Why SMART Goals Are Failing You | Caroline Adams Miller on the Science of Big Goals

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion and now coach to entrepreneurs, CEOs, professional athletes all over the world. This show is for people who refuse to settle, people who are driven, people who want to grow, who know that there's so much more to learn and want to learn from the world's best. Each week I bring you insights from a special guest who's at the top of their game with whether they're in Formula one, whether they're a billionaire, whether they've started a company from scratch and take it to the top. I bring them to you so that you can rewire your mindset, take action and lead a life of purpose. Let's get started. Caroline Adams Miller is today's very special guest. She's the author of Big Goals. So if you've got ambitions and goals, you need to listen to this episode. She has went deep on understanding how we form goals, achieve goals. We go deep on so many topics today, but she is the world's leader when it comes to goal setting. Enjoy. Caroline, a huge welcome back. I don't get to say that very often. It's usually someone will get on the show once and then we've got a backlog of guests and so nobody gets to come on. But exceptions are made. We've had the Prime Minister on twice because there was demand for him to come back on. We had so much demand for our listeners that listened to your last episode going, please, can we learn more? Can we get into the goal stuff? So welcome back.

Wow. Gosh. Thank you. Thank you for having me back.

I'm lucky to have you back. You're in demand. You have written so many best selling books. Your most recent is Big Goals. That's what we're going to talk about today. And for those that are listening, we're actually going to look at how do we set them and get tactical with it. But first things first. I see you as someone I look up to, a role Model in many ways, and you're very successful across so many parts of your life. If I was to be a fly on the wall in the day, in the life of Caroline, what are some of the habits or rituals that I would see that you do to keep yourself centered?

Wow. Right now, one of the habits that I've really taken to heart is not binging on news. Living in the United States is a really challenging time right now, and I feel like the energy that's going along with the news is more negative and like a downward spiral. So I'm really taking in very little news, only what I need to know. I don't want to be completely out of touch, but exercise is a huge piece of what I do. So weightlifting, swimming. I'm back swimming with my team on a regular basis. And it's in the mornings. I always do something energetic in the mornings and usually again at night, stretching, that kind of thing. I laugh a lot. I talk to people who, who can hold the absurdity of two ideas together because, you know, those are really smart people. And I just, I find that laughter is an oxygenation. And then I am reading history right now a lot. I'm reading. And we were just talking ahead of time. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about how did Abraham Lincoln put together a cabinet of his rivals and get us through, gosh, one of the most difficult times in the history of the United States, at least. And I'm learning so much about the importance of stories, storytelling, and good relationships with people. And I think the more I keep my mind on reading good, good things that I think about later. Not the news, not People magazine. I am a better human being for learning about.

You know, what did Abraham Maslow say? He. He said Abraham Lincoln was one of the realized individuals in our history, one of the people who had really.

Not, not attenuated what. What is the word? It starts with an A. Actualized. Actually, it was completely actualized. And you read this and you think, we were so lucky to have the right person at the right time. So I'm reading history, but I'm reading the right kind of history to guide me on how to be a better human being in a difficult time. So that's. Those are the habits. And then I work with people who, whom I love. And my clients are my life during the day. And right now I'm working with a European client who is changing the world and who's so awe inspiring that I'm going to be flying to Europe to work with her company in A few weeks. And that is just, like I said, awe inspiring to work with people with that kind of brilliance and purpose and passion to make the world better and to do hard things to make that happen. And that makes me better.

That's beautiful. How fortunate to get to go over there, but also how fortunate are they? So what is it that they're doing that's so awesome, inspiring? What's their. Their industry?

Okay, space. It's space. And so this woman is.

I think I can say who. Who she is. Her name is Helene ubi. She's the founder and CEO of the exploration company. It's the only privately funded space company in the world. And she's broken records, just had her Series B financing raised, you know, a couple hundred million dollars. But more than that, she wants to use space not just for expl. But to bring peace to the world. And she wanted Europe to have a seat at the table. She saw too many other countries, China, the us Et cetera, all getting there first. And she said, the countries that are left behind when it comes to colonization are the ones who don't have a say in the world. And Europe needs to have a seat at the table. And she did it. And because of her work building the exploration company and bringing countries together, France and Germany have signed some really historic treaties. And I get to work with her around the awe, just the awe that she and her company are bringing to Europe and to the world. Because of. It's. When you talk to women about space, they don't talk like Elon Musk, about domination and winning and first and space race. She's talking about peace. Space peace. And I gave a speech yesterday, and the speaker who came after me was an astronaut, and he's been in space four times. And I said, tell me about the overview effect, because this is a piece of the awe that I hear about when I work with Ellen. And he said, the minute as an astronaut, you unbuckle yourself and you float to the window to look out of the capsule. He said, everybody's first thing they do is they say, wow. He said, without any fail, everybody goes, wow. And I said, what do you see? And he said, there's this impossibly beautiful velvet blackness that you see. And the stars. He said, I can't describe the colors. It's not normal black. It's not normal light. And he said, and then you see the Earth. And he said, I saw. What did he say? 14 sunrises and sunsets in one day. And he said, you're just struck with the beauty of the world and the. And the importance of getting along with people. So I get to work with Ellen and her company around space. And space is the future, but it's not just space and space race. It's space and space, peace and harmony and bringing the world together. And I'm so fortunate to be able to work with people like that.

