrence, I agree with you. There need to be some, some short range, but then also longer range. So you're working towards it and a frame that worked really well for me. I remember doing some work with a guy called Jeff Hoffman who is, I think it's Priceline in the U S is the biggest hotel booker in the world in Australia. It's like booking.com. So that, that Avenue. It was actually really interesting. I remember doing a, a webinar with him once and he's the guy that did the check-in counters at the airports. So whenever you, you know, whenever we don't have to go to the service counter to check in, it's Jeff who actually was the guy who worked out the solution. So we've got the little self-serve ones and it's just revolutionized air travel. So fantastically clever guy. And he talked about goal setting and objectives and all that. And. what he talked about, whether it was a one year, three year, five year was always the case of, if you've got a specific objective and goal, what governs a lot of that, first and foremost, is a strategy. So what's gonna be the strategy that you commence? What map are you gonna use to help you move forward? And once you've got that, a next category or subcategory was the tactics, right? So what tactics are you going to use within that specific strategy to help you move towards that goal? And this is for the people who like to break things down, the to-dos, the action steps. So the next part is once you've got your strategy and tactics clear, then there's specific tasks. And they're your tick, tick. This is what I've got to do. The 15 points that I have to follow through. And along the way, once you've got all that, you talked about it earlier on about the specific, who do I need to be? But sometimes there are specific skills that you need to have or develop or recruit. So you need strategies, you need tactics. You need to identify the tasks and you need to nurture, develop specific skills or recruit for those skills, whether it's in yourself or with your team.

And there's the thing that I think most people make a mistake on regards to the obstacle objective strategy, tactic and tasks is that they confuse task and tactic as strategy. So I see that doesn't like it's such a common thing to think that your, your task or your tactic is a strategy. It's not a strategy. Most people don't understand strategic work. And they think, Oh, like,

Yep.

You just gotta tweak this thing on Facebook and you'll get a whole bunch of people coming in. That's a tactic, right? Oh, I'm just gonna increase my viewership on this. That's a tactic, that's not a strategy. What you're doing is you gotta figure out what's this, what's the, and that's why you mentioned it. You gotta figure out where you're gonna, your objective, like what's the objective? What are you trying to achieve? And then create a strategy which has multiple tactical things that you can change. Because there's a thousand tactics you can make or do to get to that objective, but.

Yep.

you can't do them all. So therefore having a strategy, what it does, it streamlines the amount of tactics that you should choose from. Right? If my goal, let's just say is like, I want more new clients, but my strategy is to use LinkedIn, then the tactic for Facebook is irrelevant to me, and I shouldn't even bother learning it. Right? So and that's what we mean by making sure that the tactic

Yep. Yep.

you're doing or the tasks that you're doing actually match the strategy that helps you get closer to the objective.

Yeah, this is lasering in for people who go, okay, what do I need to do? Well, from a practical, what you need to do once you, this is part of the mission or the action steps. This is the process that you can go through. And so just giving you some frames to work with quite often is general, but it allows you to fill in the gaps to help you identify how to get from where you are going to get to. So let's assume Lawrence that everybody embarked on a journey. They've started it.

Absolutely. So go ahead.

they've started action stakes, overcome their own fears, doubts, uncertainties, not only in starting, but all the things that come along the way. They've negotiated or navigated obstacles and they've come to a point where they had to just really expand and change. They've gone through and recruited a team. What do you see as perhaps a next obstacle or something that is a deterrent to people fulfilling their vision?

