Category: Success

It’s an Emergency: Spending your Savings

   The numbers are out, and they aren’t good. April unemployment numbers were released by Stats Canada this week. 

Some of the key points mentioned:

  • Unemployment rose to 13%, a number that doesn’t fully include recent job losses. Taking into consideration other elements, like self-employed persons who worked 0 hours, that number climbs higher than 17%.
  • “21.1% of Canadians lived in a household reporting difficulty meeting immediate financial obligations.”

   While these numbers don’t paint a rosy picture, the question becomes: 

What can you do to prepare yourself during the COVID pandemic?

   The answer to that question falls into two categories; those who aren’t seriously affected (yet), and those who are.

   If you haven’t been dramatically adversely affected, your focus should be on strengthening your financial fortress, and exploring ways to increase your value. Check out the 5 Steps to Recession Proof Your Life.

   If on the other hand the COVID situation has hit you hard, the questions you face are far more concerning. While the focus is still on cash, growing your reserves might not be an option. At this stage, you need to be eliminating debts and freeing up cash flow (i.e. cutting the cord on some of those subscriptions). Then it’s time to look at where to draw money from.

I’ve lost my job. What do I do now?

   With unemployment numbers jumping to unprecedented highs, and far more rapidly than ever before, this financial downturn has struck hard and fast. Next steps for you should involve reversing your “good times” financial allocation.

It’s an Emergency. Use your Emergency Fund

   If you have been following the financial advice of Business Minded, or any personal finance professional, you likely have some funds tucked away in an emergency fund. Now is the exact time that you’ve been waiting for. Start drawing down on your emergency savings to pay your bills.

   These days come rolling in full of uncertainty, will you go back to work next week? Next month? Many people are seeing their situations as a temporary inconvenience, and this is leading to some risky financial behavior. Expecting to return to work, and therefore floating your expenses on credit cards or other forms of borrowings is exceptionally risky, and likely to place you in a worse financial position.

   While it may be hard to see that wonderful looking emergency fund start to deflate, it is far better than skating on thin ice that comes with borrowed monies.

   Once the emergency fund is used up, you should then start looking at liquidating your investments, starting with non-tax leveraged accounts. By the time you get to this stage, you should be seeking out professional guidance, as your unique situation needs to be more closely evaluated. 

   As the economic environment worsens, it’s time to use your emergency fund for what it was designed for, emergencies. Drawing down on those hard-earned savings will help you weather this economic storm, and allow you to come out on the other side with your financial fortress intact.

Investing Advice from The Berkshire Hathaway 2020 Annual Meeting

   This past week saw the release of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2020 annual meeting. Along with the financial results of the company famously headed by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger came some commentary from the widely recognized Warren Buffett.

   While the annual meeting was over 5 hours, there were a few snippets that come as timely words of wisdom from one of the world’s wealthiest people. 

Never bet against America.

   Throughout the years, America has proved its resiliency and ability to overcome tough times. This commentary can be more broadly applied with the simple yet powerful statement, bet on humanity.

   While we might be currently facing one of the most challenging periods of our lives, one thing is true. We will survive. 

   While I would caution the mentality of investing as any form of gambling, there is one hand that I would undoubtedly go all-in on. That hand is that we will not just go through this, we will grow through it. We will become better, faster, stronger from the challenges that we as a species are facing right now.

Buy America, And Forget About It.

   As with the first piece of sage advice, Buffett also makes some commentary on the ability of the average investor. Most people are better off taking that bet on human progress and investing in a total market ETF. 

   When saying this, Buffett recognizes that some people like him have careers in investing, and as such devote an above average level of time and attention into investing. These dedicated investors are the ones making individual stock picks based on years of research and experience. For most of us who are not combing through annual reports on a daily basis, taking a broad stance is better suited to our needs and our experience levels. 

   These total market ETFs allow us to place a bet that some of the best companies will survive and thrive. And that bet on human progress hasn’t been wrong, in the long run, ever.

   What can one of the world’s most successful investors teach us? Bet on humanity. Together we will not just survive, but we will thrive.

You are Here: Exploring the World Inside

   The sun was shining this week, and it seemed at least for a few hours on Saturday that spring warmth was starting to arrive in Canada. With those golden rays, thousands of people headed out to the lake, for some socializing while traversing the trails.

   But there was one issue with this otherwise picturesque scene.

Social Distancing is in effect.

   Thousands of people were risking their health in an effort to escape their boredom for a few hours. 

   In this always-on world, we have lost the art of simply being by ourselves. One of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century is the inability of man (or woman) to sit alone with their thoughts. 

   The loss of this introspection makes attaining higher levels of success difficult. Afterall, how can we aspire to greatness if we don’t acknowledge where we are? Finding our “You are Here” on the map of your success is the essential first step to charting a course to that destination. As you practice social distancing this week, think about your “You are Here” point in your life.

   Below are 5 questions to help you find that starting point. Be sure to answer these questions for all pillars of your life: Career, Financial, Physical health, Mental / Spiritual health, Relationships with family and friends, and your Romantic pursuits.

What are your greatest strengths? Your weaknesses?

   This question helps you focus on your past efforts, your past development. Self-awareness in all aspects of your life helps you put the right plans in place. Understanding your assets and liabilities will help you leverage your unique talents and abilities, multiplying the effects of your efforts.

What opportunities are present right now in your life?

   Re-framing how you look at the world helps see challenges in a new light. With so much fear and negative emotion being projected by the media, looking for those rays of sunshine in all areas of your life is a breath of fresh air. We often find what we look for, so why not look for hope and opportunity? That sounds like the world I want to live in.

What does success look like for you?

   This can be perhaps the most challenging question to answer, or the easiest. Through my work at Business Minded, I have found that people have either not taken the time to think about this, or know with definite purpose where they are headed and why. Unfortunately, the latter group is certainly the smallest. Take some time in quiet reflection this week, and think about your life, where it’s headed, and the value of reaching those goals.

Are you on the right path?

   If your previous answer was the destination you are aiming at, where do you stand now? Are you on the right path, or do you need to make some changes in direction? Are your strengths being capitalized on? Are the opportunities present in your life also on the same path? Too often we chase good ideas and opportunities that don’t lead towards that end goal. Far worse than being distracted by a bad thing, is being distracted by a good thing. 

What is the first step on that path?

   If you’re on the right path, great! What’s the next step? But if you need to make some course corrections, what is the first step that you can take? Maybe this is something as small as picking up a book, or taking a course to refine your skill sets. The idea is to identify what you can do right now to begin building that dream. Don’t try to take 100 steps, just focus on taking that first step. The rest of those 100 steps will come in time.

   Looking inside ourselves, reading our own hearts can be a daunting task. Especially if you aren’t in the regular practice of exploring your soul. Take some time this week to explore you. There is beauty in there, when you take the time to look and smell the roses.

How to Grow with Goals

   Are your goals helping you grow, or stunting your growth?

   There is an extremely intriguing sea-creature in the hermit crab. Unlike many other species of crustacean, their exoskeleton is soft in the abdominal area, leaving them vulnerable to attack from other ocean predators. To protect against these attacks, hermit crabs live their lives in a shell, carrying their protection around with them. As the crab grows, they need progressively bigger shells to grow into. Without a bigger shell to move into, the little crustacean faces a very challenging life, and sometimes even death. 

   Our goals act just like these shells that the hermit crabs move into. The right goals will provide you room to grow. But just like these hermit crabs, your goals need to grow with you over time, else they could stifle you, suffocating your future development.

Goals: The Right Size Shell (at the right time.)

   The right goal should be attainable, like a shell that you can grow into. If you select something too ambitious, that is like crawling into a shell that is too big, too heavy. When there is no chance of success, your goal will crush you beneath the enormity of the undertaking. This is why the hermit crab graduates to larger shells in stages throughout its life. If our oceanic friend tried to hop into its full-grown shell right from birth, it wouldn’t be able to move around. Suffering under the weight of its shell, the crab would surely die.

   Similarly, a shell too small would hold the hermit crab back from its full potential. Your goals do this to you as well. When your targets are too easy, the goal too small, you don’t allow yourself the room to develop further. 

   While a few of us do set lofty goals, almost everyone falls into the second trap. Goals that are too small. These “goals” that we set are designed to ensure that we hit the mark every time. Without the chance of failure, we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

   The purpose of a goal is to give yourself something to strive towards, but that doesn’t mean victory should be assured. Quite the opposite in fact, you should have the very real chance of failure. It is this chance of failure that pushes you to grow, to develop, to become more than you were when you first set the goal.

   It is quite common for a hermit crab to change shells several times in rapid succession, testing out the various shells until it finds the right one for the moment. Your goals should be the same. There is no shame in adjusting your goals, making them just the right amount of stretch but maintaining a reasonable chance of success. Just like the hermit crab, you need to allow yourself room to grow, so that you will be ready to move on to bigger, better pastures.

