How to Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever! - John Assaraf

Hey there. To all my friends on Periscope, and we are live right now on Facebook and I hope you're having an amazing day. It is nine o' clock on Tuesday where we do our live sessions every Tuesday at 9am and hopefully bring you some amazing ideas on how to make your life the masterpiece it deserves to be. And when I wrote my first book, Having it all, it started off as me wanting to share that there is a process to be able to have it all. And when I talk about having it all, I mean health, wealth, relationships, career, business, fun, charities, and life experiences. And one of the things I learned many years ago was that you can have it all, but initially, not at the same time. If you focus on all those things at the same time, usually you'll be overwhelmed and confused and stressed out, but you can have all the important things at the same time. So today we're going to be talking about how to make 2017 your best year to date. So maybe we can start off by seeing who's on right now. Where are you from? I'm looking at my computer screen as I'm looking at two screens here. I got Periscope going over here to say hello to all the Periscope fans. And I've got Facebook Live going on as well. So I'm going to take a look at what's happening right now on Facebook. We already have a bunch of comments. So if you can hear me and see me, let me know. Just hit the like or the love button and that'll go screaming across my computer right over here and I'll know that you can hear me and see me. And I go, Let me say hi to Marion. Hey there, Marion. And Grace and Supriya and Charlotte and Tonya Levine. Hey there. Nice to have you on. All right. Got a lot of likes and loves. Norma. Hey there. And Marsha. So I'm going to just say, say hello just to make sure you say you can see me and you can see me looking down and up at you right now. So good. So we're, we're getting a whole bunch of people. So here's the first question for you, and that is this. Do you believe that it's possible to have your best year ever in 2017? Do you believe that you can take everything you've learned over the last 10, 20 years, maybe 30 years of your adult life and parlay it into your best year ever? Because my belief is that everything that's happened to you for you or with you is something that you can use to Propel you forward. And chase, is there a way to lower that just a little bit? So I'm not looking up? Let me see if I can lower my camera just a little bit. My team is over here. I'm not looking up at you. You may be looking at my nose hair. So first and foremost, do you believe that it's possible to make that happen? And Akeem says yes. Harry from Houston. Hey, there, Anna. Pamela, you would love your best year ever, and it already started. And, Maggie, you're so right that it already started, because the best time to prepare for your best year ever is actually right around now. Most people go into a new year with zero planning. And so one of the things that I want to make sure that you get the, you know, the. I guess the best of is understanding how do you even go about thinking about having your best year ever? And what holds most people back? Let me share with you the answer to the second part of that is what holds most people back? Number one, is people hope that they can have their best year ever. They may pray that they can have their best year ever. They may even write it down that they want to have their best year ever. But the people who actually achieve the goals that they set, like having your best year ever, they actually figure out how to plan for their best year ever. And so one of the things I learned many, many years ago, When I was 19 years old, my first mentor, Alan Brown, was a very successful real estate developer, had real estate offices, was married, had a couple of kids, was a philanthropist, was really healthy, traveled around the world. It seemed, by all accounts, to the people looking at his life from the outside, that he had it all. And he became my first mentor. And one of the things he shared with me was something that he coined the term is backwards thinking. I'm like, what? Backwards thinking? What is backwards thinking? And backwards thinking was a simple process of putting yourself out, let's say one year. So if we were to sit together one year from right now and you were to share with me everything that happened during the year, that would make up the year. And he said the mistake that most people make is they look at their skill set, their knowledge, the tools they have available, their resources they have available, including the amount of money they have or contacts they have. And they look at what they have, and then they determine what it is that they can accomplish. And he said, the most successful people in the world first figure out what it is that they're going to achieve, and then they think backwards as to all of the milestones that have to happen in order to achieve those goals. So for example, here is an example for you. If you want to make, let's say a million dollars next year, you could set that as a goal. But if you really don't believe that you can achieve a million dollars because you don't have the knowledge, the skills or the resources, will you really put forth the effort to earning a million dollars next year? And the answer for most people is no, they really won't put in the effort because they really don't believe that they can