How to Spark and Sustain Motivation

I want to discuss something really important today, which is motivation. We're human and we all run into a wall sometimes, right? We all can feel a little bit off. We all can go through times of, you know, just not feeling like we're making the progress, like we're making the momentum. And it gets us down and out. We feel bored or we feel depressed or we feel just not. We don't have that spark to go after what we want to go after. And your ability to control that and shift that and take charge of that is within you. And that ability alone will help determine the level of success, fulfilled joy and satisfaction you have in your life. So I'm really excited to share with you today 10 big ideas on how to not only spark the motivation that will get you there, but sustain the motivation. Because, you know, look, we all know little tricks and hacks that can spark the motivation, but we need to make sure that we're adding fuel to that fire to keep it going. Who's ready? Who's feeling a little fired up this morning? Who's feeling ready to go today? Okay. And in all honesty, in the last 30 days, who's felt a little off? Who's kind of lost a little bit of the spark, a little bit of the motivation, whether it was for a day, couple of hours, the week, the whole month, whatever it might be, right? I see you guys, we all go through that. And I'm excited to share this with you today because I truly feel like this has been, what I'm going to share with you today has really been keys to my success and my happiness and my ability to get things done. Because regardless of what it may seem like, I wouldn't call myself a naturally motivated, fired up person. It takes work. It takes having your systems and your routines and your methods for redirecting yourself back to, to where you need to be. Because this right here, this can lead you astray very easily, right? The mind could play tricks on you. It could start sabotaging your efforts. It could start making you feel like what you're doing isn't worth it. It could make you start questioning what you're doing, right? When you start believing your doubts and doubting your beliefs, that's when you're in trouble. That's when you know we've got to redirect the mind and come back to the focused intention of getting where we want to go. So let's start here with the first one. We basically need to. And by the way, today is not about me giving you, you know, I'M not going to tell you to do jumping jacks. I'm not going to tell you to put on some motivational music and jump around. I'm not going to tell you to scream at yourself in the mirror. We're going to talk about stuff that is fundamentally proven, at least in my life, in the life of clients of mine, to really help you feel that level of sustained motivation and fulfillment. So the first thing we need to do is we need to make sure you guys can see this here. We need to turn your inner critic into your inner coach, right? We need to take that inner critic, turn it into the inner coach or that inner villain, and turn it into your inner hero, however you want to think about that. But when you think about the words, when you think about what's being said, when the self talk that's going on, most people tend to have an inner critic in them. And what we need to do, you know, that's the one that's saying to you, hey, more growth is only going to equal more stress, more pain. You're never going to be able to find the right people that you need to scale. It's going to be slow. It's not going to be busy. You tried this before, you failed. What makes you think you could do it again? Now, that conversation, in the context of that conversation, if we flip that from an inner critic to an inner coach, if you think about a really good coach versus a bully, which is what the inner critic is, a really good coach brings the best out of people. And I truly believe that my ability to coach myself has translated into my ability to coach others. That's not being easy on yourself. It's the difference between beating yourself up and giving yourself a nice swift kick in the ass when you need it, right? That's the difference between the critic and the coach. You know, the coach is there to say, all right, look, right now, you know, my coach might tell me, hey, like, when I'm talking to myself and I know I'm being a certain way, my inner coach will say, hey, listen, quit being a little bitch. You know what you need to do, right? You've been here before. Yes, it didn't work out, but this time is different. And what else? What other choice do you have? You're not going to sit around and not do anything about it. Let's go. You've got this. What's the next right step that you could take? What's the next right action that you could take? Right. What do you need? It seems so hard. Okay, you don't have the right people. Okay, Things didn't work out. Okay, what can you do next? Right? What could you do next? And so just that little shift of when you start hearing yourself, and we all do it, okay. We all have this inner dialogue going on all day long. And that inner dialogue is directly leading you towards or away from the life you want. And the fact that you're here tells me you've got a certain level of success in your life. So it's not like your inner critic does. This led you into despair and, you know, desperation. You also have that coach in you as well, because you wouldn't be in a program like this trying to take wherever you've gotten so far and go further. And if you didn't, it's about consciously recognizing which one you're being and allowing that coach to really push that critic out. There's no room for critic. There's no room for looking at mistakes or failures or problems that you've had in the past and criticizing yourself for that or criticizing your team for that. In order for you to be able to coach your team, which is a major part of leadership, you've got to be able to coach yourself, right? And so recognize when you start to, you know, think about what a great coach does, you know, you know, if you think about studying great coaches, the Vince Lombardi's, the John Woodens, the people that inspire growth and inspire change in others, that bring the best out of others, imagine you have that in you, and you do, you do. It's a matter of getting to choose which voice you listen to, which voice you listen to, and which voice you feed. If you continue to feed the critic with negativity and blame and regret, that's what's going to grow. That's the voice that's going to become louder. But if you start to feed the coach with positive outlook, with opportunities and options and ways to overcome obstacles and the next right action that you need to take. I know this might sound really simple, but it's powerful. It's powerful. So you want to develop that inner coach within you, right? It's a matter of acknowledging the wins too. You know, a good coach doesn't just berate people and only, you know, like only talk to them when things are going bad, right? You've got to acknowledge when things are going good. Even when the game was lost, a good coach will acknowledge what went well in that game that they lost. Right? So that will allow you to keep moving forward no matter what. Keep moving forward no matter what. Because I know, I've been there too, that somebody right now, you know, we're going to talk about 10 things today. This is just one of them. And you're going to know the ones that are going to help you. Maybe it's all 10, maybe it's a few, but