[[:encoded, "Today we are going to talk about Specific Ideas to Keep You, as a business owner and entrepreneur, Focused so You Can Achieve Your Goals. \n\nThis is a customized educational tele-seminar that will help you answer some important questions and discuss specific topics to help you achieve your goals. This is a one-hour program as opposed to my usual 7-20 minute podcasts. \n\nAGENDA\n- Are you where you want to be? If not, how come?\n- Why don't people achieve their results?\n- What are the common stumbling blocks that hold most people back?\n- Single Simple Doable Things to deal with the squid on our faces. \n- Describe the typical advisors problems and some simple ideas to get us on track. \n- What can a coach do for us?\n- Why most Coaching works per se, but where or what should be added....\n\nEnjoy!\n\nTo help keep you focused on the activities that produce the results you want, subscribe to The Accountability Coach Blog at www.AccountabilityCoachBlog.com. You will find personal and professional development tele-seminars at www.AccountabilityCoach.com. Choose the ones that will be of the most value to you in achieving your goals so you can be even more successful – professionally and personally. Invest in the 30-day Self-study Course so you can begin achieving your goals in the time frame you want so you can have the life you want. Get started by going to: http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/30dayStudyCourse.php"]]
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I’m the author of many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, The Guide to Stopping Procrastination, The Power of Visualization, My Gratitude Journal, the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, and The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.
Aim for what you want each and every day!
Anne Bachrach
The Accountability Coach™
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[ Music ] >> Welcome to the teleconference that was prompted by JG simply asking me. This is Ann Baccrack. When JG asked me to do this teleconference, I asked him to send me what he thought would be areas of interest, specifically to him and to other financial advisors and business owners. You received the topics that he thought would be good to discuss. This is the agenda that you received and that we'll be working with today. Here's our agenda for the day. Are you where you want to be? If not, how come? Why don't people achieve the results they say they really want? What are the common stumbling blocks that hold most people back? Some simple doable things to deal with what we call squid on your face? Describe the typical advisors' problems and some simple ideas to get you back on track. What can a coach do for you? And why most coaching works per se, but where or what should be added? First things first, preparation. You may want to have some paper and something to write with or you can obviously type notes on your computer or jot anything down. You will write down any types of questions or comments that you'd like to make so you can ask them at the end or in between agenda items. Okay? Let's get started. My formula for success is really about belief plus focus plus action plus structure plus accountability equals extraordinary results. It's about making progress that puts you in the highest probability position for you to achieve all of your goals personally and professionally in the time frame that you've set. To review the agenda items, here they are in order so you know again what we'll be talking about. Are you where you want to be? If not, how come? Why don't people achieve their results? What are the common stumbling blocks that hold most people back? Single simple doable things to deal with the squids on our face. Describe the typical advisors problems and some simple ideas to get us on track. What can a coach do for us? And why most coaching works per se, but where or what should be added? Before we begin with the specific agenda items, JG asked me to mention not being paralyzed by the market and the importance of continuing to execute your plan and not getting stifled by the current market. Well as we all know, markets go up and markets go down. And when they go down, we sometimes allow some thoughts and beliefs to sneak in that can negatively affect our progress towards our goals. I thought of a person and asked him to join us today who would be a good person to explain what he did last time the markets went down and that person is Mark Little. Mark is a trusted advisor, coach, graduate, a financial advisor and he's been a client of mine if I'm correct since May of 2000. Mark, will you please tell everyone what you said and did with your clients and include how they reacted or responded during a specific down time in the market that you experienced. Now even if you aren't a financial advisor on this call, the process that he created might also benefit you in your business. Call and I know that have not experienced markets like this and there may be people on the call that are not in the financial services industry. So I'll just make a couple of comments and put this in the category of maybe telling you things you already know. But I've been in this business almost 25 years and every one of these declines in the market is always described as being unprecedented and in many ways and they all are. I mean there's always something different about every market decline. I think the thing that's important to remember is that they always come. I mean this is the sixth major decline in the last 80 years and the reality is when you get into a significant financial market decline, fear has no logic. And what I'm, you know, I could talk about, and I will talk just briefly about, you know, some of the mechanics of the market just real briefly, but in many ways if you talk to clients like this, it's like putting a squirt gun on a forest fire. I mean people are in fear mode and a lot of the logic is not going to matter. I think what is important for all of us advisors to remember is the market is not a casino. So we watch, you know, the headlines every night you turn on the news and even the anchor of the main news, not just the business channels, but every major network, you know, you turn on the TV and they're saying, you know, we had a bad day on Wall Street today. Well, they're making Wall Street sound like it's this big, you know, casino environment. When in reality, we've got to remember it's just an accumulation of companies. So the market is just simply tracking companies and their values. And some companies are actually going up in price in this environment. So, you know, companies are smart and over the long term, you know, smart management teams figure out how to exploit the economy in the marketplace and the environment to make profits. And that's what you have to remember. There are great companies out there and the problem is we, as humans, worry about the wrong state. You know, we should in reality, and we kind of forget this when the markets are stable, but I think, you know, a lot of how clients react to all this right now, the conversations we've had leading up to this market. So, you know, have we been telling clients all along that they should be indifferent to the daily fluctuations or even the annual fluctuations in the market? People just worry about irrational things. I mean, just think not even about the markets. I mean, you know, with all the terrorism that we've encountered since 9/11, people worry about commercial airlines and terrorists. But how many people really worry about, say, traveling in automobiles or, say, diabetes or preventable diseases like that, which are 250 times as lethal? We just have our attention focused on what hypnotizes us right now. It's