Dean Graziosi argues that goals matter but must be used differently: first vividly visualize a future where the goal has already happened (backward visualization), feel it, then immediately reverse-engineer concrete action steps and metrics to make it real. He rejects passive manifesting—intention must be paired with disciplined work. He demonstrates with a specific example: to earn $1,000,000 as a coach charging $10,000 per client you would need about 100 clients in a year and should plan monthly client targets and adjust dynamically.
Questions this video answers
January 6, 2023
A 50-year Harvard study claiming the common factor among the most successful people was that they set goals.
$10,000 per client; approximately 100 clients in a year.
Reverse-engineer the goal into specific monthly targets (e.g., first month 5 clients, second month 12, third month 22) and create actionable steps to reach each month's target.
Chapters
How important is our goals? I think they're extremely important, but I think we have to look at goals in a different way. So I just want to give you a different light today. So when you think of your goals, that is the number one thing everybody talks about. So many times in life, people think goals will solve everything. And it's a part of it, right? It's a part of it. We know if you ever saw that 50 year Harvard study, you know, there's only one common denominator between a 50 year study of the most successful people from Harvard. Did you ever see that study? The only common thread of the most successful people at Harvard didn't matter what ethnic background, where they came from, if they were rich or they were poor, if they got great grades or shitty grades. You know, the only common factor of the most successful people at Harvard was they set goals. So how important is our goals? I think they're extremely important, but I think we have to look at goals in a different way. So I just want to give you a different light today. If you know anything about me, you know, I always talk about, instead of setting a goal, looking forward, right? Let's pretend it is one year from today and we're back here celebrating and it was the best year of your life. That's the framework in which I would love for you guys to look through setting your goals. Instead of looking forward through a busy life, look backwards at the best year of your life. And what had to happen when I say look backwards and pretend it's the best year of your life, what your brain will automatically go is, oh, yeah, I want to be making more money. I want some more freedom. Oh, I want to lose that £10. Oh, I want to get the intimacy back in my relationship that still I want to be really. I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs. You're still looking forward of what you wish could happen. I've trained my brain over the last two decades that when I do this exercise, and we don't have to do it right here, when you do this exercise, it's not about looking, what you hope to happen, it's about saying it already happened. And how do you feel looking backwards, meaning put yourself in that spot. And if it's visualization, if it's a little quiet time, if it's reflecting, if it's why you take a walk, if it's in, in your shower when you're meditating, whatever it is, picture it like I literally, I literally can spend time thinking about where I'm going to be in a year from now. And I can literally get goosebumps. And I can feel it as if it exists right now. You know, people talk about manifesting and all. It is manifesting. You got to do the work. It's not about just dreaming it and hope it happens. I'm not a believer in that. A lot of people say, you set the intention, the universe will deliver. Bullshit. You have to set it up and you actually have to do the work. You can't just say, ah, I'd like to have a million dollars in my bank account. Let me go back to my old habits of surfing on the Internet and watching Netflix and hope that million dollars shows up. No, we got to do the work. So we'll get a little deeper. But the first thing is, is we must have that compelling future of our own design. And for me, I literally can put myself in this place. And I remember writing down, okay, this is what mastermind has to look like. And I remember writing down 100 miles and, oh, we're gonna. And we're going to call it the knowledge business blueprint. And I remember writing it down. And I was writing down as if it already happened. I literally. If you could see the hair on my arms is standing up right here. Because I can visualize. Because I've been practicing this for so long that I visualize it and I see it. That is a great practice. Then once we see it, then the part that I think has to happen, as soon as I was done visualizing, I didn't go done. I dreamed it up. No. Then I got my ass to work. Like, who do I need to learn from to do this? Who do I have to model? What patterns of successful people who've already done this that I could model and do in teaching this? And then I started making the list of what I had to get done so that fantasy could become a reality. This might sound like this is what everybody does, but do we? We all agreed if we eat better and work out more, we'd be in better shape. But most of us want to be in better shape, but we don't eat better and we don't work out more. So a lot of us want to be next level success, and we're looking for something else magically to come along. And it's not gonna. We have to visualize what it is we want to be. And if it was the best year of our lives, we have to get as detailed as possible. Remember, fuzzy targets don't get hit. Don't just say, I want to be a coach making a million dollars a year. What does that mean? What kind of coach? How many coaching sessions, how many clients do you need? Listen, if you said, I want to be a coach and I want to make a million dollars a year and you were sitting with me and I was consulting for you, I'd reverse engineer it. How many people, how much do you make per person? Right. If you say I can make, you know, it's $10,000 a year per person. Okay? So that means you need 100 clients. Okay, you need 100 clients over 12 months. It's going to take you first month, you might only get five. So if you get five the first month and then the second month is seven and the third month is 20, how many do you need to get? I would lay out, alright, first month, five, second month, 12, third month, I need 22. And I'd have freaking goal every month on how I could get there and nothing would stop me. I would go back to what I teach you guys. I'd know my why, I'd have my compelling future. I already visualized it. I knew how I feel. Once I made a million dollars being a coach, I know how I would visualize how the people I'm coaching's lives would change. I would think about if I'm saving marriages or helping people eat better or learn how to sell or learn how to go vegan or a million other things. I would think about the lives I'm changing and I would literally craft the plan and saying, okay, a million dollars as a coach, okay, I need 100 clients. That's an average of 10ish, 8ish a month, right? Whatever that is. I might not get as many the first one. So I got to stack up the other months. And then I'd say, okay, what is my plan to get the first five in January? And I would craft the plan to get my five $10,000 coaching sessions in January. And that would be my whole obsession. And if I got four, well, shit, I got to get an extra one in February. If I got six, I'm like, I'm ahead of the game. Let's bust it in February and let's keep this little cushion that I have, right? I just want to tell you, I'm not trying to say the way I do is perfect, but I meet so many people that set goals and then dabble and hope. It's like even if you have the recipe, you got to cook the meal. There's no one coming over to do it. So I'm not trying to oversimplify this.