there's somebody listening right now. And you know that that inner critic has just been beating you down. And that's determining your level of fulfillment. And I say that before success because it's not about material success, because an inner critic can drive you to do that, right? You want a positive, inspirational voice within you, leading you towards the things that you want. All right, so the first point is turn your inner critic into your inner coach. Alright? Sometimes when I talk about different people inside the mind, I'm like, do people think I'm crazy? And then I've got all these different voices in my head and am I really the only one? Okay, second point is balance, action and acceptance. Balance, action and acceptance. And what this means is we have to look at what we're in control of and what we're not in control of, and what we have control of, we need to take action on. And what we don't have control of, we need to accept. And so when you think about what can damage your motivation, damaging your motivation could really be, you know, losing hope in the future. And when we start to not accept things that are outside of our control, like the weather, the news, you know, even in moving as hard as you try, as much process as you put in place, there's still going to be some damage here and there. Doesn't mean you don't take action towards eliminating it, but you also accept that it'll happen, right? Doesn't mean you don't take action towards set procedures to have your movers there or any of your staff there on time when they're supposed to be there. But you also accept that it's going to happen. Doesn't mean you like it, but you accept it. Because when you don't accept it, you resist it. And now you're just burning and wasting energy. So going back to action and motivation. You know, one of the reminders I keep for myself, you know, which you're going to want to do is you're going to want to have like a little toolbox for yourself, a little note in your phone that your, you know, spark motivation note that when you're not feeling it, you go there and you've got some things to pull out. But one of the ones that I, one of the reminders I have for myself is action precedes motivation. Action precedes motivation. Because if we just sit around and wait till we're inspired or we're motivated to do the things that we need to do, it may come and it may not come. But if you take action, meaning you decide, tomorrow I'm gonna take these steps or today I'm going to take these steps and you commit to taking action and just put one foot in front of the other, the motivation will come, right? The motivation will come. I mean, anybody knows this that has resisted working out, right? You're like, I'm not motivated to go do it. But if you just get outside, start walking, or you get on the machine and you start going, after a little bit, you're like, okay, I'm feeling this, let's get going. Right? Or you were delaying a project in your business because you weren't motivated to start it. If you just start it and you start taking those steps, you'll start to feel the momentum which gives you the motivation, right? And so when you look at balancing action and acceptance, it's also, you could look at that as having persistence and patience. Persistence and patience, right. Like the two, action and acceptance, Persistence and patience are opposites, right? But we have to be able to, you know, manage and balance those opposites and understand how much of the push and how much of the pull we need to have to be effective in what we do. Right? Because if we're just persistent, persistent, persistent, but we don't have any patience, we're going to be on fire inside, we're not going to feel good, we're going to be constantly stressed out. You might achieve a whole lot in the sense of material success, but remember, this is profit and thrive. We bring up the profit and the thrive together. Okay? So you think about problems you have in your business, you think about problems you have in your life. You take action towards resolving those, but you also accept the limitations of it. Not being perfect doesn't mean you don't shoot for perfect, but you accept the fact that it's not going to always be perfect, alright? So that's balancing action and acceptance or balancing persistence and patience, whichever works better for you. It's realizing you need both. You know, where people get thrown off is because I know everybody's experienced sustained levels of motivation at some point, but also have gotten thrown off at some point as well, right? We tend to take on this all or nothing mentality, right? We let the pendulum swing so far to one side where we're like not motivated, not doing what we need to do, that we're like, we need to just take massive action and just go all the way in. And then we really kind of go too hard, we burn ourselves out, and we end up back over here. Whereas if we say, I'm going to take the action, I'm going to be persistent, I'm going to take action, but I'm also going to be patient and accept that it takes time. I'm going to be patient and accept that it's not all going to work out perfectly. All right? So it's not. This is, this is like we're sparking and we're sustaining motivation. And part of sustaining motivation is not losing that motivation. We all know that. The days where you're feeling, we've all felt it, right? For me, I want to feel that way all the time. I don't, but I feel that way a lot more of the days because of what I'm sharing with you today. But when, when we feel good and when we feel on fire, we feel like we can handle anything, right? We go after what we want. We're not just kind of dodging the day and getting by, you know, we're not surviving, we're thriving. So balance action and acceptance. The one thing I can control is I can control my mind and what it does and what it focuses on. And I just need to be able to be in a position to have some things that help me to outsmart the mind, to turn that inner critic or that inner villain into the inner coach or the inner hero. Right? And one of those things that helps tremendously is, can you guys see me? Okay? Create rules for your life. Create rules for your life. You know, what are the things that you must do and what are the things that you must stop doing in order to reach the goals, in order to get to the level that you want to get to? What do you need to do? You know, it's pretty simple. If we stop and we create some rules for ourselves, especially as, you know, business owners and managers and people in higher level positions that have a little autonomy in what we're able to do with our day, if we don't have some rules for ourselves, then it's very easy to just succumb to temptation, distraction, and whatever comes your way. And so when I talk about rules, it's a matter of defining the things that are going to help you live the life you want to live, defining the things that are going to help you become the person that you want to become. Because that's what this is really all about. It's becoming the person you want to become. Because when you act as the person that you want to be, you feel good about yourself. It's called congruence. Your level of how you envision yourself, your ideal self and how you're acting. If that's in line, you're congruent, which will help you to feel motivated. It'll give you confidence. If not, you know, you start to doubt yourself. When you're doubting yourself, it's really hard to be motivated. So let me give you