HOW TO SET BIG GOALS YOU'LL ACTUALLY KEEP IN 2023 [HUBHEROES, EP. 19]

Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed apartments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt knowledge. Never fear, Hub Heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask into action and become the Hub Hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the League of Extraordinary Inbound Heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute Hub Heroes. It's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that both Devin and Max are currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin and Max during the show are that of their own and in no way represent those of their employer.

Welcome back to the Hub Heroes podcast. I am Liz Murphy, your official Hub Heroes wrangler and content strategy nerd. And with me today, as always, George B. Thomas, HubSpot helper, catalyst for growth.

Yes, yes. I love growth. You know what else I love, Liz? I love coming out of a desert. And this episode is actually the coming out of the desert episode because I do believe next week we will have other people with us. Max will be back, Devin might be back, we might have guests happening, all sorts of fun stuff, but it. It has been the season. Tis the season. Christmas, New Year's, which for some sense of strangeness, has been a little bit of a desert, where the listeners, although they've gotten value, have only been able to. Only been able to listen to you and I. Now, moving forward, we're going to go back to our normal scheduled program.

And me being a woman, I'm just going to take the fact that you called me a desert personally and that's fine.

That's not exactly what I meant.

I am going to remember that when I decide not to throw softballs at you later this afternoon during our conversation today. Yeah, that's right. You already let the cat out of the bag. We are in the netherworld, the weird in between liminal space between Christmas and New Year's where everybody is simultaneously the calmest they have ever been because they zero sense of space in time and also probably the most stressed they've ever been. But before we dig into our conversation today, I'd like to ask you, have you actually been able to take any time off? This is you and I Were talking about this earlier today about making the point to take time off when you own your own business and how we both challenge been challenged with that.

Yeah, it's funny. The short answer, Liz, is yes, I have been able to take some time off. However, there's a longer answer to that. Shorter answer in that when I was an employee, man, did I love the fact that we could get like this extended amount of time off in between Christmas and new New Year's. Now what's funny, as an owner of my own company, that time scares the bejesus out of me. And I can get into why that is, but that slow down time scares me from a couple different angles. But I have again, taken care of myself, taking care of family, and have taken some time.

Yeah, me too. I was telling you earlier, and I'll just share with the audience, your girl Liz went wild. She went to Home Goods and bought laundry baskets and utensils. And that's how Liz got some downtime, finally.

That is hilarious.

I know, I know. I'm super crazy. I haven't changed much since the 24 year old who made a lot of, let's just call them, decisions while living in Fort Lauderdale. But that's another episode. So today I already alluded to this. It is a weird week.

Yeah.

It is a weird time of year.

Yeah.

Because we spend part of November, like as soon as we get after Halloween. Right. We free fall right into Thanksgiving if you celebrate. And then we start heading toward the holidays and everything's gonna wind down and we all start making jokes like, huh, that sounds like a problem for January, Liz. And then we kick the can down the road and then January gets here. And as we're sitting in this week, we're sitting here making resolutions. We are thinking about goals. We're looking ahead to this new chapter and this new leaf. And there's just one tiny problem. When everybody gets back to work, it all goes completely out the window because you have two things that are happening at the same time. You are setting goals for a new year that has already started.

Yeah. Day late, dollar short.

Yep. And then you're also dealing with all of the little presents you left yourself. For January, Liz. For January, George. And you're like, december, Liz was an and I do not like her at all.

That's the thing. Yeah. You hate yourself. And anytime that you can set yourself up for success is a good thing. But the idea of winding down and the holidays and not lo yourself enough for January, Liz. January Bobby, January Chris, January Rob, whoever to say, oh, November, December. Liz was freaking rock star. Hey, what's happening right now, Liz?

No, Liz is having a mild existential crisis sometimes when she looks in the mirror. But that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you today. I'm going to pretend it's really to help our audience, but really, I am the audience. Hi, it's me. I'm the problem. Hi, it's me. No, I wanted us to have a conversation today about goal setting and diffusing this New Year's overwhelm. Not just because I want advice, but you and I have already been touching on some conversations about this over the past two weeks. And you started saying super duper smart things. I'm like, please zip it. We obviously need to record this. So that's what we're talking about today. The flawed approach with which people take personal and professional goal setting on behalf of themselves or their companies or their teams. And also diffusing and taking it down a notch with this overwhelm we feel once we get back.

I can't wait for this conversation. The funny thing is, it's like a Grand Canyon. You're gonna have people who are listening to this who are like, I don't need no stinking goals. Goals are for chumps. And then you're gonna have the other side of this that people like myself who are like, super goal oriented, we live, eat, drink, breathe by our goals, but are also like me for many years, jacking that whole goal system up really bad. And then there's other people who might be listening to me, like, yep, I'm good. I don't even know why I'm gonna listen other than George and Liz are funny. So I'm gonna listen to the rest of this podcast because I am the goal king or queen. Those are the people that I think we're talking to. And I think everybody actually has something to learn through this episode.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because I think there's also something to be said for the in between people. And I almost think you're an in betweeny person, George, because you said something earlier this week that really clicked. It made my brain go, wait, what? You said, I don't like goals. I'm like, I'm sorry, hold on a second. So why don't we start there? What don't you like about goals? Because you just sat there and said you're a hungry, goal oriented machine. And the reason why I went, huh? Like a confused corgi, was because you and I talk about your goals all the time.