the market, and that's an easy thing to be fearful of. Now it is, declines follow gains. We've had 10 recessions since World War II. We're going to have more after this one, and about every 5 or 6 years, we have drops in the market of 20 to 25 percent. This is normal. The last October, we had a high in the market now. We have, you know, yesterday marked one year since the decline began. But prior to that, it was the largest market rise. I think in history, I haven't gone back and looked at it, but we had about a 5 year rise in the market. I think that's the longest bull run in the market that we've ever had, declines follow periods like that. And it's going to keep dropping until the sellers get exhausted. So what's the primary determinant of what people's returns are going to be in their investment? This is where I'm telling advisors what they really down the party now. It's not how the market returns. It's not the market returns. It's really their client's behavior or investor behavior. It's not what the markets do, it's what your clients do, and that's the critical variable. I mean, there's a lot of good things happening out there in the market. The Federal Reserve's supporting commercial paper now. Their coordinated rate of interest rate cuts around the world. The FDIC has raised its limits. Even if you look at corporate earnings over the next 12 months, the market right now is 20% cheaper than it is historically. Just looking at company earnings estimated for the next 12 months. So it's a very inexpensive market right now, but the market's not paying attention to that. Oil's under $100 a barrel at this point. That's like a tax cut, I noticed this morning, the US dollar's going up. Keep an eye on the LIBOR rates. I mean, you've got the big shots around the world in the economics meeting over the weekend. If they can get the London Interbank offer rate stabilized, then all these adjustable rate mortgages that people supposedly can't afford, and are selling their houses to get out from under these mortgages that bargain basement prices, that'll all slow down if people can afford their mortgage payments. There's a lot that's working in our system right now. What does it work is timing. Success leaves clues. We've already had these magazines like Forbes and Fortune about the wealthiest people in the world. You know, I've never noticed a market timer on that list. I saw a speech that Warren Buffett gave back in September, I think it was first week in September. He made a great comment. He said, "I don't know where the market's going and the market doesn't care what I think." But he said parenthetically, "I hope it's going down because it makes it temporarily less expensive for him." Look what he's done. He's stepped into the market. We all think he's a great hero, you know, the white knight coming to save elements of the market by establishing these warrants. But in essence, the guy is an opportunist. He knows the market's heading higher in the long run and he's taking advantage of the market right now. He looks at the stock market as a big supermarket, and he thinks we should be looking for prices that are on sale, which they are right now. But the key is, on market timing, his recovery has come very quickly. That's the key. It's too late to get out right now, so, you know, your clients are, you know, pressuring you. You know, shouldn't we do something? Shouldn't we get out? Shouldn't we sell everything? You know, the problem is, even if you got out now, you might miss a little more decline. But when the market turns up, it's fast. If you look over the last 50 years, if you've been invested in the market and you've missed the best single month in each year, your return in the market, other than this year, your return in the market would have gone from an 11% annual return down to three. And that's just for missing one month of return every year. So you just don't focus on timing. Let's go back to Ann's formula. Belief, focus, action, structure, accountability. You focus on what you can control. I think belief is the first element in Ann's formula. You have to have belief. You have to have belief the markets are efficient. You have to have really a belief that, you know, you have no idea which direction the next thousand points in the market is going to be up or down, but you've got to have belief that the next 10,000 points move in the market is going to be up. So that's belief. You have to have belief that the system works and the markets are efficient. So what do you focus on? You focus on what you can control. If you're a financial advisor, you focus on getting more comprehensive, having maybe less clients. And so that you can spend more time during times like this and during any time to really establish comprehensive services for your clients so that you can just absolutely make sure that their plan is taking advantage of every market condition. As far as structure, oh, also just the concept on focus, just before we leave focus, investments are for the long run. I mean, you have to have patience. So when you focus people on, focus on the fact that, you know, these things don't turn around overnight and the markets just don't work that way. There are people who should look at the short-term markets. You have here an 80-year-old with no errors and you're on a tight budget, I'd say it's okay to look at the short-term fluctuations in the market. But if you're clients or if you have plans or goals that are five years out or more, you know, focus on the fact that these investments are for the long run. And as far as structure, you know, just make sure to, you know, does every client, do you have a sensible plan or you allocate it in your assets or you diversified or you're rebalancing your allocation to take advantage of these markets right now? You know, the last step of Ann's formula is accountability. I think you just basically need to hold your clients accountable and yourself accountable to focusing on what you can control. If you've got a night job and job and created more income, you know, these are great times to be adding to your investment plan right now. I think you'll look back on this five, ten years from now and think, man, that would have been a great time to invest. So hold your clients accountable to not obsessing on things they can't control. And that's what I did and that's really in a nutshell. I just think, you know, people keep their heads cool and calm and collected. It just focused on the elements they can control. Okay, so if I were to summarize that into some key points, Mark, would it be fair to say that, you know, you educate them in advance, you educate them currently, you talk about the other positive things that the, you know, aren't being mentioned and you focus on what you can control and obviously you focus on the plan that you've created because it will work no matter if the markets go up or markets go down. That's the plan. Okay, great. All right. Thanks, Mark. I appreciate you sharing that. So the first question on the agenda item that JG created is, are you where you want to be? If not, how come? And what do you think your issues are as to why you aren't where you want to be? Now, obviously most people say, well, no, I'm not exactly where I want to be. And from those who responded to this question and from my coaching experience, we aren't where we want to be because most people don't have a specific game plan and a path to get there. One important aspect to keep in mind is that being on the path and making progress is very important. As long as we have a plan and make progress on that plan, that is more, that is more important than anything really you can do. So writing down long term and lifetime goals is a great place to start to begin to monitor this