some ideas of rules for your life. So something simple, right? Something simple could be, you know, one for me is I go to bed at the same time and I wake up at the same time every day. No matter what, I don't hit the snooze. Now, this wasn't always a rule, right? Because there's a gift and a curse to success. When you start becoming successful, it's easy to be like, why do I gotta be so disciplined in my actions? Why do I have to, you know, if I want to snooze, I'm going to snooze. I'm doing great, I'm making money, I'm handling things. But something like that. For example, waking up at the same time every day, okay, allows you to do the other things that you want to do. If you have another rule that says, I'm going to work out five or six days a week, okay, well, now you're not stressing about when you're going to do that. If you have a, you know, potential from the time you wake up, you've got a little routine, right? And so what happens is it's not a matter of wake up, and it's not even a matter of waking up early. Four or five, whatever that time is. If your time consistently is 8am Good for you, all right? Just, if that's when your time is, then you have it, okay? And this is just an example. This doesn't have to be your rule for life to wake up at the same time, but it supports the other rules that you have in your life, right? If eating healthy is important, what happens is if, you know, hey, like, for me, I eat healthy and then I've got a cheat day once a week where I could do whatever I want to do. And so what that cheat day does for me is it allows me to not even second guess and waste energy during the week on, oh, should I, Should I have a slice of that pizza that somebody offered me? Should I. It's like, no, I've got a rule. It's not Saturday yet. Well, Saturday comes, I'm getting the pizza and I'll probably get a burger after that and some ice cream or whatever else I want to get. But that rule allows me to not waste energy and time on trying to, ugh, should I do this? And you don't have that put. You know, doesn't life sometimes just feel like a push and pull? Like you're just like, oh, I want to do this, but I also want that. We want things in life, we don't want other things in life. The way that we make that happen is we start doing things consistently and we stop doing other things that aren't leading us towards what we want. Right? So another, you know, another rule could be, again, how many times a week you work out? Another rule could be not scrolling social media until a certain time in the day. And you'll only do it for 30 minutes, right? These little rules help us stay on track. When we're on track, we feel good, we feel motivated, we feel congruent with the person that we know we want to be, right? So other rules could be, you know, I have a rule. I'm not going to get angry and upset and fly off the handle over situations that happen. Right. Early in my moving career, I would flip over situations, take phones, throw them off the desk, you know, like it was just uncontrolled emotions, which I now look at as a sign of unmanaged mindset which leads to nothing positive and nothing good, right? So, you know, you create these rules and you really, what do you need 10 think about if you had 10 rules for yourself on living on life. Simple stuff, you know, not hardcore. Just think about them, like, easy to commit to rules, right? But what you're starting to do is you're starting to create your personal SOPs, right? Your personal processes. You're starting to create some structure for yourself to where every minute you don't have to, should I do this, should I do that? No. Like I've created some structures to help me along the path, right? Think about the roads. If there was no rules on the road and, you know, if the stop sign didn't mean stop, yellow didn't mean slow down, green didn't mean go. You drive on the right side, you drive on the left side. Wherever you're from, if those rules didn't exist, there'd be chaos. This simple, simple thing of creating some rules. And again, they don't have to be hardcore, but things that you will live by will change your life. And the way it's going to change your life more than anything is the boost of confidence and the boost of motivation you get when you are congruent with those rules. When you honor your own rules, when you follow the rules of the game that you created. You're free to create the rules the way you want to create them, right? And you could change them. So for me, if something's not working, I don't just, nah, whatever, I'll figure it out. No, no, no, I'll go to the rules, got them right in my phone, could access them and I'll say, you know what, going to change that. It's not, it's not working for me anymore. I'm going to try something different. But I'm always living by those rules. Okay? And when you do that, something as simple as, you know, I felt it when I, when I made the rule of like, I'm not hitting the snooze button, that's it, I'm going to wake up and I'm getting up at that time, I felt it. My level of confidence in my level of motivation of like, okay, if I could do that, what else could I do? It's demonstrating a level of control over your mind instead of letting the mind roam undirected, which is what it does if we leave it to its own devices, right? So create some simple rules for yourself. These could be, you know, your routines, your reminders. You could have some rewards in there. Like if I do this, I get this reward. Some rules for living. Create 10, right? No more than 15. And look at how you could just refine those to get them to a place where you're proud of it, right? Like, you could show somebody that list, you know, someone that's looking up to you, says, hey, you're really successful in what you do. You mind me asking, like, what are some of the things you do on a daily basis that have allowed you to live the life that you live? You're like, sure, kid, I'll show you what I do. It's not that hard. There's 10 things. Let me share them with you. When you feel like you can share that with somebody, you feel good about it and it's truly helping you in your life. You know, you've got the right rules. All right? Okay, so. And it's really important. Let me just, let me, let me just reiterate this fact. Because when you talk about rules and you talk about structure and when you talk about discipline, many people get like, like, oh, no. Like, no, no rule. They're rebellious. They don't, you know, when you're talking to a group of entrepreneurs, people that, you know, were like, hey, look, I'm not just going to, you know, do the standard thing. I'm going to go start this business and go out on the line. They have a more free spirit of what they want to do and don't really want somebody boxing them in. But we've got to give ourselves that structure or that's when we go nuts. Okay? So don't resist the rules. Okay, next one. Activate ambition with expectancy. Activate ambition with expectancy. So what this means is to activate ambition with expectancy, you've got to connect with your vision for where your life is going every day, and you've got to believe that you're going to get there, okay? You've got to raise your ambitions. Because when we lose motivation, we lower our ambitions when we hit walls or we go through periods of time where it's really tough in our business or in our life. Like, you know what? Let me just lower my ambitions. I want you to raise those ambitions to what feels right for you. Always think about your ambitions coming