I'm just fizzing listening to it. Two powerhouse women doing such incredible work. I'm glad Ellen's got you on board because big goals like she's got, they will take the expertise and the structure and the support from you. So I'm excited to check in on that over the coming years.

Yeah, yeah. And let me say one other thing about Ellen. Her DNA is so unusual. Two of her grandparents were in the French Resistance, and they were born French Catholic. But. But her grandmother was captured and taken to Ravensbruck, the woman's concentration camp. Her grandfather, and this was before the two of them met. I think he was taken to Auschwitz. And so the stories she grew up with were stories of living a purposeful life where your values matter. And when you get to be around people who grow up with the storytelling that impacts who you become, and you see what happens. The way they think, think, the way they act, the intention they bring to every day. It's changed me. And she's not my only client, but she's certainly an amazing client. So I just wanted to say that there's something unique about people who grow up hearing stories of resistance and overcoming and doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is, that makes them wake up and say, what hard things can I do today to make the world better? And if more of us could wake up like that, the world would be maybe more harmonious than it feels right now.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Caroline. Jlachlin.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

Well, you're setting that intention. You're putting it out there into the world. So there's listeners listening now, being challenged, thinking, I want to be. I want to be like ln. I want to be part of the solution. So to do that, we do actually have to set way bigger goals and take big swings, be looking through the lens of what's possible. So how do we do it? So you've done the research, the deep research. This is not, Hey, I want the chatgpt. How do we set goals? Write a book and put it out there.

Great. I didn't do that.

You're debunking traditional old school smart goals and all the other systems that Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins and all those guys teach us.

If we do a quick overview, obviously last time we went into the book, but a quick overview of what that looks like. And then can we go deep on. Let's actually pretend we're setting a big goal together. And then how do we kind of reverse engineer?

Yep. And maybe, maybe we can go back and forth and you can give me one of your big goals and we'll go from there. But not all of your goals have to be huge goals, but you have to have game chang goals in your life. And we've gotten so far away from the idea of doing hard things that we've kind of things have just become good enough or the trophies for everyone approach to life really dumbed down what it meant to be elite or excellent. And so we need to have goals that make us want to wake up and that pull us forward. Approach goals, they're magnetic. And these are the goals that we set for ourselves. And the reason that is so important is because that kind of passion is what sustains you in the dark night of the soul. Because big goals have setbacks. Big goals mean that you're going to fail at times. You're going to fail maybe in purposeful ways, like the National Spelling Bee here in the United States. Even young children who get into the national spelling bee, the more they fail, the more likely they are to go home and do harder studying, often by themselves. And they hate the hard work as much as anyone else, but they do it. And that's where passion drives us. So big goals are passionate because they're our goals, not our parents, our cultures, our boss. So we need those. They quicken the pulse. They make us want to get up in the morning. They allow us to persist. And in the process of doing that, we end up having more positive emotions in our lives. So one of the first things you do when you set a big goal, and I learned this at Penn in 2005. And this was part of my book, creating your best life. This fascinating finding that all success with all goals is preceded by being happy first or being emotionally positive first and flourishing. So you have to put yourself in a situation where you're thinking more positive thoughts or more compassionate or grateful thoughts, because what does it do? It makes other people more likely to want to work with you, to help you, to build bridges with you. Your thinking is more expansive. You're more curious. So if you want to have a big goal and succeed at that big goal, you also have to boot up your wellbeing, your flourishing first. So that's step number one. Yes.

In that step that's so important. I want to ask a question because this is fascinating, and I often hear, go hard, be aggressive. You know, this kind of masculine macho. We've got to always be hard and aggressive. What I'm hearing is, no. The highest performers, the elite, are actually in a good mental space, and they're flourishing, as you say. How do we get into that state of flow of joy, of love?

Right. Well, that is why positive psychology exists. So back in 2005, I went back to school. I was part of this group of 32 people, men and women from all over the world, who went there to study this science of flourishing, which is based on the fact that for too long, we focused on depression and sadness and all this horrible stuff. But instead of that, we turned it upside down and realized that we can change our mindset. We can actually change the structure of our brains by becoming more grateful, more compassionate, being more loving, et cetera. They're like 11 words for positive emotions. And so how do we generate those? Well, you can just start with thinking about who believed in you, who believed in you and your potential. Just answering that question starts a cascade of chemicals and oxytocin in your body that allow you to bond with other people. It's the love hormone. So you prompt yourself to think, wow, who believed in me? Or think of a time that you're grateful for. Think of a time when, if you're a parent, your child took their first step. Or the love you felt, this ineffable, amazing love you feel when your child is put on your chest. If you're a woman and it's like, oh. Oh, my gosh. I didn't know I could feel like this. Or when all three of my children got married, I remember looking around at every one of those ceremonies and thinking, there is no word for the joy I feel right now. But When I call up those days, in my mind, that's how you get into that emotion. So you savor. You think of positive things. You do positive things. Barbara Fredrickson talks about micro moments of well being and that there is this mathematical ratio where you want to be over four positive micro moments to one negative because you have to water down the negative. So think of positive things. Do journaling prompts that remind you of positive things? Look at pictures. Happy people have three P's in their houses. Plants, pets and photographs. And the reason why those three P's come up all the time is pets. You're caring for something outside of yourself. You might be stroking them and kind of evoking those hormones when you're stroking a dog's hair or cat's back. Pets again, pets. Plants, taking care of plants. Kind of the delayed gratification of, you know, planting a seed and tending to it. And then photographs. Photographs, because you don't usually put photographs around that remind you of sad things. They're usually moments of triumph or happiness or love or pride of all. So that's how you generate those emotions. And it's a responsibility to choose that state of mind. And that's one of the biggest, biggest blessings that positive psychology is uncovered, is that we can change our mental state and have very specific brain changes that go along with it that are permanent. I also like to recommend that everybody take the Via Character Strength Inventory. 15 minutes free via character.org I don't get anything from this. It just happens to be the positive Psychology Strength test that has been translated into, I don't know, 50 languages. And it's been taken by hundreds of millions of people. Take that. Taking the test and seeing your top five strengths and thinking about, wow, when did I use these five strengths at one time? And those are usually peak moments in your life. And when you think of those again, you're booting yourself up with well being. So that's a long answer, but it's important. You can't talk about goal setting unless you first talk about the important importance of positive emotions and even positive relationships. Because remember, positive emotions are contagious. Choose who's around you very, very carefully.