plan. When we talk about writing goals down, one important aspect that you want to make sure to include, in my opinion anyway, is always have a month, day, and a year that you want to achieve each one of your goals. This I find is what most people don't do. So those of you who have been to the trusted advisor coach program, this is not unfamiliar to you. But do you do this? So if you have a month, day, and a year with each one of your goals, you have a specific target to work towards achieving. If you just have a goal, your mind doesn't really kick in without a date attached. So it sets for some time in the future and there isn't then a game plan that has a specific target to achieve that you put yourself on that path to achieving these long term and lifetime goals. So adding the element then of accountability is the other key to success. Accountability can come in many forms and we'll talk about this more at the end. So what do you think has to happen for you to get to where you want to be in the timeframe you desire? Well, again, from those who responded to this question, the main thing was really having a plan and staying focused every day on making progress on the activities required so that you can achieve your goals in the timeframe that you desire. There was also the word believing in the plan that came up from a couple of people. So belief is my favorite word and I think so much that we do and who we are comes from our belief. So we do have to have a desire and a commitment but also believe that we can do whatever we set our minds to. To me, if we don't have that belief as the main component, we can't achieve what we say we truly want. So why don't people achieve their results? Well, one of the reasons is that people don't have, in my opinion, a compelling reason. So in other words, they don't want it badly enough. They may say they do but they really don't or they would actually do the work that's required to achieve the results. They don't like doing what's required or it's difficult because maybe it isn't their unique ability or they just give up. So instead of being creative and figuring out ways to get done, what needs to get done, they just give up and settle for their current reality. Again, I think that if they had a compelling reason and they really wanted it and wanted it badly enough, most people figure out a way to suck it up and just do the work required or at least figure out a way to get the work done that's required. So if you don't do it, who else is better, a better person to be able to get that done? It just has to get done. It doesn't always have to be by you. So here's a brief example of a friend of mine who said to me one day that she was tired of being fat and she was going to get serious and start losing weight. So she stayed with the program of eating better and having portion control and she exercised for about three weeks and then stopped. When I asked her why she stopped after only three weeks, she said it was just too hard. She doesn't like how she looks and wishes she looked fitter and healthier but she isn't willing to do the work required. So I told her that she really must be okay with where she is or she would do whatever it took to change. She said yeah, I was apparently right. She's okay with where she is or she would do the work required. Sometimes it's so much easier to not do something than it is to actually do something. So we settle for which just easier. Mark Little decided one day that it was no longer acceptable to be 313 pounds and he had a lot of health issues that he didn't want to have anymore. He made up his mind that he was going to get fit and healthy. To me one of his compelling reasons was that he wanted to live long enough to enjoy and experience his daughter growing up because many of the men in his family as I understand it had died at a young age. So within approximately 11 months, Mark went from 313 pounds to 176 pounds. That's like he lost a person. This story to me is amazing and he just finished a book called The Fitness Race and he has a website called the fitnessrace.com where he talks about his story and he actually tells the story also of 12 others that he's coached to do the same thing because he wanted to see if his process could other people could follow it and have the same kind of success. So he said well let me see if I can replicate this and he found I think it was 12 people that also wanted to get light and fit and healthy. Mark did you want to elaborate on this story at all? Can I miss something? Yeah, no my 12 disciples. Yeah. I mean we all know folks that are struggling with their weight and I had struggled with my weight for 25 years and so there were 12 friends of mine from church who were lamenting the fact that they wished they could do what I had done which was lose 140 pounds and I said look if you're willing to make the effort required of this goal of yours to lose weight I'll coach you and basically and I just followed the principles that you taught me as my accountability coach and the same principles that I used in building up my financial advisory practice and really you've got a very simple elegant formula but in the end it boils down to what your priorities are on a weekly and a monthly and a daily basis. Are you getting those priorities on to your calendar so you actually increase the probability you'll make the effort and then you honor your calendar with the weight loss group and with myself that's one of the priorities well the priorities are are you are you if you just I knew going into this from my own experience I struggled with my weight for 25 years. I was really in the worst physical shape of anybody that I knew I had diabetes I was experiencing symptoms like blindness and I was had a severe form of arthritis taking wheelchair assistance to the airport about half the time as you pointed out no male in my family had achieved age 55 without either a heart attack or bypass surgery so I learned in the my journey losing 140 pounds that if you put me in control of three elements in any individual they will get lighter and fitter and those three elements which are the priorities is what is your daily caloric intake of food how many hours a week are you training physical training and what your average heart rate per hour of that training so I in essence just told everybody look you you've got to establish a daily calorie budget and track your food so just start tracking your food on a daily basis you've got to commit to a minimum of four hours a week of training and you've got to work out with your medical team what that your average heart rate needs to be during those hours of training in my case it has to be north of 135 beats per minute so those are the three things I made sure that every body of the 12th put those four hours on their calendar and then we set up accountability teams of three for the participants in the fitness race and we still do this today to make sure that they honor their commitment to themselves to track their calories and do their four hours of training so that's pretty much it I mean and I still do accountability coaching with you we had our accountability coaching call yesterday so what did we spend the time doing I had my list of priorities for the next week and you just basically you know cracked the whip and made sure that every single item on there in priority made it onto my calendar next week that is the secret okay well I think another reason that holds people back from achieving their results are distractions so we allowed too many things to distract us and we easily lose focus on doing our highest payoff activities that produce the desired results so we'll talk a little bit more about this later for some people they seem to have in my opinion an excuse for why they