from a place, coming from the heart. Don't scroll Instagram and then go, what are my ambitions? I want a Lambo. I want this. I want. Like, your ambitions need to come from your heart and what you truly want in your life. I truly believe that we all have desires and ambitions that were placed in our heart for a reason, and you should not deny them. So if you've dulled them or you've dimmed them, let them come back out. But then have the expectancy that they're going to happen. Have the belief that they're going to happen. Okay? Have the faith that they're going to happen. You can't doubt it. Remember, if you start believing your doubts and doubting your beliefs, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. You're letting the inner critic win, right? So connecting with your vision, with your future daily is big. Otherwise, think about the drudgery of what you do every day. I mean, you know, I haven't followed each and every one of you around, but I know a lot of you I see here on the call. I kind of know what your days are like. And if there is no bigger purpose or vision or reason behind all of that, doesn't seem like much fun, right? To go to work every day and do the stuff. But when you connect it, when you connect the future vision of what you Want with your daily actions. Now that becomes enjoyable. Now that becomes, you know, worth it, right? Even in the moment, it's not like, oh, this is the. You know, I'd rather be working than be at the beach. I don't have delusions in thinking through how you should be looking at this, but it gives you a reason for doing what you're doing. So every morning I sit down, okay, before I start working, I put on some. Some headphones, some music. I've got, like, a few, like, triumphant, cinematic instrumental songs that I put on Close My Eyes, have a sheet of paper in front of me, and I started thinking about the goals and the future outcomes that I've already established. In writing out goals, I started thinking about those and envision them as already done. And as I'm doing it, I'll stop and I'll write a few that are resonating with me that day. I'll write a few out, a handful just. Just as it comes to me. I don't necessarily write the whole list of goals out, but just what's coming to me that day, right? Then I'll kind of sit there for a little bit and think about, okay. Then the inner coach comes in, all right? Starts giving me, you know, kind of, you know, the pep talks for what I need for the day, and I'll write down some of those things. I'm like, remember, the work you're doing today matters. Right? Who needs you at your best right now? Step up, enjoy the process today. You got this. It is done. That's the expectancy, right? That's the expectancy. And so I have this little session where, you know, I'm visualizing the outcomes, visualizing the goals. I'm visualizing how I want that day to go, right? And then I'm kind of at the end writing the most important things I need to get done that day as part of my planning. That right there helps me to connect with the vision every single day. Keeps it real. It keeps it alive. It's one thing to write out your goals and stick them in a file or stick them in the drawer and look at them once in a while. It's another thing to be thinking about them daily. And so it's not a matter of just, ooh, I'm going to attract those goals. For me, it's more of I'm connecting with them to where now my day feels purposeful. My day has a reason for the things that I'm going to do because they're not all fun. This I love. I would Love to do this all day, but there's other aspects of the business that I don't enjoy doing. I don't enjoy responding to emails. I don't enjoy responding to Slack messages from the team. I don't enjoy, you know, reading contracts or whatever else. There's things that I don't enjoy doing but need to get done. If it's tied back to the bigger vision, it's like, oh, okay, like, this is why I'm here today and I'm not out doing the other things I would rather do. Right? Activate ambition with expectancy and don't let the critic. Right? It's all ties together. When your critic. When you're like, hey, but how could I expect it? What if it doesn't come true? And I put my belief in it, I believed it. It didn't come true. You know what? You've lived through harder stuff than a little bit of disappointment. And I believe that if it doesn't come true and you're doing all the things that you need to do and you keep moving forward, it's only because you ended up in a different place that actually turned out to be better for you. I've had things that haven't come true. I've had bad things that have happened. And when I look back at them, I truly believe that they all happened for a reason and led me to a better place that maybe I didn't see at the time. And what other choice do you have but to believe, you know, but to believe. Don't fear failure, right? All that is at this stage, if you're not running from somebody that's chasing you down with a gun in the street or from a wild cheetah or something like that. All fear is. Is mismanagement of the mind. That's it. You're just. Your perspective at the moment is focused on the wrong stuff. We've got to bring it back, right? We'll talk more about that. Okay, next one is daily life experience. Daily life experience. Sorry, I'm like, I can't see myself here. So there you go. Daily life experience. Basically, enjoy the process, right? Set yourself up in a way where your day is more pleasurable. Cultivate the daily life experience that you want to have. You've got to make some phone calls, you've got to send some emails. Okay? Maybe you can, you know, go sit outside and get some fresh air and do it then, you know, if you've been following me for a while, you know, like when I have reports to review or things like that, I Don't sit all hunched over at my desk doing it. I'll print them out or I'll look at them on an iPad or I'll look at them on a laptop. And if the weather's nice, I'll go sit outside or I'll go sit in a different environment that allows me to kind of enjoy what I'm doing. Make myself a little green tea or something. Sit down, review them. Setting up your environment and your office and the place where you work every day to feel good and inspiring and motivating. I mean, there's so much truth to, you know, like, full feng shui, right? They talk about, you know, feng shui and, you know, setting up your environment to let the energy flow. And I believe in it. You know, I believe in the fact that if you set up your workspace to where you feel good about it and you feel inspired about it, it's going to help you sustain that motivation, right? If you show up to a desk or an office or a workspace that is just filled with stress reminders, it's going to knock you right off the motivation horse. You're done. You're done. Right? And so when you think about, okay, your daily life experience, it's all about being in the moment. Okay? It's really all about being in the moment because this day is going to pass, the next day is going to pass, the next day is going to pass. And the way that we look at everything we have to do instead of maybe everything we get to do, and just think that we're a victim of circumstance as opposed to the creator of our day and the creator of our environment, to where we could decide how we want it to be. Like, those are two totally different life experiences right there. And to sustain motivation, when you spend, let's just say, eight hours a day, five days a week, let's just