Vishen Lakhiani talks with John and Missy about building a 360-degree life vision across 12 categories instead of just chasing career goals. They've kept a shared vision for decades while maintaining three rituals: daily check-ins, a weekly overnight date for 30 years, and annual retreats to revisit their goals.
Questions this video answers
Circa 1991 ("This was 1991 or something.")
Every week for the last 30 years ("every week for the last 30 years, we've had an overnight date").
17 years ago (speaker states "we bought this property 17 years ago").
2014 ("this Hawaii move in 2014, that was our five year life vision.")
Chapters
My dad was watching late night TV one night and he came across Tony Robbins, Personal Power 2. And he ordered it for me. This was 1991 or something. He ordered it for me and said, john, I think this might help. I had never heard of personal development before in my life, so I was like, whatever, I'll try anything. And so I listened to this program, and it really did help a lot. It's one of the first really great courses. Right. So I got a little bit of a foothold, or at least I got pointed in the right direction. I mean, Missy helped me through, so I couldn't. Yeah, it was rough. I could never have ever have gotten through without her. But all of a sudden I'm like, okay, this program sort of pointed me in the right direction and gave me hope that I could get back in control of my life. And so I started doing personal development like I discovered it. So it was Wayne Dyer, it was Deepak Chopra, it was the greats, you know, the badasses back then. And I kept all of my notes in a little binder, like my breakthroughs, the challenges that I want to work on, the goals that I had.
Best practices, best practices, all those things. Yeah.
And over the years, this little binder just kept growing and growing. One year I realized, hey, it would be a great idea to categorize my goals and my breakthroughs and. And start keeping track of all the love stuff here, all the health and fitness stuff here, all the business and financial stuff here. So I broke it down and I started thinking about what are the most important areas of life to focus on in order to really get clear on the person I want to become and the life I want to live? What do we have to master on this planet as a couple to move into the direction of our ideal life?
And I think that's a key lesson there. John. Missy. So if you're looking at 360 life vision, you want to look at all the categories, and I'd love for you to list the categories, the 12 categories that you looked at. You guys heard Patrick Grove's six categories yesterday. You heard Cameron Harrell's five categories again. Notice it doesn't matter whether it's six or seven or you add what's important to you. John had 12, and you're welcome to copy John's 12. That's what I did. But you choose the categories. The thing is, the categories are simply meant to ensure that you are not just obsessed with the tiny slice of life that school says is important, which is your career. And your bank account. Right?
That's exactly right.
So. But notice what John said. He and Missy did it together. So while you are observe my hands. While you're being holistic this way, you're also being holistic this way. Right. You are involving. You are sharing this vision with your business partner and your team. You are sharing this vision with your partner. Right. For example, John and Missy, their visions intertwine. And by the way, if you look at the OKR process, remember I spoke about how OKRs are 50% up, 50% down. It means that when you're coming up with OKRs for a team, it's coming from the leader, but it's also coming from the team members. The reason for that is, again, holistic, shared life vision. So keep in mind, it's 360 this way. That's your life. It's 360 this way. That's being inclusive of the people within your business or your love relationship or your family.
Awesome distinction, Matt.
Beautiful.
So how to create a 360 life vision according to our methodology is to think through each individual category of your life and really dial in what it is that you want in each of them. And then you roll that up into one singular, compelling life vision. And if you're doing it as a couple, it's a really interesting process because, for instance, the first five categories of Lifebook are personal life categories. They're your health and fitness, your intellectual life, your emotional life, your character, and your spiritual life. Those are you separate from the rest of the world. So a husband and wife, those two categories are going to be different. Her health and fitness goals and strategies will be different than mine. But when it comes to categories like your love, relationship, parenting, your financial life, you better have the same visions or you're gonna be in trouble.
So love, relationship, parenting, financial life. You want to ensure that your visions overlap or are parallel to your vision.
Well, our deal is as identical as possible.
Yeah. Our life vision is our life vision. And it includes my stuff and his stuff. And we.
Yeah, so we have different, different goals and strategies in the personal sections of our lifebook, but we have one life vision, and we've always had one life vision. And this is what, this is the target. This is what we're moving towards as a couple. All of our energy goes there. And what's so beautiful, you guys, is it's a North Star. It guides your daily choices and actions. It's a decision making framework that ensures that you don't go flying off into left field and find yourself Two years down the road, where the hell am I? How did I get here? No, this keeps you on track. Like Vishen's been saying, so many people get obsessed with a couple categories. Well, this makes sure that you never get too far off. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. If you're starting a company, you better be prepared to make a few sacrifices because that's how life goes. But using this sort of methodology, you never get too far off track without coming back to center because you're conscious of all the important areas of your life. What do you got to say about that girl?
I think that was great. I have anything to add? It was awesome.
So this is a question for you guys on those categories that coincide, right. What process do you go through? Are you guys going on a retreat together and coming up with the life visions? Do you do it separately and then collaborate?
We have three important connection rituals. The first is our daily connection. Why don't you talk about this? We haven't talked.
So our daily connection ritual is just because we work together, we work at home, but we don't always work in the same space or on the same things. So every day after work, we either take a bath together or, if weather permitting, we go out and we take a walk and we connect on everything that we each did that day.
Challenges and opportunities.
And this is what happens. We catch up and even kid stuff, whatever. Because I have found that if we don't do that every single day and a couple days go by, I'm like, I've lost connection with him.
Right? That's true.
I'm not feeling like I don't even know what's going on with him. I can't feel him. I can't understand his emotional state.
So that one is a mild one, but it just ensures daily connection.
Our big ones, it's daily. I think that one's actually very big because it ensures that we always. And then every week we have an overnight date.
This is the biggest love relationship strategy we have. This is number one.
And this was hard when you have little babies and you have kids and.
But it can be done.
Yeah, it can be done.
So every week for the last 30 years, we've had an overnight date, no matter where in the world we are without the kids to ensure our love and sex and romantic and passion, life and play is dialed in.
That's the big thing.
And vision. We talk a lot about our life vision on those dates. That's one of the big topics of conversation always.
But our big. Our life vision trip is Usually once a year we go to a spa somewhere or spend two weeks somewhere in the woods and just go deep in our overall life vision where we're going.
How'D we do last year? What are we doing next year? And just so you know, this is so cool. We're leaving here from Bali, we're going home, we're packing our shit and we're moving to Hawaii. So this has been, this has been a, we bought this property 17 years ago and so we work on a pretty much a five year. Our life vision is usually five years out. And what's so funny is this, this Hawaii move in 2014, that was our five year life vision. And then 2015, it's like, you know what, that's going to be a four year vision now. Now it's a two week vision. We are literally stepping into a brand new life like the last 30 again, which is amazing. The last 30 years have been epic, but the next 30 years, equally epic, hopefully, but very, very different. Our whole lifestyle has changed. So we'll let you know how that goes.
