Mastering Discipline, Achieving Goals & Casting a BIG Vision!

You are already 100% disciplined in your own set of habits. So you've already demonstrated that you can be a hundred percent disciplined at something because you are 100% disciplined in your own set of habits. And those habits are either contributing to your bigger future or contaminating your bigger future. And you can't eliminate all the contaminating ones in one fell swoop. Won't happen. Rich and I were having this conversation. We were just chatting a bit about.

You know, ascendant becoming a managing general agency. What is, what is a managing general agency? It just really essentially just gives us total control over the future direction of where we want to take the business. It gives us the ability, without obstacle, to collaborate directly with life insurance companies on the technological innovations, the solutions that we want to build, where it actually requires that we are able to connect to a pipeline of data with these existing carriers to help us build these tools and provide even more control over the experience as a policy owner. But what I was talking to Rich about too, is that we had an advisor retreat where we brought our entire advisory team in and we spent two full days mapping out 2023. And that involves setting a target around people served. That's where it all begins with us. Most companies begin with, hey, how much revenue do we want to generate this year? What is our revenue target? And we actually start from what it takes to trigger that target. And nothing happens without people served. And one of the things that I shared with our advisor teammates was that in business.

In business.

If you don't have a target, then you are the target.

Right? And so that's why, that's why I reached out, you know, to, to the, to one of our primary carriers. And I said, I need to know what is the. Based on the metric that they use to determine who's number one. What is, who is the number one MGA that you're contracted with and what are they generating in this particular metric? And Equitable came back and gave us the number. And so we went back and talked to our team and said, look, if we are going to amplify the number of people served, how long would it take us to achieve being number one? Because if, if we, if you, if you cast a vision into that future where we're number one, describe to me what the people we've served are saying about us and what is their experience with us and all these tools. And like, we've literally opened up the door and removed any obstacle to now really setting about to achieve this painted picture vision and all of Our teammates said, okay, so we went through, we reversed engineer, it went through all the numbers of how many people do we need to serve to achieve this? And we've got a really, really great people served objective for this year. But we've looked ahead to the next three. And so we thoroughly believe that we can be number one within a 36 month window. We just need more capability than we presently have now. But that's all part of building a bigger future. The point that I'm getting at is that in this new year.

Well, this could just end up being a new year if that's all you want it to be, right? Hey, Happy New Year. Okay, what do you want the year to be? It can just be another year or it could be happy or it could really, truly be a new year.

And that's why.

That'S why, you know, resolutions don't, don't ever work because if you're setting, if you're setting a resolution to begin with, you're, you weren't operating in a position of control in your life anyway. That's the, that's the reason why you set the resolution.

You also need to be resolute if it's a resolution.

Yeah, that's actually, that's a really, really good point and very true. And so what we've been sharing and.

You know, serving up as inspiration to people that we've been interacting with is that if you want to build a bigger future.

Then it has to involve a bigger vision. So I go back to what we were doing with Ascendant. If we said, wow, we really want to create this, this future that's much bigger than our past. And so we're going to do that by just doing the very same things that we've done up to this point. Well, that's not a bigger vision. It was a very scary proposition to go through everything that we needed to go through to prepare to take this leap to becoming a managing general agency. And Rich, you recall quite some time ago, we had a conversation over, like a really good conversation and I said.

We, we first started talking about, about this. I remember I was pacing out, I don't know, we had a phone call and was, I think it was outside of Farmhouse brewing, outside of Chillock, which is a great place. It was a beautiful summer day surrounded by the mountains. And I was, I was pacing while we were chatting for probably 45 minutes, talking about some changes. And that's where this, you know, I know it's been in your mind's eye for some time, probably Prior to that. But, you know, the rubber was about to hit the road given some other circumstances and there's kind of a, some ultimatum zone activity and then, but that, that started the, the trajectory of moving us towards this, this endeavor, you know, this, this, this milestone for sure.

And for all of our clients, all of our folks in the community that hop online when we do these, you know, stream yards and, and tune in, like, we hope that you're setting about to make this truly a new year for you and creating a bigger future and recognizing that it's going to involve some discomfort and that's where your biggest source of growth is going to be. And it's going to involve some decisions. It's going to involve change. You know, when. Why wait for spring to do spring cleanup in your life?

Like, it shouldn't be just reserved for one period of time during the year. Hey, it's spring cleanup time and everybody's throwing out junk. Well, what junk do you have up here and what junk do you have in your circle of influence? Like if the people that you're associating with, if you're not feeling inspired and motivated to go build a bigger future, you've got the wrong circle. And it's not their fault, it's not your fault. It's just there's not a, there's not a match there in terms of. Some people prefer stagnant. Some people, that's what they want their lot in life to be. I just want to be stagnant. I don't want to experience fear. I don't want to experience.