Yeah.

And so that Was like a very confusing thing for me. So let's start there. Let's talk about what's the problem with goal setting in your.

Yes. Yeah. I've had a love hate relationship, right? I've loved goals, I've hated goals. I've loved to hate my goals. But it's because I've had to tweak or turn it into something that works for me. And that in there is the first problem that I want to talk about. When everybody hears the word goals or when most people hear the word goals, it is this very static. It has to be that thing. This is what everybody teaches, this is what they say, oh, and if I make it an extra smart goal because it's specific, measurable, attainable, like there's. Everybody tries to put a blueprint to what a goal is. Everybody treats it as a singular static thing. And so it lacks the ability to be nimble, pivot, transition. So the biggest thing is just the way that people inherently think about goals. That is a problem. The other thing that I'm going to add in here is that people will, some people, if you're like me, you've done this. You will not wait to get to your goal before you create an additional goal. Therefore, you never really arrive at a place of success, joy, or even being able to measure truly the impact and everything around the goal. Because now all sudden we're back off on like leg two of what shouldn't be leg two, but should be race number two. Anyway, so those are some things that really frustrate me historically about goals.

You said something there about people getting really hung up, like, it's got to be a smart goal. Now, to be fair, I think there is something to be said for the fact that sometimes there is a goal and then there is fluffy nonsense that makes no sense. And I think the specific measurable, attainable, time bound, all that stuff, I think that is helpful. But I will say there is a part of me that agrees with you because I told you, I've told you about this. I did an experiment earlier this year where for four months, every single day, I took 15 minutes every morning, which is amazing because I literally never keep any habits. But I was going to challenge myself to do this. I had two sets of goals I wrote out every single day. I had four, five year goals that I wanted to attain. And then for each of those goals, I had something I was going to do that day to move that goal forward. Your agility piece is absolutely correct because I was convinced that I had the right Goals right out of the gate. I was convinced that for four months I was going to be writing down the same five year plan with the same types of goals most of the day. And they were all specifical. Specifical, Jesus. Specific, measurable, attainable, all that good stuff. Right. It took me a month to realize I had set the wrong goals. And I realized that part of the process for me is that you have to learn what good goals even look like. And then, like you said, be willing to pivot. I also had to sit with some goals for a while to realize I'm really glad I set this goal because now I realize I don't want it or am I going after the wrong thing. And so I think you brought up a really good point there, George, is that, and I want to split the baby here a little bit. I think it is important to be specific and all of those different things about your goals. But the agility piece is so important. You have to get good at creating goals. And, and I think a lot of people are just like, I set a goal, I did it. And they don't ever stop to question whether or not the goal was even valid in the first place.

So there's so much in there that I want to unpack on what you said. And I agree with the fact that yes, it does have to be a smart goal. It should be specific, it should be measurable, it should be attainable. I'm somewhat jesting at the amount of times that I've heard HubSpot Academy say, start with a smart goal. So I do agree with all that. Now, here's the thing. You dropped little nugget bombs along the way. One is, you said the word habit. And that's the thing. If you create a goal and don't have habits daily, weekly, monthly that align with that goal, you are woefully inadequate to reach where you are trying to go. By the way, if you have made a goal without habits, you've actually set a New Year's resolution that you won't follow anyway. That ties back to another piece of content that you can go check out on the website. But here's the thing. You also mentioned past habits, the fact that you are documented. And I would challenge anybody listening to this podcast if you don't have your goals and you're tracking them in a notebook, on a whiteboard, on a wall, with crayons, on the sidewalk with chalk, I don't care how. But if you are not documenting and tracking and looking at on a daily basis, your journey to that goal, you will get lost along the way.

That it? Okay. First of all, that reminds me of something. A very dear friend of mine, she's the head of Web at Media Junction, Jesse Lee Nichols, always said, if a process isn't documented, it's not a process. And if your goal isn't documented, it's not a goal, it's a wish, without a doubt.

So that a couple things people can take away, right? I gotta set a goal. It has to be an intelligent goal. I have to be limber with that goal to make sure it's truly where I want to go. Once I head out on the journey. It's like figuring out that you're heading to Starbucks, but along the way, there was a Dunkin Donut special. Buy one, get one free. I'm navigating to the buy one, get one free. I'm just gonna throw that out there. So having that flexibility, forming the habits, the GPS around where you're trying to go and documenting along the way. So for instance, as a business owner, you got to get an app that tracks your mileage when you're on business trips so you can write that junk off, right? So, like, it's all of these little micro pieces that you can start to put together that will set you up for future success. Then again, we go back to the thing of and what happens when you get there, but we'll get to that.

So I want to talk to you about something that you alluded to when we first started this discussion, which is this idea of goal setting. But you're looking in the rear view mirror with the wrong lens, with the wrong perspective. Can you talk to me about that and what that means?