Well, I don't think it's not necessarily deterrent, but I do have a framework to kind of help laser this down, right? Once you build a strategy now you kind of create these tags, but sometimes the tacticals are just still kind of loose So you don't like you don't know exactly What to do with them. So there's a Sort of a framework called OKR and basically OKR stands for objective and key results And so going back to the objectives like being clear on your objective So what I do how my clients is that you take a one-year objective. So being very clear at the year of what is your one year objective. And you can apply this for one year, and then you get them down to break it down to a quarter. Okay, and then from a quarter, you can break it down further if you want. But I'll teach you the framework, and then so you can apply it to whatever framework, framework of time that you wanna use it. Basically, you wanna find your objectives. I usually get my clients to write down as many objectives they actually want to achieve, like say in a year or a quarter, right? Why? Why do I do that? Well, because I want you to brainstorm a whole bunch of things because oftentimes you just, you know, you don't want to narrow it down just to one or two things when you're brainstorming. Sometimes you just need to just flush it all your system. Then I want them, I actually get them to write on a sticky note. Okay. Because why one objective per sticky note? Because you want to put it on a wall and then just start moving them around, right? And then start sorting them. And what you do is you sort them by categories and by categories or similarities or interests or whatever it is. So then therefore you can kind of put them into like categories. And sometimes the categories are going to be either like ones you know, these are my professional objectives, and here's my personal objectives, right? So that's a good category. Or it might be like, this is my financial objectives, and here's my business objectives, and here's my personal objectives. Like, so it doesn't really matter what categories you are, you'll notice a trend in some of these. You're gonna have a little bit more on one or the other. The second thing that I want you to do then, after you take all these objectives, is go, okay, if I can only choose three, right? Now it gets a little complicated, right? Because now you have to like, let go, and make some decisions, and decide. And you gotta figure out like, If I can only choose three, which is the three that's gonna be the most important, and how I think about choosing three, it's like how you choose three is choose the three that's going to give you the biggest impact in that year or quarter or whatever it is. That you know by doing these three things, if you do accomplish these three things, and you hit it, all the rest of the objectives are either gonna be done anyways, or they don't really, that matters because this is what's gonna make me happy. So I kind of think of it that way. So choose three. And you're gonna hear why, because as we go deeper, if you choose 10, you're gonna,

Mmm. Nice.

you're gonna be spending a whole quarter just doing this homework and never get anywhere. So that's not the point. So you have three clear objectives. And then what you need to do for each one of those, for each one of those objectives, you need to go, what are my key metrics that I need to measure to help me get to those objectives? So objective is just like, I wanna be fitter and stronger. Okay, fine, all right. But what are the metrics I need to look at? Well, what the metrics you need to look at is, well, maybe it's weight is one of the metrics. Percent body fat. maybe another metrics, maybe I'll look at I want to be fitter and stronger. So maybe I need to measure my bench press my squats, my cleans, my clean and jerk, right? That maybe that's a metric or maybe I'll be my VO two max. Right. So these are all metrics. So I'm not putting numbers on them yet. I just know what are the things I need to look at? Like what are the metrics? How do I how do I how would I measure these? You know, what are the some of the measurements that need to kind of keep an eye on in order for know whether I achieve this objective or not. Now you're gonna have a whole bunch. And

Thank you.

I'm not saying that you don't need to measure any of all of them, but what you want to do here is kind of like, if I can only measure three metrics, maybe five to achieve this key objective, what would they be? So now you're getting a little bit more narrow. Doesn't mean you don't look at the other ones, but just like here are three major ones. So I can just glance on a sheet every single week and go, Oh, am I hitting them or not? And then the next thing to do is take those three metrics and then now you need to change it to a key result.

Yep.

So you're gonna flip it to major key results. So which means that now you're gonna go, okay, percent body fat, that's what I'm measuring. But what's the result that you need in the quarter? Right, so let's just say I am 25% body fat. I'm like, okay, the metric I'm gonna measure is like the goal key result I need to have is I will need to see 21% at the end of this quarter. Okay, so that's clear. So now what you're doing is you're setting all these key metrics, you transform all the key metrics. Now you go, and it should be a 50-50 chance to get there. Right? And so at the end of the quarter, at the end of the year, whatever you look at these metrics, did I hit them or did I not? And you can learn from both. If you hit them, great, what did you do? What did you, you know, you can learn from that. But if you didn't, you also can go, okay, was it too ambitious? Maybe, maybe my key metrics was the wrong metrics, or maybe I was, you know, a whole bunch of things happened I didn't expect. Or it's just simply because I, yeah, I definitely was way too, you know, I projected this b-hag of a key metrics instead of, sorry, key results, instead of just actually doing a goal for the quarter. or not enough time or whatever it is, you'll learn from that.

