How can I create an audacious vision? - with Alden Mills on Optimize Coach

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My question is, and it was really spawned when you were talking about dreaming big. And I can dream big. My experience though is when I'm in my lane and I feel comfortable, I can vision those steps unfolding. But when I'm stretching out towards my purpose and I'm taking that step and I can't see the staircase, I find that my long term dreams start to shift. Almost anything's acceptable. And then I have a hard time visioning something concrete. It's almost like in some ways I'm blocking myself from visioning a level of success that I would even think is possible. So I was wondering if you have any thoughts on that.

The first thing that immediately pops to my mind is. The boat. If you read Be Unstoppable and Captain Peters boat, the Persistence, right, I've had this dream for 20 years to have this boat called the Persistence. And for the longest time I wanted that boat because I just wanted a big ass boat, right? I just wanted, I love boats and I just wanted this boat. But I kept falling short of getting that boat. And then I went through a retooling of priorities and I started thinking about what really what am I built to do? What is it that I can do that I can bring to help others the most? And when I got into alignment with what was really important to me, that I was built and what I can give back to others, the boat came into a different vision. It wasn't just about the joy of just having a big boat. It was, wouldn't that be a great place to have a coaching platform that I bring others out on that boat and show them not just metaphorically, but realistically. This is what it's like to go past the line of sight of land, right? And so what I am bringing to you is something that I have discovered over the last 10 years that has made a dramatic impact with me. And I didn't know I was doing it at the time with perfect push up. But when I decided to go into fitness, I was at a complete crossroads. I had left SEAL team, I went to business school. I was rubbing my head going, what have I done? I grew up in the military. I had gone to the Naval academy, did seven years in SEAL team. I went back into SEAL Team. I was totally lost. I didn't like being a civilian. And my wife's like, you know, you've always said you wanted to start a business and you wanted to get into creating some type of widget. Why don't you do that now? So when I went through that process, I was like, okay, well, what would that be? And I was like, I know I'm going to work in an industry that's going to be a part of my life, regardless if I work in it or not. And I was an asthmatic kid. Fitness helped me overcome things. That's how I went into fitness. And what I wanted to do was to teach people about taking control of their bodies, taking control of their life. That was my focus. It was not about how many units of Perfect Push Up I could come out with. I didn't even create that product first. Right. What I was after was, how can I help help others have the same experience I have eventually? In the worst problems I had in Perfect Fitness is when I focused on sales and not on helping people. When I got wrapped around the axle about, I got to sell more things to Walmart because I was getting more and more pressure from my investors. It was a very painful period of my life to a point where I thought I was having a heart attack because I was feeling so much pressure on just producing profit. I had lost my purpose. And then along the way, this child, 14 years old, writes me this letter in pencil. Dear Mr. Perfect Push up man, thank you for inventing the Perfect Push Up. My grandmother bought me the 1999 version at Walmart. She gave it to me for Christmas. I followed your workout plan four times. Workout plan was three weeks. So that was 12 weeks. And I made the JV football team. Next year, I'm trying out for varsity best Johnny number 25. I took that letter, I put it right in the front of the company. Everybody walked through and they said, this is why we're in business. I'm done just trying to constantly chase the Walmart wheel or Dick's or Asda or blah, any of those. And that was a fundamental shift. And I know that seems like a small one, but once I did that purpose shift, things got back into my flow. Steve. Right when I stopped thinking about, well, I just want a big ship to walk around and say, look, I've got a big ship or a big boat or whatever, and said, no, no, no. Wouldn't it be great to take people all around the world and show them what I'm really talking about, about journeying outside the safe harbor and creating your own course. I've had this boat now come up to me twice for sale. And I bring that point up to you because it is about being in alignment with what you're built to do. What makes your heart sing. And then you put those dreams into the same context. You then bring your vision into it. That's called congruency. And when you're congruent with what you're built to do that makes your heart sing. Forget about the outside noise. And then you start planning those dreams. There won't be anything you can't do, Steve. Nothing. But you got to stay true with who you're built. Does that make sense?

It does. Clear.

You tracking with me? I'm with you.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you very much.

We hope you enjoyed that. Part of a live coaching session from the optimize coach program. For more info, head to optimize me coach.