And I don't even know if it's the wrong lens or the wrong perspective for 90% of the people that might be like me. And that is you're chasing goals. And you don't ever actually turn around and look back. You don't. Whether it be in your rear view mirror, which things may look larger than they actually are, or whatever, right? Or you're actually stopping and physically pivoting mentally back to look at where you were and where you are now and judge it and look at where you want to go. I literally on my whiteboard. Liz, not everybody knows this. Share this with a few people who are close to me. I have on my whiteboard in my office. I walk in on a daily basis, in and out. And on the whiteboard that I can see when I'm walking in and out, it literally says, you've come a long way since 2013. And actually, the funny thing is, a boss from back when I was an employee was like, dude, I need you to. I need you to write that down. I wrote it down and it stayed there because it's so impactful to remind me, hey, you've got to stop. You've got to have that success moment, or at least a breather. Imagine if you were trying to climb Everest and you didn't have four points along the way. You're going to die. And many of us have put out sales, marketing, or company goals, and we don't have rest points to look at the journey we've made. And guess what? I mean, you're not going to die. It's not that deep, but it's going to get stressful. It's going to be hard to keep going. You have to stop. You have to look backwards, whether if that's in a rearview mirror or literally just stopping long enough to get your feet under you and figure out where you should go next.

I'm having a bit of a moment. And it's funny, I sometimes wish people, or maybe it's good that they don't, because you and I always have a bunch of pretty deep life conversations because you and I walked a similar, albeit staggered, entrepreneurial path over the course of this year with both of us going out on our own. And I talked to you earlier this week about how I was really struggling. I prior to going off on my own, I was crazy busy. Lots of stuff going on, was working at an agency, and I was really looking forward to going out on my own. But I also had the structure to create the time for myself, and I had an on and an off switch. And this past week has been exceptionally painful for me because every time I felt like stepping away, I thought I was doing something wrong, that I was criminalizing downtime. And so the funny thing is that as I'm looking toward this year, I think a lot of times when people create goals, they get so focused on output and they don't realize that balance is a verb. A dear friend of mine, Alison Loft, has taught me that balance is a verb. And I'm looking ahead and I'm really being more holistic about my goals. Right? I want to show up, and I have revenue goals. I have goals with my clients. I have all of these different things that I'm doing, but none of that matters if I don't counterbalance that with the human piece of it. And I think that's another thing that people often get wrong. They get so hyper focused on the revenue, the KPIs, the whatever, that they don't balance that out with some sort of. So when are you going to turn your brain off, chief?

Well, when are you going to sit down and journal?

When are you going to do your thing?

It's so funny, Liz, because when I hear you say that, two things come to my brain. Number one is this. If I chose to drive from Charlotte, North Carolina to, let's just say Whitehall, Montana, that was my goal. And I got in my car and I just started driving, do you know how far I would get? I would get as far out as my gas runs out. Because in that goal, I didn't plan to stop at a gas station or I didn't stop to plan to go to the bathroom or I didn't stop to plan to go eat. I wasn't paying attention to the micros. I just said, I gotta go, I'm gonna hop in the car, I'm gonna drive to Whitehall, Montana. I'm not making it because we need those rest areas. There are rest areas along the road of life for a reason. Now the second part of this that I think is terrible because I too have, let's just use the word use, criminalized this ability to take time for myself. And I've battled profusely against this. And what I figured out and I've learned and I think that historically, many of us humans are bad at this. To not do that, you have to have the ability to. To give yourself grace.

What does that look like? You know what, I'm gonna push you here for a second and I know you've got an answer to back it up. I'm not saying you're wrong. What I'm saying is give yourself grace is something I see a lot on Instagram posts. And I apologize on behalf of white women everywhere for ruining that phrase because that's what's happened on Instagram. A bunch of women in felt hats shilling coaching courses are all about giving grace. But honestly, as someone who works a lot and is in this industry, I pardon my French, but what the flippity flip does that mean and what does that actually look like in practice? Give me examples.

Yeah, so here's the thing. I mentally have to go through a process. George, you have been owning a business for six months. You have been doing eight to 10 hour days, some weekends, you've been working a couple hours a weekend. Yes. You gave yourself the freedom, the ability to the grace to take some down time and you've even gone on two vacations in the last six months, which is amazing. However, I got to this week and by the way, those vacations were easy. I got to this week and I had a whole turmoil of things going around in my brain about, oh, this agency is closed for the entire week. That agency is closed for the entire week. Many of my clients are closed for the entire week. So talk about quiet. Like, my inbox is the most quiet this week. It has been. But that's joyous because what that means is no meetings, no inbox to wrangle. Means I actually have time to work and get caught up or get ahead. Here's the problem. I sit there and I'm frustrated because I want to take some time, but I'm like, no, I should be working. This is the opportune time to be working. And so what I have to do is go through that process and be like, hey, big dummy, you have been laying it on the line for six months. An eight hour period of going and doing lunch with your wife, going to Ikea, doing some shopping, cleaning your office, whatever is not going to kill you. You have to. This is going to be hard for people to hear. You have to let go. So when I say give grace, I mean you have to let go of the reins for a hot minute. You've got to let go of being a control freak in everything for your business and your marketing and your sales for a minute. And you just have to. I know, but you have to just. It'll be okay. Like, I literally posted on Social, by the way, I was going to work on Christmas Eve, had about hours of thing, but guess what? I went ahead and realized Monday, I'll be here in no time flat. So you have to find those times. And I think a lot of this too, when I say grace, freedom. I also think there's a level of this that is self awareness. I need this more than I need that and definitely more than they need these things.