say that that's your work schedule and you're not cultivating the experience the way you want it to be. Right? You're making it harder for yourself. You're ruining your motivation. And that goes for everything from the way you interact with other people. You know, maybe you need to stop all those urgent requests of, hey, you got a minute? Hey, you got a minute? Hey, you got a minute? If you're feeling like I can't even get a moment of clarity because nobody will leave me alone, everybody's calling me, Everybody's texting me every. Okay, well, let's stop thinking and feeling like a victim. Decide what's the next right action. I could take to correct this, because this is my daily life experience and it doesn't have to be this way. You know, 20 years ago, I started a moving company and I've seen so many other businesses and I really feel like there's not many that are tougher than that. It's a tough business to be in, right? But we could keep telling ourselves that story, or we could take action in creating it the way we want it. And that's the balance between action and acceptance. I'm accepting. Hey, it's a tough business. I haven't seen many tougher than it. However, I'm taking action to make it as easy and lucrative and fun as I could possibly make it, right? And so, again, daily life experience, each moment of the day, like right now, this is a moment. If you just feel your feet on the ground right now, right now, this is a moment. We're having a moment together here on Zoom. You're here gathering some, some, some insight, some information, some. Some tools to, you know, enhance your life. And we can choose how we go about this. We could watch something like this in a frantic rush, or we could say, you know what, live cast is coming up. Let me set myself up. Nice environment here. Let me put it up on the tv. Let me get comfortable. Whatever it might be. Your daily life experience has to be respected. If you don't respect your own daily life experience, nobody else will. Nobody else is going to help you have a pleasant day. It won't happen. You have to start demanding it of yourself. So when we look at it, we're like, okay, you know, instead of like, life, what's life all about? Let's. There's, there's truth in take it one day at a time. There's truth in that. It's like today. How can we make our life experience better? What are we going to allow in to our space and what are we going to keep out from our space? You know, whether it's, you know, what we consume, right? What we consume, we become, right? My hope and wish is for you to, to consume this and feel it in your cells, of your body when you get off this live cast and you're able to use it for good, for yourself, to spark some type of, you know, good chain of events that will happen from there. It's not the same when you're consuming the news. You know, problems, chaos, the world is ending. You know, social media judgment comparison. So we need to have less negative input in our day and more positive input in our day. You know, this is another Thing that I really felt helped me reach another level of profit and thrive, right? Bringing the thrive up too. It's like, you know, we could be hardcore, go, go, go, right? Get after it, get after it, get after it. Or we could say, you know what, let me craft my days in a way where I could enjoy it and still do what I need to do, right? So, you know, that goes back to your rules for living, right? Your rules for living. Your rules for life will help determine how your daily life experience is going to be. You know, and it's different for everybody. You know, for me, I want part of my daily life experience to be able to, you know, my daughter's two, and for two years it's been spending time with her every single morning. Now the go getter in me wants to get up and go and like just, you know, skip past that, right? But when I bring myself back to a place of confidence in my ability to get the things done that I need to get done, and I have clarity on what that is, and I've structured my day to be able to accomplish that, and I'm maintaining the motivation along the way, then I'm able to enjoy those moments without being there and thinking about something else. When I'm there and I'm with her there and I'm with her, I'm not checking my phone, I'm not planning my day. I'm not going through all of that. And that's really, you know, that for me, that was a next level of, you know, that I'm still working on, but a next level of. You know, when we say next level, you gotta remember it's not like there's this level and then there's this level. There's the next level, the next level, the next level, the next level, the next level. And every time you feel a breakthrough, that's you getting to the next level. But that has allowed me to really own my responsibility to craft my daily life experience, right? So we got to make sure we take care of that. Okay, let's see. Next one. Challenging and attainable goals. Challenging and attainable goals. You've got to have some real goals that challenge you, right? You know, it's like we don't want to set goals too high, but we also don't want to set goals too low. It's finding that balance. It's raising the ambition of your goals, but having the expectancy that you're going to hit them, taking action towards those goals, but accepting if you don't. Right? This all kind of goes Together. But we've got to have goals that are challenging to us, that are pushing us. A lot of times, people. I remember one time in a seminar, somebody's like, I just. I don't. What do I do? I've lost motivation. Like, what are your goals? I don't really have any. Okay, well, you got nothing to get excited about. You've got nothing to get out of bed about. You got nothing to structure your day and do the things we're talking about. If you don't have something that you're after, that goal could be material. You know, I want to buy that house. I saw that. I want that house, I want that car. I want to be in a position where I could, if I wanted to be, be done right to where I've got enough money in the bank. I know my number, that if I hit that number, I'm good, I'm done, right? And I like to set goals as far out as 20 years and then back those into five years, one year, quarterly, monthly. But I do it with a level of expectancy, meaning I believe then I'm going to hit them. And I don't always hit them. But you know what? Where you end up is you're still in good shape, right? And you still became a better version of yourself. That's what this is all about. It's all about becoming a better version of yourself. So even if every time you set the goal, you fail to reach the goal, if you could look back and say, yeah, but you know what? I'm wiser, I'm stronger, I'm smarter. I've experienced what I need now to reset those goals, to get back on the horse and go after it again. You win. You win, right? When you've got the challenging goals and attainable goals, then you want to make sure every action you take during the day is tied back to that goal. Every action. My time with my daughter is tied back to my goals of being a great father. My time doing this and putting these together is tied to my goals of giving back more than anybody has ever given me and sharing information and helping more people that I could possibly help. It all ties back. If you feel drudgery, if you feel dread, if you feel off in your day, it's because you don't have a clear vision of what you're after and. Or the actions you're taking aren't tied to that. You're