Thank you, Caroline. And I'll put via. I've done it several times throughout my life. I'll put it in the show notes so people can go straight and do it. It takes 10, 15 minutes. I love that what you've shared is very tactical. So that's step one. What's the next step on the journey?

Next step is I'm thinking back on my life. I'm 60, I'm 65. I'm 70. I'm 75. And I'm sitting there and I have regrets about something I haven't pursued. What, what area of life is that? What is it that I harbor a longing to do or try or see or whose life have I imagined and looked at and thought, gosh, I wish, I wish I had that inside of me too. Well, you can. And so I believe that when you have the quality of grit which is part of big goals, how you pursue those goals, awesome inspires other people. Think about yourself awing and inspiring other people because you're doing something that you're passionate about that's hard, that you're prepared to persist through and just what comes up for you. So for some people it's changing jobs. For some people it's taking a risk on a relationship that they long to pursue. For some people it's about travel. It could be a lot of things because everybody's big goal is different from someone else's big goal. The important thing is this big goal carries with it the risk of regret if you don't try it. So it's always going to be out of your comfort zone because you don't know what the outcome's going to be. And that's why at the end of every day we know that the happiest people have done hard things because we all survey our day at the end of the day for what we did that was hard because that's how we build up this muscle of self efficacy and self confidence. So think about what are the things that you long to imagine yourself doing or you see someone else and you think if I did that I could have those things happen possibly to myself as well. So pick a big goal that resonates with you, doesn't have to resonate with anyone else, but you know that you will be proud of yourself for going after that goal. Does that answer the question?

That does. And for me that you've got me, I'm sure the listeners feeling the same way. I know what it is. I can picture it in my head, what is it? So for me, I'm bringing my first book out this year with Harper Collins. And in my mind I want to have a million copies, whether one book or multiple books, but a million copies of my book. So why? Not for money, not for ego, but for my mission. My mission is to help great humans become the greatest, the greatest version of themselves. And I need to be writing. I know I do A lot of video content. I do podcasts. But actually I've got this longing of like six books in my mind that I need to write. And I'm just. I need to. I need to sit down and write. And the first one's not even out and I'm already thinking about starting number two. So it's just. It's. I'm really passionate. So that's my big goal. Million. A million copies of my books in the world.

Then we're going to go right with that to explain goal setting and how to go about it. So this is your first book. It's coming out from HarperCollins. What is it called?

It's called the Habits of High Performers.

Okay, perfect. It says everything. And so it's your first book. And so what we call this. I'm going to talk about goal setting theory very, very quickly. Locke and Latham are these two gentlemen who studied motivation and goal setting their entire academic lives. And goal setting theory is what they published in 1990, updated it in 20, 2015 with priming, which is being impacted by the aromas or the signs or the colors or whatever around you. It shapes the way you think and it actually impacts goal accomplishment. But goal setting theory is ranked number one of 73 management theories. It's that impactful. No replication challenges. It has held up to the scrutiny and the test of time. And they found that there are two kinds of goals. The goal you just described is a learning goal. It's your first book, so you can't just say, well, I have this formula in place, this recipe. It's my fifth book. I know exactly how to roll it out, where to go, how many to take with me to a speech. I know who to hire for social media. You don't know any of those things. If you did, it would be what's called a performance goal. But I call them checklist goals because they're recipes. You've done it before. It's a recipe. So. So we're going to go to learning goals. So you're starting with a learning goal. So the first thing you do when you've identified your goal, it's your goal. You're passionate about it. It's a big goal, is who has done this before and who has succeeded in the ways in which I want to succeed. First thing you do is flatten your learning curve as fast as possible, right? So if I were to say to you, okay, it's a learning goal and you want to sell a million books, who do you know or who can you research where will you go? Research people who've done exactly what you want to accomplish.

So for me, Robin Sharma is a author I've been following for years. He sold 25 million copies. So Robin and I have developed a friendship over the years. And so he's been a mentor. Johann Harry, who wrote Stolen Focus recently and many other books, he's been of good help. And I looked at great authors like you who are just so far down the line, multiple time bestsellers. So, yeah, surround myself with people who've done it. And I've got a another agency in the US that advises me on brand and book selling and launching books because I have no idea. I'm a rookie.