don't achieve this or that so top performers do what needs to be done whether they feel like it or not lesser performers typically find reasons and excuses not to do their activities that are required to achieve their goals Don Wilder has a great quote he says excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure well the best excuse in the world is just an excuse and excuses are just another obstacle on your journey to achieving your goals I'm a human being and I realize that things are going to come up in life so unexpected illnesses appointments meetings and other emergencies are just found to happen but if you allow these situations to interfere with your progress every time they occur you're not going to make the progress you want to get where you want to be in the timeframe that you want now I think J.G. knows this but my personal motto is excuses don't count unless you're dead this may sound a bit harsh but my rationale is that this attitude is in the client's best interest and your best interest if someone tells me that they want to do something and commits to taking the steps necessary to make it happen then they just need to do it to just know if ands or buts about it so how would having a person in your life who doesn't buy into your excuses accelerate the achievement of your goals my husband's go back reg says failing with an excuse even a really good excuse is not as good as succeeding I agree with that so what are the common stumbling blocks well at a very basic level again not having a game plan is typically a stumbling block for almost everyone that I coach initially so if your financial advisor who came to the trusted advisor coach program and are familiar you obviously are familiar with the values based financial planning book and process you know that you must have a financial plan so many people don't have a written specific game plan so that they know exactly what needs to be done to achieve their goals personally and professionally and we talked earlier about long-range lifetime goals so many people just don't have a specific game plan with a month day in a year attached to it the game plan has this timeline and when things need to occur they know when they need to achieve each goal now I use the wheel of life to help my client set the long-range goals and then work backwards to yearly goals quarterly goals and biweekly goals or even weekly goals and you can find a will of life exercise on my website it's a free resource if you want to check it out later but this helps create the game plan and most game plans are typically only one to two pages long they're not like a whole dissertation and the long binder of all this you know strategic business plan or anything like that it's really just long-range lifetime goals with yearly goals quarterly goals biweekly or weekly goals so it's typically only one to two pages long then what needs to be done is creating tracking systems so that you can track all the activities required to achieve each of your goals now some goals may require you to do eight activities and some I require two or one the tracking systems that I use are typically just spreadsheets where you track daily activities that feed into a monthly and a yearly spreadsheet so these spreadsheets allow you to see progress and more importantly know exactly where you are against your goal at any given moment in time they are simple but they are extremely effective so those of you who might be familiar with the being done study group for example from the trusted advisor coach program they can be the forms that you used and it can be similar to this but they include all of your personal and professional goals and activities it's all about balance you want to make sure that you have goals around everything personally and professionally so the other thing to me is is not calendaring and Mark briefly mentioned this so not calendaring everything and then honoring the calendar so calendaring is a critical component to anyone achieving their goals if you aren't good at it yet then you need to get good at calendaring I suggest that people start with calendaring everything in the beginning so they can see how much time is required and everything they say they want to do in a day this means calendaring things like believe it or not showers lunch time drive time or commute time once you start to calendar things you'll get better at figuring out how much time it actually does take and how much time you need each day to achieving your goals and then one of the hardest parts is honoring your calendar and this is hard for most people so most people I talk with say they honor their calendar anywhere from 30 to 50% of the time so if you're going to get to where you want to be you need to get good at honoring your calendar and the things on your calendar need to be the right things so the highest payoff activities that put you in the highest probability position to achieve your goals and we'll talk about this a little bit more later as well time wasters obviously have an impact on you honoring your calendar and focusing on your high payoff activities well it obviously all adds up here's a few example of some time wasters that maybe some of these things might resonate with you that we need to or you need to eliminate at least reduce or eliminate obviously would be the goal so not doing similar activities together can waste time it's easier to be more effective and efficient when you do similar or like activities together this way you don't have to what I call switch hats frequently and change your thinking from one thing to the next so you just do all the things that your brain can do easily all together instead of constantly switching hats it takes time to do that spending time trying to fix things that you can't and never will control is a waste of time doing things that can be delegated or at least delayed is a waste of time getting caught up in reading all your personal jokes or entertaining things that people may send to your email especially during prime time when you should be working on your high payoff activities is a waste of time playing telephone tag when you really should work as much as possible by appointment only entering into superficial chit chat when you really don't care or even sometimes when you might care going to meetings or attending membership group events that provide no real value to you or your firm how many of these groups are you part of that really don't provide value to you or your firm and if they don't could they then change how you go to them if they don't then get out of them and quit wasting your time letting team members or other people interrupt you and distract you from what is on your calendar answering the phone when nobody else is in the office to answer it taking calls when someone calls instead of scheduling a phone appointment to follow up when your calendar says you make follow up calls trying to make something perfect when it's effective the way it is now it may never be perfect and you could be wasting valuable time trying to make it that way having a policy that you take walk in when it would be better for many reasons if you worked again by appointment only of course there might be an exception when someone has an extreme emergency surfing the internet when it isn't a high payoff activity checking voicemail when your assistant can do this or it isn't on your calendar to do so getting sucked into you know the expression water cooler talk just because getting ready to get ready quit thinking about something you think is beneficial to do and just do it quit wasting time just getting ready to get ready or just thinking about it letting things distract you way too often has an impact on people not achieving the results they want here is a few