Yeah, I like how you just added the specific part about, okay, in the event that you don't achieve the outcome, because we're setting up a frame for how it will work, but a lot of the times it may not come to fruition. So it's a case of, do you revise down the goal? Do you look back at your strategy and plan? I, as a virtue, will look at this and go, yeah, by nature, I'll send daring goals. And a lot of the times... you know, I may not hit that mark, but what I've done is I've got, I've got to 60, 70% of it. Okay. So what do I do now? I need to either up my energy. I need to up my techniques. I need to get clear on the things that I, because I don't, if I genuinely feel that objective is achievable, I've got to find a way of tweaking those. They okay. Are that you talked about to achieve that. And some that to me is what, what happens is you just sometimes got to pull the right levers. work on different metrics, which are the, and that's what I like about it. You can't BS yourself is a lot of the time, this is what the accountability happens. You know, when you've got someone who's testing and measuring, you can't, you got nowhere to hide. You're gonna be found out. So if you cut corners or whatever, you're not gonna get the outcome at the end of the quarter. And so you go, okay, what was the hold up here? It wasn't the plan that was the problem. You know, you didn't work the plan. You didn't work the plan to the same strategy. So that helps then identify some of the reasons why that didn't happen. There are quite often, they're not strategic. They're the one between your ears. And that's where the mindset has to be revisited. And it's an important consideration in there as well too, because you have, you can have the best strategy, the best plan, but if you don't execute and work the plan, the way it's designed, it's probably unlikely you're going to achieve the outcome.

That's right. Exactly. And I think that, you know, when we when we talk about creating, if you think about what an objective is, it's a it's a shorter, clearer goal. You know that we talked about earlier, talking about why we need clarity of a vision, right. So the clarity of an objective is just a it's the clarity of a shorter kind of our milestone. And the key results we talked about is basically a, you know, specific more clear. result that you're looking for that will achieve your objective, which then hopefully, if you've done enough objectives, you'll get to your vision, right? And so therefore, you gotta nail it down even further because, okay, just because you have a key result doesn't mean you're gonna create success. Now you gotta figure out the task. So now you gotta match what, you know, we talked about earlier about the objective strategy and plan, like the tactics, and go, okay, well, which tactic do we, we created this strategy and we created all this tactic, but are any of these tactics actually gonna get us these key results? And you go, okay, yeah, actually, one, five, and 10 is if we do those things, we're gonna definitely hit these targets, then great, then let's do those first or let's put our energy and focus in and then you can do some planning for the week. Right. And so every week you just go, okay, this one chip away and this is like you see how we're breaking it down from like some high level three, five, 10 year goal and bring it down to five years or three years and then one year and then quarter and then go into objectives and key results and then now to tasks and then going from there and then now you have a daily to do list. Right. Instead of just doing whatever's on the list you think you need to do. which most likely have no alignment to anything you actually desire. Just it's mostly because someone told you have to do this task and you realized that has no connection. But now you actually, you have a tangible to-do list that actually will move the needle knowing that you just, if you just, these are all the little 0.1% that you do every day and they will all add up and will create this exponential growth just like the stock market or just like investments. And eventually they can add it all in. They'll just.

Yep. Yeah.

compound and compound. And that's how we get to the vision that you wanna create in the first place.

Hmm. Right. So to me, there's two final things that I wanted to add that for me are really important considerations is assuming everybody has done that and they've progressed this and their future pastes and they've achieved a level of success. A really key metric for me is then not only just success, but success and fulfillment. So that's a metric, whether it's That's important to me, but one that I really want to help people at least get awareness of because otherwise you get scenarios, like you said earlier on with your, your big group where you're knocking the lights out in one metric, i.e. financially, but you don't have the, the enjoyment and the fulfillment and the joy that comes from having a similar level of success in other areas of your life as well. So. Brendan Bashard talked about, who works in this personal development space, talks about the comfortable life, where after you've succeeded up to a certain level, by society's standards, you've exhibited a lot of success and externally you look like you've got it all happening, but internally you may still feel unfulfilled. So to me, what quite often keeps people setting them up for success on super highway and keeping going and not just stopping short is... the level of fulfillment they find. You could be comfortable, but you may not be expressing what it is that gives you joy or your highest level of values too. So I think there's some clarity and identification at that point, that's very important. And the last one along the way, and you can circle back to these lines, is finding the appreciation and the gratitude along the way as well, because if, and plugging in and building in things that give you pleasure and joy, because otherwise it just feels like grant work and just work. And we as humans need to satisfy the pleasure parts of our brain. Otherwise our brain goes, what's the point? I've achieved it, but I'm burnt out. I don't have time. So they're the two considerations that I find particularly when you work with people, you work at different levels. And, you know, I've had the fortune like you too, of working with people who have done some pretty amazing things and they've gotten over the hill, metaphorically speaking, to a point, but they're still not happy or fulfilled. And these are the key metrics that are important for people like that to help them keep showing up and keep performing and keep living life extraordinary.