not on track, right? When you're off track, that means you're not on track. When you're on track you're heading towards the things you want, even if they're years and years away. So I would have your goals written out in each area of your life. Your business, your finance, your relationships, your personal growth, your health, your contribution, And decide what you're after and then break that down. You know, I like to start with 20 years. I just recently redid a 20 year goal in each category. I just literally just kind of write down on paper like, this is where I'm at, right? In 20 years from now, here's where I'm at. Because for me, starting with the 20 years, what it does is it creates space for the mind to go, oh, that's possible. I've got 20 years to get there, right? And then it says, well, if I got 20 years, maybe I'm not shooting high enough, right? So then you shoot a little bit higher and then you're like, okay, let's get back, let's come back to it. A three or a five year goal, okay, now that's, that's attainable, right? That's attainable. Three to five. I mean, you could remember like it was yesterday what you were doing three to five years ago. And then we bring that down and we're like, okay, what's the year? What are we after this year? What are the most important goals for this year? Like, if I accomplish them this year, they will change my life. They will be a stepping stone towards that big vision that I have. What are those? Identify those. And everything you do daily should be pointed at those. If you're taking out the trash at your house, it's because part of your goal is to maintain a nice household and you don't want the trash piling up. You know, it's like, don't. Like there's nothing that really should be in your day that's, that's not in line with hitting a goal or hitting a target. And you want to spend time visualizing these goals as already done is already done. So whether that's, you know, part of like a meditative practice, whether that's part of just kind of, I was explaining sitting down with a piece of paper and going through it, whether it's reviewing your goals daily or at least weekly and feeling them and envisioning, wow, like, what's life going to be like when that's my reality, right. You know, that sparks motivation. But what will derail that is not having the expectancy that it will happen. If you don't believe that you can make it happen, that will derail your motivation. So you could work on your beliefs and you could work on boosting your confidence, which is as healthy as anything else you could do for yourself. Your belief in yourself, saying, you know what, whatever it is, I could figure it out. That's it. If you've got that belief in yourself, that's all you need to boost your confidence. You might not know how to do it, but if you believe that you could figure it out, you'll make it happen, right? And so if you don't. So you could do that, or maybe you lower, maybe you've got to lower it. That's okay. Maybe you look at your 20 year vision and it does not feel in your pit of your stomach, you're like, there's just no way, I don't even see it. Okay, so lower it to something that is again, challenging and attainable. Because if it's just challenging and it's not attainable and the mind doesn't at least believe that it's attainable, you're going to feel like it's a lost cause. You lose hope, you lose hope. You feel not good enough, you feel like you'll never be able to achieve it, you feel like you don't have the resources to make it happen. And all of a sudden the inner critic takes over. You're right back in the rut. Alright, this is making sense guys. Cool. Alright, so next one. Redirect the mind. Redirect the mind. Redirect the mind. So if you think about, you know, we all want to be in this place where we're feeling focused, where we're feeling dialed in, where we're feeling motivated, we've got the energy, we know why we're doing it, we're after something bigger. But leave it up to the mind to somehow throw us off, right? However we got there, maybe it was a passing comment that somebody said, you know, maybe it was something you saw scrolling, you know, maybe, you know, you drank too much or ate, you know, some bad foods for a long period of time and you just woke up feeling off and not where you needed to be. You didn't get enough sleep, right? The mind starts going where you don't want it to go. Well, we've got to rein it in. We've got to recognize and redirect when the mind starts going in a direction that we don't want to go in. So important, right? Not easy, but it all starts with awareness. You know, it sounds so simple, but you'd be surprised how many people don't even think about that. They don't even think, you know, what, what am I thinking about right now? What's the story that I'm telling myself? You know, where am I focused? What are my language patterns? Like, what am I, what am I saying? Oh, I see. However I got to this place, you know, could we try to figure out however I got here, we could look at it and try to see so we could prevent in the future. But more important than anything, redirect it back to the track, get back on track, connect with that vision, right? Review those goals. Take a look at your rules for life. Figure out where you're off track, and don't let your inner critic have a word to say about it. Let your coach tell you what you need to do to get back on track and, and just start taking the action with the acceptance that, you know, it might take a few days, might take a few days. You know, you break it out, you're like, you know what? This is fear. I remember Louis said fear is just mismanagement of the mind. And stress is fear, by the way, just code word for, you know, fear. And what could I do to combat that? Okay, how about some gratitude? Okay. All right. Because we all know it's not just a matter of redirecting the mind. It could feel like you are single handedly trying to take a battleship and turn it in the ocean the other way. It's a very. It could feel very daunting to do. Right? But what we have to do is we have to put our intention on redirecting it, put all of our attention on redirecting it, put our focus back on the positivity, pull out our rules for living, see where we're at and what we need to do. Reach in that toolbox or whatever. Okay. Let me visualize the future. Okay. Let me get some gratitude. Okay. Let me listen to something positive. Okay. Let me go on and let me exercise. Okay, you know what? I didn't sleep good last night. Let me get some sleep. It might last a few days for many people, for me, including in the past. I mean, I had times you guys have heard me talk. I've been in, you know, deep depression in the past. That's what, you know, really made me turn that ship and say, never again. I'm going in the opposite direction. And, you know, but there's still times where I get knocked off and I know it and I'm aware of it right away. Like, that's the key, is being aware of it. I'm off. I'm off. Okay. I need to do Something about it, don't stress about it. Don't have a problem with the fact that you're off. Recognize it and accept it as something that happens. It happens. You can't stay 100% motivated all the time and never fall off. It just doesn't happen. Especially if you're go, go, go. Sometimes you just need a breath. You just need a little bit of a break. Whatever it is, just know that you're turning the ship around and give yourself the time that you need to do it. If you need to turn it around immediately