example of distractions distractions can be things like not setting boundaries for allowing people to interrupt you when just when they have what they want to talk to you this is to me not acceptable behavior scheduling time to talk about issues is a bit is a better way to be efficient and effective again by appointment only a distraction can be you email your I'm sorry your email telling you you know you have email like hey you have a you have a message you have an incoming mail whatever your email might say to you when you when a new message comes in another distraction for some is the flashing light on the phone that says you have a message so you check it instead of checking messages one or two times a day when it says you're going to do that on your calendar it can be that your office is not as organized or as neat as it could be so your eye travels around and looks at things in your office that can distract you from what you're actually supposed to be doing these are just a few examples that typically people that I coach get distracted with another reason why people don't achieve their results is that they don't stay focused and working on the highest payoff activities in priority order and I believe again a few people mention in their response to my questions earlier was about focus so sometimes it's easier to do something that is easy to do instead of something that may have more importance on helping you achieve your goals so you do that first in other words you say well gee in priority order the easier things are at the bottom but they're easy for me to do so I'll do those first instead of doing the higher priority things that have the most importance on you achieving your goals so this is a form of procrastination on doing the activities that have the highest impact on you achieving your goals you want to keep focused on those activities that have the highest and best return uses again are a reason why people don't achieve their results thinking that an excuse buys you something it gets you nothing and doesn't move you forward excuses don't count results rule so another the next agenda item is single simple doable things to deal with the squid on your face JG if you want to unmute your phone if you'd like to explain to everyone exactly what the squid on the face means so we're all in the same page quit on my face wow how would I describe it Doug Carter was the first person they ever heard that term used basically taking your hand and the palm of your hand putting it up to the bridge of your nose to the extent that your fingers are now on top of your forehead and it's really difficult to see when you when you have the palm of your hand in front of your face you can't see much beyond it and we all tend to at least I should speak myself I tend to these would be distractions for me things tend to fly up in my face and all of a sudden now I can't see what I was intending to do I forget what the goal was or you know I get lost in a million different projects and focusing on what I need to accomplish so that would be one form of what I think of the squid on my face is paralysis and doing things or it would also be for me maybe things from the past that hold me back so those would be things that I think of quit on the face okay well thanks so some of the things that we just talked about perhaps focus and distractions you might be able to relate to and might help you yep reduce or eliminate those possibly mm-hmm okay good well thanks for sharing that so that everyone we're all kind of on the same page and have an understanding of what that means to have the squid on the face so my first impression about this is to you know just get over it and move forward so peel that squid off take that hand that he described that was on your face and basically throw it away and get serious stop allowing distractions and interruptions to occur you know figure out ways to be able to stay more focused on the activities that are required so for those trusted advisor coach graduates who are on the call go and review your success road map updated if it isn't current review your financial road map updated if it isn't current for those of you on the call who don't have a financial road map you may want to find a trusted advisor who can help you with this or ask JG to assist you with this the financial road map is basically your game plan for living life on purpose and can be another very important tool in your toolbox or a success road map and I know Mark Little when people join the fitness race to get lighter and fitter he actually does a success road map with every individual that joins that program make a list of all your lifetime and long term goals we talked about this before you can use the will of life and the quality of life enhancer exercise and that quality of life enhancer exercise by the way comes out of the values based financial planning book both of those exercises are free on my website so you can use those to help you get started with your lifetime and long term goals once you have the long term goals make a list of then all your annual goals we talked about working backwards and then make a list of quarterly goals that come from those and then you have weekly goals that come from those so just again as a basic foundation these things are required again having a month day and a year to your goals is also very important and those people from the trusted advisor coach program know that there's four components to every goal you want to name the goal the money that's required to achieve the goal and the date that a month day and a year that you want to achieve that goal and then two or three words that describe what you're thinking or feeling when you achieve that goal for those of you who aren't familiar with these four components those are the four components that would be great to have for every single goal that you have to help make it more compelling for you remember we talked about making sure you have compelling goals you want to name the goal the money required to achieve the goal the date you want to have it accomplished by month day and year for every single goal month day and year very important and two or three words that describe what you what you're thinking and feeling when you achieve that goal now you also want to ask yourself do I really want to achieve each goal I've listed you want to list everything do I really want to do and achieve each goal I've listed are you going to do not just willing to do I don't like the word willing are you going to do whatever it takes to accomplish each goal by the date you've listed some people say well I'm willing to achieve it well just because you're willing to doesn't mean that you will and this again is really important are you going to do will you do whatever it takes to accomplish each goal so how serious are you and how compelling is it will you make a commitment to do so and who will you make that commitment to it can be more than one or two people I know that when mark wanted to made up his mind that no longer acceptable to be 313 pounds he told a lot of his friends and associates that that was his goal so he made a commitment so they could all help encourage him and hold him accountable to that what has to happen for you to stay focused on all the activities required to achieve each of your goals and remember our goals are personal and professional so these are all single simple doable things to deal with the squids on our face who can hold you accountable is it a group of people appear someone in your office your spouse don't laugh too loud a coach who if you're serious you need someone or a group of people who are also serious as serious as you are to hold each other accountable I personally don't think we can do it alone that's just my