#1375 - Are You ON Track Or OFF Track?

Today , for episode number one thousand three hundred and seventy five , are you on track or off track ?

so , as you're listening to this episode , if you're listening on the day it came out , i believe there are one hundred and ninety two days left of the year , which means we are almost halfway through the year And I know Alan and I are very , very focused on the date because , number one , we record an episode every day .

Number two , we track our progress day to day and quarter to quarter and obviously over the the year . So we're very focused on how many days are left in the quarter And I know not everybody is not everybody has to have that level of specificity to their daily tracking . So I just wanted to do an episode on Where are you ?

What were your original goals At the beginning of the year ? what has changed ? What goals have you made progress on ? what goals are you behind ? What goals did you decide ? You know what ? I tried this for a while . I don't want to do it anymore . And what goals do you want to set ? now that we're halfway through the year ?

I just kind of want it to be a a check-in episode where Alan and I are always doing this . Maybe you're not doing it as much as Would be valuable to you . If we can help you practice this a little bit more in this episode , that would be a a win for me .

It's called 10x is easier than 2x and it is an extraordinary book , although you do have to be careful With any book . Don't take it as gospel , but anyways . So there's this concept called the gap and the gain , and the author of the book is trying to articulate That living in the game is better than living in the gap .

I actually believe that you need to do both simultaneously . Let me explain . Living in the gap is Kevin and I had a goal of , you know , having 30 clients . So for me , i wanted to have 30 clients by the end of the quarter And I only have 27 . So the gap is the three that I'm missing . The gap is focused on what you're lacking , what you're missing .

Okay , i wanted to make $5,000 . I only made $3,000 . Now I'm I'm the gap , the . The gap is the $2,000 gap And it can be very bad for your self-worth and self-esteem . If you're always in the gap , if you're always up against what could be some perfect ideal , you're never going to feel good enough . You're never going to feel good about yourself .

But if you only ever are in the game and in gratitude , you're not going to have as much fire in your belly . I don't think So . The second part is the game , and so in my people performance tracking system , i do my top three gratitudes , i do my top three milestones and I do the gap in the game . And so I'll give you a perfect example .

One of my gratitudes is I'm so grateful for my 27 clients . One of my milestones is 30 clients by the end of the quarter . The gap in the game , the gap is three more clients . The gain is I've got 27 clients . Holy crap , you can do . Gain first , gap first , and this is what I recommend .

If you're someone who struggles with self belief and self esteem and self confidence , do not look at the gap more than the game . You need to look more at how far you've come this year , not how far behind you are . So with Kev , he's more motivated by looking at how far we've come . Look at how far we've come .

Holy crap , three years ago this was like a dream . He's very motivated by that . For me , i need to look at the gap first . How far behind are we ? But if I overly look at the gap , i'm going to have low self worth and feel like crap about myself eventually .

So I think people who struggle with self belief need to look more at the game and then look at the gap , and I think people who have high self belief and high self worth need to look at the gap first and then the gain second . I'm going to go one layer deeper .

I have a team member at NLU who believes that I talk a little bit too negative about myself , and there's definitely truth to that .

But what I tried to explain to her was this I said listen , a lot of people in their unconscious and their subconscious , the record that's playing is you're not good enough , you're never going to make it , this isn't going to work . You're full of it . This isn't going to happen . You're not good enough , you're not competent enough , you're not smart enough .

And I explained to vulnerability . I said my record isn't saying any of that . My unconscious record is saying you've got this , you can do it , you are capable , you are enough . You've got this , you can do this . Of course you can do this . It's literally like that . It's like of course you can do this . Why can't you do this ?

Of course you can , and I said so for me . I have to consciously balance that out . I have to consciously say you know what Alan , this might not work . You know what Alan , you better work a little harder here . This isn't just going to work out . You know what , alan , if you're not careful , you're going to let your standards drop .

You know what Alan , you're not nearly as far along as you could be if you weren't Jeffing . So she thinks I talk negatively about myself when in reality I'm actually trying to hit five , whereas most people I do realize they have negative self-talk running . Negative self-talk is not a super big issue for me .

