J-WEALTH CLUB | An Interview with STEVE LOWELL

[Music] hello everybody I'm very very happy to welcome today my good friend and mentor Steve Lowell who is the author of the number one best-selling book deep thought strategy and also the vice president of global speakers Federation and he travels around the world with his wife giant coaching and training experts and professional speakers Steve hello welcome I'm so excited to be with you today here hi I am I'm so excited to be with you and thanks for doing this and by the way congratulations on launching your amazing program the the Jay wealth Network and the Jay wells book club and all the great work that you're doing you're helping so many people thank you I appreciate that and I can say that you had a big role in helping me get to where I am today thank you for that I think for today for today let's focus on setting goals since we're recording this in January and we all see a lot of people are so focused now on setting goals how they want the year to look for them and that must be the Jay well Club is also a 12-month membership so for the people who joined this month it's gonna be for the entire year for people who join in a few months it's gonna be for twelve months after that but we're still gonna set goals and by every new thing that's happening people want you know new year's goals two years resolutions people focus on setting goals why do you think people focus so much on setting goals you know I think there's two reasons for number one is because they're taught to and you know we hear a lot of experts and a lot of business gurus and personal development gurus talk about goals and goal-setting and this time of the year it's big business and everybody wants to start the year with an outcome a desired outcome that they have for the coming year and so they set goals because they've been taught to and that's a good thing there's nothing at all wrong with that the other reason I think people set goals is because naturally I think people feel more comfortable if they see a destination in mind and if they've got a series of achievements that they look forward to so there's an emotional attachment to it so I think between the sort of the pressure of being instructed you know it's the beginning of the year I'm supposed to set goals and that emotional peace where I'd like to see where we're going that's it part of it too but you know what happens not just that at this time of the year as you said we're recording this in January it happens not just in January but when people join a new program when they start a new job when they start a new business it's when they embark on a new challenge there's an excitement to setting goals there's an excitement to putting the roadmap out before you like your members when they join the J wealth Network you know they're gonna have this inherent excitement on the goals and the achievements that they want to look forward and forward to and so those are the two main reasons I think why people like to set goals particularly at this time of the year it's very clear we all understand that fast forward 12 months from today in December I remember a December like it was yesterday last December how many people cried for me time I had set goals in January but I didn't accomplish the goals why do you think Steve that most people or a lot of people who set goals they end up not accomplishing them again there's a number of reasons for it that I've seen over the years and in working with you know experts of all kinds and entrepreneurs and professional speakers and coaches and trainers and authors and financial consultants and you know all kinds of experts they all set goals so many of them don't achieve their goals and I think that there's a number of reasons for it number one I believe is because oftentimes people set goals that are not necessarily attainable within a reasonable sphere of error which means sometimes we hear people setting massive goals which is okay it's good it's okay to do that and I'll talk about that in a few minutes but where people fall short is when they set these goals that there's no way that they can attain with those goals without some sort of extraordinary influence so for example I might have somebody come to me and say you know what Steve I want to I want to make a hundred million dollars this year and I'd say okay well that's great and where are you at right now and they'd say well I haven't started yet and we're already in July right and so something extraordinary has to happen for that goal to become to become a reality I'll see people come to me and say you know I want to sell a million books this year and I'll say great where are you right now well I haven't started writing it yet and so they've got these massive goals and the reason they set goals like this again is sometimes they've been taught to do that and again it's not necessarily wrong to do that it's just that when people set these goals that are really unattainable without some sort of extraordinary intervention typically they don't reach those goals the other reason why people don't reach goals I think is because they set the goal but there's a flaw in the plan of achievement there's a flaw in their process to reaching that goal and they haven't properly thought out the steps required to set the goal and so many people are under the belief that if I set the goal and if I rely on my ability to manifest through the universal laws and if I rely on those things alone the goal will become a reality but the the real reality is that there are steps that need to be taken in order to achieve a goal and so many people they miss those steps or they do them incomplete or they do them incorrectly and and then the other reason why I think people don't reach their goals is because if they do have a plan and they start working that plan and moving towards those goals and if they feel like there that they're falling behind or they see themselves falling behind they lose the emotional connection to the goal and then they simply give up and then a fourth reason why people don't achieve their goals I believe is because of lack of support they set big goals for themselves and they share