Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the podcast today, we have Andy Gwynn. Andy, welcome back.
Thank you Tom, good to be here. Different office this time.
Well, I said before the call, I thought that was a background, but that’s actually you in Sunny Spain, right?
It is. And I was last time, but I was downstairs in Mary’s office, which we’re now calling our office and she wanted it back for some webinars she’s doing. So I’m actually on my roof terrace and we’ve just been playing around because it’s overcast and the last week was clear blue sky. So I’m just getting the trials and tribulations of living and working in Spain, but we’re going to talk about goals and, I guess, dreams. So I just needed to make sure the sun wasn’t in my eyes. So you got the chimney, but this is yeah, this is the wall. And I’m looking down the valley over there to the sea, so it’s not a virtual background, it’s the real background. Yeah, I’m not envious about that at all being in the UK. Sure you won’t be. But yeah, we were going to talk about the concept of achieving goals versus setting goals.
And I spoke to you before about the fact that there’s a lot of information about the best way to set goals and a lot of generalised principles on that, but maybe not so much about the actual achievement of them. And I thought if anyone will know about this stuff that would be Andy Gwyn So what are your thoughts on generalised principles around the achievement of goals. Thank you Tom. Well, I’ve certainly got an opinion on him. So it’s an interesting subject, isn’t it? Because there are lots talked about But yeah, shoot, we’ll explore it because yeah, I’ve got I’ve got a bunch of opinions that are things that I think maybe just distinctions that people are missing out on. Well, everyone’s got their own goals, right? So my goal is going to be completely different to your own. But one of the things like I said to you before, one of the principles that it made me think of is your influential in the property space.
And one of the things which is recommended is like if you’re trying to achieve something as to who do you know who principle. So, if you’re trying to get something done and you don’t know how then who do you know, who will be able to help you with that? I just thought there might be some other things that you will know that well, our audience won’t know, or something you might be able to share in addition to that. Sure, I’m not sure about my internet connection, there’s a goal is to get to get better power over here. I think it’s a great question. I think I think if we chunk it right up, I would say ask yourself better questions. So just when often when talking to people about setting goals, come onto the who, who you know who because I think when you say people know about setting goals, I think we’ve all heard of it or a lot of people have heard of it, but how good are they doing it? So there’s a couple of things. First one I think we’ve heard of smart goals, but I actually call them smutty. I don’t go with the achievable and realistic because I think there’s a temptation there for people to undersell themselves.
There’s a great friend of mine who did a lot of research and interviewing top achievers around the world and they all said they set the proverbial big hairy Watson goals and then worked out how do we go get them? And when mentioned achievable and realistic, someone quoted to my friends. So are you telling us we’re setting our kids up to be mediocre. And that really hits home for me the first time I heard of it because can I climb mount Everest. Yes. Is it achievable? Yes. But if I want to do it Tomorrow. No, it will kill me. I’m unfit. But that’s a time thing. So I think I think specific measurable and time and I think the key thing is the specificity. Well, they’re all important. But so often I will get property investors send me their goals and I can always get more and more specific and I think the more specific we are your rDS, your particular activating system, which is the focus in your mind if you like. It’s a physical piece of the brain that when you focus on something, it notices things associated with it. So this can be the, who do I know that might be able to supply me with a PA? Or who do I know that might be able to help me achieve this goal? And you will notice more about it. And years ago we did decide to employ a PA. And the day we made the decision, I went down the pub and a mate said, you know anyone who wants a PA? And I said, well you’re kidding me. Have you been bugging my office? He said no, my wife’s just been made redundant and needs a job. Well, if they’d have asked me a month ago, I’d have said no. So to be constantly verbalising and focusing on your goals is a way for things to be achieved I think. But yeah, the other one as well as I often ask people, well, you’ve set a goal, Do you believe you can achieve it? And they go and I’m not sure. So then I will say, who do you know, who might have already achieved that? So you’re talking about property investors, if someone wants a million quid portfolio, who do you know there’s got a million quid portfolio. Well them over there. So therefore it must be possible. So you can often shift that doubt all that belief around two. Yeah, for me personally, I’ve only got to find one person or know of one person that can do it and it’s so easy to find out there now with what we can find on the internet.
So who do I know that’s achieved it, then that’s powerful for a few things, isn’t it? One is, yes, now I’m confident that it’s possible. I might have shifted my belief secondly. Can I go hook up with them? Another great phrase. It A mentor coach of mine taught me years ago was you will achieve plus or -10% of your environment. So we talked about how do we get the goals? Well if you want the million pound portfolio, who do you know? There’s got a million pound portfolio that you can go pick their brains, you can go network with them. Well, when I was employed in a sales manager on about 40 grand a year with an Audi a four or five weeks holiday in a certain pension, The two friends I meet up on a Friday after work for a beer, guess how much they were earning plus or -10% of about the same with the same sort of car, same amount of holiday. So when I set my own business up and I wanted to build a business to become financially free, I would network with people who had already achieved that, do pick their brains, but also I guess learned from osmosis or by osmosis.
So yeah, it’s a great question. Who do you know who? So I mean the couple of things that I took from there was when you’re and when you’re trying to achieve it be as clear as possible, like the clearer you make it, the more likely is that it will be achieved and then find someone who has already done it. And I mean, how would you go about doing that? Let’s say Like you say, you use your one million pound property portfolio and you find someone who’s got that already achieved that goal. How would you approach them? Would you approach them? That a great question, you ask. You know, I I think I think it depends how you ask, but I do believe successful people are happy to share and want to give back. I did years ago I have a girl who said will you mentor me for free and well I meant to her and I turned it down because I was that busy. I was doing some volunteer mentoring work and I couldn’t commit the time I had to make, I had to make a rule in my life with how much I give and how much I’m working on my own business and with my own friends and family.