achieve earning a million dollars a year. But what if you set a goal for earning a million dollars next year and then you ask yourself some different questions. So let me give you an example. What knowledge would you have to have in order to to earn a million dollars a year? What skills would you have to either have or have on your team? What resources would you need, manpower wise and financial wise? So when you think backwards from the goal that you want to achieve, you start to get your brain to figure out how you can instead of why you can't. Now, many of you know that everything we do at neuro gym is around the neuroscience and neuropsychology of success. So based on the latest research, here is what happens when you set a goal using your imagination or you use your deductive reasoning, which is a part of your brain that that can take a look at all the options and deduce the three or four or five or six things that you want. So deductive reasoning and imagination formulate your ability to create an image of what it is you want to achieve. And when you do that, you activate certain parts of your brain that release dopamine, the feel good chemical in your brain, and you get excited. And usually what happens right after you have the initial goal to have your best year ever in 20, let's say 17, there's a part of your brain right over here called the right prefrontal cortex. Now you may not really care about that part of your brain, except it's connected to your memory banks in your brain. And when you set a goal for what you want to achieve, and having your best year ever in 2017 is a goal. Your brain in the memory bank has all of the old information about goals you've set in the past that you haven't fulfilled, it goes into your memory banks and checks with your self esteem to say, to conjure up whether you feel like you're worthy of achieving that goal, whether you're smart enough, whether you're Good enough. Whether you're capable of achieving that goal because of your knowledge and skills, confidence and certainty level. And if there is information or neural patterns in your memory bank that is negative or that can cause you to have doubts, lack of confidence, lack of certainty, that is going to stop the motivational circuit and the left prefrontal cortex, the genius part of your brain that could come up with solutions to all the challenges. When these two parts of your brain are fighting with each other, you're going to revert back to what's safe and what's normal. And your goal is of having your best year ever in 2017. Boom. Will be washed away because of the negative references or the danger that it represents having to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. So the first thing that I want to share with you about having your best year ever in 2017 is if you learn how to get absolutely clear on what it is that you want to achieve in as much detail as possible, that is the first step to having your best year ever. But it's, again, the first step, having your best year ever. And so what I want every one of you to do is to set aside, let's say, 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes. Okay. And are you liking this, by the way? Because I see the like and the love buttons, you know, clicking on my computer down over here. All right. And so for those of you that are on periscope, hop onto the Onasraf fan page right now, because we're communicating with people in the community there as well. But the first thing I want you to do is take 20 minutes. And what I want you to do is write down in absolute clarity, what does having your best year ever look like? If I was to read. Okay, if I was to read a little page on your best year ever in 2017, how much detail could you give me about your mental health, physical health, spiritual health? How much detail could you give me about how much money you're making? How much debt you have or don't have? What is your net worth? How many people you are helping with your product or services or through your job? What kind of a relationship are you having with your significant other, with your husband, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, children, best friends, employees? How does your emotional state look and feel? That's the emotional health you see. Most people have a feeling of what their best year ever would look like and be like, but they don't have the details mapped out so that anybody who read it would go, holy mackerel, that's an amazing 2017. And so what happens is when you're playing the game of having your best year ever at the high level, above the water, that's a good first start. But the second part of it is to really get into the details of health, wealth, relationships, career, business, Fun experiences, charity, etc. And write down one paragraph that goes like this. By the end of 2017 or before. By the end of or before 2017, here is what I've accomplished. Here is what my life looks like. Here's what my career looks like and feels like. Here's what my business looks like and feels like. Here's what my relationship with Mary or Harry or Sally or Georgie or my kids is like. Now, why would you want to do that? Well, first and foremost, when you understand that when you give your brain clear specific targets, that is the first part of the needed ingredients to be able to get the left prefrontal cortex, this part of your brain, to actually activate and start to come up with how you can achieve it. So there's the setting of the goal. There's. I