you try. You know, maybe it takes you a few days. For me, when I feel off, sometimes I'm on so much that I'm like, you know what? I need a day, right? I need a day. I'm throwing in the towel today. I'm going to go just indulge in my negativity and my pessimism and I'm just going to, I'm going to allow it to happen today, right? Because you know, the inner critic's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fucking feed me. I want that, Give me that, right? And if I can, I'll let it go for a day. This doesn't happen, but you know, every couple times a year. But if it does, I'm like, okay, I know this process, right? I'm not going, I'm not hitting rock bottom. I'm let myself go, veg out, go chill, turn the TV on, Just do whatever feels good at the moment, right? A lot of this is delayed gratification, right? The things we have to do to stay motivated and to be successful is delayed gratification and not giving in to those animalistic impulses that we all have to just do something right away. But I start, okay, what do I need to do, right? And I'll sit there a couple episodes in on Netflix and I'm like, okay, reach over, grab my phone, pull out the rules for living, pull out the vision, scroll through, start to feel a little, you know, coming back to life a little bit, and that's it. You turn the ship around, you redirect the mind to focus on the things that you know will keep you on track, going towards the life that you want. Alright? So make sure you've got that toolbox. Make sure you've got those reminders there to help you get there when you need it. Alright, still going here. What do we got? We got three more. So that was seven. Here's number eight. Live as your future identity. Live as your future identity. You know, if you think about the person that you want to be, hopefully you are all, I would imagine that you are all striving to be a better person. I mean, that's the ultimate goal of all this. All these challenges in business, challenging in life, it's all just to make us a better, more well rounded, well equipped person to be able to handle whatever comes our way and to be able to get to levels that people that don't take this kind of control over their life will, won't get to and be able to experience. And if you think about the person you really wanna be, right, because there's. I believe that we all. If you're striving to grow as a person, which you all are, you wanna be here. If you're striving to grow as a person, there will always be a gap between the person you are and the person that you want to be or that you see yourself as being. Right? Because once you start down the path of growth and you see your ability to become more and be more and feel more and serve more and do all the things that you wanna do in life, it's hard to walk away from that, right? So it's like, I feel great and proud and just, you know, congruent with the person I am today. But I'm not the person that I really want to be, right? But I know that the actions I'm taking today are leading me towards that. So when we talk about live as your future identity, it's okay, let me embody that person today. You know, you think about a little kid that like dresses up like their dad or dresses up like their mom, or dresses up like a football player, that they want to be like, you know, who do you want to be like and start living like that person today? You know, this for me was like, I made the transition of like, I'm a moving company owner. I changed that identity for myself to I'm a moving CEO. I'm like, okay. And I kind of crafted this vision of what that version of myself would be and what that version would do and what that version would have written down in Rules for Living. And every day, as much as you possibly can, you step into that future identity. Maybe you can't live and maybe you can't become all of that yet. It's not possible. You got to go through the work. But maybe, you know, maybe there's 10 things of how you describe this future identity. And you look at it, you're like, you know what? Three of those I could start doing today, Start doing them today, Start becoming that and stepping into that person today because you don't just, like, become it. You've got to intentionally start stepping into that, right? So for me, I think about, you know, 10 years from now, right? 10 years from now. I'm always thinking about 10 years from now because it's like, attainable. And I can look back and go, where was I 10 years ago? And it feels like yesterday. So I'm like, where does my future self. How would my future self be handling this situation? You know, what would future self do? What would future Lou do? I tell myself, right? And it's important when you're doing that to also live into your future identity, but not bring forward your past identity. You know, it's like, it's. I think it's totally okay. And, you know, just. Just the programming of movies and everything else makes us feel like it's not where somebody's like, you know what? He's changed, right? He's changed good. You know, if you grew up a certain way and it's not the way that you want to be, people want to say, you know what? He's changed good for you, or she's changed good for you. You should. Right? We should all be trying to be the better version of ourselves. And so that includes looking at any perceived failures and letting those live where they live. I've had so many failures along the way that I could still have attached to my identity that I don't okay their objective. Those. Those were failures that happened. Those were opportunities to learn, to correct, to gain experience, to become better. I'm not attaching them to my identity and creating an identity of a failure because I had failures. This could be something. You might have done something this week. And the inner critic was like, oh, like, ready to get after you. You are a failure, right? The inner critic is ready to come after you. Don't let stuff that happens negatively impact your identity. If it's something you're doing that's not congruent with the person you want to be, then you correct and you move forward. You know, never be afraid to get back on the horse. Get back on the horse. Get back on the horse. As many times as you fall, you always have to get back. The people that stop trying are the people that look back and go, but I had that failure, and I had that failure, and I had that failure. And what that is translating to, to the mind is, I am a failure. I am a failure. I am a failure. You know, so you think about the future identity, you think about that self. You Leave all the other stuff behind. You ask yourself, am I being a good role model? Right? Am I doing the things that I would want to do? Because when I think about future self, right, I look at it, and to me, that's one of my biggest inspirations is 10 years older future Lou, I call them, right? Like, that's one of the. Because if you think about. We'll jump into this next point because it ties right in you. If you think about who needs you at your best, right? Who needs you at your best? You know, we think about our family, we think about our employees. We think about our team, we think about, you know, our community, we think about our customers, we think about, you know, the lives of our employees, families who count on them to come to work and have a good business, to get a paycheck. Like, there's a lot of people that need you at your best. But for me, one of the most powerful ones is, you know, future 10 years from now. My future