So it’s okay to say no, but it wasn’t that I didn’t want to share. It wasn’t that there was a difference between scarcity and abundance. Um, and I think most successful people, whether their property investors, entrepreneurs or professionals, not the property investors and entrepreneurs are not professional, but you know what I mean? Um, they’ll be happy to share. So I might not ask someone to mentor me every day, but I might say, hey, can I have kind of take you for lunch when it’s allowed or can I have half, you know, can I have half an hour of your time? I had a 16 year old guy asked me if he could have an hour’s call with me to pick my brains and to learn from me and I said, yes, this was a couple of weeks ago, property investor I met at a pin meeting and at the end of it, he said, and what can I do for you? And that’s just awesome. Was I happy then to have given my time to him and if he has said that at the beginning, would you be more likely to? So it’s how you position it would go ask them to be mindful of their time and what you’re asking them for. But also there’s so many different ways. Property is a great way now because you can say, well, I’ll be an apprentice, I’ll be a go for, what do you want me to do?
How can, if I can pick your brains and learn from you over a call or a few days or a few weeks or a few months, what can I do for you? You know, this guy said, what can I do for you? I said actually source me a property in this area because we’re looking for, we’re looking for something. So go ask them if you don’t ask, you don’t get to you, what’s the worst they can say? What’s the worst thing to say? No, I guess. Well yeah, you made a point there, which I think is important and that is even if you do say no as a mentor, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t want to, it just might be that you’re busy. So I think if you were on the other end of that being the person who’s asking for it, you kind of think they wouldn’t want to speak to me and that sort of thing, but that’s not necessarily true. And the other thing, the other point that you mentioned was, if you ask like for someone to mentor you the mentor to be, may not actually know what that means. You know, am I I’m open opening myself up to like years of time and effort. Whereas if you ask for like you say like an hour’s cool or half an hour just to pick your brains.
That’s a very different proposition, isn’t it definitely, definitely have you got any thoughts on micro goals? So if someone had this, as you say, big hairy macro goal, how much further would you break that down? I think it’s important to break it right down to the day Mary and I have a saying that says a week at the time of day at a time, a step at a time, a week at a time. I think the challenge with big macro goals and I certainly struggled with this. In my early years of focusing on goals was there’s a big disconnect. So for me, I wanted to live abroad. I didn’t particularly want to work and want to be financially free. I wanted to live abroad and it was a huge goal because it was, well, how do I do it? How do I get clients and run my business abroad? How do I afford it? And then two things. One is definitely break it down in two. And you know, Mary, for those people that’s listening, she has a membership program called 90-day planning.
So for nearly 20 years, every quarter, we’ve put business owners and property investors in a room and help them facilitate their plan. Because your business plan has got to feed your personal goals. You know that Michael Gerber wrote the e myth revisited to start with the end in mind, my business is a means to an end. I love it and it’s about helping people, but it’s also got to help me. So it isn’t just a business goal if I want to make X, it’s I want to make X in order to be able to do why for myself, whatever the personal goals are and everyone’s personal goals will be different. Mary’s now, put that online, there is a free Facebook group called 90 day planning free 90 day planning free people can go join that, there’s a lot of resources around exactly what we’re talking about now. And so we would talk to business owners about what your three-year goal, what’s your big vision? What does that mean in a year? Where do you want it to be? And personally, I think people – what is the saying? People underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years and overestimate what they can achieve in a month.
But so I actually think when people say to me, well somebody said it the other day, I want X amount of properties X amount of revenue in the next five or 10 years. I come in, what he said and I went, why, why 10? Why not three or two? Because I think we can achieve more than we think, but then you’ve got to break it down, what does that mean in a year, where do I want it to be? What are the milestones we hear about? But then what does that mean in a quarter, what does that mean in a month? And for me, what I’m good at focusing on is what do I need to do this week and today to move things forward. I actually struggle with the Putting together a quarterly plan, what am I going to achieve every week for 12 weeks Verne Harnish who wrote mastering the Rockefeller habits, who is a master of scaling up big businesses quickly talks about identifying your top five priorities, whether that’s for the year, for the quarter, for the month, for the day, what’s your top five and then what’s the one of five come heck or high water that you will achieve? And I sometimes think three is, is even more manageable than five.
But for me that works. What do I need to do today that’s going to move me forward? And for me it’s about, it is about focusing on the micro steps. Yes, I still want to picture the bigger vision because you have to. The human mind can’t tell the difference between what you’re visualising and what is true. If you visualise, it offers enough. One of the big things that worked for me for getting this house was, we spent four years where the other thing I say to people is see what you can do to experience some of your goals. So in simple forms, if you want the car, go test drive the car, you’ve experienced it, it becomes a bit more real bit more tangible. It’s not like there’s a card over there. I can’t see how I can afford it. If you’ve driven it. test driven it it’s more real, it’s more tangible. You’re more associated with it. So we would spend 16 weeks of the year traveling, we had timeshare, we would travel, I would work from abroad, I’d come back after and more than just a fortnight’s holiday for me, I’d go out there maybe for three weeks, four weeks and I come back and go, I can work from abroad.