So the control freak in me, you saw me going through, I think I went through the five stages of grief when you told me I had to let go. This isn't frozen. I'm not doing it. You can't make me. But also accurate. I feel so seen and heard and understood because that's exactly how I felt this week. It was just like, who do I get to play with? It's George. That's it. There's no one else around. And it was so weird. It was so quiet that for one moment I was like, is everyone mad at Me. Why is no one saying anything? Hello. I felt like an insane person. But here is what I want to get to right? We're sitting here and we're talking about the flawed ideas around goal setting. Right where this sense of overwhelm comes from. And it sounds like a lot of it is self inflicted. Like we do actually all have things to do. December Liz, let's be honest is and will be considered an historically from now and forever. But I'm also an all times of the year, so that's really not new.

But let's not really. Not really. It's fun to say on a podcast, but no you're not really. And also I have to do a ding. This might be the most a hole using episode that we've ever had thus far. Just gonna.

Welcome to the desert. Welcome to the desert. No, but I would love for us to talk a little bit about what are the other ways in which we are harming ourselves. Because we're going to talk about how you actually set good goals, what that actually looks like. But I think before we can even do that, we need to accept we are the problem and we are inflicting wounds. So we've talked about giving ourselves grace. We've talked about do we even understand what good goals look like? What are some of the other self inflicted wounds where it's let's remove the pain first before we add new processes in.

Yeah. It's funny when you ask me that question, my brain goes in two different directions. Liz.

Of course it does.

It always does. It's literally going to be a T shirt, ladies and gentlemen, if you want a T shirt that says Hub Heroes, my brain is going in two different directions. You just hit me up on social, let me know because I think it should be a T shirt. But here's the thing, and I'm not saying that the listeners have a bad relationship with this or these things or they have a good I don't know because I don't know all the listeners that are listening. But there are two things that have fundamentally helped me kick goals in the butt and that is a healthy relationship with focus and a healthy relationship with fear.

My two favorite Fs.

Yeah, yeah. So here's the thing. A lot of people have a relationship when they hear the word focus that it does mean singularity. One thing. That's all we can focus on. I have this mindset of focus simply means that I have to divide the focus on what might be the most important two things or three things. Again, in an article that Went out earlier that talks about forks, right? And focusing on the forks in life and spiritually, mentally, physically, personally, professionally. And if you can think about how can you take this brain, this bucket of focus, how can you stop long enough to figure out, here are the two or three things for this time period that helped me get to this goal, which by the way, I'll break that down even further in a little bit. Now, all of a sudden you can be moving micros. I'll talk about one brick at a time to build a wall in a little bit too. But you can be moving micros in these forks because you have the designated focus for the thing that you're trying to do. But bigger than focus, I think it's the all time thing that I've seen paralyze most individual humans and companies is this relationship around fear and that you can actually fail understanding, at least for me personally. Fear actually stands for false evidence appearing real. We never fear things in the past, we only fear things in the future. Therefore it really can't be real. It's false evidence we're making up in our brain that appears real. Oh my God. And is it excitement, energy, or is it fear? Because it's pretty much the same thing medically, if you were to measure what was happening in your brain and body at that time. But here's the thing, it ties into failure. I don't necessarily. And this is why, by the way, for the past 10 years I've been willing to throw out pieces of content that some people might be like, oh, that's half baked. Oh, that's not. Oh, maybe, oh, there's this little tweak and change. Or now it's update and it can. I don't care.

Anything.

Yeah. Every piece of content that I've ever put out there is. I know it's not good enough. I know it's not finished, but it's out there because it's a learning lesson. I don't. It's not failure. That piece of content didn't fail. It's just, nope, not gonna make it like that again. But. And as you do it, as you learn along the way, and I am a big advocate of learning it along the way. So focus and fear. Like you have to have a healthy relationship with those, otherwise you're killing yourself. When you talk about just this fundamental goal conversation that we're having.

I listen to this incredible podcast. It's Adam Grant, who wrote Think Again. Incredible. And he does work Life. It's an incredible podcast. I can't recommend it. Enough. And there is this one specific episode where they talk about imposter syndrome. One of the pieces of advice that he gave in that episode, which has stuck with me to this day, is if you were to go to court and your fear had to prove and panic. And one of the things that I've talked to them about when they've come to me, we've talked about these things, is that if you stack the evidence, the only thing you seem to be bad at is predicting failure. Because so far on paper, nothing has gone wrong and you've gotten everything you've wanted. Now, that doesn't mean you're not going to hit bumps in the road. That doesn't mean everything's going to be easy. That doesn't mean a content wizard is going to come down for the sky and make all that content for you. It won't happen. That wizard doesn't exist unless you hire me. My name is Liz. But that is the thing I find fascinating about it. And it's something I struggle with a lot. I get into freeze modes with it. And I think you're absolutely right. One of the reasons why New Year's Overwhelm is such a huge feeling and I have to work on diminishing this within myself as well, is that we are sitting here making up insane stories about expectations, perceived failures that will never happen. And it's distracting ourselves, us from actually putting energy where it needs to go. Now, to be clear, I sound amazing up on my pedestal and super awesome about it, but I literally was not joking about having an existential crisis. Earlier, I had a lunch at my desk that went 90 minutes. I'm like goes that time because I got stuck in my head about something that was not real.

So much that I have to talk about right there. So first of all, and this ties back to almost this whole conversation, but when you were saying your last little bit there, this saying shot into my mind. If you do what is easy, and life will be hard. If you do what's hard in life will be easy. If December, George and Liz would just do what's hard. Life would get easy in January. But we do going on what's. What's easy in December. And so January gets difficult. So again, if you do what is easy, life will be hard. If you do what's hard, life will be easy. And that is professional, personal, all the way around. But you mentioned two words that get me fired up.