you know, it kind of circles back to your original statement when you first started today, which was about clearing a clarity of a vision. And when you sort of talked about, you know, I find so many people create a vision, but it's so one-sided, it's like a very tunnel vision. So usually it's about, let's just say it's about business. I'm like, okay, I want to generate X amount of revenue, or I want financially, I want to be, you know, like a millionaire or a deca millionaire, whatever it is. But it's so... that goes, I'm clear that's what I want to have. Okay. But that's the lack of clarity, I think, because it's so specific sometimes, but you actually haven't had the specificity is like, but how do you want to do it? Like, do you want to like have a million dollars or 10 million dollars or whatever it is with a family? Like, you know, that you actually, do you want to do it when you're, then at the end of it, you're actually happy, right? And that you're actually are surrounded with people that you love? Or do you want to achieve that no matter what and then you actually are divorced and your kids don't want to talk to you. And so, you know, so, but he goes, of course I want that. But was that in your vision? Like, did you actually think about that? Like, it was an encompass of it? Or like what you say, most people are so burnt out because they're so focused. And there are people who are just so driven and folks so focused on the goal, but they actually wasn't clear that it actually needed to encompass a whole bunch of things as well. So that goes back to the clarity picture, as you mentioned.

Yeah. Hmm.

I'll add a few more things here. I think one is that you need to surround yourself with great people. You know, you need to surround yourself with other people that are driven similar to you who are striving. It doesn't have to be driving for the same thing. Definitely not because everybody has their own dreams and goals, but you need to be surrounded with people who are action takers. But you need to surround yourself with people who are purposeful, who are driven to succeed, who are growing, who want to contribute, who wants to... really live a life to help each other to achieve their success. I think without that is very difficult. It's a very lonely road then you kind of a lone wolf and nothing that can't be done. But I think you kind of need to find your wolf pack. Right, you need to find other wolves who are just like you who could somehow encourage you when it happens, when things go bad. And as I mentioned in the last podcast, inevitably, something's gonna go bad. You already highlighted it before about an adaptation, you're gonna go through a speed bump.

Yep.

Right? And when I say speed bumps, because potholes you can avoid. But speed bumps, you can't avoid them. It's just depending on how fast you want to go on those speed bumps. And I think like having some wisdom from someone who's done it before, or maybe a coach who can spot the speed bumps ahead, or just having the awareness of some, you know, other, you know, other mastermind groups or other people that, you know, are on the same road, and can guide you and go, you know what, at this level, this is the bump you're going to experience. Right?

Hmm.

your staff might start turning on you or they start taking your staff or your team starts being complacent, and it's a typical one-on-one situation, but you don't know it because you haven't been there. So they can teach you a lot about these speed bumps so you know to at least slow down what you're doing instead of going full tilt and not speed the speed dome and then actually destroy the foundation of your car and the vehicle that you're trying to get to your vision, which then takes longer to repair. And then now you thought you were going fast, but you're actually not. you know, and I think that's really important to kind of surround to be adaptable and to have that surrounding yourself with right people in your in your in your in your life. That's going to help you achieve