Okay, well, see, you're doing all the right things. You are, I think, learning from people who've done it before. Asking tactical questions, how do I do this? What would you do? Would you hire this PR agency or that PR agency or would you not hire a PR agency? How much money should I set aside to invest in this? I'm getting into the I, because now what I'm talking about is my bridge method, which is goal setting theory. First you go, is it a checklist goal or a learning goal? So once you establish that, you move into the bridge method, which for me is the acronym that encapsulates all of the research that covers every prompt you have to think through in order to have a strategy that is very likely to succeed. So the brainstorming is who's done it before. And also, I just want to say, as a woman, it's important for me to look at women who've succeeded at the things I've done before because we're just now looking at the fact that a lot of psychology research, motivation research, medical research, the things that have been put out there to do as successful habits. We're finding now that a lot of the things that have been put out there work mostly for white men and not always for people of color or women or whatever. So you want to talk to people who look like you, sound like you are likely to have had the same experiences you're going to have with door openers or with people who are, you know, interested in putting your book out on LinkedIn. And women and men have very different experiences with transactional relationships. So. So you want to do that and you also want to ask yourself, and to me, that the B in brainstorming boils down to this first question. What's new? What's new in the world that would allow me to be even more successful, more efficient, more Excellent. Than that person who's giving me really good advice. But this technology didn't exist a year ago. And it might be artificial intelligence. You might, you know, they didn't have access to. We were talking about school S K O O L before this. That's a new kind of mighty network kind of community. So you look at what's new. Well, maybe I'll do school. I'll use chatgpt4o to create a 90 day social media plan for me. So what's new? So that's the first thing. How am I going to go about flattening my learning curve and coming up with the best possible ways to succeed that might be new on top of what else people are telling me? Okay, any question about that?

No, that's fantastic. I'm already thinking. Okay, brainstorming is critical. I'm already thinking I'm using Kajabi, but maybe I should be considering school. And I like that you're challenging my thinking as opposed to, this is comfortable for me. I've always done this. Caroline's challenging me to think, what are the five, six, seven other things I could do?

Well, see, that's the interesting thing, is that if you have any experience with artificial intelligence, you know that the quality of the prompt that you put into, whether it's Claude or perplexity or chatgpt4, I have subscriptions to all of them because I am so down the rabbit hole on this Gemini copilot, you name it. Because it's so helpful in so many ways, is you want to put prompts into your life about your big goal that are likely to get excellent answers. And so the prompts would be not just what's new, but what's new that will make me more excellent and efficient. And where can I find that information? Maybe it's on LinkedIn, maybe it is at my local meetup group. But I was challenging an engineer at a big nonprofit out in the Pacific Northwest where he was going to find this data architecture that he needed to use to build this whole platform for his nonprofit. No one had ever built it before. And he didn't have a lot of humility. He didn't want people to know that he didn't know how to do it. And I pushed and pushed and pushed. I was like, this is a learning goal, dude. You've got to ask people for help. And finally he said, you know what? I'll go back to the engineering club at Stanford University because I know they won't think less of me because I've been in There I know them. And so that's what he did. But you have to push yourself. Where am I going to learn this excellent information as quickly as possible? So that's brainstorming and in the book, big goals. I have lists of other prompts and questions that could lead you to have some really unusual out of the box thinking. The next thing in Bridge is relationships. Who do I want and need to have on this journey with me? So think of it as a car. And the car is driving to your million, million book sales. And so in the car with you, I'm going to start with the negative who shouldn't be in the car with you. Because since emotions are contagious and we know that, active, constructive responding is the sure sign that someone does have your back. Are they curious and enthusiastic about your big goal? Do they want to help you? Who shouldn't be in the car with you? Whose calls should you not take? Whose emails should you kind of put a container around? One of my clients has hired some Filipino virtual assistants to go through his email every night after he goes to sleep. And in the morning they have taken out the ones that are the most, you know, positive. And you need to respond to these first. Or they've drafted responses, but the negative ones they've already put in the folder and said, these are a little bit difficult to read. But here's what we suggest. You say it's brilliant. I mean, because the right, the negative emotions can take you down. Remember I said bad is bigger than good in the brain. So for every one negative thought you have, you need to have three or four positive ones to water it down. So imagine starting your day with, without screening the negativity that can come from phone calls or emails or whatever. So relationships. What relationships do you need to put a container around? Including family members if necessary. And then who do you need to know now? In a month, in two months, in three months, do you need to become acquainted with independent booksellers in England and in the United States? And if so, should you reach out now? So relationships, just think about it now, in the future, who do I need to know? And. And who do I have to, you know, let them know? I will be needing them soon. So relationships. And it could be your therapist, it could be your coach, it could be your friends, whatever, your lover, your partner. But think that through. The next thing is investments, and that's super important. What kind of time will I have to invest in learning artificial intelligence? What kind of money will I have to invest in hiring a coach? What kind of energy will it take to train for that marathon? I mean, how many hours a day will it take to do my first Ironman? You have to really think that through and time block. People who don't time block effectively often derail their goal pursuit. Then you've got decision making. And this is super interesting because in the book, I talk about noise and bias and the ways in which people can make good decisions and people can, you know, offset good decisions by being biased, which we all know about. Confirmation bias, you know, racial bias, all the rest of it. Or noise, meaning you're making different decisions about the same topic just because you got a lot of sleep last night or you didn't, or your soccer team won or they didn't, or, you know, you had a bad meal or you went. Whatever it is. Noise is a bigger problem in decision making than is bias, apparently, according to Daniel Kahneman. Let me just pause there. You can ask me any question you want about decision making or anything.