want to have my best year ever in 2017. And that's the. Frankly, the easiest part of goal achieving and having your best year ever is coming up with the imagination of what it looks like and what it feels like. Now, why is that not enough? Why is that not enough? So maybe we could do a little audience participation right now. And if you're liking this, then I'm going to go to my computer over here. Let me know. Why is just having the clarity of the goal of having your best year ever in 2017? Like, yeah, that's awesome. Why is that not enough? I want to see your answers. Why is that not enough? And hi there, Jerry Schwartz. Awesome. If you like this, by the way, hit the share button and share it with some other people. We have about 730 some odd people on live right now. So Hilda says you have to take action, which is great. Raina says you have to have a plan. Absolutely. Sonia says karma. Well, yeah, I'm not sure about that one. You need to have the emotion. Okay, so that's all great. So you need to have believe. You need to believe, says Sky. And Jackie says you need the emotion. All right, so let's say, okay, all great answers. All right, all great answers. But let's say you have the goal and you have the details of what it looks like and feels like. And let's even say you have the plan. So if you want to get in the best shape of your life in 2017 and you have that as the goal and you have the feeling, oh my God, I'm going to feel so good. I'm going to wake up early with a lot of energy and I'm going to look sexy and I'm going to look beautiful, I'm going to look handsome. I'm going to be attractive to the opposite sex of my spouse or significant other, whatever the case might be, or to the same sex. Doesn't matter. So let's say you have the goal and you have the plan. You know that on Monday morning, you're going to wake up, you're going to walk for 15, 20 minutes, you're going to do 10 sit ups and five push ups and you're going to do some StairMaster or go hiking or biking and you're going to eat really well. You have the plan. Why is that still not good enough? Why is it not good enough? You have the goal and you have the plan and you even feel, oh my God, I want to achieve it. Why is that not good enough? All right, so Suk Yang says you need a small little step by step aspects to this. So habits, persistence, faith. Maximo says let's do it now because you're not committed. All right, so let me talk about that. Marcia, you came up with you're not committed. One of my favorite topics. And again, I'm looking at everything you're saying over here. Well, let's say you have the vision. Great year 2017. You have the plan. Detail. Day by day, step by step, what's going to happen when you don't believe that you're worthy of achieving that goal, or you don't believe you're smart enough, or you don't believe you're good enough, or you don't believe you're skilled enough, or you don't believe you have the resources, or you feel like you don't make enough money, you don't have enough money to make it happen. You don't have enough time to make it happen. And all of the excuses start to percolate up like they do now. What are you going to do now? What will you do with the neural patterns, the deeply embedded neural patterns and the deeply embedded habits that reside in the hippocampus part of your brain? All right, what are you going to do when you don't feel like doing it? You don't feel like you're smart enough, you don't feel like you deserve to achieve it? What are you going to do about the emotional impact that beliefs have on your behavior? What are you going to do about the behavioral impact that beliefs have on taking action. One of the things that I've written in my books, whether it's having it all, my New York Times best selling book, having it all, or the answer or the vision board kit, is there's a huge, I mean a chasm, volcanic chasm between setting a goal, having the emotion and the excitement to want to achieve that goal. You could taste it, you could feel it. You, you know that that's what you want. You want to trade your life for it, and you're committed to it. What do you do when you just don't believe that you have what it takes? If you don't believe you're smart enough, don't believe you're good enough, if you're lacking confidence or lacking certainty, what do you do? That's really the dialogue I want to have right now. Because if you want to know what the difference is between setting that goal of having your best year ever in 2017, and having that magical life you want and achieving that, you have to enter the domain of beliefs. You have to enter the domain of habits. You have to enter the domain of self worth and self esteem. Let me share a little story and question for you to make a point. Lottery winners, okay, they buy a ticket to win the lottery because they want to make millions or, you know, win millions. 85 to 90% of people who win the lottery lose it within three to four years. 