   Take a look at your list of goals. Which ones on that list are too hard? And which are too easy? How can you modify your goals to ensure you have ample room to grow as you chase success?

   Growth, becoming more than what you are now, doesn’t come by accident. By carefully selecting your next shell, you can continue growing. And with your growth comes the level of success and achievement you could only dream of before.

   With the right growth, the right goals, the world is your oyster.

5 Steps to Recession-Proof Your Life

   Recessions are a normal part of the ebbs and flows of life. With that truth, recessions present their own challenges and opportunities. If you have a recession-proof plan, you could be well positioned for the next recession, whenever that finally comes. The economic slow down spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic could very well trigger a recession event later in 2020. With that possibility looming on the horizon, it is not too late to build your recession-proof plan.

   There are 5 areas that need to be in any recession-proof plan, primarily dealing with cash. It’s been said that cash is king, and that is especially true during a recession. With employment markets and financial markets depressed, as is usually the case during a recession, having cash available provides a protective barrier around your life.

Emergency Fund

   Much of that cash should be held in an Emergency Fund. You have no doubt heard the advice before, 3-6 months of living expenses saved in cash. This will provide a barrier in case of the unexpected, like a job loss that sometimes comes with the shrinkage of the economy. If you don’t have that money saved in cash, make that a priority. This barrier provides you some protection, and gives you more time to make tough decisions, if needed. 

   Even if you have an emergency fund, now is a good time to increase that further. Three to six months of living expenses might be recommended, but extra cash never hurt anyone during a recession. While I have my own Emergency Fund, I am continuing to grow it each month. This will keep me safe in the event that my paycheck stops coming. If I follow the rest of my Recession-Proof Life plan, that extra cash cushion would be great to reinvest in the financial markets as the economy starts to recover. 

   Where should you store that cash? While interest rates have been slashed repeatedly in the past few weeks, a high interest e-savings account is still your best bet. In North America you can still find accounts at close to 1%, which while not much, is better than the 0% many large bank chequing accounts are offering.

Reduce Debts

   Cash is king, and debt is an obligation to pay some of that cash to someone. To protect your cash while you build an emergency fund, you also need to reduce any debts that you have. This means paying down all your consumer debt, starting with the highest interest rate loans first, usually credit cards. With investment returns being unpredictable at the best of times, and even more so now, taking that guaranteed win of savings on interest is important. 

   Once you are clear of any high interest debt, focus on paying down some of the other loans that you have. These might be your Student Loans or Personal Line of Credit. While there are different methods suggested for getting out of debt, in an effort to save you cash, I am only suggesting the financially most beneficial method. Paying off the highest interest rate debt first.

Trim the Fat - Reduce Unnecessary Expenditures

   Over time we sign up for a variety of services. When we’re looking at preserving our cash, it might be time to evaluate the value of these services. Depending on the severity of your situation, you might want to completely cancel these subscriptions, or it might be worth a call to discuss lowering your rates. Many companies would rather retain you as a customer than lose you completely, and often this preference makes them more open to negotiating your rates with you.

   Take a careful look at where you spend your money. Subscriptions are an easy area that savings can be found, but we often pick up other financial habits during times of prosperity. These habits aren’t always healthy. Evaluate where you are spending your money, and make changes if necessary. 

Diversify Your Income Streams

   Recession-proofing your life also means you need to look at where your money is coming from. For many of us, our salary is the primary source of income. But that doesn’t mean that it needs to be our only source of income. There are plenty of ways to generate income outside of your 9-5 hours, and now is an excellent time to explore those opportunities. The side-hustle has received a substantial amount of attention over the years, and for good reason. Finding something that you enjoy, that you can earn money doing, if only part time? To many of us, that extra freedom of getting paid for a passion project is exhilarating. And, with the internet, getting started couldn’t be easier. 

   Of course, the side-hustle route isn’t for everyone. Maybe you would rather go all-in on your career, reaching up the rungs of that corporate ladder. You can also take control over your income, by diversifying your investments into something that pays dividends / interest on a regular basis. This way you can bring in a little more positive cash flow each month. While those investments might not replace your full time income, every little bit helps, especially when recession-proofing your life.

Grow Your Skills

   One final way to recession-proof your life is to remember your professional development. What skills do you need to develop to help take you to the next level of your career?

   Recessions are usually accompanied by a rise in unemployment, and current events in 2020 are no different. With a reduction in the Canadian labor force of over 1 million people in March 2020, jobs are becoming even more competitive. That prompts the question, how do you stand out among hundreds of candidates? The answer: by becoming more valuable. And that answer doesn’t just apply to those who are out of work. By continually developing your skills and increasing your economic value, you will stand out among your peers, and be more likely to retain your job in the event of layoffs. 

   Education has become more accessible than ever with online learning, and with world-wide social distancing measures in place, many people are finding they have more time on their hands. Directing that time at developing or enhancing your skill sets will ensure that you are ready for whatever the future holds.

   Recession-Proofing your life starts with the right plans. What are your plans to manage your finances? By building an emergency fund, you are able to withstand any financial storm. This is aided by paying off debts, and cutting back on unnecessary spending. Once you’ve taken care of the cash outflow, you should look at the sources of that cash. How can you diversify so that you have income coming from multiple streams? The final element of your recession-proof plan is in making you more valuable. What are you doing to develop your skills?

   Recessions are a normal part of life, having the right recession-proof plan will make sure you are positioned not just to survive, but to thrive.

Risky Business: Understanding Your Risk Tolerance

What is Risk Tolerance?

   Risk tolerance is simply your ability to withstand fluctuations in the markets, which does mean the occasional loss.

   The more risk tolerance you have, the less concerned you are with short term fluctuations. The converse is also true, the less risk tolerant you are, meaning you are risk averse, the less you are willing to lose money even in the short term.

Why is this important?

   Depending on where you are in your investment life cycle, you may want to adjust your risk tolerance. For example, if you are young and just getting started investing, you likely will be more willing to take losses for the chance at higher gains. Young people typically don’t have as much to lose, and have time on their side to weather out any financial storms.

   As you get older, and that nest egg grows in size, many people become less risk tolerant. This is especially true when you are getting closer to the age of retirement, when large swings in the stock market can drastically impact your financial fortress, when you need that money most. For more information on the impact of stock returns on your retirement, check out our article on sequence risk.

How do you play within your Risk Tolerance?

   Your risk tolerance is a temperature gauge. There is no “right” temperature, but you’ll know it if you’re finding it too hot or too cold.

   The good news is, if you find yourself in either of those situations, you can adjust through asset allocation.

   In general, the heavier you are weighted in stocks, the riskier your portfolio is. Meaning the higher the upside, but also the higher the risk of incurring losses. If you would like to lower the temperature a bit, simply start adding in some fixed income investments, like bonds and cash. While the returns are lower, you’ll be better able to weather some turbulent financial markets.

   The inverse is also true. If you’re disillusioned with your portfolio growth, start turning up the dial. Add in more equities into your portfolio. This will increase the risk, but also increase the potential for higher growth.

Pro tip: you can add in equities without pushing all your chips in. Adding in equities through a total market ETF will give you exposure to an entire index, while keeping the diversification of those separate companies. This will hedge off some of the risk of simply betting on a single (or select few) stocks.

How hot do you like it?

   From 2010 to 2020, the stock market had been on one of the longest upward runs in history, especially in the United States. This likely influenced people’s self-evaluation of their risk tolerance. Seeing gains day after day for 10 years increased the FOMO (fear of missing out) of those prosperous times. It is quite easy to say you are “open” to the normal fluctuations when all you see is those double digit returns in the black. 

   The early part of 2020 was a reality check for many people. Years of positive returns were wiped out in an instant, with losses of well over 20% of total portfolio value.

   This alerted people to the realities of investing in the short term; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes those wins and losses are big. 

   This is something you need to evaluate for yourself, taking into consideration your unique situation. Does the possibility of losses like that impact your ability to enjoy life? Do they cause an undue amount of stress? Or perhaps you were right in your assessment of your risk tolerance, and you aren’t fazed. Maybe you even recognize the tremendous opportunities that lie in crashing financial markets.

What to do if you’ve misjudged your Risk Tolerance?

   Irrespective of the investing choices you may have made in the past, it is important that level heads prevail. If you think you were previously too risky, do not sell at a loss if you have any other options available. While nobody can tell how long the markets will be depressed, or even how low they will go, one thing is certain. We will survive. And, just as importantly, we will thrive again. What you can do going forward is change the asset mix that you invest in on a regular basis. By making an adjustment on your future contributions, you will over time change the asset allocation mix of your overall portfolio. This way you can learn from recent events, and avoid locking in any temporary losses.

