86. It's Time To Get Back To The Basics

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 86. Today we are getting back to the basics. Yes, it is the first official I, you know, I know January 1st was last Friday, but let's be honest, you weren't working. You weren't really doing all that much. You were probably resting, recharging and resetting. This is the first full Friday. You are back to getting kicking ass. So let's level set. I don't care how awesome your year was last year, you got to get back to the basics. And if you didn't have a very good year, you know, you have got to get back to the basics. So today I want to talk to you how you can do talk to you about how you can do that. What are some steps, some exercises you can take to really get back to the basics, to level set. And I'm going to share an exercise with you that's been very, very, very helpful for me that I want to pass along. But I want to start this by, you know, thinking about what I mean when I say getting back to the basics. You know, I've often shared that the name of this very podcast, Bullpen Sessions, was founded on the premise of how important a bullpen session was to me as a pitcher, right? Every week in season, it was my chance to go down to the bullpen, work with my pitching coach, and get back to the basics. Right? I didn't have any batters that I was going to be facing in the bullpen. The game wasn't on the line. I could screw up, I could try new things, I could fail. But it was my chance to really go to work on the basics, the follow through, my delivery, my pitch selection, all that stuff. And if it weren't for my weekly bullpen session, I can guarantee you I would not have been the pitcher I was. I would have not had the success I had hands down. And if you are a former athlete or you're an athlete listening in, you totally get this. You understand this. Every week you have to get back to the basics. Otherwise you can't exceed in the sport you're playing. There is no way. And by the way, whether you're in sports or in business, those people you're looking up at right now that are having the success, the ones you admire, maybe even are a little jealous of, and you want to have their success, I can guarantee you they are getting back to the basics. So what the heck do I mean by this? Well, you know, I think we have to Start by checking our ego at the door. I don't care how successful you are right now, you are not too good for the basics.

And I think the ego can be our best friend. It also can be our worst enemy. And if you think you're too good to get back to the basic drills, what we like to say in sports, the blocking and the tackling that have made you so successful in your sport, your career, business, whatever you have right now, this is the time you have to do it. I'm going to. You know, a story I think about all the time that I heard, it's a well told story in the world of sports was the famous UCLA coach, John Wooden. If you think about this man, he is probably.

The most successful coach in college basketball history. I know Coach K at Duke has the most wins ever, but think about some of the stats that go along with John Wooden's career.

He won 10 national titles in 12 years at UCLA. Think about that. 10 national titles in 12 years. He won 80% of the games he coached in over 15, 20 years at the college level. 80%.

And he coached four undefeated teams at UCLA. It is almost impossible for a college basketball team to go undefeated these days. I know there's been a few teams, some of the UConn teams and the women's basketball on the side of the women's basketball side have gone undefeated. But going undefeated in college basketball today over a 40 game season is almost impossible. He did it four times. Now, why do I share this? This man is possibly the most successful college basketball coach ever. But every single year.

No matter how successful his team was the previous year, they could have been undefeated with a national title. Those first few practices, they got back to the basics, literally. He had them learn how to put their socks and shoes on. Yes. He had them learn how to put their socks and shoes on. Think about that. These are guys who, guys like Lou Alcindor, Bill Walton, some of the most, some of the greatest college basketball players we've ever seen spent their first few practices every single season at UCLA learning how to put their socks and shoes on. Again, why John wouldn't want to send a message, he wanted to send the message that again, I don't care how successful we were last year as a team, we are not too good to get back to where we started. We are not too good to get back to the foundational principles that have made us so successful. And I'm asking you to do the same thing right now. So here on January 8, you are staring at a new year.

And you may have the loftiest of goals right now, and you might be looking back just Happy as hell 2020 is over and you got a fresh start. New page. Or you're trying to keep the momentum going because you had an extremely successful 2020. So I want to share an exercise with you that has been extremely successful for me for the past two or three years that has allowed me to get hyper focused on what I need to work on that is the most important in the moment. So I am taking the appropriate action every single day. There's a huge difference between being productive and. And being busy. I'm going to teach you how to be productive here. So here's what I want you to do. If you're listening to this podcast right now, I want you to grab a piece of paper and a pen. Now, if you're in my coaching community, I've already given a tool to you that you can use to do this. But I want you to sit down with that pen and paper and I want you to write down your goal for this year. What is your big, hairy, audacious goal, as they call it, the bhag. What is that goal you want to accomplish this year? So if you and I were sitting here on December 31st.

You'Re looking back at 2021 as the most successful year you've ever had. What is that goal? Write it down. Is it a sales goal? Might be a personal goal, I don't know, a weight loss goal. You name it. What is that goal you want to accomplish this year that would take your business, your life, your athletic endeavors to the next level?

Now, you got that goal written down. I want you to start reverse engineering that goal. So let me use an example. Let's imagine your goal this year is to sell $500,000 in new revenue. You know, I come from the health insurance world. If you're an insurance rep, you want to sell $500,000 in new revenue. If you're a college athlete right now, a professional athlete, and you're trying to, you know, get promoted, you're trying to earn the opportunity, you're trying to get first team, all conference, whatever it is, what is that goal? I want you to reverse engineer it now. And in order for you to hit that goal on December 31st, where do you need to be on June 30th? Reverse engineer it back six months in order for you to hit your annual goal, where do you have to be on June 30th? So if you and I are sitting here on a hot summer day, June 30, where do you need to be with your goal in order for you to say, yes, I am absolutely on track to hit my December 31st annual goal. Right? Write that down.