So what’s the difference between that and the step of actually buying somewhere making it more permanent or more regular? Suddenly the connect was closer, it wasn’t as much of a disconnect. So what can you do to achieve your goals? Think about what can you do to experience some of it. Alright, if you say one million quid, how to experience that? Well, maybe I’ve got to go by the first house or do the first thing, but, and I don’t mean go and spend out of your means. Remember years ago, a colleague of mine had been told to do something similar and he went and bought a share in a racehorse and nearly went bust. That’s, that’s not what’s meant by go experience it if you can’t afford it, but what could you do? You know? So yeah, definitely for me it’s about micro goals, but keeping associated keeping the vision of the bigger goals and you’ve definitely got to celebrate the steps and again, I’m human beings are wired to move towards a vision or away from pain and a different level of on that continuum. And I know I am wired to move away from pain.
So if I’m losing a sale or going bust, I’ll take massive action and I’ll change things and I would do that more naturally than be focused on the vision. But the challenge for some people for that is I’ve only got to move an inch. So I make one small sale, it’s no longer painful. So I stay where I am and I’ve had to learn to really, really, really focused on the vision, right? It picture it storyboard it meditate on it, sit and visualise it and think about it. Like I say go and experience it regularly or experience some of it because I had to build that vision to move towards. It’s like a magnet and at the same time I can build up dissatisfaction to move away from it. But like I say, if I just focus on that, then then they may end up stopping. So for me it’s about all the whole mix I guess. I don’t cook much, but I guess it’s like cooking, you don’t just put your most favourite ingredient there, you don’t just have the meat, you have everything else with it I guess. And it’s all of these pieces that add to the momentum, I guess.
Well you mentioned making it more real for yourself that one of the examples that I’ve heard regarding property anyway is going view properties that you might not be able to afford yet because it kind of makes it more real. You know, I’m interested in this particular property even though you can’t afford it. Yeah. on the topic of visualisation, let’s say someone’s never actually put that much time and effort into visualising other than literally holding it in your mind. What would you say? Have you got any other tips on the, on the topic of visualisation? Yeah, I think I think do it. I think trust the process because for me, human psychology with anything is it’s easy not to. And I think if we boiled all this down, someone said to me, what do you attribute to success or watch your number one tip? I say be totally or brutally honest with yourself because we ignore things. We delude ourselves, collude with ourselves. It’s easy not to go to the gym and then to go to the gym.
So Jim Rohn quoted, there’s two pains in life. The pain of discipline or the pain of disappointment. You talk to a professional athlete about their discipline. there’s no question that they don’t do things and they do it consistently. So I think just do it. We hear so much. We, we hear the story of Jim Carey visualising, was it the first 20 million pound checkers? A film used to go sit on the Hollywood hill and picture every day for years, Oprah Winfrey did something the same, I think about winning an Oscar. And when you try it, things come and happen and it would be easy for the cynic to go. It’s coincidence, but I don’t actually believe in coincidence, but I also reached the point of, well, if it’s coincidental or not, does it matter if I’m getting the results? It seems to be that I’m achieving more of the things, specifically when I’m visualising meditating more. There’s a great book but called The Miracle Morning and I’ve forgotten the guy’s name.
You may well know it Mary my partner just espouses it. She’s been practicing the Miracle Morning for years. And part of that is visualisation, but part of it is about writing and goal setting. The distinction I got from that. How L Rod H L. And I think it’s L Rod, L R O D or L Ron. All right. I think can’t not find it distinction. I got with him when I first read that I was looking at me wanting to set the goal for emigrating, moving abroad. And one of the things he said was picture how you want your life to be day by day. And the distinction for me was, wow, what I’ve realised. I don’t want is just to move to Spain and just have the same life. But I’m in the sunshine, which is why as a kid when I was in my, when I was in my early twenties, I knew I didn’t want to move abroad just to get another job. So I was I was working in a warehouse back then, I didn’t want to be working in a warehouse in Spain, that wasn’t, that wasn’t the dream, the dream was financial, freedom and freedom and travel as well.
And at that point then I started to picture what do I want my day and weeks to look like when I’m achieved my goal of being in Spain. There’s a big distinction in other words, more detail around the goal, wasn’t it? We talk about getting specific, the more detail, it’s not, I just want to move to Spain, it’s what will I be doing on a daily basis, how many hours will I be working? Where will I be going and picturing it? And the more I’ve done it, the more things have shown up, is it coincidence or not? I don’t care. Let’s have some fun, let’s play with it, it seems to work. So trust the process. I remember years ago studying with Keith Cunningham Who was robbed, Kawasaki’s sort of rich dad, this guy is a big Texan made 100 million on Wall Street, lost 100 million, I did a four-day boot camp with him and he said he had a thinking chair and I’m going back wearing what are we in 2021, I’m probably going back to 2009, so maybe 12 years ago or so. And he said, I have a thinking chair that I sit in for an hour a day, no pen and paper, no writing goals, No, nothing just thinking and I went, you are kidding me.
There’s no way on earth am I going to take an hour out of my day just to do that. I might take an hour out to write and goals set and no way, guess what I find myself doing there. I got things get busy and I go, I’m just gonna go and sit up here on the terrace, close my eyes, look at the com, turn the radio off. No man made noise. Although you might be out of here. The band saw with the builders down there, but I’m just gonna think because when I think I get clarity and at the end of it I go, yes, okay. I’ve got some things I’m going to do. And I found myself in the last few years just taking some time out to think, meditate, breathe. What do you want to call it. I used to go to the gym and the swimming pool and there was a sauna and I used to love sitting in the sauna on my own would be quiet and I could empty my mind and that’s when good things come in, we know what to do. We might know that we need to learn a skill, but we know what we need to do and we just get busy and overwhelmed. You asked me right, the bit of getting this call, how’s things, I mean it’s busy.
