Mastering the Fundamentals of Winning & Goal Setting

You know, it was like Jerry Seinfeld. He goes in this routine, you know, where he's telling up-and-coming comedians the key to comedy is you've gotta write every day. And so what he does is he gets a calendar and he has a red line. You know, if he writes that day, you know, gets by himself and he tries to come up with something, ideas, fragments for jokes or whatever, he will draw a red line through that day. And his goal is to have the whole year with no blanks. Welcome to Big Hitters. I'm Larry Weidel, and this show is for people who are done playing small. Each week we break down what it actually takes to win at a high level— the decisions, the discipline, the adjustments that separate those who almost do it from those who do it. No theory, no fluff, just straight talk from someone who spent 50 years building winners. If you're serious about momentum, You're in the right place. Let's get into it. Hello everybody. Let's talk about some miscellaneous fundamentals on winning, kind of a brush up. I'm gonna cover some things. I'll show you how I think about things, why I do things the way I do. But it's really great to keep teaching these things to other people. Find a way where you can be passing these things on and teaching it to people that you're bringing along because it, it reminds you of what's important and then you have to Explain it specifically to them, and then it puts it into your mind, you know, kind of locks it in like a puzzle into your mind. So it becomes part of you. And the idea is to take these principles of winning and not just, you know, as an idea tool you use occasionally, but to make it through repetition and explanation and to become part of your DNA. It's just the way you instinctively operate. And so anyway, I'm gonna run through some of these things. You know, I'll talk about this in a minute, but the deal is We don't know what we don't know. And the only way to find that out is to find what we're missing is to get around people that are ahead of us in whatever arena we're interested in and to, you know, ask them whatever questions that come into our mind. But basically, you know, they always sound stupid in the beginning, but from that you get to where you know how to ask better questions. And, you know, you stumble across things, they just— Come out with things that maybe they said for the first time. And, but that it, it like lights a match in your brain. So the deal is you, we don't know what we don't know. When you're talking to people that are farther along than you, they don't know what you don't know. And the other thing is they don't know how you interpret things. And so, you know, this communication deal is an inexact science, but the more exposure you have to the heat, the more likely it is you're going to catch on fire. And so eventually you're going to, you'll catch on. So let's just talk about goals for a minute. Let's talk about goals. You know, you got to have good goals, right kind of goals. You got to have timeframes and this, that, the other, and they've got to be specific. So let's go through, how do you evaluate? How would you evaluate or how would you explain to someone else how to have a good goal? And the deal is you got to start where you are. And then you improve. But what are the areas that you want to fine-tune? You know, how can you fine-tune your goals? So here's the way of looking at it. And I've had this explained to me, and I'm sure you've probably heard it too. It's SMART, right? You want SMART goals when you're making a goal. So the thing is, first of all, SMART is specific. M is measurable. A is action-oriented. R is realistic, doable. And T is the timeframe. So the deal is you want to be, first of all, you want to get a specific goal, something that, you know, that it kind of lights a fire inside of you. Like, that would be great. That would be fun. I'd like to find out for myself what that would be. I'd like to do, I see someone else doing something, I want to do it. And so, you know, it's a very specific thing. Now, in, they do this and I've had a lot of music lessons. But, you know, guitar, banjo lessons, they'll say, well, what do you wanna play? And that, that's what, that's how guitar teachers hook their students is they find some kind of song they like. And because they like that song, they wanna play that song. They'll put the extra energy into it. Whereas if they go in there to the guitar teacher and the guitar teacher says, hey, you know, we're going to learn this song and it's something you never heard of, you're not ever You know, you don't even like the band and you say, okay, you're probably not gonna put a whole lot of time into that. But from somebody you like, a song you've heard a lot, you, you enjoy hearing it, and you said, man, that'd be great to play that song. See, something as simple as that. That's a goal that's specific. I want to play that song. And by the way, between me and you, what I found out from playing is that in the beginning, if you can get one song that you play, you know, where you could play it at a professional level. In other words, without even thinking, you know, you play it, you know, you go, you