I saw it happening.

Fired up. When you said imposter syndrome. Like, here's the thing, I get It. But it doesn't need to necessarily be a thing. Imposter syndrome happens when you are measuring yourself against others. If I could just be like Dharmesh Shaw. If I could just be like Remington Beg, if I could just be like Liz Murphy. If I could just be like. And I could keep naming people that I think are way smarter than I am, that have more potential than I do, but I can't do that. And one of the things that helped me when, because I went on this whole, like, couple year listening to every inspirational, like, speaker known to man trip. And one thing that helped me with imposter syndrome, because I, I still face it. And I used to face it real bad, but I have a way to juke myself back into it, and that is Matthew McConaughey tells a story about somebody asking him who his hero is. Who, like. And so he goes on this story about, it's me in 10 years. And if you are measuring yourself against yourself in 10 years, there is no imposter syndrome. That person doesn't exist yet. And what's funny is this story goes on and he says, the guy came back to me in 10 years. And he goes, have you reached your hero? No, my hero is me in 10 years.

That's not a bit of a moment.

Yeah, that's not imposter syndrome. Because the right focus on the best you instead of the wrong focus. Why can't I be like them?

So a couple of things I want to pack and unpack there, because my mind is going in two different directions. Look, I can do it too. First, one quick. He has a questionable relationship, apparently with showering and deodorant. But Damn if Matthew McConaughey isn't also a bongo playing wise man. The other thing, too, which I think hits on the next piece of this, right? Because in order to do great goal setting, in order to diffuse the overwhelm that people are feeling right now going into next week and quite frankly the rest of this month, it really doesn't matter when you're hearing this, because let's face it, do you know what my least favorite joke was when I. Or not joke, but the least favorite saying that people would say when I worked at an agency, it's the end of January. We're already third of the way through the first quarter. Oh, my God, I hate you. Please don't say that. But you're hitting on another thing that is standing in the way, which is the comparison trap. Not giving ourselves credit, looking outside of ourselves instead of looking within ourselves. This is way deeper than I expected this conversation to go, but I am loving this.

Well, the thing too. And this goes back to documentation and the fact that when people say nice things about us, when we create moments of just amazing user experience, we're not tracking that, we're not documenting it, we're not internalizing it. And again, this is something I do. I literally have a Slack channel that is team victories. And every time somebody says something, does something and it should make us feel good, it goes in that Team Victory. And people are like, george, you have a team. Yes, there's already a little bit of a team. Anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. But there's Team Victory so that everybody can get the feeling and understanding of the impact that they're making in the world with the things that we're doing. Because here's the thing. And again, this becomes a way bigger conversation than goals. But it's important to the goal conversation because if you are setting your goals on the fact that you want to be successful or you are setting your goals on the fact that you want to be significant, those goals will be dramatically different.

Okay, so I'm gonna play devil's advocate here because I know a lot of the people in our Hub Heroes community. Some of them are like us, right? They're entrepreneurs, they're the business owner. We feel like. I at least remember feeling this way when I was a cog in the machine. Even at the best organizations, I wasn't the person sitting at the top. I didn't feel like I was enabled or empowered. Not because I worked at a bad organization, trust me, they were all in on professional development. But when you're the marketer, when you're the mid level, when you're the knowledge worker inside of an organization, you may not necessarily be the one at the top who gets to decide whether or not the goals are significant or success based. Sometimes we have there are goals that are set for us. So how do you reconcile this do I want to be successful or significant mindset for someone who isn't at the top directing where we're all going to go in the new year?

See, there's a flawed mindset right there. Fact that the top leads. You can lead from the back seat. Listen, I was a number two at several agencies and I was the leader. And I've had people say, dude, you've been leading for years. Yeah, but I was leading from the back seat. It's always been about significance. Even though a manager was handing me KPIs and goals. I just had to figure out how to make their wants fall in line with my strategy and my plan for where I want it to go. And they would go along as well. Okay, so first of all, if you're stuck and or feel stuck because you're not stuck, by the way, this is a feeling. If you feel stuck, realize, internalize, you can lead from whatever seat you're in. Because let me give you a dirty little secret. Most people at the top, baby, they're just holding on. They're just holding on because this train is running fast and they're not sure how to manage 30, 50, 150 people. They're not sure how to have 7, 17, 23 meetings in a day. They're not sure how to get 2, 000 emails out of their inbox. So realize while they're great at forward facing, I got this ish, I'm the leader in the dark hallway chasm, they can actually curl up in the fetal position and cry. They're probably glad that there's some people in the middle taking the reins and leading.

The other thing I would say to that too. One of my favorite bosses that I ever had, his name was Sean Quill. I worked with him when I was at Living Social many moons ago. And he said, and this is something where there's a reason why people don't leave bad companies, they leave bad leaders. One of the things that he stuck with, that stuck with me when I embarked on my own people management career because I used to manage teams of like 17 people, was that I work for you, you don't work for me. And he always said that. And that always really stuck with me. But the reality is that whether or not you have your own Sean Quill, someone who has that mentality, someone who allows someone to drive from the back because some leaders don't. The reality is that you actually are still in control of the goals that you set for you.

Yep.