Decision making is an interesting one. So investment I get, and I'm prepared to put a lot of time and finance into the book launch. And I don't believe that's something you just let a great company like HarperCollins deal with. You've got to get behind it and drive it. So I'm all in on that 100%. The decision thing is very interesting. The last week alone, I've had to make some big decisions, and I flipped and I flopped. And at different times of day, I've felt different ways about the decision. So this noise component. Yes, my life has a lot of noise. A lot of people pulling and asking. Most of it's joyous, but other parts of it are challenging. So what do we do with the noise? How do we control or manage the noise?

First thing we have to do is a noise audit on the decisions we have made before. So I have a worksheet and big goals about this, because noise could be, let's say, an HR director at a company.

On Monday mornings when he or she has had a great weekend with the family and eaten well and gotten plenty of sleep. What they find is they interview people more thoughtfully and with more preparation, and they make different kinds of salary offers and they get better employees. So that's one kind of decision. What if you get the exact same applicant on a Tuesday or a Wednesday and it happens to be the day after? You always visit your ailing grandmother in a nursing home and you've been up all night with, you know, worried or, you know, full of rumination or Grief or whatever it is. And you get the exact same decision to be made, same variables, but you make a different decision. You do things differently. You have to understand what are the situations that cause you to make noisy decisions. It could be doctors reading radiology X rays and on a Monday making, you know, saying, yep, there's definitely a tumor there that we have to look at. And on a Friday, just being so rushed and ready for the weekend that you don't say anything. You must know yourself in order to diagnose noise effectively. And because Daniel Kahneman said before he died in March of last year, he wrote the book Noise with two other very famous economists, he said, I know I've spent most of my life talking about bias, but he said, we have to get on top of noise because if we don't understand our own noisy decisions, we're going to make some of the biggest mistakes in our lives. But not only that, these are costing companies more millions of dollars than any other kind of decision. So we have to get on top of what is it that's a noisy decision for us. So I'll give you a great example. If I go to a swim practice and it's a really, really tough set and I've had a really good night's sleep, I will say to myself, gosh, I can do this. You know, I, I think I have it in me to do this. So I'm going to give it everything I have two days later if I had a bad night. But it's the same set, same people in my lane. And my, what I say to myself is, I don't have what it takes to be a good swimmer. Why am I here? I'm just going to give it half of an effort. That's a noisy decision. Same set, same people, same lane, same team, different mindset, different way of approaching things. And we have to know that about ourselves.

And I can sense that in myself too. Sometimes I have so much self doubt, like, what's the point in this? Why should I bother? They're so much better. They're way further ahead, right? And that's noise. And it's interesting, that decision yesterday, even within a day, there was different levels of noise throughout the day. Whereas we should do this. And then I spoke with my partner Caroline's three hours later, no, no, no, no, no, let's not do that. Like, let's go this way. But literally a couple of hours ago, you wanted to do this. And I can see the noise must have been playing a huge part in my decision.

Flipping and Flopping, we're seeing that in the United States right now with March Madness. So you get all these basketball upsets. So March Madness is this two week craziness where people are betting and the rest of it and there's so much emotion and watch part with basketball teams, men and women winning or losing, and people are saying that they're either despondent and you know, then they are making bad decisions or they're elated and they're being a little too optimistic about what it is they think they're capable of. Know your own own noise factor based on what's happening around you. You know, Annie Duke, who won the World Series of Poker, also talks about quit criteria. You need to go into every strategy, effort, knowing what would cause me to quit, what will tell me that this isn't going well and that I need to pivot or I need a different strategy. And that takes a certain amount of humility. So there's planning ahead. You know, the stoics talked about premeditatio malorum, premeditate the evils, but Andy Duke talks about quit criteria. And we all need to know at what point is this strategy of ours not working out and we have to fold our hands. And something Annie Duke has said a number of times that I've heard her say in interviews is professional poker players fold their hands on average like 50% more than amateur poker players because they know when to quit. And because they know when to quit, they know when to win.

That's amazing.

And they know how to win. So go into your strategy with quit criteria. So what would cause you to say, you know, this PR agency that I've hired to help me get my book out there, you know, they're not getting any placements or what would be, Let me just ask you, what would cause you to change horses if you were working with a social media strategist or whatever? And I'm being very hypothetical, but tell me what would cause you to say, not going well. You know, I'm not going to deal with sunk costs. I'm going to actually make a change here. What would you do?

This has happened in the past, particularly with digital marketers and social media strategists. I'm results focused and it's going to be when I invest in something and we're not seeing results. And results for me is growth, whether that's financial engagement, attention, depending on what the metric is. So for me with the book, if I was hiring someone, say social media to help me promote the upcoming book, and I'M not seeing more attention, more eyeballs on the book or social media. I'm not seeing growth in terms of engagement. That would be very, very quick. That would happen very quick for me. We need to part ways and I need to find the person that can actually get the job done.