It’s always busy in business and marketing and sales and goals because it’s always busy and so we know what to do. We’re just getting overwhelming. I think it’s even worse nowadays because there is so much more with social media, so many platforms, so many things, you know, property investors. When I meet property investors for the first time, so many of them are in overwhelm. And so there’s a long answer. I think the answer is, do it, just do it, go play with it, go, go trust the process and test the process. What have you got to lose is your life and business and goals going to slip away if you don’t take an hour a day or a half an hour a day or whatever it is. No, no way. Um, it goes, yeah. Go test the process. Um, and definitely have a look at the miracle morning, um, and get clear and be honest, be brutally honest with yourself. Well, so far and correct me if I’m missing something. We’ve got clarity.
You got a mentor in the, do you know who we’ve got making your goals from macro to micro. So breaking them down even to the day if that’s necessary. We’ve got visualising and also making it as real as possible. So with the example being, you know, if you want to have a particular car, then you go test drive it. Um, it makes me think when you’ve got those micro goals, I think at that point when it’s, so when it looks, when you’ve got such a detailed plan like that, it becomes a lot like how do you keep yourself on track with the detailed plan? So have you got any thoughts around making sure that you’re on track? Um, I suppose measuring your own performance might be one way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah, it’s an interesting question Tom because you and I know each other and we have different styles of working. I think I said, I talked about Verne Harnish is mastering the Rockefeller habits. What’s the top five priorities and what’s the one out of five come hell or high water I’m going to do whether that’s today, this day, this week, this month is quarter this year I think.
Keep it simple. What I’m a passionate about is the 80 20 rule parade toes law that says, and it’s a great it, I learned it, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve learned it at the Open University during a management course management philosophy that says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts and that’s applicable across everything really for most businesses, 80% of their sales come from 20% of their customers, so Mary my partner 80% of her clothes, she wears 20% of the time, 20% of the clothes she wears 80% of the time, 20%, of the time you spend with 20% of your friends. So my focus each day is, and I do believe is less is more. What’s the 20% of stuff that’s going to give me the 80% of results? Because if we’re not careful, a daily plan is like a to do list, isn’t it really? People might look at it differently to that, but I sort of I’ve got the plan which might be the bigger picture, but by the time I bring it down to the week or the day, it’s more of a to do list in my mind.
And if I’m not careful, I can have a massive to do list, a massive plan. So it’s about keeping it simple, I think. And what’s the 20% that’s going to give you the 80% of the results and yeah, check in his I stand up and speak about things. And I say some people how many of you wake up in the middle of the night with a pen and paper by the side of your bed going are heck, I forgot to do this. And that’s because the unconscious mind is very powerful and it doesn’t sleep. And so when you’re quiet, your conscious mind is sleeping. The unconscious mind’s going or you forgot to do this, you wake up and make a note of it. So when I started getting to the end of every day going, what have I done today against my list? What do I need to do Tomorrow? And I make a list of what I’m going to do first thing. Um, I wasn’t waking up so much the same thing at the end. So at the end of every day, I take five minutes and review and it’s actually empowering to recognise what you have done, sort of pat yourself on the back because people that are driven tend to beat themselves up rather than build themselves up.
I’m great at doing that. And then at the end of the week I’ll take a little bit longer on the Friday before I shut the office and go through my list. I’ve, I’ve done everything, what haven’t I done? No point beating myself up. So what am I going to do Monday morning and what am I going to plan for the next week? Because that sort of clears my mind why on earth do I want to be angst ng over it, outside of work and in the middle of the night waking up. So I think getting clear on that. So a review the end of each day. So actually measurement that you talked about, I think at the end of each week, it’s no different than the end of each month having a management meeting and at the end of every quarter, having a quarterly planning day. And yeah, you’ve got to be out of measure. Um, I mean that’s the key business principle, isn’t it? You gotta be able to measure your activities. I’ve been in business is when I was employed where we were reaching points of measuring things from measuring Sake. So again, the 80 20 rule, what’s the 20 measurements, key performance indicators. That’s going to give me the 80% of the information is another great phrase. And I’ve got coaching clients that just recite this now.
Your numbers dictate your activity. Because what’s my goal in business? I want to make more sales. Well, I want more members to my post party club, we were talking about that. So what numbers do we need to look at? The number of members that will dictate my activity, won’t it? If they’re ahead of where I want them, I might sit back a bit if they’re not ahead, I’m going to do some more marketing or some more sales. So what marketing am I doing? Well, I’m running a webinar a month and I’m running, I’m speaking on to other people’s webinars a month. So there’s my numbers, I’m doing three speaking gigs a month. Is that enough? Well, if I’m getting the sales I want. Yes, if I’m not getting the sales, I want, no, I’ve got to, I’ve got to change it. My numbers dictate my activity and it can be simple but my big warning is not just to measure the key. I think the word in KPI is key performance indicators and sure that gets more. I’m the sort of, what I say the opposite you said. Yes you need numbers. Your opening gambit to me today was how’s things and actually we’re doing well. But for me there’s always more and always more and I’ve had to temper that.