Having to make dramatic change or decisions. I just want things to stay the way they are. Okay, that's the path that you want to go down. But the people that we most love to serve, the people that want to build a bigger future for themselves, which it all starts with a bigger vision is what I'm trying to say.

Well, I posted the. I think, I'm not sure if it's going to all the platforms or if it's just going to the YouTube channel or not, but I posted the link to the painted picture vision, so if anybody wants to go check that out.

Oh, thank you.

The financial ca. And then there's a, you know, in the header menu bar, you can see the painted picture vision there. And I think there's a chance to even watch a video associated with it. And yeah, I mean there's a, there's a clear cut target, targets, I should say, about what we're trying to do and to create. And.

I can I can share, you know, reflecting back on the previous three years and how the importance of having a vision of what that would be, how that helped format and shape and.

Engage the team around working together being, you know, fairly singular in our direction. And you know, and, and you know, there's always, like any business, there's always bumps in the road like. Like, you know, driving in Alberta, you know, there's potholes. Every spring of spring cleaning, the. The city of Edmonton is going to go and clean up potholes that get created on the freeze thaw cycle. And you know, so you. So you might have clear road and every once in a while there's a bump in the way. Sometimes you can scoot around it, sometimes you hit it head on. But it's being able to go over and go through those things and continue on the journey that really matter. And, and having a clear vision of what you want to do over the next year to three years makes a big difference in that and it helps support everyone being cohesive. And, you know, the. The milestones that you begin to achieve, you know, sometimes you reflect back and it's. You almost can have a level of astonishment about what's been created, which goes to Dan Sullivan and the gap in the gain. So. Great book. The gap in the Gain. And it's really recognizing that often in life, whether through whatever. Whatever the means is, we. We often find ourselves thinking about what is the thing that we didn't get done or didn't accomplish, what's still on the to do list, what didn't. What haven't we finished off yet and that creates extra pressure, etc. Versus saying, Whoa, hold on a second. What did we do? What did we accomplish? What did we get done? What. What's been amazing? What's, you know, what's, what's. What's moving. What's moving the needle and getting us closer to our bigger objectives and that's focusing on the gain. What did you gain versus what, what do you have yet to. Yet to achieve? And the progression of those steps over an extended period of time. You know, you don't. You don't climb a stairwell by jumping to the top stair, right? You take one step at a time.

Yeah, very true. I can share with you, you know, personally, in working on ridiculously simple things like committing to.

Proper hydration. So 3 liters of water a day, which I've been doing religiously since committing to it, committing to.

Nutrition, that's mapped out based on the objective that I have and want to achieve this year and Doing a very good job sticking to that and tracking it, and then having to walk eight to 10,000 steps a day. So I shared with my coach, because everybody needs a coach. So I shared with Mitch. His name's Mitch Calvert, by the way. He's an amazing guy. You can look him up on the Facebooks and the. In the YouTubes. Mitch Calvert. And so I said to Mitch, I said, gosh, you know, like, some days that. That can be difficult.

Without even hesitating, he's like, are you kidding me, man? Like, what you just said to me, like, are like, are you honestly joking?

Like, if you can't get in 8 to 10,000 steps a day, then you're just not committed to the goal. Like, you can do it in micro walks, maybe take a few micro walks throughout the day. You can do it in one fell swoop.

You can do it.

So the whole point being that when you think about what you want to achieve, you have to be comfortable hearing the truth.

Because. And I shared this with all of our teammates at the retreat. I said, you know, average players want to be left alone. They just don't want anybody bothering them, talking to them, like, just leave me alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players not only want to be coached, but they want to be told the truth. And that's what I want to be told by my coach, who's helping me in that personal aspect of my life. And he just without hesitation, told me the truth, and I commended him for that. And so on the days where I get 7,000 steps in.

Well, I'm accountable to that. That's on me. That's not. Because rather than saying you don't have the time, try saying it's not a priority, and watch what happens to your way of thinking. It completely changes, and it just takes time. Like, Rich, you're amazing in your unique ability, and so is everyone else that you know. But you're already. And this is credit to Dan Sullivan, this is. This is something that I would encourage anybody who watches this now, who catches it later to write this down. You are already 100% disciplined in your own set of habits.

So you've already demonstrated that you can be 100% disciplined at something because you are 100% disciplined in your own set of habits. And those habits are either contributing to your bigger future or contaminating your bigger future. And you can't eliminate all the contaminating ones in one fell swoop. Won't happen. I didn't make an unrealistic, you know, commitment to say, okay, I'm gonna give up caffeine. I am not gonna go to Original Joe's and watch hockey and have a few beers with my buddies. I'm not going to indulge when I enjoy a nice meal out with my teammates or clients or friends. I'm not gonna know. What I'm gonna start with is 3 liters a day, 8 to 10,000 steps a day, and proper nutrition. And I'm gonna get my three workouts in a week religiously.