See, that's so smart of you to know. Going into it, I'm going to put in this investment, this amount of money, and I'm going to know if it's going well or not well based on engagement, eyeballs, growth of my social media, book sales, whatever. So many people don't measure those things and they end up just kind of going along for the ride. But the other thing is, even if they are measuring it, it's another thing to override the emotions of sunk costs, which is an economic theory which is, I've put this much money or time into this marriage or this, this recipe or this, this pub, this pr, you know, person. And because I put in that money, I'm just, you know, it's hard to walk away from it. You've got to be able to override sunk costs. And something else I'm learning from reading Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln that I really wasn't aware of was how often he changed generals in the Civil War. I didn't realize that he, you know, he said, it's not going. It's not going well with McClellan. It's not going. Not going well with. I forget who. The other guy who was out West, Fremont. And he gave them enough time to succeed. But he knew what he was looking for. And because of that, he probably saved our country. He didn't dilly dally. And it was amazing how many brave men who had graduated from West Point who were just really good generals and they look good on their horses, but couldn't actually execute in a battle. And Lincoln was never kind of fooled by how good they looked on the horse or how high their grades were at West Point or whatever it was. It was results. If you're not measuring results and if you're not willing to change generals in your own life, you're not going to win anything. So you have to be. And this is where artificial intelligence, for me is, is amazing. Artificial intelligence removes noise from decision making. That's probably one of the greatest gifts that artificial intelligence has given the medical field, because it looks at 2x rays and there's no noise in how it assesses what it's looking at. Doesn't matter if your soccer team won. It doesn't matter if you Saw your mother in law last night and she insulted you. It's going to be the same outcome. And use artificial intelligence to remove noise from your decision making. That's one of the best, best things you can do.

Powerful. I love that very, that objective outlook compared to the subjectivity of our emotions that get in the way of us making decisions. That's really powerful. And what's the G stand for?

G is good. Grit. And so I said at the outset that big goals require grit because big goals are hard and you know, you don't know the outcome. By definition, big goals mean that it's not a slam dunk, it's not a sure thing. So you don't know if you're going to win or lose, but you know you're going to die trying or at least you're going to give it everything you've got. And so what is grit made up of? This is something that I studied for 10 years. Angela Duckworth and I are good friends and I just love her research. And what I broke grit down into in my book Getting Grit about how to cultivate it is I broke it down into these behaviors and mindsets that you have to check before you go into pursuing big goals. Do you have the right self talk when the chips are down and you're feeling besieged, what is the ticker tape that is crossing your brain? I interviewed a world record holder in mountain biking and she invites herself into a pain cave. I mean, it's fascinating. She just says, I'm going to go in my pain cave. Would you like to come with me? I was like, I have borrowed that and used that so many times. So the self talk, the vision. Do you see yourself quitting or do you see yourself winning or are you prepared for those hard moments?

Do you have humility? There are two kinds of humility and grit. Social humility and intellectual humility. So, you know, I'll just go back to Lincoln for a second. I mean, if you surround yourself in your cabinet with your rivals, people who went to college when you had to study law by the firelight because you didn't go to a higher education school like Lincoln, you've got the humility to know I've got this, but these people can teach me something with grit. You have to check yourself. Do I know what I need to know? Am I coachable? Am I teachable? Will someone be able to reach me emotionally if I'm going in the wrong direction and they're trying to give me that feedback? Do I have the ability to delay gratification and one thing I find over and over is people with good grit will abstain from alcohol quite often in the pursuit of big goals. Alcohol has been found, according to Roy Baumeister, to be the number one deterrent of all goal accomplishment. The number one deterrent. You cannot delay gratification when you've been drinking. You can't even push away all the empty glasses in front of you. And so I find that staying away from mood altering substances, particularly alcohol, is really helpful when it comes to pursuing big goals. And if you think about it, it is a depressant. And we started by talking about all success is preceded by being happy first. Why would you put a depressant and a poison into your body on a regular basis if you were pursuing a life changing goal? So I love that.

I want to jump in for just a second because Caroline and I, so my partner and I are coming up to five years, I think in three weeks time. Five years of no alcohol.

Wow.

It has been the biggest life changing decision I've ever made. And Caroline would agree for her own life. Healthier, happier, more energy. And then when you go into the other things, the extrinsic things, more money, business is growing like there's no tomorrow.

Yeah.

The goals that I've got are just moving towards me. Like I feel like they're like, as you mentioned earlier, like magnetizing rather than forcing my way to get to them. Because alcohol distracted me, it lowered my energy. I had so many hangovers on a monthly basis, I made poor decisions. So it's interesting that the research that you've read around goal attainment, you say Roy Baumeister.

Roy Baumeister at Florida State University. His research is pretty conclusive. And he's not the only one to show that alcohol just removes the ability to be thoughtful about your spending your anger, using more alcohol, using other substances. The reason I've been sober for 40 years is when I was overcoming bulimia, there was no way I was going to be able to maintain my abstinence from binging and purging if I had a drink. Alcoholism runs in my family. What was the point? So 40 years ago I thought, you know what, it is just not an advantage to have alcohol in my life. And I didn't stay on a slippery slope, Will I, won't I? Is it just, you know, sober for a month? It was like an arranged marriage for me. I'm done. And it sounds like you did the same thing. And good for you because done and dusted. It's amazing. And Grit benefits from getting mood altering substances out. So when you're looking at the whole idea of grit, do you have persistence? Do you have passion? Are you purposeful? Do you have humility? Do you have gratitude? Gratitude actually boosts the ability to delay gratification, which is fascinating, allows you to just kind of make better short term decisions about long term outcomes. So there are ways to boost grit that I've written about in the book Getting Grit. So that's, that's the G any.