So I come back to the principle of being open and honest with yourself, learn to understand your style and ask where does it serve? Because me constantly not being satisfied doesn’t serve all the time does it? It will serve to reach some goals. But we’re doing our business is the best it’s been for over a decade because of what we’ve created with some new product and service. That’s why I’m taking more time out and chilling and relaxing and having a better time. Now you could argue, did I need to get their first? Actually what would have happened If I have focused on the 20% done more visualisation, done more thinking. Would those results have come quicker? I think they would have I just see it as one thing feeding the other. So yes of course measure it. I can’t get over obsessed with it. Is it going in the right direction? What else do I need to do? What do I need to do today? What do I need to do this week? Are my goals clear enough?
And also the business goals with personal goals because so many people are just focused on the business goals and I know we need to make money to survive and live and I personally had an issue a challenge with the fear of going bust over years. So it’s about understanding ourselves again. What do you think about the concept of the accountability partner? That’s an interesting one. I think I go back to the point of understanding yourself. I’ve struck humans, excuse me, human struggle with accountability because if I’m holding myself accountable to you, then I’ve got to do it. And I go back to what I said earlier about for us in our mind it is easier not to do something than to do it. So if I say right, I want to make 10 sales calls a day, it’s easy not to, I’ve only done eight, oh that’s okay, I’m gonna have a cup of tea. You know what, it’s better than five and I’ll give myself let myself off. Whereas if I say I want you to hold me accountable to it and you’re gonna give me a hard time or you’re gonna post it out in the public domain or do whatever to help me become to take more action Then it’s easy not to be able to cancel my background is you know, there’s a business coach, big part of that was holding people accountable.
Remember years ago lady saying I’ve done more in my business in 39 90 days than I’ve done in two years. And I said, how come she said, because I told you I was going to do something and there was nowhere on earth I was coming back to a court to have you ridicule me smoke whatever I should. So her pride or ego or whatever was if I’ve said, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it. It’s whatever works. I’ve had others where I put my prices up to them because when they’ve paid that they made, I’m sure they do it. So it’s back to understanding yourself personally, I have a very high internal mechanism for holding myself accountable. I am my own worst, harshest Coast coach critic, accountability buddy. That’s not to say the context where I’ve had accountability buddies or coaches because again, if I commit to somebody, I tend to do it even more so yeah, I was almost making excuses as to why I might not have somebody right now, but I live and work with Mary, but we’re not as accountable to each other as we could be.
There’s a big thing. Because people might say, well I’ve got my business partner or with spouses and business partners. It’s not as easy. Mary and I have been living and working together for 18 years. You definitely collude at some level. So yeah, I think again, ask yourself, where do you need the accountability? Because when I’ve been, yeah, when I’ve been in the environment, if I say I’m going to do something to somebody for somebody or I’m going to do something, tend to do it and it’s it doesn’t matter the reason why does it? I’m not bothered. I have a big mantra that says what other people think of me is none of my business. Too many people are hung up what other people think. So they won’t pick up the phone or they won’t get on stage or they won’t do whatever they do. I think if it works, whatever it takes is another mantra Mary and I have, so yeah, I find the best way and I think I used to sell business coaching and I used to get them far more people, not by them would buy, otherwise I’d have been retired by now, wouldn’t I? And I think they just thought either it’s too good to be true or they or they don’t need it or I think they’re not honest with themselves going well actually if I take you on in whatever format paid or unpaid then I’m going to have to do it.
I remember saying to a coaching client, once they were telling me what they wanted to achieve, let’s say it was under grands worth of sales and how clear the goals and I said, have you shared, why don’t you share these goals with your wife and your kids? And they said, but then I’d have to do it, wouldn’t I? And I went, isn’t that isn’t that the whole reason? Can you imagine if you said to your kids, I’m gonna buy six houses in the next year and it’s going to make me six grand a month and then I’m gonna be able to take you on a holiday to blah blah. Can you imagine every day the kids going hey down and have you got on sourcing properties? How many of you seen, how’s your negotiation skills, What do you mean? You’ve only got one, how many more viewings you need to do to get the six? Can you imagine the accountability and this guy would tell me on the phone was, well then I’d have to do it, wouldn’t I? And I just went, why you pay me? How serious are you? You know, if you’re serious enough, you’ll get it done. And that’s the other thing it’s about and that comes back to the visualisation, the experiencing it, building it up, I picture what, how, how crappy I feel. If I don’t get it a picture how good I feel when I do get it, I go test, drive it, I go do whatever and associate it, I focus on the goals there, on the wall there written down, it’s there all the time in your focus, you get driven to it.
So if you’re seriously enough, you’ll do it right here. yeah, I certainly think there are some people who have goals who are not serious and if you are serious and you make that commitment, then it’s more of a public commitment, isn’t it? But you touched upon something, which, and I do think that there is a difference between a mentor and a business coach. So another thing might be that you, you get a business coach to help you go through that process, But one thing that we’ve spoken about previously, which maybe you might be able to shed some more light on his affirmations, do you think they have a place in achieving particular goals? Absolutely, and unequivocally, because our, our unconscious mind, we believe what we tell ourselves, if we and what people tell us if we are told it often enough with enough energy. and I think it’s passionate, I think our unconscious mind is infinitely more powerful than we perhaps understand.