So if it seems like I talk negative about myself , it's to . It's to actually find five . And so if you're out there listening , are you on track or off track ? If you struggle with negative self-talk , be very careful when you overly focus on how off track you are .

If you Don't struggle with self-belief or self-confidence , you better look real quick at how off track you are , otherwise you will . You will not have the pain necessary to get on track .

But what are the patterns that have been happening for you this year life , love , health , wealth , all of them when , maybe , hypothetically , i Do really good at saving money and then something happens and then I go spend a bunch of money , like , has that been your pattern ?

I save money for two months , really well , and then I do some reckless stuff Okay , interesting . I Watch what I eat very , very carefully Five days a week and then on the weekend I go off and I lose all my progress . Okay , interesting . Whatever , whatever it may be , i am really consistent in one thing and then something comes up and I struggle .

Or I've picked up a lot of new habits , but now I'm only doing 10% of each of those habits . I Really I look at it from that perspective , just because you have a concrete date to look back on I notice that I'll go through spurts of feeling really , really , really good about business and then things slow down a little bit , just because that's how it works .

But now I'm trying to disassociate . The way I feel today is Shouldn't be directly correlated to the amount of results we have right now , because a lot of it's the long game versus the short game . So I'm recognizing patterns of myself . I Assume if you're out there you have patterns That you're creating or running .

It would probably benefit us all to understand them at a deeper level .

There was this one time we were reviewing our business and and we have metrics for each department . I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole , but You know X amount of calls , x amount of podcasts that Kevin goes on , x amount of calls that he has , x amount of clients we ultimately Produce their shows and it's a growth rate .

I'm way more focused on the podcasts and the calls . I . I don't care almost at all about the third one , kevin . We had a really big . So we're doing the metrics , we're updating it and I'm like okay , how many podcasts ? I think you said like seven . I how many calls ? three .

And then you're like , you're like no , no , don't be disappointed , though , Wait until you see the money . I'm like Kev , i do not care that . That's past calls . So the fact that we have low calls right now is is Indicating that future is gonna be worse than the now and again . This is something to bring this and make this land for everybody .

Are you more focused on Present Things coming in , like harvesting the fruit , or are you more focused on planting more seeds ? For me , i give myself The self-esteem or the positive Emotions when we're planting . If we're planting well , we're gonna harvest well .

I'm not worried about harvesting plant well , but I think that it needs to be balanced very well , because It's almost like you have to look at okay , are you on or off track ready ?

What seeds were you planting at the beginning of the year that have , that have bared fruit , and then feel that , okay , but what seeds , most importantly , are you planting now , so that at the end of the year , you feel the same ?

Yeah , so maybe you feel bad right now because you weren't planting many seeds in the beginning of the year , but you're actually planting a lot of seeds now for the future . Great , maybe you planted tons of seeds and now you're harvesting and you might stop planting because you think you're winning , and That's

the thing It's like . The the biggest detriment to future winnings are current winnings , because we talk about how we had a big month in 2022 February and you and I were like watching . I was watching house At like 11 am On a Tuesday and then , go figure , we had some tough months after that . Of course , right , you step off the gas when you're winning .

That's not always good , but if all you're ever doing is redlining , it's dangerous too .

So last the previous Sunday , if you're listening to this , and Alan and I were talking while we were having pizza I didn't have any pizza , you had pizza , but we were sitting at the table getting ready to eat And I said it's interesting how there's only like a few things that matter . You just you kind of gotta figure out the system .

What works , what's the most important thing ? Okay , then you run that , then you try to improve it as you go , and I think right now is an interesting time in the year where you might have been trying something for the last two months that doesn't seem like it's paying off , but you never know , it couldn't be the right thing .

It might , just it might not be a long enough period of time . I had a client . I told Alan this the other day . I had a client who , well , a potential client . I talked to this person at the beginning of the year . I went on their show , i did a free call with them and they said , hey , i might like to work with you in the future .