drill to where you could basically fall out of bed and play the thing without mistakes. You learn one song at a professional level, then you've got the framework in your mind about how to really do learn music and play music. Because you're not gonna learn it like, okay, I've got, I learned some of the chords and ding, onto the next one. No, you learn the song. And see, that's the way it is with goals. You wanna be specific, you wanna be thorough, you want to get the thing done, and you want to be able to do it at a high level. That sets you up for automatically programming yourself for success as you go forward and get other goals in your life. You know, just like learning how to play music, play songs. So specific. The other thing, measurable. You know, what, how do you know, how can you put a measurement on it? What are the measurements that are important? And it's, you gotta figure that out. You know, it's, if it's a business, usually there's, you know, if it's a sport, you're keeping score. You got to be able to keep score. You know, you've got to have the amount of activity you put in. During a day, during a week, during a month, that, you know, the results you get from the thing. You've got to be able to measure whatever you, if you don't measure it, it doesn't matter. And so the only things that really grow and improve are the things that you measure. And there's nifty little clichés on that. And I'll let you give me in the comments the ones that you remember. But as soon as I say this to people, they always spit back a cliché about Measurement, you know, what you don't measure, this and the other. So anyway, whatever it causes it to stick in your head, you got to be able to measure this thing because you want to be progressing towards it. And you want to know when you get there, at what level do you want to be in your goal? And then you got to be able to know how far away you are and how much. And a lot of times getting to that last 5, 2% could be like— 90, 95% of the work just finishing it, you know, getting it done. But if you're not measuring it, you don't know if you really got there or not. So anyway, measurable, action-oriented. There's going to be activity involved. Nobody escapes the repetitions in anything. And you've got to have a routine. You got to have a routine for doing it. You got to have a time for doing it. You got to have a place for doing it. You got to have tools to do it with. Action-oriented. And these things you got to carve out. You got to, you know, You can't do things unless you decided not to do something else. And so you got to say, in my life, what would I do right now that I don't really care that much about, but I would rather be doing this? And so it's a conscious choice. And so you create the time, you tell people in your life, I'm gonna be doing this. You create space in your schedule and then you do it. You have a routine that you're in and you know that eventually what you're doing in the process, you're learning things, You're unlocking secrets. You know, the thing is, by putting massive time and energy into things, what happens is it's very frustrating in the beginning when you get started in anything, because whatever we start that we haven't done before, we're no good at. But we start unlocking secrets by putting the massive activity and action into it. So you're, whatever your goal is, you want to measure it and you want to have The activity that is going to allow you to get there. So you wanna have the routine and you wanna have the surges, you know, somewhere in there you like to go on a blitz. You know, it's like with pushups. I was, you know, when I was recovering or when I, you know, the last 18 years of recovering from my cycling accident, you know, I could hardly move around, but I figured out I could do pushups. And so I got myself up to 10 pushups a day. And then some days, you know, you could do 20, 30, you know, I, I only do one set. You know, I wasn't, you know, doing it the physical fitness gym rat thing where you do 3 sets of this and whatever. But what happened would be every now and then I'd find it very beneficial, you know, basically sit-ups and push-ups and stuff like that. But that was something I could get the blood circulating my body. But if I was on a trip and stuck in a hotel, And, you know, I have some free time. I'd have days where I'd say, okay, you know, you do 10. How many can I do today? And then I got into a game where I could do 10 sets of 10. I think I got like 14 sets of 10, something like that. A surge. So you have routines and then you have surges and you do it just to keep yourself interested, interested, just to keep yourself engaged, just to keep yourself moving forward. And so that's some ideas on the action-oriented side of things. And the goals that you set for your activity, your, you know, your measuring all that, it's got to be realistic. You know, you're not going to start something new and be at the professional level right off the bat. So you've got to be willing to— we were talking about this yesterday as we ended one of our challenge calls. It's like, You know, you've got to just get going. You know, you gotta break the ice. And some of the writers, you