Those other elements, those other things that I described, those are still a work in progress. They're gonna chip them away. Like you said, one step at a time.

Because you didn't get to where you are by hopping from the bottom step to the top step. You got to where you are today one step at a time. So that's how you're going to get to where you need to go.

Yeah, I've actually hopped a number of steps in physically, like in, like in houses and things, and it's all fine and dandy until you. You slip because you're trying to go too far and then you fall down those same set of stairs. And coincidentally so you might find this funny, it kind of ties to the analogy a little bit. Over the, the Christmas break, I. I was in Edmonton visiting family and everything, and of course, we were staying with some friends, and, you know, I'm not as familiar with their house. And so I did. I was hopping a few steps to go up, up upstairs to check on the kids and. And they had this wider stairwell, you know, at the base of the stairs, kind of like in the middle of the house. You know, it's nice and wide. It has like the rounded step around then, then the first, like, five steps are kind of like that. And then the, you know, the banister jogs over where the wall kicks in and it, and it tightens it. You know, you lose about a foot. And I, I wasn't really thinking too far in advance. Maybe it was a quick start thing. I don't know what it was, but of course I went and hopped the first couple of steps, you know, taking two at a time. I was going to bounce up the stairs pretty good. And I just like full on, full speed, body checked, like, mashed my elbow right into that, that, that jog of the banister right on the square. You know, that was, that was not quite a month ago, but it still hurts.

Oh, my God.

You know, that's. That's an example. I kind of going back to our analogy of skipping steps, quite literally and not having maybe the result and not, you know, not being as focused on maybe I didn't have my eye because I was skipping steps, I was looking at the steps, not looking at the, at what was ahead of me to a degree. So just kind of, you know, looking at a recent example, but legitimately a physical example that ties into the mindset of kind of what we're sharing. So that's where, you know, had I, you know, you know, there's no regret or no going back in time. But then now that that's happened, you can rest assured the next time I go certainly to that house or any other property renter, be going up some steps, I might be a little bit more mindful about the way that I take on those stairs. And so that's a good lesson to relate into thinking about this upcoming year, thinking about goals, thinking about the results that you want to achieve.

Definitely.

How, how have you been, you know, kicked in the proverbial nuts in the past or smashed an elbow, you know, in the past? And how do you want to have those previous experiences and the things you want to do? How can you take that and help it inform what has worked for you, where, you know, moving forward into the Future?

Definitely, yeah, 100%. And.

It'S, it's what you, it's what you develop new, new habits around so that you become 100% disciplined in New habits.

Because again, to build a bigger future, it all starts with a bigger vision and it's, it involves the achievement of that. Bigger future involves capability that you don't presently have, right? Like I, I'm unable to do 20 pull ups. That's a capability that I do not have. My bigger future involves doing that. So I have to develop that capability.

And so that's what I mean when I describe that. So as to all of you out in Streamyard land and Facebook land and YouTube land and wherever this is, as you're thinking about your new year.

Think.

About your bigger future.

What's your vision for your bigger future and then capture the capabilities that it's going to be necessary to achieve it that you don't presently have.

That you don't presently have and that need to be developed. And then make sure you're getting coached. And some of that may involve directly what we do, right, in helping people to be become their own banker. And you may in your bigger future say, I want to build a family banking system. I don't presently possess the capabilities to do that. I need to get with my coach and start getting coached on developing the capability around that. That's one of many examples in your financial life. Oh, am I going to do that on a live stream? Okay, I'm happy to do that. Once I possess the capability, I'll go on a live stream and do 20 pull ups. No problem. Bring it on.

It's.

This year in particular is really exciting because.

We'Re going to be, we're going to be experiencing some really interesting things in our economy. And for people who have been building, building the moat around their financial castle. You're going to be okay.

You're going to be okay. And for those of you who are just watching this, maybe just getting started on your journey, get started, that's the key. Because what we do in educating about the process is one thing, it's the action that you take that gets you the outcome. And people have been hearing this for years, Rich, hey, when interest rates go the other way and when inflation starts to rise, in fact, if it becomes a rapid increase in inflation, the more you do now, the better shielded you'll be when that time comes. And clients are literally telling us every single day we didn't understand it then because that wasn't our environment, that wasn't our reality. But my goodness, do we ever appreciate it now.

Like having, you know, having these policies in this process, in this total control. Wow, what a much different feeling going through, you know, what we're going through.