personal belief I think we all need at least one or more people in our corner to help us stay focused and hold us accountable that's just my belief and I think that most people would agree with that because left to our own devices we just end up not staying focused or sabotaging ourselves you have to track your progress against the goal so again I talked about creating excel spreadsheets or spreadsheets that allow you to track your progress against your goal you have to consistently measure your activities each day each week every month will you commit to creating tracking sheets so you can measure progress and know where you are against your goal at any given moment in time will you commit to using your tracking sheets every day will you agree that excuses don't count and if you are someone gives you excuses will you commit to making them now no longer acceptable options you have to agree to some things that are not going to be acceptable any longer in your life make a list of those things and stop letting them be acceptable we all have those utilize your calendar more effectively and we talked a little briefly about that earlier describe the typical advisor's problems and some simple ideas to get you on track well calendaring again and honoring the calendar one way to help you get good is get calendaring and honoring your calendar is to put everything on your calendar mark said we did this yesterday for him he was getting a little and that happens to all of us like I have too many things to do it's like well if you put everything you need to do on your calendar many times you realize you don't have enough time to get it all done so that's why the importance of priorities monitor what is working and what isn't working did you not schedule enough time for something work too much time for something you know make adjustments if you have to move something you have to put it somewhere else and not just drop it begin with a goal to honor your calendar let's say fifty percent of the time if you're not currently honoring your calendar and then move your way make progress maybe you know you want to say hey I want to honor my calendar eighty percent of the time then work on making progress towards honoring your calendar a hundred percent of your time will it ever be a hundred percent some days it can be will it always be that way no but at least set a goal the whole thing is setting a goal allow too many things to distract you make a list of those things that distract you and start coming up with ways to not allow them to distract you so you can move forward so Gigi talked about some distractions and lack of focus make a list of those things that do distract you and figure out ways to eliminate those typical advisor problems or ideas to get on track you aren't focused again we talked about focus this is really important if you find yourself not being able to focus on what you need to do ask yourself what has to happen for you to stay focused right down what has to happen for you to increase your focus and put that ball in motion to put yourself in a higher probability position to stay focused if you say well I'm focused this percent of the time then make a goal to be this percent of the time more focused next month and then again work on making progress towards that you're not trying to be a hundred percent perfect coming out of the shoot again it's about progress allow too many no longer acceptable to be acceptable maybe procrastination I know that's kind of a bad word for most of us is something that should no longer be acceptable in your life so is procrastination something that affects you to some degree studies indicate that there is a variety of reasons why people procrastinate including some of the following false beliefs fear of success can you believe it some of us have a fear of success strangely as it may seem we aren't sure what what's our next level what it holds so we hold ourselves back from actually reaching success fear of failure some people may worry about how others will perceive them when they fail so they don't bother to even try they are comfortable right where they are and don't want to attempt things that would cause them to fail fear of the unknown so many times people procrastinate because they aren't sure of the outcome they don't know how someone will respond to something that they say so they don't say what's on their mind when you try things that are new and different you don't know how people will react so you just have to do it anyway there is no way that I know of to be even more successful without trying new things and just seeing what happens I think this is a big area personally for many people asking for referrals to people is something typically people are fearful of I'm not sure why but that comes up a lot of times I've also found that when people start just doing things even though there's some fear of the unknown they are usually very pleased at the outcome so pleased that they get more comfortable at doing things where they aren't sure of the outcome I love when I see this happen because it increases their confidence and it produces the results they desire perfectionism some procrastinators are perfectionists I don't know if that's you but some aren't they may start something but they never seem to get it finished because they view it's not perfect therefore they never complete it they may think they want to do something on the other hand but never start because they don't know the perfect way to complete the task or project my husband again sometimes called this people getting ready to get ready the need for a rush of adrenaline how many times have you heard someone say they were better under pressure or their best work is done when they are up against a deadline overestimating the time left to complete a task how about underestimating the time left to complete a task mood versus displacement have you ever heard someone say or felt that you weren't in the right frame of mind to do the task required when it was scheduled well some people might continually have this feeling and they aren't that they aren't in the right mood or frame of mind to get the task done that's required to paraphrase Mark Allen who is six time Ironman champion triathlon champion you need to do the work that the goal requires to achieve it plain and simple so many people allow themselves to be easily distracted all day long with a variety of things do you make a list of those things that you would like to have happen I'm sorry that you would like to have be no longer acceptable in your life so what has to happen then for these things to really be no longer acceptable start working on these things one at a time so the first thing is to do is make a list of all the things that are that you would like to have be no longer acceptable and then how are you going to eliminate these things and not let them be acceptable anymore delegation of everything other than only what you can do is important so many people think that they have to do certain things and in reality they just don't start letting go of even more things that others can get done and so you can stay focused on only the things that you do that generate the biggest benefit to you when you do your daily activities think to yourself can someone else do what I'm doing if you are honest with yourself you will be able to let go of a lot more things so you can stay focused on your highest pay off activities that only you do now when I asked my clients who have activities on their goal sheets can someone else do that activity or are you the only one in many cases someone else can do it or some of it so they don't have to do it so it may be difficult at first to let some some things go because I know we're all probably type eight personalities and