   Investing provides a way to make your money work for you. But it isn’t a guarantee that you will always like the outcome, especially in the short term. Understanding your risk tolerance will help you invest wisely, and sleep better at night.

A helpful guide to risk tolerance

   While no one person is the same, a rule of thumb is often helpful to set some expectations for yourself. A formula to determine risk tolerance is:

115 - Age = Risk %

This estimates the amount of equities that you should have in your portfolio, based on your age. Understandably not every 30, 50, or even 70 year old is in the same situation. But the formula does help set your expectations. If you’re young and holding a conservative portfolio, you might be taking a lot off the table for the future you.

   Think about your life, and your comfort level. Do your investments keep you up at night? Maybe a conservative play is better for your overall well-being. Or maybe the inverse is true. Only you can decide. 

   What is important here is that you decide. Make the choices today that are right for you now, and for you in the future. After all, it’s your future. The choices you make today will shape that future for you and your family.

Investing in Stock Markets: 101

   The stock market is one of the most common areas to invest in. But what exactly is the stock market?

What is the Stock Market?

   The stock market refers to all markets and exchanges where you can buy and sell shares in public companies. In aggregate, the stock market refers to all publicly traded companies in the world. Ownership of these companies is represented by shares of ownership, or shares. Most countries have their own exchanges, though with the global nature of business, consumers can buy and sell shares across exchanges around the world.

What is a Stock Exchange?

   A stock exchange is a collection of companies deemed to be traded on that exchange. For example, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and/or the NASDAQ is where many of America’s public companies can be bought and sold. Toronto has their own Exchange, through the TSX (Toronto Stock Exchange), and London has their own Exchange (LSE). Basically, a stock exchange is just a large store where you can buy and sell a variety of financial instruments, from shares to bonds, and even options. The shares on offer at each “store” may be different. For example, Enbridge is a Canadian energy company, and can only be bought or sold on the TSX.

The Stock Market and Stock Exchanges are Different. Why is that important?

   The stock market refers to the all-encompassing marketplace for buying and selling financial instruments, including shares. Each exchange operates on their own currency, for example the TSX buys and sells in Canadian dollars, the NYSE and NASDAQ operate in USD, and the London Stock Exchange operates in the British Pound. This means that buying and selling across international exchanges opens you up to foreign currency fluctuations. Also, since the exchanges are based in a specific country, that country's tax laws will also impact your investments.

Investing in Exchanges: ETFs and Index Funds

   As an extremely popular method of investing, Index funds seek to track the overall performance of stocks fitting a certain set of criteria. Some of the most popular indexes that are reported on are the S&P 500, or the 500 largest companies traded in the USA. Another index is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which is comprised of 30 of the largest companies in the US. By investing in ETFs, investors are able to diversify within an exchange at a relatively low cost of ownership. Rather than purchasing one share of each company in the market, an ETF allows you to purchase the general movement of the exchange as a whole.

Market Fluctuations in Today’s Economic Climate

   Understanding the difference between stock exchanges and the stock market in general is even more important during these difficult times in 2020. As the coronavirus is a global event, every country is impacted. But the impacts are not felt equally across the entire world. This means that the business disruption will be more severe in some countries than in others. As a share is simply a purchase of ownership in a company, certain companies and exchanges will be affected more severely than others.

   To illustrate this, we can look at the returns for the TSX Composite Index and the S&P 500 for the week of March 23 to March 27, 2020.

Opening and Closing Level of the TSX and S&P 500 for the week of 3/23/2020.

   In that time, the TSX saw an increase in value by 7.5%, while the S&P 500 grew 10.93%. How each government responds to the health crisis will influence how exchanges perform in the overall market. To diversify your investments, it is wise to consider investing beyond your local exchange. But, the calculations aren’t always as straight forward, depending on the accounts you are using, tax laws can impact your returns quite substantially, especially when foreign markets come into play.

US Withholding Taxes on Stocks (For Canadians)

   At the risk of diving too deep into the rabbit hole, it is worth a quick look at US withholding taxes. The two largest stock exchanges in the world (based on market cap) are located in the US, the NYSE and NASDAQ. Given the size of these exchanges, it is extremely likely that you will invest some of your financial resources on these exchanges. Canada and the US have tax treaties which allow for preferential treatment, but most investment proceeds in the form of dividends and interest are subject to withholding taxes. These additional taxes can be avoided however, if you are making these investments in a qualified account.

   The accounts that qualify for this favourable tax treatment are in general your retirement accounts, such as an RRSP. This is an important distinction to make, because the TFSA, which is another popular Canadian tax advantaged account does not receive the same special treatment for US holdings.

   If you are using an account that isn’t your RRSP to invest in the US, you will need to file a tax form with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to take advantage of the Canada-US tax treaties that reduces (but not eliminates) foreign withholding tax. This form is the W-8BEN.

Summary

   Investing is an important element in everyone’s financial plan. The stock market is one place where many of us will invest some of our money. Even in the stock market, there are different subsets, groups of companies in different regions, traded on different exchanges. These exchanges operate as stores, selling slightly different merchandise. Some of these stores will do better than others, as global events impact different regions at a different scale.

   Aside from investing in companies around the world, the savvy investor also needs to know how currency fluctuations and tax laws will impact their returns. With the right mix of investment accounts, you can capitalize on the benefits of diversifying into different exchanges. RRSPs receive preferential tax treatment in the form of eliminating withholding taxes on interest and dividends from US sources. When considering investing in the US, it is more beneficial from a withholding tax standpoint to use the RRSP over the TFSA, as long as your objectives for both accounts are the same, investing for retirement. For all other investments on US stock exchanges, it is important that you file a W-8BEN to take advantage of the existing tax treaties between Canada and the US. This will ensure you aren’t leaving money on the table. After all, less taxes paid means higher returns for you!

   Knowing how to use the tools available to you will help you build the right financial plan for you. Financial freedom isn’t a lofty ideal, with the right knowledge it is a realizable goal.

Evaluating Routines: Spring Cleaning in Your Life

   With measures taken to combat COVID-19 including social distancing, millions of people have had their daily lives radically changed. Work has been radically transformed as people are either temporarily displaced, or embracing remote working options. Coinciding with spring's arrival (in the Northern Hemisphere), this provides an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate our recently upended routines.

   As a result of this self-imposed quarantine, this year spring cleaning is taking on a whole new meaning. We are finding out what elements of our lives have changed (a huge number of things changed). And most importantly, how these changes are impacting the rest of our life.

   My regular routine, which I had thought was carefully constructed has been radically altered. The local gym has closed doors, meaning I need to find different methods for working out. While I previously had no difficulty making it to the gym every day, by moving that workout space into the kitchen, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate what is fitness time from food time, and even work time. Work has also taken on a new meaning - regular office hours are harder to enforce when my devices are within arms reach 24/7. The chaotic aftermath of losing my regular routine has left many openings in my schedule. Left to their own devices, those openings threaten to disrupt the progress that I’ve made.

   These experiences are not mine alone. With no commute time people have reported sleeping in longer, and staying signed into their work well past their previous “punch-out time”. These changes aren’t necessarily a good thing. While many of us could benefit from an extra few minutes of shut-eye, hitting the snooze button repeatedly for an hour is not the answer. Working later hours, being plugged in all the time also has negative repercussions. With no clear boundaries over work and home life, they bleed into each other. This means we’re always “on”, and never take the time to power down and recharge. As a result, despite putting in longer hours, for many people their overall productive output has decreased.

   For spring cleaning this year, we need to evaluate what our routines were, and determine what has changed in the past few weeks. Where are the areas that are no longer being served by your previous routine? Were there areas in your previous routine that weren’t driving success in your life?

   Take a look at the pillars of your life. How are your routines serving your greater success?

   Physically - is your health where it should be? What are you doing to stay active, to stay healthy? When, for how long, and how often do you workout? As many changes have impacted our lives, are you staying accountable for your own physical wellbeing? If you are finding it challenging, there are countless free and paid apps that can help you with ideas for fitness. I have found myself engaging in daily yoga practices guided on Youtube, in addition to strength training apps to keep me fit and healthy during these times.

   Mentally / Spiritually - what practices are you doing to reflect? How do you unwind? What are you working for? What are you grateful for? Proper mental practices are even more important, as isolation can be a tough burden to bear. Gratitude, exploring what you are thankful for, and counting the many blessings that you do have can help you retain your sanity through these tough times.

   Financially - are your financial systems in check? Are you investing regularly? Are you monitoring your spending? Changes in our routines don’t change the underlying principles of personal finance. Are you sticking with your plans?