85 to 90%. Now, I know you don't think that would happen to you. I know that because you're brilliant, you're smart, you're different. I know that. But why is it that 85 to 90% of people who win the lottery lose the money by making foolish decisions and spend like there's no end to it? But more Importantly than that, 90% of the people who win the money and lose it say it was the worst experience of their life. Single worst experience of their life. Why? Well, we know that the brain does several things really well. Number one, safety first. It keeps you safe, you know, away from harm, real or potential harm. Number two, conserves energy, so it wants to repeat patterns that don't require a lot of energy. But number three, pay close attention to this, because once I learned this, I was able to take one of my companies from a billion, 200 million a year in sales to 4 billion in sales. Okay, $3 billion difference. Actually, it's 3.3 billion to be exact. So let me explain something to you. The other thing your brain does and mine is it makes 100% certain that your external world, the world of your results, the environment, the amount of money you have in the bank, your physique, your body, your relationship, your home that you live in, the car that you drive, it makes sure that the map that you have in here, your beliefs, your values, your habits, your perceptions, your paradigms that have been created over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, 60, 70, in some cases, okay, maybe even 80, because we have clients that are in their 80s. But it makes certain that your outside world matches your internal expectation point. So if you want to know why you weigh what you do, it's because of your internal set point for weight. If you want to know why you're earning the income you're earning, it's not because of what your potential is. Your potential is to be in great physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health. But maybe you are, maybe you're not. Your income is based on the income set point that you have in here. The relationship that you have with your employees, with your bosses, with your significant other, is based on internal mental set points. Anytime there's a deviation from those mental internal set points, it triggers a neurological and biological response that is very similar to how a thermostat works. How does a thermostat works? Once you have a setting on a thermostat, then the heating and the cooling system work together to keep that comfort zone at that right setting that has been manually or maybe even electronically set into the thermostat. If it gets too hot in the room. Excuse me. If it gets too hot in the room, the air conditioning comes on. If it gets too cold in the room, the heat comes on. So the maintenance of the comfort zone, the setting in the brain, or the setting in the room is maintained. Why am I taking you there? Because when you set a goal to have your best year ever in 2017, that is part one of the equation. As we said before, when you set a plan for here's how you're going to achieve health, wealth, relationships, career, business. Here's the timelines, here's the strategies, here's the tactics. That's part two. But the more important part is getting the mindset, the mental map, your financial blueprint, your health blueprint, your relationship blueprint, your charitable contributions blueprint, recalibrated to match the goal that you want to achieve. If you set a goal that's up here, and here is where your mental conditioning is, over here, and you do the work to get up to here, what happens neurologically in the brain, there are error Detection mechanisms in the brain. Now, you might be thinking, what in the hell is an error detection mechanism? Well, the error detection mechanism is almost identical to your thermostat in a room or in a car or a guidance missile system that detects any deviation from what is normal, what is comfortable, what you've gotten used to. The reason most people do not, let me repeat, most people do not achieve their big goals and dreams is because they do not recalibrate the internal set points for whether it's money or weight or business success or relationships. They have a vision of a grander, better, more powerful vision for what they want to achieve. But they don't make the mental adjustments to recalibrate the neurological patterns that pick up a deviation anytime you are achieving too much success or below what your comfort zone is. Let me repeat, you have error detection mechanisms in your brain that pick up when you're doing better than your expectancy set point is or worse than what you're conditioned to achieve. Does that make sense so far? Does that make sense so far? If it does, let me hear. Let me see the like and the love buttons, because I'm not paying attention to this right now. But does that make sense so far? We're almost at a thousand live people right now, so I'm giving you a killer session today to help make your dream a reality. All right, Kathryn. I see you. Good. Maximo. Pamela. Yes. Sharon. Sky Bowman. It makes sense. Makes sense. Makes sense. Good, Shannon. Awesome. So the question is, how do you set goals and then achieve them? Yes, you need to set your goal, and no, you don't need to know how to achieve it initially. So, yes, you need to set the goal. Do not, I repeat, do not set a goal that you know how to achieve because you're setting your standards way too low. I want you to set a goal for 2017 that you have no way of understanding totally how to get there yet. Why? Because when you set a goal that excites you, that motivates you, that makes you feel a little scared. Yes, you're going to trip the right prefrontal cortex. Yes, you're going to trip the unpleasant emotions of fear, fear of failure, fear of disappointing yourself, fear of disappointing your. Your loved ones, fear of being rejected, fear of being embarrassed, fear of being ashamed, fear of being. Fill in the blank. There's 50 different types of fears. The educated person figures out