Now we're just going to reverse engineer it again. This isn't rocket science, but so few people do this. They look and create this huge, lofty goal, and they do nothing to figure out what they need to be doing every single week to hit that goal. They set it, forget it. And three months into the year, they look up at this huge goal going, oh, my God, I'm never going to hit it. And you already feel behind, and the first quarter is not even over yet. So reverse engineering your goal is the most important thing you can do. So if you now know where your June 30th benchmark needs to be, I want you to reverse engineer it three more months. Where do you need to be on March 31st? Where do you need to be at the end of this quarter for you to feel like you are pace.

Come June 30th so that you feel like you are on track come the end of the year with that big, hairy, audacious goal you have set this year? Where do you need to be on March 31? So again, to use my analogy, I gave a little earlier. If your goal is a half a million dollars in sales by June 30, you need to be at $250,000 in sales, right? And come March 31, you need to be at 125,000 in sales. Simple math, but whatever your goal is, reverse engineer it back to where you need to be on March 31st so you can be happy about where you're going to be on June 30th. And come June 30th, you are elated and hopefully ahead of pace of where you need to be so you can hit your annual goal now. You can reverse engineer that again. Now that you know where you need to be on March 31, where do you need to be on January 31? Where do you need to be at the end of this month in order for you to be on track by the end of the quarter in order for you to be on track six months from now so you can hit your annual goal, where do you need to be at the end of this month?

Again, using simple math, in my example, if you need to have 125,000 in sales by March 31.

You need to.

Cut that in thirds. And you need to be one third of the way towards that goal by the End of this month. I'm literally not able to do that math right now. It's funny. I'm struggling with this math. That's why I'm pausing. You guys can laugh at me. Let me do the math here with Everybody Live. Come March 31st, if you need to hit 125,000 in sales.

By the end of this month.

You need to sell a little under $42,000. Sorry, it's Friday. Give me a little, little grace here. My math is losing me. My math is leaving me. By the end of the month, you need to be at $42,000 in sales in order for you to be on pace to be at 125,000 come March 31st. So you can be at 250,000 by by June 30th so you can feel like you are on track to hit that half million dollar goal again. Whatever your goal is, reverse engineer it now. We are going to reverse engineer it two more times. If you now know where you need to be by the end of this month.

What is where do you need to be by the end of the week? What is the number one priority you need to accomplish this week so that you can feel like you are going to hit your goal come the end of the month?

What is it? What is the number one thing you have to do? This may sound familiar to you if you've read the book. The one thing that book has changed my career. I will put a link to the book in the show notes. Get yourself the book, especially right now. It's a great book to be reading at the beginning of the year. What is the number one thing you have to do this week to hit your goal at the end of the month? And then reverse engineer one more time once you know what your number one priority this week is? What the heck is your number one priority today? What do you need to be doing today so you can hit your goal this week? Your number one prior to this week. So if you hit that by the end of the week, you're gonna hit your goal by the end of the month, which means you're gonna be on pace to hit your goal by the end of the quarter, which means you're gonna be on pace to hit your goal come June 30, which means you are gonna be on pace to hit your annual goal. You have to reverse engineer those big lofty goals all the way back to what the heck you need to be doing today. Because if you don't, big goals are great when there's no game plan There is no action you can take. You have no idea what your priorities are going to be today so you can hit those goals. And like I said, come the end of the quarter, you're going to be staring up at that huge goal, feeling like you're way behind, and you're already going to be feeling defeated before the first quarter has even ended. And then the rest of the year goes to hell in a handbag. So start there now. Once you know what those priorities are, you need to know. You know, those actions you have to take every single day to stay on track with your goals. This is where you need to get back to the basics. What do you need to be doing well every single day so you can hit those goals? You can hit those benchmarks. If you're in a health insurance advisor, where do you need to practice? What skills do you need to get better at so that you can hit those goals? Maybe it's closing business. Maybe it's creating more awareness about who you are so you get more prospecting opportunities. If you're an athlete, if you're a pitcher.

Are you not accurate enough?

Are you not throwing hard enough? Whatever it is, what are those skills you have to uplevel right now so that you can be on pace to hit your big goal again. Whether it's selling a half million dollars or just being named first team all conference.

This is how you start doing the right foundational things every single day so that you can have massive success 365 days from now. This is what all the greats do. The ones you're staring up at, the ones that are having massive success in sports, business and life, they get back to the basics every single year. That's why in baseball they call it spring training. You have to get back, you have to do the basics. As I've talked about at length in previous episodes, the amount of basic, boring stuff we did at spring training when I was in the Milwaukee brewers organization, every single day.

Would make you fall asleep, would make your eyes water, would make you whatever. But my point is this. If you want to have massive success this year, and I hope you do, whether you had it last year or 2020 was an absolute struggle for you. You need to get back to the basics and figure out what you have to do every single day to create that success you want. And it starts with knowing what your big goal is at the end of the year and reverse engineering it all the way back to what is your number one priority this week and what do you have to do today to hit your number one priority this week. You do that week after week after week, I promise you, you will have massive success. Remember John Wooden?

His teams were never above learning how to put their socks and shoes on. You are not above learning how to get better at the basic skills in your profession so you can become the best at what you do. So with that being said, have an awesome weekend. Here is to getting back to the basics. Here is to taking the time to get better at what it is that makes you so great. Because the more you practice, the more you get back to the basics. The more you level set, the better your results are going to be year in and year out. So my advice to you today is get back to the basics. Do the boring, monotonous stuff your competitors don't want to do because they want the quick wins. And you put a little patience and a consistency to getting back to the basics. You, my friend, will have massive success. So have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week. And you know what happens when clarity and confidence collide. Massive action happens. Go make it happen today.