know, what we were talking about yesterday is like, there's stories of some of the most famous writers, like Isaac Asimov. Look him up. He wrote all kind of fantasy things. I think he wrote, you know, zillion books. But you're like, how did he write this many books? Here's what he did. He would wake up in the morning and he said, get the coffee, get the cobwebs out. And then he'd sit down. And he said, I would start writing nonsense. He said, I would just start writing. I'm gonna get some, something down there. And then eventually it starts to make sense. And then I start to get into where the ideas start coming. But in the beginning, I'm just putting words down on the paper. I'm just trying to break the ice. And, you know, it was like Jerry Seinfeld. He goes in this routine, you know, where he's telling up-and-coming comedians. The key to comedy is you've gotta write every day. And so what he does is he gets a calendar and he has a red line. You know, if he writes that day, you know, gets by himself and he come, you know, comes up, tries to come up with something, ideas, fragments for jokes or whatever, he will draw a red line through that day. And his goal is to have the whole year with no blanks, you know, straight red lines through all of the months and all of the days and everything uninterrupted. Because he wants to be writing. Even if he writes something bad, eventually he's writing. When I do a painting, there's sometimes you just don't have an inspiration. You know, it's like, I got writer's block. Well, write something. You can never give into excuses. And so it's like writer's block, blast through writer's block, blast through the reluctance. I don't feel like going to the gym today. I don't feel like practicing Spanish. I don't feel like practicing my musical instrument. I don't feel like hitting golf balls today. You know, whatever it is, you know, you're, I don't feel like, You know, prospecting today, whatever it is in your world that you're trying to accomplish, you've got to get the activity done and it's gotta be realistic. And sometimes it's unrealistic to expect yourself to be all chipper and, you know, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed all the way through every single day. And so some days you, you like when I did photography. Or what I still do photography, but not as much anymore. I'm painting right now. But the thing is like, you know, in photography, I'd get the camera. What would happen is if I had the, if I'm going out to take, look for photographs, I have the camera in my hand and I'll just, when I walk out, it's immediately take the camera and just start clicking, point and click. Take, you know, I've got my neighbor's garage over here that I've had lots of pictures of my neighbor's garage and gutters and bushes. That I take, you know, just to get going, just so I can tell myself, hey, we're looking for photographs today. Wake up, eyes, don't just kind of blah blah around, look for things to photograph. And just by doing that thing right there, I break the ice, and invariably I come up with something, because a lot of the the great photographs are things right in front of you that you just don't see. You know, hidden. In plain view. And by the way, a lot of the secrets you're going to unlock in your business or whatever the activity are hidden in plain view. And it's only if you're paying attention do you notice. And so what this does is gets my attention on, you know, breakthrough, we're gonna go. And my son Adam has taught me, go to the— well, painting, you know, where they like painting. Sometimes you just don't have inspiration. It's just like, give me a brush and let's get something up there and we'll take off from there. You know, it's just like, get paint on the canvas, get rid of that blank white. You can't look like the white, you know, like a white canvas. Oh, I've got painter's block. I just don't have— no, get going. That's realistic. That's doable. That gets your mind— that tells your mind, That we're doing this thing. So wake up, let's go. And so that's what you have to take charge. And you only do that if you got a goal that's specific, you're measuring it, you got action that you are gonna put into it. It's realistic. You're not expecting the impossible. And so that's all part of the game. And so enough with those kind of examples. The other thing is, well, the last one I was gonna give you is like going to the gym. Yeah. Like going to the gym. My son has told me that there's a, you know, and he's a big-time bodybuilder, strongman competitor and champion and all of this stuff. He says that, he said there's been a zillion days where he's just had to say to himself, I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna go to one machine and put the lightest weight on it. And I'm gonna do 100 reps with just the lightest weight just to get the blood circulating. And I'm going home after that. And then he said, invariably you get in there and you're like, I think I'll go over to that other machine, or I think I'll do this before I leave. And so before you know it, you've gotten a pretty good workout in, but you have to, you know, it's like you have to break the ice. So keep your expectations