Why can people walk up coals barefoot? Why can mothers lift cars off kids? Why can I was watching David Blaine on YouTube yesterday. Get a radio host, stick an ice pick through his bicep. You know, my friend Sanjay has done it with a needle through his hand. How come, what about the Shaolin monks and all that? Absolutely. If we tell ourselves something often enough with enough energy, then we will believe it and I think if you tie that in with visualisation, I was a business coach with action coach, brad sugars, incredible coach, mentor teacher, trainer, entrepreneur worth 100 million, go looking stuff up, but we call them Ivy VMS idealist is the first thing I for idealists, so we’re talking about writing goals, getting the idea what you want, how much smart goals, get the ideal, visualise ivy, visualise, visualise it every day, like we just talked about verbalise it, IVV. That’s the affirmations, because you’re right about mentoring and coaching, I used to say I can teach you the skills, but if in here I can, I can teach you the phone how to write a phone script to pick up a phone and make sales, but if in here your belief is I’m no good at sales and no one’s going to buy off me because I don’t have any credibility, you’re not even going to pick the phone up, so you’re not even going to, you’re not even going to deliver on the skill because it’s the belief system and that’s what we’re telling ourselves, oh I’m not what I just said, I’m not very good at sales, I’m not very confident that’s a belief and I struggle with parents and teachers in certain contexts because they, we have a lot of stuff into kids and a lot of our limiting beliefs, we really got a limiting belief for an empowering belief and a lot of them have come from when we’ve been told and when we’re most impressionable is in early years and guess what?
We live what we listen to most parents and teachers. So what they’ve told you stuff, I had a school teacher, made me stand on a chair and said you will be no good, you will not pass any exams When I was 16. Now to some people that could have been their affirmation. Fortunately for me, I was wired to go and I went and studied and passed not much, but I passed, I passed what he was telling me, I wouldn’t pass. So affirmation is something you affirm. So be very, very, very aware of what you’re saying to yourself. Here’s the thing to write down for people that are listening and again, brad sugars taught me this what’s most important our lives is what we say about ourselves to ourselves when we’re by ourselves because that’s your affirmation and your affirmations need to be positive, empowering affirmations. Not negative affirmations. Yeah, write them down and start a lot of them with the words I am because what you suffix after that becomes part of your identity, I think I am is two of the most powerful words in the English language, I am not very confident, I am learning more and more about property investing.
I am learning enough to become financially free. I am a great husband lover stone. So the affirmations need to start with. I am. Would you say it’s another way of your conscious mind? Almost speaking to your unconscious mind. That’s nicely put. Alright, so, so far, just to recap because I think this is I think if we’re doing all these things, I think the chances of not achieving that could become pretty slim. So we’ve got – and remind me if I miss one – got clarity, we’ve got a mentor, we’ve got a business coach, we’ve got micro goals keeping on track with micro goals. We’ve got affirmations and visualisation and maybe even a thinking chair, would you say that that’s everything we need? Yeah, if people listen to you need to really listen to this. we’ve said affirmations and one of the things I said was being totally or brutally honest with yourself, that’s affirmation, isn’t it?
To a, to a degree. yeah, be honest with yourself, understand what works for you. I’m gonna say be honest, just avoid colluding. So yeah, clarity is power. That’s a great phrase. So more clear. I am on the goals, but also keep it simple. I think human beings are complex and we’re all, I think we’re wired to complicate things. So the 80 20 rule, what’s the 20% that’s going to give you 80% of the results. Some of us are wired to be perfectionists. And that’s the challenge for those people because I’m not a perfectionist. I mean, another affirmation is, um, no, I talked about IV VMS idealisation. I believe in the ideal who is my ideal client. What’s my ideal revenue? Not perfect, because I don’t believe in perfect, because you can always get better, and if I’m, if I’m a perfectionist, then I’m striving for something I’m never going to achieve. So use the word ideal, What’s my ideal lifestyle? I know that you’re and we spoke about this previously, so it’s been a while, but I know that you’ve got some NLP experience.
Is there any part of NLP which would add to this conversation? Pretty much all of it. I think I studied with Tony Robbins when I first set my business up and he’s the master of that, he’s relabelled some of it, but I’ve also studied with three or four great friends who are NLP trainers and I think, I think maybe it’s a bit like a musician that people have different styles within the same, they’re probably just playing the same notes, but one might be doing it in blues, one might be doing in jazz. I don’t know a lot of what we’ve talked about is the basis of NLP. I hear a lot of conflicting thoughts and views. I remember years ago going into a corporate and it doesn’t matter who they were with a friend of mine, we’re talking about doing some training work. And in the interview in the meeting they said, oh, by the way, if you mentioned NLP, you’ll be out of here. They’ll just, they’ll just close down the whole idea of contracting you to do any work because they got and that was at a big corporate level. My definition of it is, it’s the science of behaviour and communication.
So it’s what we’ve just talked about, you know, why do some people move more towards the goal? Some away from dissatisfaction. That’s an NLP philosophy. Um, and NLP has come from lots of different angles. It just Yeah, look at it is the science, there was a lot of study done by Bandler and Grinder who developed in the 70s. I think it’s the science of communication, how we communicate consciously and unconsciously and how we behave. So if you want to. So I think it served means in business, in sales, but it served me in any relationship coaching relationships to help people get change, but also domestic personal relationships and just to be happier, isn’t that fundamentally what we want. So yeah, a lot of what we’ve talked about visual when I said, you know that the human mind can’t tell the difference between what it visualises and what is real if it’s done with enough energy and enough repetition. The unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between truth and fiction.
And again, that’s born out, I first heard that when I was studying. NLP, yeah, I think there’s just a lot of confusion over the, over the terminology. You know, it’s great. It’s great for two things. One is communicating whether you want to make a sale, whether you just want to get on with the person you’re with, but also therapy also to help therapies word people. We’ll have all sorts of connotations about helping people that affect personal change. Well, I think what we’re looking at everything that we that we’ve talked about so far, I think I think that would be enough as a, as a plan, if you like. So maybe getting it down on paper and making it concrete. But I think that another thing which may help if you, if you’ve got that plan would be some form of discipline, I don’t know whether you put it that way, but have you got any thoughts on discipline? I did say that Jim Rohn quoted. There’s two pains in life. The pain of discipline or the pain of disappointment. And the reason I mention that again is if I focus on that, then it helps me get disciplined, doesn’t it?