those goals with everybody and anybody and key influencers in their lives come to them and say you know hi and there's no way you're ever going to reach that goal forget about it and so many they get so much of that negative feedback from people who don't believe that it starts to permeate within their mind and they start to develop doubt in their ability to achieve those goals so I think those are the four biggest reasons why I see that people fail to achieve their goals Steve I have seen you talk about this very same issue we're discussing now by demonstrating it very nicely on a screen which I think the listeners people who work with me a lot of the people I work with are very visual people and I think it would be a big benefit if you can spend a few minutes just to illustrate what you just said sure all right give me a second to share my screen and all I'll roll it out for you okay so typically this is the process we see when we set goals the first thing that usually happens is it starts with an idea we have an idea something that we want to achieve you know I want to make a million dollars in the next year or whatever it is I'll give you an example as I'm discussing this and show you an example of how this happened with me many years ago I had an idea it was a great idea it was one of those ideas that woke me up at two o'clock in the morning and I was going to start an online training program and because I this idea popped me out of bed in the morning I had this very great idea I was gonna create this online training program and I had it all mapped out in my head I needed a website I needed a landing page I needed a payment system and I had it all mapped out and because I had it all mapped out in my head I had a lot of emotion around that idea I was very excited about the idea and then what happened was I created a plan and I started to work the plan so I created a plan in my head and I got up that at two o'clock in the morning and by the time eight o'clock in the morning was come around I was ready my website was up my landing page was up all the emails were set up the the that the payment page was up everything was set up and what I had determined in my mind it was that I was going to take consistent action over the next 60 days and I was gonna fill that event and my goal was I wanted 1,000 participants that was my goal and so I went to work and I was excited about the idea and so I had a really great idea I was very excited about it I had strong emotion I had worked out a plan of all the things that I was going to do to make it happen and I got to work and I started and it was all designed to achieve this goal but here's what I didn't know you see after the first month I had done everything so you know exactly as I had planned but I didn't get any enrollments I didn't get a single registration and so here's what happened was I started to fall behind I wanted a thousand registrations in the first 60 days well 30 days in I hadn't had anybody so here's what happened because I was falling short it affected my emotions which means I started to become a little bit less excited I started to have a little bit of doubt and then I started to question the idea and I thought maybe it's not such a great idea and I thought maybe I need to change my plan maybe the plan isn't good enough so I changed the plan then I started to change the actions but the emotion with which I was executing the actions was not strong because I had doubt and so I got farther from the goal and when I got farther from the goal that again started to affect my emotions which again had me questioned the idea which again had me changed my plan which again had me changed my actions and it just got into this cycle and what happened while this was happening was my emotions and all my beliefs and everything about this plan just started to drop and then I walked away and the whole thing was this I hadn't realized afterwards that in order for me to reach this goal of a thousand people I realized that so much of that was out of my control because in order for me to get a thousand people in the membership there were a thousand people who had to say yes there were a thousand people who had to pay there were a thousand people who had to show up there were a thousand people who had to make all these decisions in order to be part of the of the community all of those decisions were outside of my control and so as I'm working and I'm doing the activity and I'm working the plan and changing the plan and changing everything I was doing I still had no control over this outcome here and so when nobody made those decisions when nobody decided to participate nobody decided to show up nobody decided to pay I took that as a personal attack against my actions and my plan and that affected my emotions and again had me question the idea so it all came tumbling down so here's what I changed and I'll just start this over again just so we can neaten it up a little bit but here's what I changed the process is basically the same it starts with an idea so now when I look at at my goals here's how I work it out I get an idea for what I want to achieve and that's great and then what I do is of course I still have the emotion around the idea so everything is exactly the same here and so I get excited about the idea I make a plan in order to execute the idea and I start taking action on the idea but here's the difference the goal here here's what I realize in order for this goal to be achieved there are too many elements over which I have no control other people have to make decisions in order for the goal to be achieved other people have to take some sort of action in order for the goal to be achieved so instead of this being a I no longer make this a goal so I call this a desired outcome not a goal the desired outcome is the same as what the goal used to be let's say it's a thousand people into an organization but what happens now instead of me focusing on the desired outcome this is what I desire to happen but I'm not attached to it here's what I'm attached to I'm attached to this because the actions are what I have full control over so these become my goals and so instead of focusing on one