   Career - what are you doing in your career? Does that excite you? What are you doing to improve yourself and your skill set? While work for most people has been changed right now, what are you doing to ensure you are better equipped for success as the world settles down?

   Relationships - how are you staying connected? Who do you miss talking to and seeing? Let those friends, family members, and colleagues know that you’re thinking about them. There are numerous ways to keep engaged, through video conferencing and online games, being social has changed in the manner of delivery, but still remains as important as ever for our social species.

   Romance - are you spending more time than normal with your spouse? How is that affecting your relationship? Many of us are now at home full time with our families. Are these changes good? Or are you having difficulty bridging your different worlds of work and home life? Setting clear boundaries, and making sure you stick to them will help keep things stable. 

   As you are spring cleaning this year, think about the things that you miss in your old routine. What was going well, and needs to be continued? And conversely, what wasn’t driving your success? We all pick up seemingly innocent habits along the way that we really don’t need. Identify these, and ensure that your new routine helps you more than your old routines did.

   Success is the accumulation of a million tiny wins. By making sure your routines are earning those points each and every day, success will be inevitable.

No Zero Days

   What separates a top achiever from everyone else?

   Top achievers know exactly what they want to do, and then spend the time working on those priorities. If you want to find more success in your life, you need to be able to answer the questions:

   How are you spending your time? What are you working on? Is what you are working on a top priority?

   While we all have endless to-do lists, super-achievers understand that it simply is not possible to get everything done. For these elite performers, they have adopted and embody a simple philosophy: No Zero Days.

   A “zero day” can be defined as a day that doesn’t drive the needle on your top priorities, your big hairy audacious goal, the life defining work we all aspire to. Zero days don’t mean that nothing gets done, quite the opposite in fact. On those zero days we work our asses off, clearing out our to-do lists and attending meetings, all working towards someone else’s agenda.

   This week, I challenge you to have No Zero Days. Start by writing down your biggest 3 priorities. Now spend time each day working on those priorities first. You don’t need to devote all your time towards those goals, that would be impossible. But make sure each day you do something to drive the needle forward. Let’s see if we all can go 5 for 5, making meaningful incremental progress each day. 

   Be sure to review your progress at the end of the week - if those small daily wins feel good, strive for two weeks of No Zero Days, then a month. Success is in your reach, one day at a time.

How to measure success

How do you measure success?

   Most of us are completely comfortable with the idea that the most successful among us have the trophies and accolades to go with that success. Therefore, to be more successful, you need to accomplish more things. The measure of success is the number and size of goals that you have achieved.

   This measure of success, the number of trophies earned, couldn’t be further from the truth.

   We can see this when we look at one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kobe Bryant (08-23-1978 - 01-26-2020). Kobe was known for his intense practice routines, shooting hundreds of shots each day, and for his 666 workouts. 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, 6 months of the year. In one interview with Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum, Kobe reportedly said the following:

Interview with Kobe Bryant where he discusses his practice routine.  

(Tony Manfred, https://www.businessinsider.com/kobe-bryant-describes-shooting-practice-routine-2013-2)

   In this simple exchange, we can learn quite a lot from one of the most successful basketball players in history. 

Leading Behaviors

   As a professional athlete, Kobe Bryant tracked his workouts, how many hours a day, how many days a week. See, Kobe had the understanding that time spent improving in the gym, on the court, reviewing game tapes, all would lead to more success during the game. These are called leading behaviors.

   Knowing that to shoot better on the court, Kobe needed to shoot more in practice. That is the power of his simple exchange with a reporter. Kobe wasn’t keeping track of his game stats, but rather how much time was spent improving in practice. 

Lagging Results

   Closely tied with the leading behaviors are lagging results. Which takes us back to where we started, the number of trophies earned. By tracking the number of achievements that we have already accomplished we risk two things. The first, is putting focus and therefore energy on the wrong activity. 

   In Kobe’s case, this would have been focusing solely on his shooting percentage. Points win games, if he can score more points each game, that would lead to more wins. But, his strength and fitness also played a huge role in both his personal, and the team’s overall success. Building a routine that tracked gym time (Kobe’s 666 routine), as well as practice shots thrown built the skills that would eventually lead to victories.

   Secondly, by focusing solely on results we risk falling back on our past successes. We can see this in another basketball player, Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal). Shaq relied heavily on his size and skill to drive his success. By focusing on what led him to the NBA, and not embracing Kobe’s relentless drive for improvement, Shaq plateaued far below his potential. As a result, Shaq arguably did not achieve as much of his potential as Kobe did.

Leading Behaviors vs. Lagging Results

   The lessons learned from professional athletes can be applied in all our lives. Determining what actions, or behaviors, drive success forward in your goals will help you achieve more. Whether that is time on the trails when training for a marathon, or time spent just thinking on projects in your career. This focus on the behaviors that lead to success will ensure that the trophies and accolades fill your shelves.

   What behaviors are you going to embrace that will lead to your spectacular results?

Staying Focused on Your Goals

What goals have you set your sights on?

   It is important to remember regularly what you are trying to achieve, what your goals are, where your dreams lie. In today’s busy workplaces, it is far too easy to get lost in the busyness of someone else’s priorities. 

   With the advances of technology over the past couple of decades, communication has become instantaneous, and people are looking for answers in about the same amount of time. From the late night frantic phone calls to the early morning tidal wave of emails, it is far too easy to get caught up in the mad rush without pausing to see where you are rushing to. If you mention in a passing conversation that you are busy putting out fires, every busy professional can relate. But there is one fire we shouldn’t put out. Those kindling embers of your dreams need to be nurtured, not extinguished.

How do you stay focused?

   If you’ve ever been camping, or spent time around a campfire, you will from time to time see someone blowing on the coals. See, when a fire starts burning out, often you can revive it by blowing air on the coals. The additional oxygen helps keep the fire lit. 

   Our dreams are no different, you need constant air blowing on the coals to keep your flame lit, to keep your dream alive.

   But when we spend our days reacting to other people’s demands, other people’s priorities, we often forget to take a deep breath, and blow some life back into our own dreams.

Staying focused on what you want to achieve can be hard. Constant reminders about what is important to you helps fan the flames of success. 

   To stay focused on your own dreams, you need to take a moment every day to reflect on what it is that is truly important to you. Some of the questions I ask myself every day are: 

   What are my dreams? Why are they important to me? What can I do today to work towards those goals?

   Take some time and think about how these questions fall into your own life. Are you spending enough time focused on your dreams?

   Taking time to ask yourself questions like these is essential. But how can you take a moment in quiet self reflection when the world is burning down around you?

Finding Focus Through Your Environment

   Often it is difficult to remember to step out of our routines to think about what we are actually doing. As we run from meeting to meeting, remembering to pause and reflect on what we were planning to achieve today can be a challenge. To assist us against ourselves, we need to design our environment with little reminders of our true objectives.

   For example, I have a large whiteboard set up with my goals and plans. Seeing this whiteboard daily helps me remember what I need to achieve next. But of course, I am not always home and able to see the whiteboard. For those moments I have signed up for daily emails that prompt me to think bigger, to contemplate topics that will grow not just my business, but more importantly, will grow myself. Sprinkling reminders about my goals and dreams throughout my day helps keep me focused on my goals, allowing ideas to germinate and bloom while I am fighting other people’s fires.

   Many of us do not have the luxury to chase our goals and priorities all day, every day. Often  we find ourselves in careers and positions when we need to put someone else’s priorities ahead of our own, if only to pay the bills. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is during these days that we need to remain extra vigilant that we also allocate some focus and energy to our own goals and priorities. It is far too easy to find yourself swept up in the whirlwind and raging inferno of other people’s problems. Without reminding yourself daily as to what your goals are, and what you can do to make progress, those burning embers of your dreams will go cold.

Take-away:

Ask yourself these questions each day:

  • What are my dreams?
  • Why are they important to me?
  • What can I do today to work towards those goals?

   Answering these questions will help you remain focused, fanning the flames of your own success. But there will still be days that threaten to overwhelm your good intentions. Sprinkle little reminders about what your goals are throughout your day. These reminders can be as obvious as a 6 foot whiteboard, or as subtle as a mid-afternoon alarm that triggers you to take a moment and reflect on what you are doing, and if that is helping your goals or not.

3 Excuses for Abandoning Your Goals

   What is your progress towards your New Year’s Resolutions? Are you still on track?

   After several conversations recently about people’s New Year’s Resolutions, it seems that already people are falling off track. 6 weeks into the New Year, and already for many people this year will be much like last year. And with that alarming realization, I thought it worth investigating what is derailing people from their goals.