Yeah. And that was a great compliment of that. And really, I think what we, what we've, our objective today was really to help create a plan, a process, a strategy and help people identify the part, you know, where they are, where they want to get to and why, and create some action steps, but also some clarity along the way that will assist and help them out. So I'm complete in that. Lawrence, I think for me, the super highway was always about. eliminating friction, getting clear on, you know, what, what obstacles get in your way, first and foremost. And if you visualize that you want to move forward, traditionally, most people with a accelerator and a brake scenario, they might have one foot on the brake, one foot on the accelerator. And most people's objective or mindset is that I just push the accelerator just a lot harder to move forward. And sometimes, yes, that will help. But unless you take your foot off the brake and the foot off the brake can be things that are holding you back. They could be people, they could be your thoughts, they could be attitudes, etc. Once you address that, take the foot off the brake, you quite often accelerate much, much faster with a lot less effort rather than just pushing on the accelerator and brake and burning yourself and spinning your wheels. So to me, I'm notorious for analogies, I love them, they make a lot of sense for me, but for me today was about identifying the accelerators and letting go of the brakes that stop you from progressing to your ideal life.

So let me try to attempt to quickly summarize and then we'll end this. But the summary is that I gotta be very clear is that there is, we did outline sort of a linear path in a way to some sort of degree. But in addition to that, you also need, you also notice that we also added elements that it's not actually part of the path, it's actually part of the whole entire path. You know, it's a journey, like it's the environment that shapes that journey.

Mm.

So for example, we talked about having the right team, having the right group of people to surround yourself. That's something that applies to you all throughout the whole entire journey, not just one specific step. So please understand that those things, that your journey is gonna be wrapped, the linear thing I'm just gonna summarize is wrapped around all those other things. Adaptability, you being adaptable to a situation, that's gonna be wrapped around this whole entire journey. Being able to know things are coming and knowing that you expect that certain things are gonna go bad, that's wrapped around. that particular journey. But to quickly summarize, we started with Jim, we talked about really understanding your vision. That's the first step, right? Understanding your vision and having clarity on that. Finding purpose, finding the passion and your deep why. We'll go through the five why exercises. And then from there, we actually trying to really got to get to action. So this is what the actions are. The steps are going to be, you know, going through that process, which is we talked about finding the right team. and understanding your objective, right? What is your objective and bring it down from like long, longterm version to short term version. But from the objective is like, what is your strategy? Well, what's the plan? Like, how do you navigate through this process? There's tons of strategies and you gotta choose the right one. And that right one's gonna have specific tactics. And those tactics are you need to learn and upskill and actually be a better person and all of that. And then you have certain tasks that you need to do but then you not need to marry that, right? With the objective, the OKR. Now go objective.

Thank you.

And then you got to figure out the metrics. And from the metrics, you got to change figure out what are those metrics. And then from that metric, you're going to need to turn that into a key result. So now that's come to the OKR. And then from then on, then it's all about really taking that and breaking it down to do this, and your weekly and your daily and your hourly tasks to kind of get there all wrapped in right around that is, who do you need to be? Who's the person that you're going to be? who you're becoming because at the end of the day of all the success and achievement you actually make is actually irrelevant, I think. Because what happens is that it's the person you become. is the most important thing. Because reality is that whatever you achieve, and whatever you got, or whatever you have, or you accumulate, that can go away in a second. But what can they can never take away from you is the person you became during that journey. Because that's you can't change that, right? You've you like it's like elastic band that stretched for so long, that it would never go back to its original shape. And that to me was what coaching is all about. It's like, it doesn't really matter about what you achieve, because that, like I said, it can go away, it may or may not make you happy. but the person you become during that journey, man, that is forever. And that's, you know, that's what this is all about. And so hope that this has been helpful to help you get the super highway to your greatest success in your life. You just gotta map this out, you gotta write this down and really start tackling it. It is not something you can do in five minutes, it's probably not something you can do in an hour. But if you commit yourself to do this, write this down, go through it, you're gonna make mistakes along the way, I guarantee you that you're gonna get there. If you embrace the wabi-sabi way, which is the art of imperfection that's not always gonna go perfect, I think you will be able to achieve so many amazing things this coming year. All right, guys, I hope that's helpful. Rewind this, share this with others, and we'll speak to you on the next episode. Take care.