how to manage the emotions. But I'm going to set aside for now on how to manage the emotions, because that's a several hour session. But how do you start to recalibrate your brain so that it does not sabotage your success? Are you liking this? Because this is primo stuff. All right? How do you get your brain to believe that? So I want to share with you a little story that'll make my point. And then for those of you can stick around, I'm going to be doing a coaching four coaching sessions. Two with me, two with one of my top neuroscience coaches. For those of you that want to learn from me over the next several weeks. But let me share a story with you. I want you to imagine that you're in Beverly Hills, California. You're sitting at a restaurant, you're having an iced tea or a cocktail glass of wine, a scotch, something coffee. And you see somebody looking at you and they're like, you know, they're doing this one of these things, like, oh, hey, you look great. Kind of like on camera, right? And this individual comes up to you and says, hey, I'm a producer for NBC or abc. Doesn't make a difference. And we're filming a pilot, TV program or movie, forget about it. We're filming a TV movie. And you look like the type of person that could fit the role. You look like the type of person that could be perfect for this role that I have in my mind. And you say, wow, I mean, that's great. They say, listen, if you could play the role, we'll give you $10 million. So first and foremost, how many of you would like to make $10 million? How many of you would like $10 million? $10 million if you can play that role. Okay, so let's say you say, oh my God, yeah, I'm scared. I don't know how to act. I've never taken acting lessons. But this person who's a Hollywood producer thinks that I could be the role. Yeah, this is fun, right? And you go, okay, I want to do this. So if you were to shake hands with this person and say, yeah, I'm really, really interested, I want to make the $10 million, even though I don't know how to act, what do I need to do? And they give you the script. And in the script there's a role that you really like. Okay. There's a role that you're like, wow, I love this role. This is really, really cool. What would you do to become the role? So this is audience participation time. Alright. What would you do? You just have something. Somebody just gave you a script. You've never seen it before, but it's perfectly laid out of what the role has to be like. Act like what the role has to say. Now remember, you don't have any experience as a Hollywood actor, but you want the $10 million. You want the prize. You want to win the Academy Award. Okay. What would you do to become that role? I want you to help me out here, okay? Trust me. I'm going to take you somewhere here. What would you do? So Brenda says train and practice. How long? Neela says practice the role. How specifically? Ask to do it. Seek out a person who already has that role and watch them do it. Practice the role. Ask. Do it. Come on, keep giving me your feedback. How would you become the roll on a piece of paper that somebody wrote? Okay. How would you do it? You'd read it, feel it, speak it, role, play it, find a coach. You would imagine it. You'd read it, study it, internalize it. You'd figure it out. Says my Grace says research it, figure it out. Right. What you would do is fucking everything that you needed to do to become that role. You would rehearse it. You would find out the accent. You would learn the pacing for the role. You would learn the body language. Is it crunched over? Is it happy? Is it sad? Is it slow? Is it really fast? You would learn all of the different pieces of that role, and you would practice it in your mind. You would read it. You would visualize it. You'd get in front of a camera, you'd hire a coach. You would get as much help as possible to create what? The confidence, the certainty, the beliefs that you need in order to have that role. Is that accurate or not? Tell me if that's accurate or not. If that's accurate, hit the like or the love button. Because if you want to understand how to have your best year ever, then you better start thinking about what does it really take to have your best year ever? And if you're not thinking in this way, I guarantee you you won't have your best year ever as a result of just not putting it out there. All right, maybe you have a good year, but maybe you've had such bad years in the past that 2017 can only be a better year. But does that make sense to you? That you really have to have the vision, just like the script for a movie, you have to have exactly what's the vision for the movie? What's the role? What's the characters? What do they say? What do they do? When do they say it? When do they do it? And then somebody has to show up and play the role. Of so that they become comfortable with the role, they develop the skills, they develop the knowledge, they develop the ability through practice. Okay? That's how you're going to have your best year ever in 2017. Anything less than what I just explained to you, you're hoping and praying and wishing you're going to have your best year ever in 2017. It'll be just about what 2016 was and just about 2015 was. Why am I sharing this with you? Well, I've done this for so many years, and it's really what it takes. Earlier, somebody asked or somebody said something and they said, you know, you have to be committed. And many of you know this story, and I'm going to share this