I love it. That's great. And so gratitude just to zoom in for a second. So each morning I just get my journal. As soon as I wake up, it's sitting by my bed and I write three things I'm grateful for and then I think about those things and then I try and feel those things. Where's that emotional gratitude? Is that a powerful enough practice or should there be a deeper way of practicing gratitude?

Gosh, it sounds amazing. And the research from people like Sonia Lyubomirsky and other people in positive psychology is that it's good to change up your habits, even your good habits. Sonya talks about having a great running route. She lives out in California, in Riverside. And you know, so she runs and she has these beautiful trails she can go on. But she found that even when you change your running route, you've got a good running route. Nothing wrong with it. But if you change things up, novelty brings everything back to life. It's like it makes it bloom again. So a gratitude practice that's maybe a little bit different, like sending gratitude letters once a month to somebody. What it does is it has an even bigger impact because the hedonic treadmill means we adapt to pretty much everything, even good things. We adapt to them. So novelty is the spice of life. Maybe try something new. And my gosh, artificial intelligence can probably give you 50 new ideas for gratitude practices. That's another great thing.

It 100% thank you. And what about the E?

E is excellent. So I'll just go back to goal setting theory. I'll just circle right back where we started. So Locke and Latham found that the absolute best outcome for both checklist goals, recipes, things you've done before, and learning goals, is when you set what's called a challenging and specific goal. So the excellence that you have to start with is what is outside of my comfort zone. That's hard. So what is the excellent outcome that you're seeking of a record board? Right. So I remember when we joined a swim team just outside of Washington D.C. three Olympians, had swum in this pool as young boys, the parents had gotten rid of the record board because they said the children would be sad and depressed if they saw how fast these swimmers had been when they were younger. Which is so absurd because if you don't know what the standards of excellence are, what are you shooting for? So I made the biggest record board ever made for summer swimming. And you know what? The kids started standing in front of the record board and looking at it and records started to be broken. I mean, it was just, it was the perfect demonstration of excellence is its own reward. And so shoot for excellence. That's going to be hard outside of your comfort zone, but that, you know, if you pursue it, you will have no regrets that you went in that direction and did hard things things. So set excellence and measure it. Measure how you're doing. So that's what excellence is all about.

That's beautiful. It just makes me think, you know, if I go back to my own goal and hopefully everyone's thinking about their big goal or goals, having a visual image of, I've sold 50 books, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, and actually measure that over the years so I can visually see it come to life, that might be something I might do.

See, this is why the American Red Cross, when they're doing their blood drives, they have that thermometer on the wall. And so I thought it was kind of a hackneyed kind of thing, like, oh, that isn't that cute. But it doesn't really do anything, but it does. The visuals that tell you you're getting closer to something are actually very important. And I think Locke and Latham would call them primes. When you see things that make you think goal directed thoughts, and they tell you how you're doing, like a pedometer that's telling you how many steps you took, you tend to shoot for more excellence. People who don't want to know how they're doing don't have visual that tell them they're getting, you know, warmer or colder. So it's really important to have that. When I wrote my first book, I think I wrote, I can't believe this. I've never said this publicly. I wrote an interview, a fake interview, some reporter interviewing me about my first book. And I was like, how narcissistic can you be? But I was like, it was my first book and I just wanted to imagine what it would be like if somebody interviewed me. And I think it stuck in my head in such a way that I behaved as if those good things were going to Happen. So imagine it and even write, write an interview about it. One thing I want to just say as an asterisk to that is Gabriel Ottigen's research showing if you over fantasize about the record board, you over fantasize about standing on top of the podium or, or having done the hard thing that you want to do, you can start to believe you did the work when you didn't. And so you don't want to spend too much time imagining this fantastic outcome that hasn't yet occurred. But you want it to be a pin prick and a prime that gets you thinking and moving in the right direction. But don't over fantasize about it.

That's helpful. I remember in my days building up to the World championships and the times where I overthought about it for almost an entire year I was a nervous wreck on the day of the World Championships. And then in those years where I was like, I knew what I needed to do, I'd love to win gold, and I turn up with no neediness, no over nervousness and I perform great and win the World Championship. So I get that. I relate to when we fanaticize on things, it sometimes pushes them further away. So that makes sense.

No, it's true. It's funny. I just related this recently to myself and I wonder if any of your listeners will also feel this way. When I want to learn about something or I see this great author interviewed, sometimes I'll buy the book on my Kindle or whatever, but then I won't read it, but I'll think I read it. And I suddenly realized just by doing that, I'm thinking I actually did it. And so now I've become more self aware. It's like I can't do that because that's like Gabriel Ottigen saying, you're over fantasizing about the outcome. So I check myself on some things and I didn't expect, expect that, that, that realization. I was like, oh, that's gross.

Well done. I have to say I love your bridge method. That's. It makes sense. It's so tactical and it makes sense. Is there another step now after this?

No.