Well, and I, I think, you know, the idea of again, banks borrow money from other banks and we've, we've had a number of videos where we kind of talk about that, but here you have people with variable rate mortgages or other variable rate stuff and those things have, you know, taken a huge leap and there's an unrest, there's concern, there's now sleep, sleepless nights that are transpiring. Well for the people that are well capitalized in their policy, maybe they weren't using that capital right now because they had it earmarked for something else, but now they can make a decision, oh, hey, great. You know what, based on what's happening over here at traditional bank abc, I'm really unhappy with that. I don't like how much control it's taking away from me and the extra, you know, burden on my cash flow. Why don't I go to my bank system and I access capital here on demand at full control and just obliterate these other guys. Yeah, or knock off a whole bunch of what they, their nonsense and just kind of keep, you know, keep them over to the side And I will choose to whatever cash flow payment that works for me back to my own system. So the ability to make that decision doesn't happen overnight. But that's the empowerment of being able to make that decision that you're se, that you, you're, you're looking for. I don't think anybody watching any video about financial anything on the youtubes is going to be like, wow, I really wish I was less empowered with my money. Boy, that would be great. Is there some way that, is there a channel that teaches us how to be less empowered and like, not learn about our finances? Let's subscribe to that one. Like, if you're watching, you probably want more financial advantage and empowerment. Great. Totally put yourself in the best case scenario to have that financial empowerment. Be in more control. That's, you know, when you're in more control over your own decision making process in most areas of your life, you, you should feel more confident. Confidence as empowerment and that overlaps in how you hold yourself out into the world. So there's no disadvantage to setting up capital that is growing on demand and that's fully under your control.

Absolutely.

Who wouldn't want more of that?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And what a peaceful, stress free way of life it is.

And it takes years to get there.

Years.

You know, you and I are far along in our journey and we still have a long way to go, but it just gets more peaceful and more stress free. And there's, it's an indescribable, it's an indescribable feeling. And we began our journey in this process right in the midst of one of the greatest financial crises that the global economy has ever been faced with.

There was a lot of Chicken Littles moaning and complaining about the sky falling at that time. And it seems like somebody let the chickens out of the hen house again because they're just running around losing their minds, looking at how the sky is falling all over again.

Yeah. And there are things that you can do to shield yourself and that should be a part of your bigger future and part of your bigger vision for your future. And we referenced a great question from, again, credit to Dan Sullivan. We referenced a great question from him in the first webinar that we did of the year. This was last Thursday. And we had 246 attendees on that webinar. And one of the questions that I had posed to all the attendees because what was interesting is some of the newer folks who maybe were just consuming our content for the first time or are just getting exposed to us, they're like, okay, when are you going to sell us something? It's like, well, today's webinar is all about rethinking our thinking. And so if that's your thinking, then we need to rethink that thinking. And it all begins with the DOS question. And the DOS question was, if we were meeting, and I used one year as the time frame. So if we were meeting one year from today and you were to look back over that year to today, what has to have happened during that period, both personally and professionally, for you to feel happy about your progress? And we really gave attendees time to go through that thinking exercise. And the feedback that we got in the chat was amazing of people really processing. Okay, if I was sitting down and so what was the date last Thursday?

What was that? Last Thursday was the 12th. So it's December 12th, January 12th. If we were sitting down on January 12th, 2024, and you were to look back on all that time to today, what specifically would have had to have happened, both personally and professionally in order for you to feel happy about your progress? And you've got to be as specific as possible because the human brain is incapable of anything extraordinary. You have to really input specifics. Well, I want to be healthier. The human brain goes, thanks for letting me know. Not sure what you want me to do with that. I want to be able to, on January 12, 2024, go on YouTube live and do 20 pull ups without feeling like I've got a hernia.

Okay, that's pretty specific. The human brain knows how to get to work on making that real.

And so when you think of your financial aspect of your bigger future, what is that exactly? Maybe it's a certain amount of debt that you want to have recaptured by January 12th of next year. Maybe it's a certain amount of capital that you want to have accumulated by that time next year.

Maybe it's achievement of a very well defined financial objective. Maybe it's just getting started with your first policy and you want to see a specific amount of premium going into that policy to produce a specific amount of cash value growth. Getting specific. So the human brain knows, all right, I need to know what you want to get done. And thank you for being specific. Now I know what to set about making real.

That's the whole framework of it. It's no more complex than that outside of the fact that you have to.

Do the work to make it real. Right, right.

And we've been sharing over the years, we've used this analogy hundreds if not thousands of times.

That. Getting a membership at the gym versus working out, there are two completely different things.

You'Ve actually got to go and work out. Having the membership is good. It's a good start. But you got to go do the program.

Yep. The rubber hits the road, that's it. And that's the only way you can get from A to B.