   What I found is that the list of excuses is surprisingly short, yet alarmingly consistent. Here are the top 3 that I found during this informal survey:

  1. Not enough time
  2. Too exhausted after work
  3. Not that important to me anymore

Not Enough Time

   Perhaps the most pernicious of all excuses is the Not Enough Time excuse. This excuse is so damaging, and so widespread, because it is easy to rationalize. If only we had more time, we would easily be able to work on our goals. When we spout this excuse in a conversation, other people immediately relate, and hence we are let off the hook for our own shortcomings. Unfortunately, there is simply no more time in each day. 

   If time isn’t the answer, where does the answer lie?

   While there are many solutions, let’s look at one in particular: the way you track time, your calendar. If your goal is important, you need to allocate time in your calendar to its achievement. While you can’t find more time, you can certainly control how you spend what limited time you do have.

What time in your calendar will you block off for achieving your goals?

Too Exhausted After Work

   The next excuse has to deal with energy. After a long day at work, the amount of willpower and physical energy required to work on our goals simply isn’t there. Understanding how your body works, when you experience the most energy, is important to optimizing your routines. 

   For me, I have the energy to work on my fitness goals early in the morning. As such, I have aligned my schedule to allow time for the gym before the workday begins. This all begins with a good night’s sleep, allowing me to be rested when I wake up early, and then awake by the time I reach the gym after a light breakfast. Advancing my knowledge through reading comes over lunch and at right after dinner, allowing me ample time to process the information and wind down before bed in the evening. 

   There’s quite a lot of science and research done in the realm of energy management. Here’s a few key take-aways that you should apply to your life to find greater success:

  • It all starts with a good night’s sleep. 8 hours is recommended for almost everyone.
  • Understand your energy and stress levels, and work the gym into your schedule. You should aim to workout when you have energy, and to relieve stress.
  • Energy is a function of sleep and diet, make sure you are eating healthy foods! Eat foods that make you happy and healthy, just understand how your diet affects your energy levels.

   Being too exhausted is often a symptom of not understanding how your energy works. Designing your lifestyle and achievement around your energy will help you reach greater levels of success.

Not That Important To Me Anymore

   Another big reason I heard about why people weren’t sticking with their resolutions was that their goal simply wasn’t that important anymore. There were two main reasons for this. First, their resolution was made under the pressure, and having just heard, someone else’s resolutions. This led them to the trap of “that sounds good, I’ll do that too”. I see this all the time, people buying certain items, or trying to do or become certain things because they see someone else doing it successfully. 

   The second reason people’s resolutions end up neglected is that they have cast a wide net. Their goals are to become as ripped as Arnold Schwarznegger, as zen-like as the Dalai Lama, as rich as Warren Buffet, and as successful as Richard Branson. Becoming known for any one of those areas requires years of intense focus. Having a goal to achieve world renowned excellence in all areas means none of the areas will receive the focus it needs. 

   We all need goals in 6 key areas of our lives, physical, financial, mental, career, relationships, and romantic. But trying to achieve everything, in all of these areas, will lead us to achieving mediocre results across the board. Understanding what is important to you, and focusing on that will lead to greater success. Of all the excuses, the not that important anymore excuse is the most valid. But only if conscious thought is put in to determine where your priorities are.

   To avoid this excuse in the future, you need to become clear on what you want, and why, before you set your goals and resolutions. 

What is most important to you? What areas of your life are you okay with good, but not world-class results in?

   Knowing how to structure your routines will help you manage your time and energy. This will ensure that when you are most alive, most focused, most energetic, that you are focused on the most important thing. Deciding what is most important to you, and setting the right goals is half the battle. Organizing your day according to your energy and focus will bring execution to your best laid plans. And that, is a recipe for success.

What is Your Next Milestone?

   What is your vision of the future? Where do you dream of being 10 years from now?

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” - Bill Gates

   Setting life changing and awe-inspiring goals often sounds very much like dreaming. The enormity of the goal is so daunting we don’t always know where to start. In these situations we also need to set milestones, smaller markers of progress that are more manageable. 

The Reason for Milestones

   Milestones serve a few essential purposes in goal setting. First, milestones provide a closer range target to aim for. This helps shrink the gap between where you are, and where you are trying to reach. Making the goal less daunting enables you to plan the action steps easier, and helps you keep motivation. As you progress towards a shorter range milestone, your progress is more easily seen, reinforcing that your efforts are making an impact.

   Milestones also provide something to celebrate. While achievement is certainly an important element for finding fulfillment, celebrating the smaller wins along the way keeps the journey light and fun. Your BHAG’s and long range vision shouldn’t feel like a chore, it should feel like you are doing exactly what you were put here to do. 

Milestones in Action

   For this example, let’s look at my BHAG. Within the next 10 years, by 2030, I am going to help 1 million people find greater success. I will help these million achievers through my speaking, writing, and online courses. Even as I write these words, I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with excitement, and the nagging thoughts in the back of my head asking, how? 1 million people is a lot of people. And that is where milestones come in.

   To reach 1 million people in the next 10 years, I need milestones to let me know that I am on track. Therefore my first milestone is to reach 100 weekly readers, then 500, then 1,000, and so forth. Each of these milestones is small enough to be attainable, yet each milestone drives the needle towards my BHAG. Of course, for a BHAG of helping 1 million people find greater achievement in their lives there will be many more milestones along the way. But starting small with a list of 100 is something that I can achieve in the short term. It’s something that I can celebrate. It’s something that will motivate me to hit my next milestone of 500 subscribers.

Where to begin with your Milestones?

   When getting started with any new goal, it is important to provide yourself a quick win. It would be entirely logical to say 1,000,000 divided by 10, is 100,000 people impacted per year. But when starting from 0, even that seems like a big goal. Since success breeds more success, the first 100 will be harder than the first 1,000, and so on. As I build momentum, recognizing what works, and what doesn’t, I’ll be able to refine my strategies.

More Milestones in Action

   Assume you set a career BHAG to become a Director of Sales in 10 years. Starting in an entry level inside sales role, your next milestone isn’t to become a Director. Your next milestone is to develop the skills that will help you succeed as a sales executive. Once you have the skills to succeed at the next level, you will be able to effectively grow into that new role. Hitting that milestone, celebrating, and setting your sights on the next set of skills that you’ll need. In that case, it might be better communication and leadership skills. Step by step, milestone by milestone, you will progress towards your BHAG, refining your process and abilities as you grow.

What is Your Next Milestone? 

   Now it’s your turn. What is your BHAG? Now what one small win can you achieve in the next 1-3 months that will help fuel that fire inside of you? That quick win is your first milestone, followed by the next win, and the next. As you grow and develop, that mountain of a goal you originally set seems to get smaller and more surmountable each step of the way.

   As you knock milestones down, you become more of who you were meant to be. And that’s certainly something worth celebrating!

What is holding you back from achievement?

   When we set goals, we identify a future state that we want to bring into existence. Whether that is a slimmer waistline, a healthier bank account, or a more fulfilling job. This vision for the future provides us hope, and the strength to overcome difficulties. But even knowing where we want to reach, often times we fall short of our stated goals. Why? What is holding us back from achieving our dreams?

The Achievement Problem

   When setting goals, it is important to have a clear vision of the future. But equally as important, we have to recognize where we are right now. A goal is the way to bridge the gap between your current state and your future state. The achievement problem often arises when the bridge simply isn’t long enough to span the gap, often because our current reality is distorted. In these cases, we assume we are further ahead than we actually are, and after the first few weeks or months of effort we become discouraged. Our reality catches us to where we thought we were starting from, but you don’t feel any closer to your goal.

   For example, our health is a common goal that many of us set. We plan to shed those extra 5 (or 15) pounds. And so we begin, our current state is 5 pounds heavier than our goal state. After a few weeks at the gym, sure you feel a little stronger, but the scale hasn’t moved an inch. Maybe the gym just isn’t for you? It sure is a lot of work, and for what? Where are the results?

   In reality, that gym has made you stronger. And your muscles are developing, but that doesn’t immediately move the needle on the weight scale. The true current state is more complicated than a simple number. It takes into consideration movement in your daily routine, your diet, your sleep schedule. All of these factors contribute to those extra 5. And all those factors need to be considered when looking at your current state.

The Gap Analysis

   To effectively plan for achievement, you need to consider all of the factors impacting your current state, and all of the limiting factors that need to be overcome to reach your desired state. The difference here is often a wider chasm to bridge than you first recognize. 

   Identifying where you are, where you truly are, and where you want to be is called the Gap Analysis. The objective is to list out where you are right now, and everything that is holding you back from achieving more. This won’t be easy, or comfortable, but it is necessary if you want to overcome your obstacles.

   With some deeper thought, you can conduct your own gap analysis, understanding where all the obstacles are that hold you back from achievement. Once you’ve identified the obstacles, only then are you ready to develop an action plan to bring your goals to fruition.

Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving More

   What is holding you back from achieving more? The obstacles that you don’t consider are often what trip you up. Spend some time performing a thorough Gap analysis, and you will have the list of challenges to overcome. Quite often simply recognizing these challenges exist is enough to build counter measures, to make small adjustments to succeed.

   In our gym example, this could be a more comprehensive plan that involves an extra 30 minutes of sleep a night, a couple more glasses of water during the day, and a 30-minute walk at lunch. These minor changes build up over time, and magnify the efforts that you put in at the gym. Soon enough, those pesky 5 pounds were last years’ problem.

   Where are you right now? What is the gap between your current state and your goal state? Once you know the gaps, you can more easily build the right bridge, carrying you up, over, and to the brighter world on the other side.

How much will achieving your goals cost?

How much will achieving your goals cost?

   Knowing how to avoid the common pitfalls of achieving goals increases your chance of success. But there is one other often overlooked cost of achievement, and that is the financial cost of progress. For all of our goals or resolutions, there will be an impact on our bank account. Recognizing these costs will help you build them into your financial plans, and clear one last hurdle to your achievement.

What type of costs will you see?

   For my fitness goals, the gym membership will cost several hundred for the year. And while I have some gear already, continued use will ensure that needs to be replaced. By the end of the year, I expect to have spent $ 2,500 on gym memberships, workout clothing, running shoes, equipment maintenance, etc.

   As I progress my career goals, I will need to have the wardrobe for the positions I plan to be in. For new suits and dress clothing, $ 2,000. The courses and professional development that will get me to my career goals? Another $ 8,000.

   By now this is starting to sound like a MasterCard commercial, and that’s only considering the costs for two of my pillars. Once we add in social outings, date nights, romantic get-aways, journals, guided meditation apps, etc. The financial cost of all that I plan on achieving climbs even higher.

   Of course, achieving what I have set my sights on this year? Making this year my best year ever? That, is priceless. 

How much will achieving your goals cost?

   Setting the right goals will put you on the path to living your best year ever. But an important part of achieving your goals is to understand the costs associated with each of those goals. Here’s how you can be better prepared:

  • Pull out your list of goals
  • Under each goal, list what you’ll need to get there
    • A coach? Courses and seminars? A weekly entertainment fund? New gear / clothing?
  • How much do each of these prerequisites cost?
  • How much more do you need to set aside now, and ongoing, to ensure you can achieve your goals without undermining your financial foundations?

   Understanding the costs of achievement helps you plan accordingly. No matter the numbers you come up with, it is essential that you create the plan, and keep your eyes fixed firmly on the achievement of your goals. Because the cost is nothing compared to the value you’ll experience when you make this year your best ever. The value of that? Priceless.

Resolute Resolutions

   Have you decided on your New Year's resolutions yet? How devoted are you to achieving your goals?

   For many of us, the start of the year brings a renewed focus on our career, health, and financial goals. “This year will be the year I get in shape. This year I will get that career promotion. This year I will take control over my finances.”

   As anyone who has been to the gym that first week of January will tell you, it is crowded. People are committed to their yearly goals. But one by one, as the days go by people lose that firm grasp on their resolutions. Perhaps you  notice something similar when you look at your previous goal performance. Soon enough, as we approach the end of that first month, that crowded gym is back to looking just as it did before the new year began. 

Why do people abandon their goals?

   There are a few reasons why people abandon their goals. The most prevalent one that affects most “New Year New Me” people is overwhelm. Overwhelm assaults our good intentions in many different ways. That top 10 list of things they want to do differently in the new year, but if they were to stick with them all they would lose sight of who they are. Or that BHAG that isn’t set 10 years into the future, but rather 10 months into the future. Progress seems almost non-existent despite working exhausting hours, and suddenly that goal looks like we just bit off more than we can chew. Or life simply gets in the way. How many good intentions have faded away after life throws us a curve-ball, an untimely illness, or a sudden vacation or work trip. Overwhelm has many weapons with which to cause us to falter in our quest for greatness. 

   Another reason is the goal is too vague. “Get healthier” doesn’t come with an action plan. Neither does “get a promotion”, or “be better with my money”. If you aren’t specific about the result you are wanting to achieve, it is impossible to put an action plan in place. And without an action plan, it becomes easy to talk ourselves out of doing anything.

   Finally, the inability to measure our progress hinders our ability to grow and develop. Without seeing if our actions are paying off, it is easy to rationalize that our efforts simply aren’t working. Certainly some things are easier to measure than others, but all of our goals should be measurable. Seeing progress will help us stay the course throughout the ups and downs of life.

How do you stick with your goals?

   Knowing about overwhelm, vagueness, and measurability is an important first step to overcoming those obstacles. But what can you do to ensure you actually achieve your goals? 

   To face overwhelm, you need to ensure you only have a few goals at a time. And these goals need to be ambitious, but achievable, in the time frame you allow. If there is no way you can achieve in that time frame, perhaps you need to allocate more resources to working on it, or shrink the goal, or extend the time frame. Keeping the goals in sight, yet achievable, will prevent some of the overwhelm. And finally, you need a contingency plan. It is easy to work at a goal when the sun is shining and you have nothing but free time. But what are you going to do when life gets busy, when things aren’t going your way? Knowing how you will adapt to life’s uncertainties greatly increases your chance at success.

   How else do you increase your chance at success? Specificity. You need to know exactly what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there. By getting specific in your goal, often you will also uncover the action plan that helps you get there. This action plan can be measured, and you can track and evaluate your progress even before you reach the prize. Specificity, being specific about your goal, clears up your vague intentions and provides you an action plan with which to measure progress. This clarity will set you up with the optimal chance of achieving your goals and resolutions.

   As you set your New Year’s Resolutions, or any other goal, make sure you are ready to combat overwhelm, vagueness, and measurability. By being specific in what you want to achieve, and building a contingency plan for when things go wrong, you will be well prepared to crush your next goals.

Setting your sights on 2020: Planning the New Decade

   Who are you going to become over the next decade?

   As we focus on our own growth and development, we can achieve incredible things. This achievement fundamentally changes us, as we recognize our capabilities and pursue new heights.

   There is no better time than now, the start of a new decade, to plan your next great accomplishment. This goal, the one that inspires you for the next decade, is your BHAG.

What is a BHAG?

   Pronounced bee-hag, the term was popularized by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”. This is where Jim and Jerry introduced the concept of Big Hairy Audacious Goals, or BHAG for short. These long term goals proved, in the corporate world, to be an indicator of exceptional company success. A BHAG has a way of motivating people, and reminding them of their overarching objective, in a way that a long-winded mission statement cannot.

   With proven success among corporate goliaths; think Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, or Tesla, it’s about time we applied some of these world-changing principles to our own pursuits.

How do you set a BHAG?

   Big Hairy Audacious Goals have a few key characteristics that they must be:

  • Forward Looking - does your BHAG tell you where you’ll be in the future?
  • Exciting - does your goal fill you up with energy? Will it continue to inspire you for the years to come?
  • Adventurous - is your goal hairy and audacious enough? Is it big enough to keep you up at night? Or to wake you full of excitement in the middle of the night?

Examples of BHAG’s

   It is one thing to think of a company like Google (Alphabet), and their BHAG to organize the world’s information. Certainly, they have near unlimited resources to devote to their goals and ambitions. But can you set a BHAG for yourself, that would lead you to new heights?

   The answer is a resounding yes, we’ve all heard the stories of individuals who set BHAG’s for themselves; Thomas Edison in harnessing electricity to generate light (the light bulb), Alexander Graham Bell by sending near-instant communication across the Atlantic (the telephone), or Roger Bannister in his athletic achievement, breaking the 4-minute mile. These individuals all set Big Hairy Audacious Goals, and achieved things that changed the world.

   Often we think these successes were made by extraordinary individuals, but that simply isn’t true. These successes were achieved by normal folks, people like you and I, who had extraordinary goals.

   Let me ask you again, what BHAG are you going to set for this decade? Who will you become, as you grow into further success?

   I can’t wait to experience the future you are going to shape.

Closing out the 20-teens

   The holiday period is officially drawing to a close. With the end of the decade almost upon us, it’s time to reflect on the past, and look to the future.

   Before we can take on the new year, we need to look at our successes and failures of the past year, of the past decade. Let’s take an inventory of what happened for you in your life. Answer the following questions, preferably by writing down the answers, but at least reflect on them and learn from your past failures and successes.

  • What were your goals on January 1st, 2019?
  • What wins did you have over the last year?
  • Were your wins on your list of goals at the start of 2019?
  • What helped you accomplish those goals and wins?
  • Who was most influential in your successes? Send a quick thank-you to that person(s).
  • What were the goals you didn’t accomplish?
  • Are there any lessons you can learn? Why were you unsuccessful at achieving some of those goals?
  • How can you be better prepared to accomplish your next set of goals?
  • Who can help you along the way?
  • Who can you help accomplish their goals?
  • What are you most grateful for over the past year?