Because then I go, well, if I don’t do this, how am I going to be disappointed? Well, if I don’t do the exercise and eat sensibly today, Tomorrow I’m going to feel stodgy and I’m going to feel disappointed and so I play around with this, moving away from pain and towards pleasure again. So I think again understand yourself. I used to drive down the motorway to go home and at the bottom of the motorway I would either turn left to go home or right to the gym and I have this conversation about I’d rather just let’s just go left to go home to the pub. Yeah but if I go to the pub now I feel a bit naff in the morning and won’t feel it’s good but if I go right and go to the gym I feel I feel better after training the next day. I feel tight and I feel better and I love it, go to the gym and I would have this almost argument I’d be weighing up and digging up in my mind, remember the mind can’t tell the difference. I’d be playing all the good things and all the bad things and the other way for discipline is getting is getting a accountability buddy, Tony Robbins talks about six human needs and we ain’t got time for them.
Now maybe there’s another call there because that’s all around motivation to do understand yourself really and one of them is some people and have a need for companionship, have a higher need for what he calls love and connection. So I’ve coached people who struggled to go to the gym and I said well what if you go with your mate ah boy if if we both agree to go to the gym, I won’t let him down. So back to this accountability, but also I’ll enjoy it more. So now I’m more wired to go anyway because we have a laugh while we’re there. So if that works for you go I can’t do that with the gym because I want to get in and do my work. I’m quite self-disciplined. I’ve worked on my own for decades. I’m quite well motivated. I don’t want to go to the gym with someone else and stand around and talk I want to go in work get out but it’s whatever works for people you know? Yeah I think that a lot of the things you already said kind of cover discipline so the way I thought of it was like how do I make myself do something I don’t want to do.
But a lot of that stuff covered in what you already talked about. So one thing that I’m interested to know, sorry go on. No, I got you. Okay, because you just touched on something that’s made me remember when I was when I started coaching, I would say to people you’ve got to get better at what you’re not good at. And I remember I had a coach who was I think it was a national weightlifting champion in the US. And he tells a story that said when he took on a coach his coach said what’s the weakest part of your life? You want to win the championship? He said, my legs are hate legs, I avoid training them, it’s my weakest part of my lift. And his coach said, learn to love what you hate. And he made me train legs, train legs, work legs, work legs, and in the end they became the strongest part of my lift and I won the championship. Now, if someone tells me something, it makes sense, like, oh yeah, I can run with that. So I would coach my clients on watch your weakest point. Let’s get better, let’s get better. And then a coach of mine years later said, why are you pushing people up a hill to do stuff? Water? Why are you pushing water up a hill and trying to get people to do stuff? They don’t like to focus them on their strengths, leverage out the other stuff.
Now, maybe weightlifting, he needed to look at it all. Could he have won the Championship by getting even stronger and stronger in these better areas, I don’t know, but what, I don’t do stuff I don’t like doing, I want to be able to pay someone else to do it or leverage it out in some way, whether you can leverage through money through people through technology, I want to focus on my strengths because that’s what you are best at. And the reality is if you’re good at something, you probably enjoy it and if you enjoy it, you get better at it. So actually there’s a great 0.80 20 rule focus on the things that you’re best at. that’s not to say when it comes to personal stuff like exercise and diet, then maybe I’ve got to play around with all the other psychologies we’ve talked about today in order to get disciplined in order to get consistent, but just balance that out as well, especially in business and life, if it’s stuff I’m not best at and I don’t like is there a way of getting the result without having to do that? Well, I’m going to say was no, you’re fine.
Um if you’ve got something in addition to add, I want to, I definitely want to hear about it, but I’m interested to know that because there’s all sorts of things that I would like to do in addition, as a result of this conversation, I’m interested to know whether you’re, you’re in the same boat or not. I think I want more of what I want. I think I’m older than you Tom and that’s not, that’s just people have said this to me when I was younger, I’ve noticed my focus and priorities have changed over the last 5 to 10 years and I question this is myself and go, is it because you’re lazy colluded whatever I’ve realised, I don’t want to work hard and I do have an affirmation that says, you can leverage things you can work smart, not hard. Um, We’ve been locked down in Spain. I’ve got the most beautiful house in the village that right on the edge of the village, looking down the mountain to the sea. It tick boxes, we never even boxes we’ve never defined. So is it fortunate over and above ticked more than we’ve got in our goal?
And what we talked about and I’m thinking I just want to spend more time being a piece being with people I want to be with. So I don’t know whether that’s a laziness, whether it’s a collusion, but there are definitely some things I want to do. I want to lift out of this so I can ride my motorbike with my friends. I haven’t been scuba diving since I was out here because we didn’t get round to it and then and then locked down. I think I think the thing you’ve got to ask yourself and you said at the beginning, your goals will be different to mine. Absolutely. And I think the question back to be open and honest with yourself, is it what you really want? Are you content with it? Why are we doing anything? We’re doing anything for ultimately for satisfaction? It’s an emotion. We either want to be satisfied or happy or peaceful, don’t we? If you boil anything down, why do I want the money? I want to buy the motorbike. Why do I want to buy the motorbikes? I want to go riding with my mates and the mountains. Why do you want to do that? Because I love it. It’s fun. That’s the emotion fun. Why do I want to make money and financial retired so I can travel?