on yourself realistic, but keep yourself moving forward. Now, Timeframes. What causes you to keep those timeframes going is, folks, the global thing is you're not going to live forever. I'm not going to live forever. We got a limited time on this life. So while we have the time, we got to get after it. And so you want whatever you have that you want to get done, you want to put a timeframe on it that causes you to boogie, you know, to try and it's like, because it's not, you know, the journey is a lot of the fun, you know, getting there and, you You know, the experience of going somewhere, the travel and all, but it's better once you get there, you know, and because then you can go on to other places. You can go, you know, that gives you a platform to expand. You know, you know, accomplishing those goals gives you options that you don't have until you accomplish those goals. And so it makes you different. It differentiates you from lots of other people because of This idea you had in your mind, you went out there, you did it. Now you're part of an elite group that did that, and that gives you the opportunity to do things that only the people in that group can do. And so the quicker you get there, the better. And so that's the thing about financial— and being financially independent. It's great, you know, it's great to have— to be— have enough income to be able to survive, but it's better to be financially independent. And that way you can work When you, because you want to, not because you have to. And then you've got excess where you could give to others, help other people, and, you know, try things that are exciting to you. But it's, you know, until you become financially independent, you gotta be more disciplined. So anyway, hopefully I spent more time on goals than I expected, but the reason I did was you've got to be able to evaluate your goals and know and see, the thing about this is. the guy who's the head of Nvidia, I forget his name right now, Jensen or something. He was talking about why they don't have plans. He said the way— look him up on the YouTube and you'll see the way he looks at things. He said, we don't have plans. And he said, the reason why is the world's changing all the time. And he said, we plan constantly. He said, we never stop planning. We plan and then we plan other plans there and we adjust these plans here. He said, we're always planning. And that's the way you do with your goal setting. You get your goal set, you set your goal, and you evaluate it. And then you know you reset your goal. You read, you know dial it in. It's like you dial it. You're fine tuning it constantly. It's not something set it up, you know, and you have the mantra. You know these things all good to kind of get you started. But I say to myself every morning, la la la la la. I get a picture up on the wall. Oh, that's good. That's good. But when you get into once you get into the The, the higher levels, you're, you know, you're adjusting constantly because you're learning things, you're moving. What happens is you're gonna be making progress. You're gonna be meeting people, hearing things, learning things, and you're gonna get better information for setting your goals and dialing them in. And the better, you know, specific to be dynamic, the more specific they are, the more they're dialed in, the better your results will be. And so anyway, and then the shorter timeframe you can get 'em done. In. So anyway, the having the ability to evaluate your goals, the criteria allows you to be constantly improving your goals. Not bad, is it? And so you could not only for yourself, but you can teach your people, you know, the people that are working with you. And so SMART goals. Specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and the timeframe. So hopefully that was helpful. I had about 30 more things I was going to cover when on fundamentals, but I'll get that on another podcast, I guess. But anyway, let's go do big things. You know, you're never as much fun as when you got an exciting goal that you're going after. It's amazing. How much more fun you are to be around everybody in your world when you're engaged rather than just kind of drifting. So lock in on something and get after it, folks. And I'll see you on the podcast. And if you're, you know, this is the kind of thing that you like and you want to be exposed to this all the time, I do, do this and talk about this all the time at the Big Hitter Community. So go see us at joinbighitters.com and, you know, at least get the newsletter or something, but come on into the community and, you know, get around people that are winning so you can pick up the timeframes and get where you want to go as fast as possible. That's it for this episode. If this resonated with you, do me a favor, share it with someone who's ready to level up. Winners find winners, and the right conversation at the right time can change everything. Want to go deeper? Join us inside the Big Hitter Community at joinbighitters.com. That's where the real work happens. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Remember that you're either growing or dying, and there's no standing still. Keep winning, and I'll see you next week.