And sometimes that goal can mean things that are for the organization or if you do not feel empowered, enabled, uplifted to do the things to grow the way you need and want to grow, maybe one of your goals is, well, as a human, am I in the right place? And that's a scary thing to say because I spent over a year or so battling against doing, taking the step that I needed to take, which was going out on my own. That's why it hurts so dang much now. I walked the path that I was meant to walk. But this is where we get back to the importance of goal setting. And George, I gave you a question. I knew that would make you cranky. I knew that.

Yeah.

Because I think people cede control emotionally. Now, granted, your sphere of control may not be, maybe you may not be controlling the things that you want to control. You may not be in charge of what the KPIs are, but I think you do need to be understand that you are in control of how you show up, you are in control of where you are and you are in control of when somebody asks you a question, you give an honest answer, being that stakeholder at the table. And I think that's a key part of the responsibility piece.

Yeah, it's so funny because for me, I can tell you what that looks like and I can also tell you as I look around the ecosystem that I live in, I find this to be similar in other folks. What that looks like is that you have a rooted like foundation into servanthood. Right. Another thing to Google is servant leadership. And that's the thing, like when I have people that work with me, work for me, however you want to put it. I am willing to take out the trash. I'm willing to look at the 50 forms in HubSpot. I'm willing to redo a thousand landing pages if need be because I'm here to serve. How do I enable you to be the best you can be? By the way, we have this conversation a lot when it's like, like sales, marketing and the C suite. Looking out externally, how do I enable you as the customer to be able to buy easier? How do I enable you as the potential lead to actually go through the buyer's journey in a streamlined process? The problem here and again, if we're helping other people inside of our organization, organization hit their goals and if we're trying to focus on the right goals, it has to be not only a conversation of external, but a conversation of internal as well to these things that we're talking about. This. I want to hit one other piece because you were talking and like thing a thing popped in my head. You said something about being am I in the right place? Right. I think there's a plethora of those types of things, by the way, that could align with your goals and if you're headed in the right direction that you may want to say to yourself, and it's a am I in the right place? Do I know the right things? Am I doing the right thing? Like those types of am I, am I? Am I, am I? Am I in a positive light? And if too Many of those are off kilter. Then that's when you start to look at something like, okay, we need to adjust.

So we've talked a lot already about the flawed way in which we look at goals and resolution. We talked a lot about what are the things that we need to dismantle internally from a mentality and mindset perspective. I want to now get into with this last part of our conversation. Great. So I'm no longer a fear mongering head case. I'm exerting control over my environment. I am showing up, I am here. I am not as mad at December Liz. She's done a lot of things this year that were scary and terrifying and maybe she's just. Just cut ourselves some slack.

Grace.

Grace. Yes, Grace. Thank you, all the white women on Instagram, for ruining that. Really appreciate you. God, there's nothing we don't ruin. Really, there isn't. What does goal setting look like?

Yeah, the simpler the better. That's the first thing that I'll throw out there. Because as soon as you make something complex, it adds confusion. It's hard to follow through, and it ends up like every other goal or New Year's resolution or whatever you call it. Gone. Just gone. And it's, you're done. So keep it simple. The other thing that I really like to do, and this is going to break down into another story that I heard and love and a book that if you have not read it, you should read if you can take this massive goal. And by the way, let's not even talk about the fact that when you set goals, I need you to dream a little bit. I need you to push past your comfort zone to what you're placing these goals at. But then what I want you to do once you have this massive, I dreamt it up, here's the goal that I want to achieve. And by the way, if you need training wheels, what I would suggest is that maybe you set your goals in three levels. This is what I need. This would be nice and holy. Like, I can't believe that just happened. Right? So there's that three layers. That'll give you some training wheels. But dream when you're trying to set these goals. So then break it down, right? Break it down into the habits and the life that you have to live on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, yearly basis, depending on how grandiose the goal that you're trying to achieve. So, like, for me, one of my goals I set years and years ago, I want to be on the main stage of inbound. Now, I quit talking about it because I decided to put my money where my mouth is and just get to work and start building GBT into whatever it could be. And maybe someday, instead of Gary Vee, it'll be me. And that even rhyme people. I'm just gonna throw that out there. But. So here's the thing. That's a dream. That's a dream goal. Now I have to break it down into the habits, the. The daily, the weekly, the monthly. Things that I have to do that I have to focus on to reach that level with that. The story that I love, and you can Google it on YouTube or YouTube it or whatever, you'll find it is this story that Will Smith talks about where his father breaks down this, like, wall in the shop, and him and his brother have to rebuild the wall. It's basically over summer. And their mindset is, this is impossible. We'll never be able to do this. But once they started to lay, one brick became 2, two became 3, three became 6, six became 12. One brick at a time. And before they knew it, they had built an entire wall. That's the thing. People get one. Get frozen, paralyzed in time because they keep looking at this big goal. It's really hard to measure how close or how far away you've gotten to that big goal. But if you can see each brick you've laid in my world, each piece of content I've created, each person that I've impacted, each connection that I make on social, each human that I help in some sort of special way by being a good human myself. Like each brick, pretty soon you'll have that wall. So what wall are you building? What bricks are you laying? How are you getting to where you want to go? That's what I have to ask you. And again, I'm talking to the business owner, I'm talking to the marketer, I'm talking to the sales professional, the service. More importantly, I'm talking to you as a human. Like, how are you doing it? One brick at a time, one habit at a time, one movement at a time. One of the sayings I love to say, Liz is 1% better each and every day. How are you doing that? How are you incorporating that in your life?