want to be in control but it will become easier actually and and really the more you practice of letting things go so you want to ask yourself when you're doing things can someone else really do this you might even be pleasantly surprised when someone else creates the more effective process for getting some of the things done that you delegate to them so make a list of things that can be delegated and start delegating them one by one so you don't again have to delegate everything right away and the other important part of delegation is creating processes and systems so you want to be able to document everything you do in case somebody's gone or somebody's ill or you terminate somebody there's a process in a system already created for every single thing that each person does including yourself at your firm afraid to tell the truth or what's on your mind when appropriate well telling people what they are thinking and feeling about a situation in my opinion can be very powerful it's also a sign of a confident person and someone who wants to have a good relationship with their clients my husband Bill Baccrack says he has an expression it's okay to have a thought you don't express now this can be very useful at times I do agree I also believe that it's okay to have thoughts you do express so many times we are thinking something and we just don't say it and we should know the truth about the situation so we might be afraid to say what we're thinking for whatever the reason is so have you ever thought after a conversation with someone I wish I would have said or if I would have said I would know now you're just guessing what is really going on in their minds without really knowing the truth if you don't ask when someone is telling me that it that a certain situation occurred with a client and they don't know why or understand I asked them if they asked them about it instead of just thinking about asking them or trying to figure out why this is most times we will play it out and then they go back and talk to the person if it's really about the client and wanting to do what's best for them why not ask and tell the truth about how you're feeling or what it is you want to know another area that seems to be a common problem with some people like coach is about asking for referrals most people don't seem to like to ask for referrals referrals are to me of one of the best forms of flattery you are depriving people of one of the finer feelings in life by not letting them refer people to you referrals help you to serve your clients better because you aren't prospecting and marketing so it takes time away from you doing that and allows you to serve your clients better referrals are good for your clients and strategic alliances because you're helping their friends and clients be taken care of by an expert that's you referrals are good for the person being referred referrals are good for everyone come up with a few sentences that you can use with clients and strategic alliances or centers of influence that you're comfortable saying that talks about the benefit to them to providing you with referrals if you want referrals so when you ask for referrals it's good to know exactly what you're asking for so by this I mean that you need to have an ideal client profile you want referrals to potential clients who are who you best serve they look like X have so much money they have certain characteristics etc be as clear as you can and you have a higher probability of getting exactly what you want now most business owners don't have someone in their life to help them stay focused in on track and help them on their journey to where they want to be again I believe we all need someone in our lives to help us stay focused and on track and to really be as effective and efficient as possible as possible so ultimately we achieve all of our goals and fulfill what's truly important to us which leads to the next agenda item what can a coach do for us well there are many different types of coaching as I'm sure you're probably aware of you can hire a coach to help you swim better or train for a triathlon you can hire a coach to help you on your professional side or just your personal side you can hire what some people call a life coach to help you with certain aspects of your life in my opinion the right coach will hold you accountable to stay focused on the activities required to achieve your goals personally and professionally so you can ultimately fulfill which truly important to you again it's to me it's about balance in life the goals are your goals and not the coach's goals the coach has to help you create a way to track and measure your goals so you always know at any given moment in time where you are against your goal it's about making progress and having again balance and successful life you don't sacrifice one area that's really good to bring up another area that you want to improve you will continue to be on a roller coaster if you do that and continue to get the results you've always gotten working with a coach or coaches can have a big impact on your life and allows you to obtain what you really want from life what got you to where you are now may not be effective at getting you to where you want to be in the future you may have to get creative to move to your next level and we all know we have a next level so most of us just can't do it alone when we're left to our own devices it just doesn't happen if you aren't on the path to achieving your goals in the time frame that you've established and you truly would like to achieve your goals desires and dreams and fulfill what's important to you and experience an even better quality of life than working with a coach or coaches may be the most important experience you'll ever have mark do you want to share anything about how many coaches you've had or how many coaches you have in your life that have helped you personally and professionally I've had coaches in every major area of my life and I think the reason that people who've worked with you and have seen such dramatic success I mean we haven't talked about my business success but I mean the last time we had a big significant drop in the market was 2000 2001 2002 well that's right after we started working with each other my firms revenue quadruples went from 100% commission to 100% fees in quadruples my revenue during you know what at the time were the most obnoxious markets in 75 years so going back to your formula I think you know belief I mean the thing about coaching is it allows you to scrutinize what's working you know it focuses on your abilities increases confidence and you know as far as the the focus you know you spend things on time on things that really matter the action part of your formula you know it's it you do what's on your calendar it gives you forward movement increases confidence it becomes a snowball the structure that you provided for me tracking the activities that really drive the goals that I had set you know that structure is important and as far as accountability we all have too many excuses on the worst and we all take the path of least resistance it's easier not to train and exercise it's easier not to to worry about how many calories you eat but you know by having the focus on taking action and the structure around that it allows me to have someone else scrutinized the effort whether the effort I'm making is the one required and that's what so magic and and you will mention it but I just hope people on this call will go to accountability coach calm you've written a book that I think could be helpful to a lot of people lower side of that site there's there's a spot where people can check out your book I just think that all the principles that we've been talking about are so powerful and the stories