self needs me today because I know I am where I am today because of what I was doing 10 years ago. What I was doing 10 days ago, right? So when we start to look at that future identity and we start to think, okay, who do I need to be today to make that person proud? Because can you imagine your future self, you coming face to face with them? And some. Let's just call it a dream, right? But it feels real, and you've disappointed them. That's not going to feel good because you've had the excuses, you've had all the reasons why you can't succeed. You chose not to, you know, take control over the things you can control and accept the things that you can't control. It's a whole different feeling when you come face to face with that future self and they're like, hey, you got this. Like, look how we're living. Look what we're doing. Look at his smile on my face. Keep doing what you're doing. All right? You're on track. You got this. I know it might seem hard. I know it might seem like it's never going to come, but keep that persistence, keep that patience, and this is where we're going to be, all right? Have the expectancy that we're going to get here. And to me, that is so powerful because, you know, look, do I obviously care about my wife, my daughter, my son to be, you know, and everybody else in my life, but they count on me even more. They need me at my best. And in 10 years, you know, I've been Told that a teenage girl gets really expensive and really challenging. And I want to make sure that I am there to be there and be there present. And I want to make sure I've got the money to do whatever needs to happen. So don't let your future self down. Think about who else needs you, right? If you donate to causes, you know, we donate to several different causes, and, you know, they need you at your best. You know, the bet if you've got a certain percentage of your income that you tie to, you know, giving to the church or giving to certain organizations or, you know, giving to a family member in need, they need you at your best. You know, your customers and your business when you're not at your best. Look, we've all gone through times where we just feel down and out, we're feeling off. And we know our business suffers when our business suffers. Our customers suffer when they suffer. It hurts our business in return. So every day, ask yourself, who needs you at your best? Okay. All right, last point here. Clarity on your plan and your progress. Clarity on your plan and your progress. First of all, you need a plan, right? And you need to be committed to that plan. So you've got, you know, I like to start this, like when I work with private clients. It's, It's. It's like, what do you want in your life? Then let's talk about how to get that with your business as the means and the vehicle to get there. But in order to feel motivated, we've got to have clarity on that plan. We've got to be able to be clear on the progress of that plan, how we're moving along, right? You've got your goals. You broke down your goals into some yearly and quarterly objectives that you're trying to hit. Knowing the progress of that is huge. Knowing your numbers is part of knowing your progress. You'd be amazed at how many people don't know their numbers and fear when the conversation really gets there. And I asked them, you know, and we come to the real core of what it is, and they're kind of afraid of what they're going to see. More times than not, what they end up seeing is better than they thought it was. You want to talk about motivation? Start reviewing your numbers and the progress that you're making towards your goals on a regular basis, and that will spark your motivation. Even if those numbers aren't good. Great. You saw them, you identified them. Now you could create an action plan to go and correct them. Right? It's a huge motivator. To track your progress, to know what's happening, to know what's going on in your business, to see your personal strides, right? I mean, if you look at any, you know, exercise app or a meditation app or what, it's all about tracking your consistency and tracking your progress on how you're doing. And there's a reason for that. It's cause it keeps you motivated, right? This isn't a today we're not talking about, you know, know your numbers for the sake of knowing your numbers to run your business. I'm saying be clear on your plan and the progress of that plan because that will keep you motivated when you feel unaware of what is going on in your business and in your life. Because there's just so much everywhere and you just haven't taken the time, that's all, to just reign it all in. Which will, you know, set aside a week. You could just reign it all in, get clear on it, have ways of getting the information that you need to know where you're at. It'll keep you fired up, right? It'll keep you going. Look, right now we're coming out of summer. Like it's not the time to be screwing around. It's not. You want to take a vacation? Good. Intentionally. Go take a vacation, relax, rejuvenate, have fun, have a blast. But then it's time to get committed to a plan, get back to work. I believe in you, you know, now that you need to believe in yourself and you need to go back and make it happen, you know? You know what the bad habits are that you fell into? It's not you, it's not your identity. They're bad habits that you fell into. There are booby traps all over the place in this modern world that we live in. From the easy access to thousands of shows and channels to the way it just goes from one to the next without even asking if you want to watch the next one. To the endless social media, to the endless news, to whatever it might be, the state of the world, all of that. Forget about it all. If the world is not in a good place, where do you need to be? You need to be in a good place. Do not let what's going on in the world drag you down. Down. There's always been bad shit going on. Always. The news will always find something to make big in your face, capture your attention so that you will continue to watch, so they will continue to get ratings. You don't need that. You need to get focused on what you need on your plan, on your challenging and attainable goals on, you know, creating that raised ambition with the expectancy that you're going to make it happen. Redirect your mind when you fall off. Even if it happens every single day, if every single day you wake up, you're like, ugh, have something next to the bed, a reminder, a piece of paper, a note, something that just tells you what the next right action to take is that's going to get you to build that momentum, to sustain that motivation. All right, my friend, what'd you think of that episode? Did you learn something new? Did it spark some ideas that you can implement your business right away? Did it get the wheels turning? Did you love it? If so, do me a favor, share this episode. Somewhere out there on social media where you know there's some people that'll get value from it, make sure you hashtag so that we'll be able to look you up and find you on Instagram. Sometimes we just randomly pick a few people and send them gifts like free training T shirts, hats, swag, tickets to our three day seminar. So make sure you let us know you're listening and share what you thought about this episode out there on social media. Thank you so much for joining us and being a part of this amazing community. And until we talk next time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon, my friend.