When I think about great goal setting, first of all, I love that story I read. Think what you want about him. I don't really care. He's an incredibly inspirational human. And Will Smith's book is fascinating. I loved it. It resonated a lot with me. And that story really stuck with me because again, often we feel like we can't achieve our goals because we're just staring at the giant wall and we're not even bothering to take a step. And even if you end up not achieving that goal, even if it only became part of a wall, or maybe you end up building something entirely different, it you only know because you tried. Now, the other piece of it, there are a couple other things I want to throw in there too. So from the book, which I know you love, Atomic Habits by James Clear, one of the things that he talks about a lot is that it's easier to instead of like, goals that are geared around like a thing or a milestone, it's better to set goals that are identity based because you're not working toward this. One thing I remember I had this workout goal a long time ago where I was like, I was going to do 100 workouts and I did it and what am I going to do? Just set another 100 workouts? Like, it lost its luster and I fell off. I fell off the path. So I talked a lot about the goal setting that I did earlier this year, where I spent four months writing goals and my most effective goals, where I was like, I am a person who does this. I am healthier. Or whatever. Like writing identity goals where it's, I am a runner who has completed an Ironman marathon. That is a great goal, right? I am an Ironman marathon champion or whatever. I don't know. Runners can tell me what that is. Because I believe fun runs are a conspiracy perpetrated by the fitness lobby to sell shoes. Totally different podcast, totally different day. But I had identity goals that got me to where I am right now. It wasn't, I'm going to start my own business. It was, I'm a visionary entrepreneur who's going to challenge the way content has always been done. It's visualizing and getting really specific about the person you want to be. And then if you do something every single day where you just are living as that person, it's weird. Your body catches up, your environment catches up, everything around you starts catching up. And what's actually really interesting about it is when I set those goals and started living those goals, instead of being like, I'm going to check this thing off the list. And I did it instead. I was saying, my goals are based around this is who I want to be and this is who I am now. I have committed on this day. This is now who I am. It made it really easy to spot the other thing that's important in goal setting. What are the yeses and saying right now? That should be nos.

Oh, so I gotta jump in here. First of all, if you're listening to this and you haven't read the book Atomic Habits, it was on my notes to talk about it as well. So I'm glad Liz brought it up. It's. It could be life that Hang on the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and Atomic Habits, when paired together, could be life changing to everybody listening to this podcast episode. But I have to unpack this because you said the words vision, and then also earlier in the podcast, I said, am I? And you did something very interesting, listeners. You can rewind, but Liz started to say, I am. And when you have a goal and you attach it to your vision and you change your language to a language of affirmation, you are training your brain that you are already that person that you envisioned that you want to become. I am strong. I am powerful. I am smart. I am a HubSpot hero. I am whatever it is you need to put in there. Changing the language to that in an effort to expedite the habits and the traction that you're trying to get on the journey that you're headed with this dream goal that we're talking about. It's like that, right? There's a ninja tip. Change the way that you talk about yourself and change the way that you talk about the journey that you're on, and it'll be fundamentally far different than you've ever done historically.

All right, let's tie this up with a bow.

Yeah.

I'm actually not going to ask you what your one thing is, because I think there's too much in this episode. You literally there. There's so much here where. If I were to extrapolate this out, I don't know. I don't want to ask about the one thing. George, I want you to share.

I'm getting nervous. I'm getting nervous now.

I promise to do the same thing. So instead of a one thing, you and I are each gonna share, let's get vulnerable and share a real, honest, honest goal that we have set for ourselves in the coming year.

Oh, wow.

You can share more than one if you'd like, but I don't want it to be like it's round revenue. Let's walk the walk. Let's show. Let's get a little Victorian trashy. Show a little emotional skin.

Yeah. So it's interesting. This past six months has been amazing and more than I could ever have dreamed of. Yet at the same time, slightly depressing. So let me unpack that because people are like, holy, what just happened? So in one area or multiple areas, it is a skyrocket. And I just can't even believe that this is the journey I'm on. But there are two historical things that have been really important to me that have fallen to the wayside over the last six months. One is the lack of getting out and walking and moving. And so a lot of people, or some people listening to this, know that a year and a half or two years ago, got diagnosed with RA, went on this health kick, lost like 79 pounds in seven months. And let's just say this, I've gained some of it back because I've been eating the wrong things, not doing the right things, lost sight of my goal, everything that we've been talking about here. And so one of the things for me is how do I get away from my computer and move more and actually get that weight back off, if not more weight. But again, I have to tie that to the real reason. Not because I want to reach 216 and a half pounds, but because when I step on stage, when I do this, when I show up this way, I want to be able to present my way in this way. So that's 1, 2. I will give you a second one, by the way, I could give you a third one because there is a whole revenue goal which is like mind blowing to me, but might be a different episode or on the stage of Inbound someday or something like that, that, that has been happening. But the second one. And again, everybody that knows me knows that education for me has been a key factor in getting me where I am today. The lack of educating myself in a historical way of HubSpot Academy, podcasts, audiobooks, that's been a desert. That's the freaking Sahara. However, the amount of stuff I've learned in just running a business and the amount of stuff that I've learned about myself, and I'm not realizing this until this moment that I'm speaking on this podcast, I've actually had a brand new college degree in other things. Still felt guilty about the fact that there's an SEO2 certification and a CMS2 for developer certification and, and there's all these certifications that are falling off and I'm like, but then I got people I gotta help. But still, that's an excuse. So how do I map out the time that I need to be moving and walking? And how do I map out time that I need to educate myself because here's the big deal. Holy field or the real deal holy field. As soon as those two things get into my brain and start to fight, it dissolves the whole situation. Because it's like now I can't focus on what I want to focus on because I'm focused on the things that I haven't been focused on. And it's like shooting like big freaking bomb torpedoes in my brain when I just need to like, if I went for a walk and listened to a dang certification for even 30 minutes a day, the rest of my day, that war wouldn't be happening.