that are in that book of the people that have you know seen dramatic improvements in their personal and professional lives just by implementing a lot of what you've talked about would be really useful to people okay well mentioned that at the end and more specifically thanks Mark why most coaching works per se but where or what should be added was JG's last thing he wanted me to to talk about similar to various industry training programs that are available or contact management systems where there's a number of brands to choose from that all work it comes down to what is best for you and what you think is the best fit or match for you to achieve your goals the biggest problem for many is that they invest in a system but they don't use the system the way it was designed to work they want to tweak it here and they want to tweak it there and then they say the system doesn't work well if you have a recipe for a great cake no not a cake baker but if you have a recipe for anything that you love and you adjust that recipe in any way you know what the outcome is it won't be what you expect so if you're in strategic coach for example how many people do you think actually follow their system exactly the way it was designed how many people really have true focus days buffer days or free days so in my experience that the people I've coached who were in or are in that program don't even follow these very simple and foundational principles the way they were designed and that has a big impact on your outcome and results if you just follow the system or people try to take the piece from this system and a piece from that system and put it all together to make their own system then it doesn't work it's not what you bought it's not what you invested in it's not what you hope the outcome would be pick one thing and stick with it and do it exactly as it's designed to me the key ingredient that I see missing in most systems is the element of true accountability the right coach will hold you accountable to stay focused on all the activities required to achieve your goals personally and professionally so that you can ultimately fulfill what is truly important to you they don't accept your excuses they don't accept they expect you to follow systems and processes and track your results of course each coach is different and has their own style and process you have to pick someone or a group of people that work best for you your personality what you want in life and that you respect and you trust if you can't afford a one-on-one coach you should try working with a peer or an associate or a group of people mark suggested that the fitness race people have groups are in groups of three I just believe that it's too hard to do it alone I think that the benefits for all of us to have someone in our corner to help us reach our goals is just you know too vast to even tell you keep in mind there are also various coaches for various things for example if you begin with if you want to swim better you hire a swim coach if you want to get lighter and fitter you might try the fitness race dot com you know you might try a nutritionist or a personal trainer or it could be you know the personal trainer and nutritionist are one and the same you may have more than one coach in your life to help you get where you want to be my hope really is that our time together that you got value from some of the ideas or action steps that will help you be even more successful I've tried to give you some things to do as a next step here are some things that you might consider the first thing is to obviously implement the ideas that you wrote down or received on the call today the first thing that I would suggest you do is create your long term and lifetime goals and work backwards so again use the will of life for the quality of life enhancer exercises on my website to get started create a tracking sheet one that you track daily that turns into a monthly and yearly tracking sheet if you don't already have one so you know exactly where you're at and what to focus on and how much time is actually required for those activities for most it's an eye opening process but a very valuable one the next thing I suggest that you do is get some accountability in your life you can hire a coach you know maybe people on this call or JG's group of people you can you know begin to create you know groups of three or however many you want to have some accountability in your life if you really want to achieve your goals and you will do whatever it takes we all could use some degree of accountability to help us stay focused and on track choose to focus on your highest payoff activities and honor your calendar eliminate those time wasters get rid of those no longer acceptable as simple as these things sound they are the main areas that are difficult for most people and hold them back from achieving what they say they truly want in life I'd like to thank JG for suggesting to me that we do this call and you can go to my website at accountabilitycoach.com and you can join the inner circle to receive access to useful resources and updates as they're created or new articles again there's also nine at least free resources on my website that you can take advantage of like I mentioned the will of life the quality of life enhancer exercise there's a 27 page special report on keys to working less making more money and having a more balanced life there's a right life balance assessment what is an accountability coach booklet that just talks about what an accountability coach can do for you there is an am I coachable assessment to find out you know if you are really someone who can be coached you might want to get a copy of the middle class millionaire book by Lewis Schiff and where Mark Little had a whole chapter and I mentioned as one of his coaches in that book there's a newly released road map to success book with Ken Blanchard and Stephen Covey where Mark Little myself and my husband Bill Backrack each have a chapter in this book if you like tell us seminars check out the topics on my website and see which ones you think would be most beneficial to you and obtain those there is also podcasts on iTunes that you can subscribe to at accountabilitycoach.com on iTunes that if you're into iTunes and podcasts you can those are free you can download those whenever they're you sign up for those and whenever I post a new one can download it you may find value and obtain the book that Mark mentioned that I just finished excuses don't count results rule it's 108 page book you can either get it as an e-book mp3 download or a paperback book the new 34 lesson course book that I'm working on will be available soon if you're interested in that you can stay tuned to accountabilitycoach.com and if there's anything else I can do to assist you in improving your productivity profitability and quality of life let me know learn to maximize your true potential and bring balance into your life here's a quote to close on you may have heard the expression before if you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got so here's to achieving your goals so you can ultimately fulfill what is truly important to you and have the kind of life you've always dreamed of having aim for what you want each and every day [Music]
[[:encoded, "Today we are going to talk about Specific Ideas to Keep You, as a business owner and entrepreneur, Focused so You Can Achieve Your Goals. \n\nThis is a customized educational tele-seminar that will help you answer some important questions and discuss specific topics to help you achieve your goals. This is a one-hour program as opposed to my usual 7-20 minute podcasts. \n\nAGENDA\n- Are you where you want to be? If not, how come?\n- Why don't people achieve their results?\n- Wha...
