Guide to Success: Finding Your North Star (Part 2)

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that each day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today is part 2 of our 2-part Determining Your North Star series. So part 2 of determining your north star. Yesterday we started with part 1, which was around writing your own eulogy, right? Beginning with the end in mind. Today though, we're moving into part 2, and part 2 is about determining your priorities, determining what I believe to be your life accounts, what compartments make up your life. See, every one of us, and I'm sure you've thought about this from a No Days Off perspective, We did a wheel exercise earlier this week, or in a previous exercise, when you kind of looked at different compartments or priorities within your life. So we talk about this quite often, but what we're really looking to do is identify our life accounts. What I mean by life accounts, I'm going to give you an example. For me, my life accounts consist of my spouse, my wife, my kids, my social circle, my finances/wealth, my job and career, my personal growth, my experiences. I may have said health already, but my spirituality. These are accounts within my life. These are priorities that make up my life, okay? Now, your life accounts are unique to you. And by the way, you can name your accounts whatever you'd like. My spouse, that account is named Ellie, which is my wife's name. My kids each have their own account. It's Avery and it's Katie. My other accounts, my experiences are just my experiences, and my health is my health. But you get the name, whatever you'd like to name that account, that's what you name it, and just choose a name that's meaningful to you. Now, recognize all of your life accounts, they are interrelated. For example, if your health is poor, it could negatively influence your career, or it could negatively influence your experiences. So all of these accounts are interrelated, and your life accounts, they may change over time. Okay, so let's, let's pause here for a moment. I want you to think through the accounts that you have in your life. Okay? I want you to name those accounts and come up with something meaningful. And I want you to be aware of the fact that they're all interrelated. Because what I want you to do next is prioritize your life accounts. And this is hard. Okay, this is hard because no two accounts are gonna be equal. What is the most important life account on your list? What is the one that I would not be willing to sacrifice no matter what? Now, my answer, and I think it should be your answer, probably should be health. Health should be your number 1 account. Now you get to choose, but I'm influencing you here. Health should probably be your number 1 account. Why? Because without your health, you probably can't do any of these other things. But after health, how do you rank your accounts? Now I'll be transparent, right? My wife and my kids follow health. And then I go to my parents, my job and wealth, my experiences. But then there's other accounts that are really, really important, but I'm just calling it what it is, like my siblings and my social. That's falling further down the list. It doesn't mean I don't love those individuals, doesn't mean I don't care about those individuals, but if I'm truly ranking priority, those things at this present moment in my life are further down the list. So rank your life accounts. And again, depending on where you're at in your life, Things may move up or things may move down. Frankly, if you're in a latter part of your life, friends and family have probably moved up and money and job and wealth, it's probably way down the list. But if you're early in your career, it might be the opposite. So prioritize your life accounts. Now that you've prioritized the accounts, you get to chart the course. I want you to describe your envisioned future for each one of these accounts. Describe how that account looks when you have what I would say is a positive balance or a positive net worth. So let's take the account that is health for me. Describe— I have to describe to you what a positive net worth in that account looks like. So if I'm gonna stand in the future and say, I have a very, very positive net worth in this account, a very positive balance, What would it look like? Now I've got to use my imagination. I've got to employ my 5 senses, and I've got to write down what I see. So for me, I'm thinking, I am strong. I am competing in all different sorts of events. My body fat is a certain percentage. My energy is a certain way. I'm living or having certain experiences because my physical condition, my physical health allows me to do it. If I'm standing way in the future, I'm playing with my grandkids, and I'm incredibly active, more active than anybody else my age, and I can go on and on and on and on. This is my envisioned future. I want to do this for every one of my accounts. What is a very positive net worth look like in your significant other or spouse account? What does a positive net worth look like in the child— in the children account? How about the social circle? How about the wealth? Go through all of that. What is your envisioned future? Now, go back through every one of those accounts and look at what your current reality looks like. Where are you in— where are you in relation to your envisioned future, right? Keep it simple. Where are you at? If I say I want my health at that place I just described, where am I at today and what are the specific commitments I must make to close that gap? So I've gotta move from my current reality to my envisioned future. And the way I'm doing that is by making specific commitments. For me, it's a series of bullets, right? I wouldn't call these goals, but they are measurable. You know, they are specific, they are attainable. What are the steps I need to take? In order to get from where I'm at today to where I envision being. Now, this might sound crazy, this might sound aggressive, this might sound like a big project for all of you, and guess what? It is. It is. See, at No Days Off, we're gonna live life a little differently than everybody else. Many are gonna call us weird, and I'm great with that, because what's weird? Doing everything different than the status quo. Doing what's different than the average guy or girl out there. And I'll tell you what, the average, the status quo, they don't life plan. They don't write their own eulogy like y'all did yesterday, and they don't look at their life accounts, look at the balances in those respective accounts, compare it against their current reality, and then make a plan, an action plan to close the gap between where they're at today and where they wanna go. So to bring this full circle, If we're thinking in terms of North Star, the combination of beginning with the end in mind, as well as designing your envisioned future in every one of these accounts, to me, the summation of those two things creates a very clear direction as to where I want to go. Now, this planning or designing of the North Star, determining the North Star, this is probably a one-day exercise at a minimum for you, going through these two parts. You're gonna want to block time in your calendar, and you're gonna want to take off. You're gonna want to get rid of your phone, bring some supplies, bring some food, let everybody know what you're up to, and go disappear and think about where you're at, where you want to go. Apply it to the eulogy, apply it to these accounts, rank your accounts, name your accounts, and really get behind this, really dive in. This is how you determine your direction in life. You don't let things just haphazardly happen to you. You control the— to the best of your ability, you control the controllables and how you behave, the decisions you make, the actions you take. It's up to you. That's all I have for you today. I really appreciate you spending time with me on this subject, as I'm pretty passionate about it. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you for listening. Remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better, so let's get after it.