Why do you want to travel? I want to spend time travelling with Mary. Why? Because I love being with her and I love travelling. Love it’s ultimately an emotion. So when someone says to me, I’m happy doing this. My question is really because if you can honestly say yes and you’re not kidding yourself is the more I could do. Yeah, but right now I want more of I want to create some more free time. So I’m not, I’ve said to you at the beginning of this call, I’m busy with our business and it’s great because it’s growing and for me, the more members were having our post party club, the more results those people are getting and I know what – I was gonna say juices me, that’s a Tony Robbins, Mary hates that. But what juices me, what ignites me is seeing people get results and getting results and especially she just sharing my stuff that I know works. So that’s great. But for me, I just want to create some more time because what I love doing is stopping work. I’ve got some weights here on the roof terrace. I’ve got some, some bat lounges. Have I have a snooze after I’ve trained, I can listen to the radio, turn the radio off, listen to nothing right now other than natural sounds and then go to the bar maybe.
And I just want more time to be able to do that. So I think it’s back to just be honest with yourself. If there’s more you want to do, then the question is, how can I, how can I leverage that? And is it balanced? What’s the endgame? Because I meet people that have workaholics and I’m happy working. Really? Maybe you are because you think you are because that’s all you’ve got used to. And if we do something often enough, we get used to it. But be honest with yourself and maybe it’s, maybe it’s not just being honest with yourself. Maybe it’s just take the time out to think what would you really like to do because we’re capable and we deserve to achieve whatever you want to achieve. Um, yeah, I think there’s no right or wrong. Just be mindful that you haven’t got into that rut. I’m not saying you, but Brad Sugar says a rut is just a coffin with the ends kicked out. Just doing this because we do get into habits? 21 attempts to create a habit. So if I’m not careful then could I just become like groundhog Day photocopying my life. I don’t want to do that. But I’m actually more content and rounded with what we have now than I’ve been in my business life for a long time.
So is that about achieving more? Just whatever it is to you? Well, I was gonna say it sounds like your content and then you mentioned that at the end, so happy to hear that your content and I think it’s also a good point that may be needed to be in the episode because if people haven’t got the right goals and then they walked work towards them for a long time, then that’s probably not a good thing. There’s a great saying that says, have you got the ladder up against the wrong wall? And I’ve certainly met in people in business, but certainly in employment, in corporate where they’re working on those goals and I don’t know, I’d see people in corporate that are working long hours and there’s a slave to the man and then they get older and go, I didn’t spend the time with my family or my loved ones. So, and I understand that unless you stop and think you might not think it’s possible and even when you do stop and think you might not think it’s possible. The question is I believe anything is possible.
And so the question is what do I need to do to be able to get there? But step one is to sit and define what you want. I am content. I’ve had to learn that the same coach who taught me about stop pushing water up a hill work with people’s strengths, told me it was the journey, not the destination. I said no, I want the results, I want the destination and I still sort of do, but it is more the journey and that’s why I just, and I can take more time straight away and I’ve started doing that. I’ve realigned because we got in a bit of a rut and I’ve gone, I want to take more time and I’m stopping work in the afternoons and chilling because that’s what I enjoy doing. So it is, it is the journey and I’ve had to learn that because I’ve been focused on the money. So yeah, ideal, not perfect. Remember my lifestyle, is it perfect? People will be listening, going there is the spiritual saying that says it’s perfect, everything’s perfect right now. NLP says position says we’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got right now, life is perfect right now and for a lot of people who might not feel like it, but it is what it is.
And my brother-in-law stated that when he was terminally ill a lot and I admire in fact because he just said it is what it is, he couldn’t change. That cannot change and change the right now and change what I want to do, but it’s perfect right now. So it is all in here. and I’ll come back to ideal, you know, watch what you make it well, I love speaking to you as you know, so thanks for all the information you touched upon post party club a couple of times. So do you want me do you want to speak about that before we close? Yeah, of course. Always. It’s my business. I mean very simply I need him to helping people get more business out of linked in and I’ve got some incredible business partners around the world as six of us and we pioneered something that helps people get thousands of views of their links in posts, but also the thick end of the wedge is helping people right, understand how to write, engaging content and how to engage effectively because people skill set is poor people are being bombarded on LinkedIn and social media nowadays and it’s with poor messages, pour content and stuff.
I think in essence just to save people are posting and I wanted to get better results, better engagement, better numbers of views if they just go to www dot post party club dot com. There’s a heads up video of me talking about it, but then there’s also a great video case study of one of our members going here’s when I’ve been engaging in the post party system and his outside look at the difference. It’s staggering. It’s instant results and I said that fires me up and we’re just getting more and more people get some great results. I know you utilise it uh, in your LinkedIn marketing and social media marketing, so you’ll know it’s not just about the mechanics, which we’ve mastered, but it’s also about understanding how to write powerful content. Friend of mine, one of my business partners, said he got asked by somebody today, what would you do again if you started over? He said I’d learn to become a master content writer quicker. I actually use the word marketeer or salesperson, but content writing is the same whether you’re writing it to say on the phone for emails for websites, whatever it is and I quite like that.
It’s about becoming a master content writer to be able to engage with people. So yeah, anyone who’s either posting or thinking of posting on LinkedIn, just check out postpartyclub.com.
Okay, well, thanks again for the great information, and I will speak to you soon.
Perfect. Thanks, Tom. It’s great to see you and stay safe in England to speak soon.