   Success is a journey with it’s own ups and downs. Taking time to reflect on what has gone right, and what hasn’t, ensures that you are continually learning and growing. That growth makes you better tomorrow than you are today. As you learn, grow and develop more, there is no telling how far you can go. The world is yours for the taking, seize it!

Doors of Opportunity

Are you ready for opportunity when it comes your way?

   If you want to achieve more than what you currently have, you need to be ready for the next level. This is true in all areas of our life, but especially in our careers, our life's work. But to be ready, to be truly ready, it takes more than passive development. We need to be actively involved in our growth.

How can you be actively involved in growth?

   To be actively involved in your own development, you need to focus on developing the skills that you need to take yourself to the next level. Identify what skill you want to focus on, and then begin learning it. Reading books, taking online or in-person courses, attending seminars, and more. And the final aspect of your growth journey is sharing what you are doing, what you are learning, and where you envision that taking you.

Why share your development journey? 

   As you grow, you want to let the world know that you are becoming more than what you were before. To paraphrase a personal development legend, Jim Rohn. Sharing your growth journey is akin to knocking on doors, looking for the chance to showcase your new skills. Most doors will remain shut, people will scarcely pay attention to your journey, as they are so engrossed in their own struggles. But every once in a while, one of those unlikely doors will open.

"If you keep knocking, you'll find open doors." - Jim Rohn

   When a door opens, and you have the chance to shine, you must be ready. That is why it is important to set yourself up now to have the best chance of capitalizing on that opportunity.

What does this look like in practice?

   I have a work colleague who is currently taking accounting courses to expand her knowledge, pursuing her goals of becoming a designated accountant. She shares her journey, the courses she has taken, the courses she is taking, and where she thinks that will take her in her career. I have seen her journey, but can do little to aid her in any way right now. But, if someone were to ask me, a practicing CPA, if I know anyone who would be good for a junior accounting role, I know someone who is going, and growing in that direction. 

   By continuing to share her journey with other people, she is gently knocking on doors, looking for the next opportunity. And when that opportunity comes? She has spent many months developing skills that will help her take full advantage.

   This happens more frequently than you know. It is estimated that between 70 and 85 percent of jobs are filled through networking. This comes about by sharing your skills, what you are looking for, and how you are growing your professional expertise.

   As you look into the future of your life, your career, your goals, ask yourself; what skills you are going to need to take you to the next level? Who can you leverage to get you there? What doors of opportunity are you going to knock on?

   And remember as Jim Rohn said, “If you keep knocking, you will find open doors.”

Driving in a Blizzard

   Where are you heading? Can you see where you are trying to go?

   Earlier this week, I was driving on the highway, headed for a day of meetings out of town. Shortly after the sun went down, and darkness descended upon the roads, a snow storm moved in. At first the snow was fairly light, not really accumulating much. With a slow flick of the wipers, I was able to see where I was heading without much difficulty. 

   As time went on, the snow storm became more intense, until eventually I was driving in a blizzard. Even with the wipers fully cranked, my headlights reflected off the blowing snow making visibility nearly impossible. Suddenly I couldn’t see where the road was and where the ditch was. My progress slowed down as I let off the gas pedal, trying desperately to see where I was headed. And even at slow speeds, several other travelers still wound up off the highway and into a ditch on the side. Fortunately, with rumble strips on each side, at a slow speed I was able to continue driving along the highway, creeping ever slowly towards my destination.

   This night drive in a blizzard holds a few lessons about your journey to success.

Distractions will come.

   When visibility is clear, making that drive is quite simple. The roads are flat and straight, so setting your direction and staying the course eventually gets you where you are trying to go. But as with those first few snowflakes, distractions will come no matter your journey. Small pulls on your focus, an email here, a tweet there. Most of these distractions can be ignored when they are infrequent, and they don’t threaten to derail our progress.

   But if we let them, those distractions can pull away our focus, and we end up spinning towards a ditch.

There are cliffs everywhere.

   All along the highway, for hundreds of miles, ran the drainage ditch. Once again, if you have a clear objective, a goal, you can stay in your lane and progress easily. But when these distractions become too great, you will find it harder and harder to see where your lane is and where the ditch is. 

   Maintaining focus on your goal becomes harder and harder, visibility decreases amidst the endless distractions. Even maintaining vigilance over your goals and objectives might not be enough. Certainly none of the fellow travelers on that snowy highway were planning to end up spun out on the side of the road. They all had their own destinations, but without visibility over where they were heading, what they were trying to accomplish, they ended up derailed. 

You need rumble strips.

   What can you do to remain focused on your goals? You know that distractions will come. Certainly you can use different tricks and methods to deal with them. And those wipers work to help you maintain focus on your goals. But, there are times that visibility over your goal will shrink, when the distractions are too many and too great, and they threaten to send you spinning off track. That is why you need rumble strips.

   These rumble strips on the side of the highway were indicators that I was coming too close to the edge, that I was straying too far from the path I was taking. Once I heard and felt the vibrations that my wheels were at the edge, I knew I needed to correct my course. You also need rumble strips to keep you on track.

What do these rumble strips look like?

   Creating barriers helps you stay on track. This means you need to know where you are heading, and what it looks like when you are getting off track. With holiday festivities just around the corner, some of the major areas of our life will begin to get hectic, with distractions threatening to overwhelm our goals. 

   My rumble strips are therefore designed to give me an indication that I am falling off track. For fitness, I track the number of days that I miss the gym. If that number reaches 2, I know that on the third day I need to workout, or risk losing the health gains I have worked so hard for. My financial indicator is the amount of money I contribute to my investments each month. (This is easier to hit, because my financial goals are automated.) Or my career indicator is the amount of time I spend reading in an area of focus for me. Similar to my health goals, if I spend more than 2 days without reading and developing myself, on that third day I know that I must allocate time to personal development.

   We all face distractions, the blowing snow of life that pulls us away from our goals. Maintaining focus is essential to dealing with these distractions, but sometimes even that isn’t enough. Sometimes we need indicators that let us know when we are falling off track. Setting up indicators in your life will ensure that you are making progress towards your goals, regardless of how hectic life gets.

   As we enter the final few weeks of the year, take some time to reflect on what your goals were. Are you still focused on them? What are the distractions that you need to control? Where do you need windshield wipers clearing away the snow? And what rumble strips will you implement to ensure you aren’t spinning off into the ditch? 

   With the right focus and the right systems, you can reach your destination no matter how bad the blizzard of life is.

Finding Your Purpose

   Are you doing something you love? Do you wake up feeling energized and excited to keep going (most of the time)? 

   A staple in almost all motivational talks, at some point you will be told, Live your life with passion. While that sounds exciting, what does that really mean? And more importantly, how can you do it?

Live with Passion

   Living with passion really boils down to liking what you do, who you do it with, and who you do it for. Finding people that you care about, and that care about you, is an important step in living with passion. The good news is, you already know these people! These are the people that you already spend your time with, friends, family, community members. 

   The people in these areas that you enjoy spending time with are the people you should spend more time with. And those who you aren’t excited to see? Spend less time with them.

   When you take control over who you are spending the most time with, those energies feed the rest of our lives. We all have people in our lives that, when we’re with, we have excitement and energy, hope and enthusiasm. Spending more time with these people puts us in a better state, and our results are impacted positively. On the flip side, we also know people who have the unnatural ability to suck the air out of an already deflated balloon. We feel exhausted just entering the same room as them, and that also affects our results, but in a negative way. 

   If you want to live with passion, start by simply spending time with, living with, people that light you up inside.

   You know who you want to spend time with, and how much more energized you feel when interacting with those special groups of people. Now what are you doing to find purpose and meaning?

How do you find your purpose?

   One method that I found particularly helpful was in examining what I talked about with those people that light me up. What problems did people come to me for advice for? Where did our conversations naturally lead to?

   For me, these topics were focused heavily around a few core areas; personal finance, career growth, and health and fitness. These were the areas of life that I had a natural affinity for, or at least an interest that led to the pursuit of knowledge. Finding these areas of interest led to the eventual creation of Business Minded, and you reading this article right now. These areas that I talked about with my friends and family, they are important to many people. And the people who value growth in their careers, who value healthy living, and who value smart financial strategies? These are the people who light me up.

   Most of us already know who we like spending time with, and what we like doing. But taking the time to reflect on these elements can help us aim the direction we want to take our own lives. When was the last time you thought about the direction you were headed in life?

Action Items:

Take some time this week to reflect on your passion and purpose:

   Who do you enjoy spending time with? Who lights you up inside?

