125. Don't Negotiate Your Goals

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 126. All right, today I'm going to talk to you about negotiating your goals. Yeah, I'm, I'm recording this on Monday, July 5th, the day we're recognizing the 4th of July. It's really day one of the start of the second half of the year. And so you might be sitting there looking at your goals for 2021. If you are already blown past your goals, congratulations. If you're on track, keep going. But if you find yourself a little behind right now, or heck, you might even be looking way up at that goal going, how in the world am I going to get there? This is going to be a great episode for you because it's at this point in time, this halftime of 2021, where it's easy to negotiate with yourself. It's easy to negotiate your goals, let yourself off the hook a little bit, reset your goals, so maybe they're not so challenging. And what I want this episode to do for you today is to really just drive the message home of don't negotiate with your goals. Keep going. And I'm going to share a story with you that really, I really learned what this lesson, what this was all about. It just happened to me over the weekend and I want to share this with you. After all, I teach and coach the art of storytelling and communication. So I'm going to share a story with you. And where this message, don't negotiate your goals comes from is I've been digesting a lot of Jesse Itzler content lately. If you don't know who Jesse Itzler is, look him up. He's a former co founder of Marquee jets private jet company they sold for. I don't even want to know how many millions or possibly billions to Warren Buffett. His wife is extremely successful. She is Sarah Blakely, the owner of Spanx. They are both, you know, partners and being co owners of the Atlanta Hawks, I mean, they're just a tremendously successful family. But Jesse's just, I love what he stands for and I just love how he lives life. And one message he constantly drills over and over is the fact he does not negotiate with his goals. And I want to share a story with you that to share how it really related to me, how it really impacted me recently. So over the weekend, on 4th of July, the morning of 4th of July, a buddy of mine here, Ray, had asked me to go out for a ride, get on the bike and the goal was to ride from Loveland, Colorado, up the Big Thompson Canyon to Estes park, which is a beautiful mountain town just west of us. It's where Rocky Mountain national park is. It's got an amazing view of the Continental Divide. And so I had agreed back. This was midweek last week. I had agreed to go for the ride. I'm like, yeah, that'll be fun. That'd be great. I haven't done a long ride in quite a while. This will be a good challenge.

But the day after I agreed to go out for this ride, I was hit with at one time I thought was a cold, one time I thought could even be Covid. But really what it was was allergies. And I don't know what I'm allergic to. I think it might be the cottonwood trees we have out here. Some days when those cotton trees are blowing, it's like it's literally snowing cottonwood here in Colorado. And I'll tell you, for three or four days, it kicked my ass. And when I woke up on Sunday morning, I felt better. But I also knew my body, just from battling the allergy, was, was a little exhausted. And so I showed up. We met at the Big Thompson Elementary School, right about a mile east of the canyon. And I Show up at 6 o' clock getting ready for this ride bright and early. And I'm excited. I haven't done a long ride like this in quite a while. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I was also ready for the challenge. Or so I thought. So Ray arrives, we get our gear on, we get our bikes cranked up, ready to go, and we are off. Wheels up, off and riding. Well, it didn't take very long. I'm talking less than probably a half mile when we hit our first little incline where I realized that, okay, maybe I'm not at 100%. I could feel that I was having a hard time breathing my legs even on this first incline. I could feel it in my quads already. And I realized I still have 20 some miles to go all incline to get to Estes Park. And so right there and then it hit me. I'm like, oh, did I make the right decision today? Should I have sent Ray a text last night saying, hey man, not feeling great, battling these allergies, and I just don't think it'd be smart to go for a ride tomorrow? And this talk started playing itself out in my head as we got closer and closer and we entered the canyon. Because once you enter the Canyon, that's when the real climb starts. Now, good news is it wasn't any extremely steep pitch, but you climb over 3, 000ft to get to Estes park, and it's going to be a steady climb for almost two hours.

So as we climb, as we continue to climb, the exhaustion, the strain in my quads doesn't go away. The breathing still hard. And about five to six miles into this ride, I start negotiating with myself. I say, you know, Andy, maybe you should just tell Ray to keep going that, you know, at like the 10 mile mark, you'll turn around, come back down. Obviously, the back side of the ride's a lot easier coming down the canyon than is going up. But maybe you should just turn around in the next few miles and go home and enjoy the fourth of July. You're not feeling great.

You've done enough. You've gone far enough today. Still a good ride. 20 miles up a canyon and back down.