And we actually spend more time. I, I think about it, I don't want to do laundry. I'll spend three hours thinking about how I won't want to do laundry when literally the physical act where I need to be engaged in doing laundry, it's 15 minutes manimal. Like that's the thing. We'll spend more time emotionally killing ourselves over that stuff than actually doing it. My goals this year, I alluded, I talked about this earlier about how I did the, that whole goal setting thing earlier this year, how it was so much easier when I wasn't running my own business to actually create the time. And I am someone who is purposefully creating that time and recommitting myself to goal setting. I know that's a strange goal to have, but I'm letting the car drive me a little bit instead of driving my own car. And that's. I want to be the driver. I am the driver. So that's, that's the big goal. The other piece of it is similar to yours. I have always, I think to get very personal. I'm six feet tall, I've got a big personality. I am a larger woman. But that's never really held me back in a lot of ways or to yours. I have always, I think to get very personal. I'm six feet tall, I've got a big personality. I am a larger woman. But that's never really held me back in a lot of ways. But what would happen if I took my health as seriously as I did my career? What would happen if I applied the same level of annoying tenacity.

Yes.

To that part of my life because it's something I've always, I'm always going to be this way. I'm always going to be that girl. And the reality, yeah, it's the negative self talk. But I think the other thing is I'm 40. You know what? I actually more at peace with my body now than I've ever been. And also my goal now is not have the sleek whatever body. Even when I was younger and in my tip top shape like rowing crew, I was still 510 at a size like 16, which is healthy and normal because I came from a big Italian family. So that's the thing where it's I want to be healthy, I want to feel more confident, I want to have more energy, I want to go on stage, not worry, oh, am I going to get sweaty. Like I want to be free and mobile and happy. And I think what can happen is that, and this I think wraps it up really nicely goes back to what I said about the human piece of it. If you get too goal oriented and too tunnel visioned on only a specific set of goals and not the ones that serve you as a human, you'll be surprised what parts of the rest of your life will fall off or get neglected.

Preach. Preach.

And with that, George Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Liz Happy New Year everybody.

So don't forget if you like this show, if you want to, if you have feedback for us, please do not forget to leave a review. And if you're hearing this now and also want to share in your review what your goals are for this upcoming year, we'd love to hear that. And also don't forget to go to hubheroes.com SEO we still have some seats available for our SEO Content Strategy Masterclass. If you don't know what we're talking about, please go back to the previous two episodes. Or if you just like content that makes money, you should check it out. But with that, I'm Liz Murphy. George, it's great to talk to you as always.

You too, Liz.

Happy New Year.

Okay Hub Heroes, we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out. In the next episode, make sure you head over to thehubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend, leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag hubcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until Next time, when we meet and combine our four forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero. Liz. It's funny because again, we'll put in the show notes that we forgot to tell them to use the coupon code hub hero or hub heroes. But yeah, it's funny because I want to unpack with you real quick. One other thing that I wanted to share, but I was scared to share as far as the goal goals, and that is I didn't bring up the book. I didn't bring up the book. And I know that it's time, like it's time for the book. And just at some point, maybe I'll tell the world.

I think you should tell them now because you've been telling me about this book, God, for years. You told me about this book when I first met you. This book has been in your heart for how long?

Yeah. And what's funny is so much of the episode that we just did is a lot of things that I want to talk about and incorporate into this book. That is just everybody that I talk to, they're like, you need to birth that. Yeah, I don't like pain. I don't like pain. I don't want to birth it.

But do you like the kids?

But do you like the kids? On some days. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I don't edit that out.

So wait, why don't you tell. What? Could you tell me a little bit about it? I know, but maybe. Yeah, for those who are stuck around.

Yeah. And it's funny you use the word stuck right there because the book is literally for people who feel like they're stuck in a place in their life and they want to go in a different direction, they want to elevate themselves. They're not sure how to get there. And it's a lot of stories from my life over 50 years now that I've lived, understanding that I came from a one room log cabin with no run, running water. I've gone to school in a one room schoolhouse. I rode my pony to that school and have gone from that to like literally the HubSpot Helper. Own your own business, like where we're at now. Right. And so it's just been this journey. There's been some lessons along the way. And I just want to incorporate that into a manual that somebody who either older than me, younger than me, just getting started out, or been doing it forever can go, oh, my gosh. I found the blueprint to how I get where I want to go. I need to create that.

I would read it.

I'd read it, too.

Do you want to know what my third goal is?

Yeah.

Take a nap. Bring napping back into my life.

Hashtag naps for everyone.

It's also equitable to a book, am I right? No. Okay, I'm alone on that one.

Bye. Bye, Sam.