   What do you do when you are with these people? What do you talk about? What topics interest you? What problems do people come to you to help solve? 

   If you want to find your purpose, to live with passion, you need to do the things you enjoy, with the people that light you up. Find alignment between those two elements, and not only will you find fulfillment, but the world will be better because of it!

Be a Detective

   Be a Detective. This isn’t advice on a career path, but it certainly falls under career advice. We are taught many things when we are younger, and one such lesson is to analyze what went wrong in any given situation. This is good advice, and it is a good lesson to learn. Unfortunately, that is only half the lesson. 

   The other half of that lesson - to analyze when things go right as well.

   Learning from our shortcomings, from our failures, from the times we stumble and fall just short of the finish line. These moments provide valuable lessons. But if you’re anything like me, you won’t fail all the time. You will have your moments in the sun. These moments need to be looked at just as hard, perhaps harder even. You need to analyse what does go right, and learn from those experiences. 

   What went right? Why did it go right? How did it go right? Ask questions. Find the answers. It could be as challengingly simple as surrounding yourself with the right people. (Yes, it sounds so simple, yet often is so difficult.) Maybe it was your plan, executing on it just a little bit each day. Or maybe it was taking that pause, considering the outcomes, thinking first and then acting with decisive movements. Success comes in many different forms, in as many different ways, but each success carries with it a valuable lesson, if you’re looking for it.

   And don’t just look. Apply those lessons. We all know of people who seem to be in the zone constantly, people who have the magic touch, where everything they touch turns to gold. That is what happens when you figure out what you are doing right, and then doing more of it. 

   So analyze your failures, learn from your mistakes. A lesson learned will turn any complete and utter disaster into a minor victory, lessening the pain just that little bit. But just as importantly (if not more so), analyze your successes. Learning from those experiences, and applying those successful habits and practices will set you up for more success in the future. Find your sweet spot, your zone, Be a Detective, and never, ever, stop learning.

How do you remain focused on your goals?

   Achieving our goals is critical in our pursuit of becoming better versions of ourselves. But with the constant drags on our attention, how do we remain focused on our goals versus tackling the latest urgent problem that needs to be dealt with? 

   These problems assault us constantly, threatening to derail us from our objectives. The urgent work problem that requires us to put in overtime, rippling outward and disrupting our evening schedules and bumping gym-time off the daily agenda. These urgent problems of now war and rage against our dreams of a brighter future. 

   This situation came up in one of my coaching calls recently, as fitness goals started collecting dust on the shelf, while my client was putting out the endless fires at work and school. As days went by, losing the momentum of consistent action, the question was raised: 

How do I remain focused on my goals when life is pulling me a thousand different directions?

   The resulting discussion revealed a couple of areas that we all fall prey to. The first was the desire to do better, expressed as a hope. 

“I hope to get back to the gym next week.”  

   When we began looking into this desire for improvement more, it seemed that hope wasn’t the right word. Hope could be trumped by being busy, hope could lose out to not feeling like it, hope wasn’t a strong enough commitment. 

Don’t rely on hope.

   To remain focused on your goals, you must first tell yourself what you must do, not what you hope to do. These are called non-negotiables. When pursuing your goals, you need to make them non-negotiable, they will be done, no matter what.

   For myself, a couple of my non-negotiables are reading and working out. I try and have these done in the morning, so that I don’t give myself the opportunity to be distracted first. My time table works for me, but it doesn’t work for everyone. But the principle is the same, what are your non-negotiables? What are the steps that you take towards your goals each day? And will you commit, that you won’t end your day without taking those steps?

   That commitment makes your goals non-negotiable.

   There is another aspect of uncertainty held in the statement, “I hope to get back to the gym next week.” This is the lack of specificity surrounding when this gym time will occur. It is one thing to say “I must do this each day.” And another thing entirely to give those plans a set time and place. 

   When we have a meeting, or a scheduled time commitment, we almost always show up. By scheduling time for your goals, you are declaring that nothing else can take up that time. This means your non-negotiable is on your calendar, planned, and ready to be acted upon at that time.

   Going back to my morning, at 7:15 am every working day, I walk into the gym. This is my non-negotiable, and 7:15 am is the time that I have allocated to my fitness goals. Do you know what your non-negotiables are? What steps you need to take to achieve your goals? Do you know when, and where, you will be to take those steps towards success?

   By determining your non-negotiables, and scheduling them in your calendar, you are doing what it takes to remain focused. Because they are a must for you, you will take the actions necessary to drive achievement. There is no room for excuses, too busy, not enough energy, don’t feel like it. Those excuses, other people’s demands, the inevitable fires you have to put out elsewhere in your life; that all happens outside of your scheduled achievement time.

   The discipline to follow through with your non-negotiables is the key to remaining focused on your goals. And that discipline makes you unstoppable. Your achievement, the heights you will go, only you can say when you will stop.

Flippin’ Success

When do you become successful?

   Is there a certain mark, a single accomplishment that, once reached, signifies that you are a success? 

   To most single people, finding a loving relationship would be an appropriate goal. But with divorce rates skyrocketing, simply entering into a relationship cannot be sufficient to call yourself a success. As any married couple will tell you, the hard work begins after the wedding day, and every day from then on. 

   If success in your relationships isn’t found in a single act, in one defining moment, where does that success lie?

   This question applies to all areas of our lives. To our friendships, our financial health, and certainly our physical health. Have you ever looked at pictures of someone losing weight? Or even looked in the mirror every day as you strive to fulfill this years’ resolution of going to the gym 5 times a week? Just like a flip book, the image changes almost imperceptibly each day.

   When does that overweight person on the cover of the flip book become healthy? Is it on page 6? Page 49? Page 152? If we compare the pictures one page to the next, they look almost identical. Even comparing one week to the next provides almost no visible change. But as we flip through those pages quickly, the change is definitely noticeable.

   This is very much similar to how we view success in our own lives. We step on the scale each morning, and beat ourselves up for seemingly no progress after a grueling workout the day before. We frown at our bank account, barely increasing since the last time we got paid. Or we become frustrated in our careers because we’re doing similar things as last month, as last quarter. 

   Taking a short term view of our accomplishments is frustrating and unrewarding, but it’s what so many of us do. As such, we never feel like we are becoming successful in our pursuits. These feelings lead us to thinking we’ll never become successful.

What is the solution?

   We need to expand our frame of comparison. We can’t look at our progress today, compared to where we were yesterday. We need a wider lens to view our success. With my coaching clients, we take a deeper look at progress every quarter. This 90-day lens allows us to see real progress, that we wouldn’t be exposed to when only looking daily or weekly. Seeing progress is important, for two reasons. First, it allows you to make adjustments, to see what is working, and what isn’t. And secondly, seeing progress feels good. We all like to know we’re improving, that we’re going somewhere, and taking a wider lens to view our efforts provides that reassurance. 

When do you become successful?

   Surely there is no date, no grandiose accomplishment that says “I made it.” You become successful by making sure each day you are working towards your grander goals. Each small, almost imperceptible step is a success. And remember, to see those successes add up, don’t look at yesterday’s results, but expand your lens. Achieving anything worthwhile is a slow process, but by taking a small step each day, you can achieve your dreams.

It is Never Good Enough

   I hated doing dishes growing up. It was never the mountains of dirty dishes that somehow made our family look like a ravenous army. Or the soapy water that inevitably went cold and grungy. It was the glee on my sibling’s faces when they were able to hand back that pot that I swear was always dirty.

   “Good enough.” I’d grumble, lamenting as it was handed back for a second washing attempt.

   Oh brother was I ever wrong. What seemed to be a pain in the ass back then now seems like a blessing. Not the re-washing part, of course. But reaching into the cupboard and pulling out a dirty dish, ugh, I cringe just thinking of that. And as the cold sweat and shivers run down my spine, we come to the lesson of the letter. It is never, “Good enough”.

   Good enough, is not a reflection on the task at hand. It is a reflection of your values; of the thoughts, actions and words that define who you are, both to yourself and to the world you encounter. 

   Everywhere you look you will be confronted with the half-finished work and poor quality results of the “Good enough” crowd. It’s in the trash on the sidewalk, the mess on every counter and surface, all the little things that aren’t done quite right. There is enough of that already. Hold yourself to a higher standard.

   So next time you go to do the dishes, don’t let that mountain get in your head. That cold, murky water isn’t so bad. And make sure when you’re ready to move that never-clean pot to the dish drying rack, that this time, it’s clean.

   Apply that level of care to everything you do, because you’re worth the price of excellence.

   Every day is a use of our energy, our time. Don’t spend time on re-work, on fixing the little things that could easily have been done right the first time round. It’s never good enough, it’s simply, good. Because if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.