story with you, and then I'll give you a chance to step up if you want to, and come learn with me. My first mentor, he asked me to set my goals, what I wanted my life to be like. Health, wealth, relationships, career, business, finances, charity, etc. And I listed that out. I was 19 years old. I'm 55 now, so 36 years ago. And then he asked me a question. Many of you have heard this before. He said to me, are you interested in achieving those goals you have, or are you committed? And when I said to him, what's the difference? He said, if you're interested, you'll do what's convenient. You'll come with stories and excuses of why you can't, why it's not the right time and you can't afford it, etc. He said, if you're committed, you will dive into it and you will figure out how you can, because you've made a decision that you must see. When I set goals, I set goals that I must achieve, not that I'd like to achieve, not that I wish I would achieve, that I must achieve, achieved. And then I commit to it. My heart and soul and finances and staff and team and family, all in. You don't win the game of life, okay, by dabbling your toe in the water and seeing if you want to go in. You make a decision, you want to swim and you dive in. And better yet, you learn how to swim and dive. So that is what it's going to take to achieve this goal. And for those of you, I like to keep these to about 30 minutes. We're already about seven minutes into it. For those of you that want to learn how to make 2017 your best year ever, I've got a proposal for you and an offer for you. I'm going to be teaching A program on achieving goals for 2017. And on December 7, December 20, January 11 and January 23, four engagements that I'm going to be teaching people and showing you exactly how to set your goals, your plans, your timelines, your skills, strengths, etc. I'm going to be doing about a two to three hours training session on December 7th, another two to three hour training session on December 20th, and then on January 11th and 23rd, we're going to be doing a live training session with people from all over the world who are committed to making 2017 their best year ever. Normally, most of you know I charge $5,000 an hour or $35,000 for a keynote, to speak and to teach people. I've actually created a way for you to be able to learn directly with me and with one of the top neuroscience coaches in the world, Mark Waldman, who's in part of my company. And we're going to be doing four sessions on achieving your goals. Normally we would charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars to do this. If you want to sign up and be part of this live training, It'll be about 10 to 12 hours total. You can enjoy that. Right now I'm going to have my team put up a link in here and it's about $295 instead of, I think 695 or 895. And I'm offering that to you as like a Cyber Monday or Cyber Friday and whatever. What's the Black Friday and Cyber Monday special? So the link will be posted in there. You could join me, I'll train you and we'll help make sure that you get the plan together and the mindset together and the emotions together for 2017. So if you want to join us, it's a one time offer. The information is there. I've offered it recently only to my community of clients and so they were the first ones to get this offer. I'm giving that to you today. So if you want it, click on the link below and join me. Alright, so how are you going to have your best year ever in 2017? You're going to have your best year ever by, number one, making a commitment that you are now ready to have your best year ever. And then you will do whatever it takes to get your mindset right, to get your skill set right, and to get your action set right, including learning how to manage the emotions that want to keep you stuck and comfortable in your current level of results. Because if you don't take care of that piece of it, you're going to fight your brains desire to keep you stuck in its comfort zone. I can share with you in setting and achieving some pretty big goals in my life. If you don't take care of the mindset, the emotions and the skill set. You have half of the recipe and that's not what it takes to achieve goals. You have to have the whole recipe. You have to be all in. So I hope you've enjoyed this. I've kept you about 10 minutes longer than I normally do. If you like this. Whether or not you sign up for the coaching program, that's irrelevant. But hopefully you got 38 minutes of killer content of what it's going to take to make 2017 your best year ever. If you agree with that, hit the like or the love button for me so I get some feedback loop for you and I'm looking on my screen right now. Thank you for hitting the like and the love button and that's what we've got for you today and we'll be back next week. I hope you like these topics. We've got some killer videos we've done in the past and thank you so much for joining me on a Tuesday morning, which we do live every Tuesday. 9 o' clock California time, 12 o' clock New York time. Have an awesome day everybody. I hope you sign up for the coaching program on how to make 2017 your best year ever and I'll walk you through all the documents and everything you need to be able to make sure that you actually have the best chance ever to make it your best year ever. Have an awesome day and thanks for all the likes and the loves and the shares. Yeah. By the way, if you like this, share it with your fans, your friends, etc. Alright, peace out.