Great. Brilliant. Now we're ready to go, we can hit the road. We've got the tools we need. Okay, so I've got a couple of calls to action because the only reason people are listening to this, this specific episode, they've looked at the title of it, they've clicked on it, they're still here right now. It's because they've got ambition, they've got goals. They are wanting to make a difference in their lives and other people's lives. So for that person that's watching or listening right now, get the book, it's in the show notes. Get big goals right now. Read it, do the work. Don't shortchange yourself. Take no shortcuts and delay that gratification. Okay, second step. If someone's really serious about this, they've read the book or the book's on the way and they're like, I really want to. I want to take the next step. Is there anything else they can do with you to be certified or to take that next step in setting big goals for themselves and others?

Yeah. So I have created a course that is not live yet. And I've decided that because so many coaches and teachers and consultants and, you know, athletes want to learn the real science of goal setting, I will have a course going live probably on the school community within the next three months. So if you go to my website and sign up for my newsletter, you'll be the first to get notified about when it's starting. And it'll be both asynchronous and I think I'll have some live events. The other thing I want to say is on the books website, biggoalsbook.com there is a page where I have case studies where I've broken out goals and I've. And I've broken them out by the bridge method. It starts with, okay, here is the goal that somebody achieved, some company, some human being, and this is exactly what the steps look like. If they had gone through goal setting, theory checklist, goal learning, goal bridge method, B, R I. And so then at the end it says, and this is how it was accomplished. So they're great examples and you can use them as analogies for your own goals. So go to the biggoalsbook.com and take a look at those and that'll get you going, too.

That's incredible. I'm going to do two things. One, we'll get the link in the show note to your newsletter and I'm going to let everyone know on my newsletter about yours, because I think a lot of my people who read twice a week, we send a newsletter out, they would love what you talk about and what you do.

So that's so nice of you. See, this is the R in relationships. And so when you write a book or when you're sharing news of a course or whatever you think, brainstorming, how am I going to get the Word out. Well, it could be a newsletter. Whatever. Relationship things. Who wants me to succeed? Who's kind enough to put my name in the same sentence as their name? And so you really have to think about that because there are people who will undermine you and people like you who will uplift you. So there's kicking and climbing and climbing and lifting. So, you know, it's just when you look at almost anything in life you want to be successful at, if you go through this, brainstorming, relationships, investments, decision making, grit and excellence, I gotta tell you, you. The investment of thinking through those prompts ahead of time mean you're less likely to have, you know, speed bumps that cause you to get derailed. Too often people rush into action because they haven't done the strategy work, they haven't thought it through. And so take the time to go through these prompts. I promise you your future, your dreams. The reality is that much closer. I know it because I live it and because I coach people every single day who are using it in their companies and in their lives. If you take the time and you invest in this process, your success is so much more likely to occur. And then you get real joy from knowing I did it.

That's beautiful. I want to say a huge, huge thank you for this, because for me, I just went through my whole book launch and where I'm trying to take it just with that session, it was really powerful.

Wow.

But I want to come and join and get certified, so I'll be leading the charge with that and hopefully some others will join me. It'll be incredible. So bring on that course. I can't wait. Thank you and thanks for all the work you do. I know this is not your last book. You've published how many books now? Twelve or more?

Nine.

One book's plenty. Nine is tons. So you've got a tenth in the mix.

I do, and I'm actually working with a ghostwriter on this one because I want it out this year. And last year I had to just, you know, I had to put some clients on hold and the rest of it wasn't good. So anyway, I hired somebody who she's brilliant writer, and so I'm giving. She and I are working on it together. It's called Right now. It's called need a lift? And it's about women supporting women. Because in this era we're living in with, you know, this masculine, I don't know, putting down of women, DEI policies being eliminated, you know, just women being marginalized in so many ways, it's already hard enough to be a woman. I think women have to come together in new ways and override this cultural.

This cultural pressure to see other women as competitors and not compadres. And the cat fighting and the expectations of women to be mean girls. It's keeping us all, you know, down and shallow. And the world needs our energy and the world needs our success and the world needs our stories of overcoming in order for both men and women to be inspired. Feminine energy is a beautiful thing, but we've been pitted against each other for so long and this political movement in the United States in particular, that's just so like demonizing women. I need a book out sooner rather than later that teaches women new ways to connect and support each other. So that's, you know, that's a very serious endeavor in my life right now.

And I can sense your passion. And there'll be people listening right now that want to help you with that book and that launch. So certainly I can think of a few people, podcast wise, I'd love to introduce you to be on their pods when that book comes out. And secondly, please don't forget, there's going to be millions of men like myself who do want to support you on this mission and want to help. So just don't, don't be shy and reaching out.

I won't. And thank you very much. And I just, I know that men, good men, open doors to power for women. And men are not the enemy. I know there's bad men out there. I know that they're Harvey Weinstein's. And every woman I know, including Ironman competitors, we've all had abuse episodes with men. So this is not about it's all bad with men or it's all good. It's like they're really good people who want to help women and who feel a little helpless right now in the face of this pressure to put women back in the home. Tradwives are what they're being called in the United States. Tradwives and ugh. But if we all work together, the world is a better place. And in New Zealand, of all places, you had this amazing benefit of this prime minister who just showed what feminine power, standing up to darkness could do and inspired a lot of women in the United States. We need more of that energy and more stories like that. That. So, anyway, I'll just, I'll just put a pin in it. But thank you very much now.

You're amazing. Thank you. And we'll chat again soon.

We will.

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