I sent them our pricing and I said , yeah , no worries , and I've been touching base with this person online , but nothing crazy . And they messaged me and said hey , i'm following up on this , i'd like to explore it . It's like , oh interesting , that was six months ago , it was the beginning of the year , and that's something that might come to fruition .

It might give us fruit in the next couple of weeks . I don't know , maybe , maybe not , but if you're listening to this episode , there's probably a bunch of stuff that you've got to keep doing . There's probably a bunch of stuff that just hasn't . It hasn't turned yet . It's not the right season .

It's there , it's brewing under the surface , it's growing , the roots are spurting . It just hasn't come up from under the dirt yet .

On the other side of that coin , there's probably some stuff where you said , oh , i'll give it a little bit more time , i'll give this relationship a little bit more time , i'll give this job a little bit more time , whatever it is , and maybe it's time to start something else . This is the interesting thing . I can't tell you which is which .

That's the challenging thing . I cannot tell you which is which . Intuitively , i think we kind of know , though .

Maybe the relationship has run its course , the jobs run its course , the friendship has run its course , whatever The side , the thing that you were trying but you're not really that into , but maybe that thing where you're like I really think this will pay off if I can just stay consistent . All right , let's revisit that .

What can we do to reignite that passion that you had at the beginning of the year ? Because now we are in , we're in between . Right now , the beginning of the year is everybody's fired up . When we get towards the end of the year it's easy to get motivated because you can see the light at the end of the tunnel .

Right now we're in the middle and it kind of sucks And it's summertime and maybe you don't feel like you're making the progress you want . So I like to do episodes around certain times of the year . You'll get a goal setting one probably every year at the beginning of the year . That'll probably happen Around the holidays .

We do a lot of stuff around family , setting boundaries , because that can be hard . Around the holidays . You're getting pulled in many different directions , so we usually do that . The summer is where a lot of people lose all the momentum they created Because the weather's nice .

You wanna be outside , i completely understand , but you gotta make sure you do what got you here . My favorite quote when you stop doing what got you to the dance , you don't get to dance anymore . I just don't want that for you . If you're listening Now , only you know what you've been doing , only you know the level of effort you've been putting in .

Only you know the effort or the level of results you're getting out currently . But I just think , anytime we can revisit , we can review and re-strategize , re-prioritize . It's a good thing to do at any time of the year , but why not halfway point ?

Interesting analogy I was thinking of is like a lot of couples are trying to get pregnant and you won't really know for at least a month , and if you don't wait long enough , you won't know , and it takes nine months to actually have a baby . So maybe that's a good analogy Babies , but a lot of talk of children and babies .

You know , there's a lot of things that have worked out because we were patient , because of me , and there's a lot of things that have not worked out that we should have canned way earlier , and sometimes you won't know until just way later . But of course , all of us are on one end of that spectrum .

You're either overly optimistic and you stay too long , or you're overly pessimistic and you don't give it enough time . That workout regimen might work and you just might can it too quick And for me , i'll run the same thing for too long , even if it's not working .

The lesson that I've learned in the six months of this year , the biggest lesson for me , it's everyone has it's what we talked about earlier , kev Everyone has such a powerful strength

. There's something you are unreasonably good at , but you don't really value it that much because it's always come naturally to you And that comes with a huge weakness and a huge blind spot . So I talked in the interview with you for me , science , technology , engineering and mathematics It's just very much . Always has just made perfect sense to me .

I remember I went to business school and I was like , oh , this is easy And it turns out that's not the case for everybody . I didn't know that . I just came from engineering and engineering was way harder but still also came fairly easy . So what comes really easy to you And then whatever that is the opposite you probably suck at .

At the same time , The way the calendar is set up is not really set up for success , because the fact that it's a new year , the middle of the year , the beginning of the year , doesn't really matter that much , Because it's not about the year , It's about how long you're doing this , for That's what came up for me is a lot of the stuff you're doing .