Just call it a day. Just let Ray know. Tell Ray he can keep riding up to Estes Park. But you're gonna. I'm gonna turn around. Well, in the moment when I wanted to say that to Ray, Jesse Itzler's voice entered.

And the thought of, I do not negotiate my goals. Today's goal was to get to Estes Park. I don't negotiate my goals.

I'm not turning around. There's. That's not what I do. I keep going until I hit my goal. And so when I wanted to turn around about six miles in, my legs kept pumping.

Now, I wish I could tell you that this thought never came back. But it wasn't maybe another five miles along the road, along the ride where this thought entered my head again. Because we, by this point, about 10 miles in.

Had started to hit a pretty steep incline. The pitch of the canyon got a little higher, and I knew it was going to get harder the closer we got to Estes Park. So as we started climbing, the incline got a little higher, that thought came back into my head again. Oh, man, what am I doing? This is a mistake. You know, I know I want to make it to Estes park today, but again, at this point, now I'm 1012 miles in. Just tell Ray he can, you know, hey, dude, keep riding. You can go to Estes park, finish the ride on your own. I'm gonna turn around. I don't know if I. If I can do this today. That thought crept in again. But the second I started having that thought, that conversation, I started negotiating that goal. Jesse, itzler's voice entered my brain again. Don't negotiate your goals. And so I just kept riding along, kept going. It kept, it got to a point where I was literally saying this to myself over and over, don't negotiate your goals. Don't negotiate your goals. Don't negotiate your goals.

And it was really interesting because at about the 18 mile mark, it's, it's roughly 23 miles to Estes Park. About the 18 mile mark, all of a sudden, that ride got easier. My legs started feeling better. That breathing, the trouble I was having, the breathing got easier.

And Ray and I arrived in Estes park successfully. We enjoyed an amazing breakfast, turned around, came home. Obviously the back, back half of the ride was a heck of a lot easier when he gets go down the canyon. But when I got home, put my bike back in the car, went home, it really hit me, the importance of not negotiating your goals. You know, in that 46 mile round trip where we climbed over 3,000ft, there were multiple times I wanted to turn around. Multiple times I wanted to be okay with the fact I was going to get in 20 miles, 28 miles, not 46, but be okay with, you know what, I've gone far enough. I'm not feeling the best today. But I was so proud that every time I wanted to quit, negotiate, turn around, I let the voice of don't negotiate your goals win. And that's the lesson, that's the message I want to pass along to you. Today is.

This is the first week. Today is Friday, July 9th. This is the first week of the second half of the year.

And back in January, you made goals, you set goals that were going to be your North Star.

That we're going to help you measure your level of success this year. And right now you're looking at those goals and if they still seem very lofty at this point in time, because you know you're behind, you're staring up at the top of that, that vision and it just looks too far away. This is the time where it's so easy to start negotiating with your goals, with yourself.

Lowering the benchmark, lowering the expectations of, oh, I know, that's what I told myself I wanted to sell back in January. But, you know, if I just lower it 15, 20%, that's going to be okay, right? And now you're okay with getting 70% of the way there.

I urge you, if that is where you are right now, do not negotiate with your goals. You still have plenty of time. There is still an entire second half to go you just came out of the locker room. Even though you might be losing, you might feel like you're at a deficit right now, you still have one entire have to go. So please do not negotiate with your goals. Keep the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Keep those legs pumping, keep driving, keep pedaling. Do what you need to do. Because if you just keep going.

You'Re going to look back on December 31st and be damn proud of the success you had. Now, can I guarantee you're going to hit your goal at the end of the year? No, I can't. But here's what I'm here to tell you. You didn't negotiate. You kept going. Instead of negotiating with yourself on where you think you should be, even though you knew you were far behind back in the middle of the summer, you kept grinding. You kept going. And at the end of the year, even if you do not hit 100 of the goal you set for yourself, you're still going to be very proud with your effort.

Versus what most do right now. When they know they're far behind, they know they only have six months to go. They reset the expectations, they reset the goals. They make it a lot easier to achieve. Just like I could have easily turned my bike around and gone home. But not you. Not now. So that's the advice I want to give you today as we wrap up another amazing week. Don't negotiate your goals. Look at them. Figure out what you need to do for the next six months to have a ton of success. And just keep going, keep plowing, keep climbing, keep riding. Because you will be damn proud of the success you had when it's all said and done. Because you know what happens when clarity and confidence collide. Massive action happens today. Go make it happen.