You won't see momentum , true momentum , until two , three years down the road . That This year has been really really good for next level podcast solutions . It's been the best year we've ever had . But it's not because of this year , It's because , to your point .

But when we say everything accumulates , everything gets harder and everything gets easier simultaneously . We'll do an episode at some point about everything accumulates and it won't be titled that , but that is so important to know . Everything accumulates , like if you were really disciplined last year in fitness , you can get away with different things this year .

But they all made comments when I got my plate . I like eat a lot of food , i love food , i'm obsessed , i'm a big fan , big fan of food . I don't know if obsessed is right , but big fan And I also fast , right . So there's a lot of things they don't know . And I did say that I fast .

But I walk out onto the deck and everyone's out there and it's a beautiful sunny day and they're like look at Alan's plate and they all make a thing of it . It's like look it , like how does he little ? do ? they know I've been weight training , not every day , but almost every day for eight years . I couldn't .

I can eat this much because I'm so consistent and have muscle mass and all that kind of stuff . But it's an accumulation And so you can't look at one moment . I mean we had a mentor that used to spend money like crazy .

I mean he would spend thousands of dollars on very stupid things in my opinion , honestly I'm not even trying to sugarcoat it But he also accumulated wealth for 50 years And I just don't think people understand how powerfully things accumulate .

I went down in the mailbox and there was a Lego there and I got the Lego and I brought it back And then the next day I did the same thing . It's just . I think that's a really good example .

I wouldn't say analogy , but we are blessed where we have the opportunity and the necessity to check in on this daily , and we have meetings every week and every other week and every quarter . We're doing that . So I just think it's a good practice for you . Take a second , sit down and say okay , how much money did I wanna make this year ?

How much money have I made ? How many clients , how many dates , how many new friends , how many boundaries , how many fears have I chased , whatever ? how many times have I meditated ? How many times have I exercised ? Whatever it is for you health , wealth , love , whatever it is for you Are you on track or are you off track ?

Here's the interesting thing If you're on track , keep going , because you might be able to do way more than you actually thought possible . If you're off track , what's something you can do to get back on track ? The unfortunate truth is some of us are halfway through the year and we're not gonna hit our goals , and whatever .

I'd rather you know that six months in , because at least you can do something different , you can try something else , you can pull on new levers , you can get creative . So sit down and ask yourself that question Where do I feel like I've actually made progress ? Where am I on track ? Where am I ahead of schedule ?

Where am I behind And what can I do about it ? That is my tactical takeaway for this episode .

Literally they get a report of whether or not they're on or off track every other week or every week or every month , depending on the run rate . I do weekly , i do bi-weekly and I do monthly , and it's way more affordable than you think . So reach out , say , hey , monthly is very , very affordable And you'll get a report .

Imagine having a report every month of exactly whether you're on track or off track towards your goals . We set goals , we set milestones which are quarterly , and then we do peak performance tracking and then I send you a report on whether or not you're on track or off track .

It really is a full proof plan to achieving your goals And it's awesome having certainty . One of my clients is just so pumped . She's like I've lost 20 pounds . It's like well , of course , And I'm proud of you , so good for you . And she's the one who's doing the suffering , but it really has to do with every other week .

I was just checking our numbers And that's really it's awesome . It's like okay , here's the train tracks , stay on them , and when you're off them , here's the proof , and then what do we do to get back on ? And it really is a full proof plan to stay consistent towards your goals And I love it . So I hope that you reach out .

now is maybe the hardest time to find growth-minded people , but also the easiest , because you have access to people online . Please join the group and just make friends , send messages to people . Everybody wants to connect with people that know them , that like them , that understand them , that see them .

going back to our last episode , so the power is really there , the opportunity is really there . Join our Facebook group and use it to your advantage . Tomorrow . for episode number 1,376 , one simple question to ask yourself before you make a decision . Alan has used this analogy in the past , this example , this I don't know what it really is considered Like .

what are the ? it's kind of like a riddle , but it's not a riddle . Idiom is that a thing ?