big outcome as the goal I focus on a series of actions as my number of goals so here's what happens I get the idea I'm very excited about the idea I make a plan to execute the idea and then I set all of my actions and these become my goals and now I focus on whether or not I achieve those actions because I have full control over the actions where I don't have full control over the desired outcome so now what happens is this at the end of every day every week every month or whatever instead of me evaluating where I am with the desired outcome which I will do but that's not where I evaluate my success I evaluate my success in terms of did I take all the actions that I was supposed to take and so here's the difference now if I did not take the actions there's only one person who is responsible for that and that's me and so that does not affect my emotions as much as not achieving you know a desired outcome because if I want to achieve the desired outcome all I have to do is do the actions and so if I do the actions on only evaluating against my own performance and I'm not evaluate against the decisions of other people and so now when I set goals I focus on I mean I do have a desired outcome I set a number I do all of those things but that's not what I attach my outcome that's not what I attach my performance to I attach my performance to did I do what was required in order to work towards that desired outcome so this becomes my focus of thought not the outcome and I think this is a big problem for so many people when they set goals and start working towards goals is they attach their emotions to the wrong piece they attach their emotions to the end game and not the process and if we fall behind on the end game and it starts looking further and further and further away it has a profound and powerful negative effect on our emotions which then translates to the quality of our actions which then pushes the goal further and further away so my suggestion now with people is set the big the big goals the hundred million dollar goal set all of those things as big as you want to but don't get emotionally attached to it get emotionally attached to the actions that you are committing to taking and that way there's only one person that you need to hold accountable and that's you and so I think you know your first question was or one of your first question was you know why do so many people fail to achieve their goals I believe the biggest reason they fail of all is because they emotionally attach themselves to that massive end game and as it starts getting further and further and further away it dilutes their emotions it dilutes the power of their actions and it drops off that makes amazing amazing yes the the the biggest reason why I love how you put it is because you give me total control ya know the blaming him or her or my wife or my friend or you know it's over and you can't be I can't even blame my old self anymore either I can only blame myself totally and it's if it's the B it's up to me yeah yeah exactly right so is there anything else is there anything else Steve you can add what people can do and their ability to accomplish their goals to make sure that they really accomplish it what we discussed so far is planning its January we plan for the next 12 months it's wonderful what can I do throughout the next 12 months throughout the time period of me wanting to accomplish my desired outcome or my goals what can I do to really make sure I am doing whatever I'm supposed to do to accomplish my end result so I think the first thing is this and this is going to go against what a lot of people have learned from a lot of you know the large gurus some of the gurus will will say make these big huge scary you know scary goals and and I I don't necessarily disagree with that but I think there's a tipping point there's a tipping point between a scary goal and an unrealistic goal and so for example I'm a 58 year old man it doesn't matter how hard I work the chances of me being a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys is not very good so if I set a goal to be a professional football cheerleader you know the chances of me achieving that are not reasonable so what I'm saying is you want goals that are big goals that challenge you goals that might even scare you but you need to have goals that you can actually have some measure of belief in some goals that are actually within the realm of reality to a certain degree and and I think it's different for each individual and so you know we set our goals you know when when my wife Jane who is the visionary in our business when she sets our desired outcomes for the year they scare me you know there I find them big I find them challenging and and I find them scary but what I don't find them is I don't find them unbelievable because I know that if we do the right things if we do them in the right order and if we do them well then chances are good we're going to get very close to that desired outcome so what I do to remove some of that fear of the goal is take my emotional attachment off it and put my emotional attachment on to the actions so setting the first thing is setting a goal that is at least within the realm of possibility without sort of you know some divine or miraculous interaction right so that's the first thing in my judgment the second thing in my judgment is set those set the plan and commit to very specific measurable activities you know how many calls are you going to make every day you know and be careful with this because some people will say I'm going to do four presentations a day well that's not a goal that's a desired outcome because if you're going to do a presentation somebody else has to decide to be on the other end of that presentation you see and you lose control but you can say I'm gonna make ten calls a day I'm gonna make five videos a week I am going to write three pages a day I'm going to do these you know whatever you can do another mistake I see people make is they'll say okay if I'm gonna make a million dollars this year you know that's about eighty thousand dollars a month that's about twenty thousand dollars a week that's about four thousand dollars a day and so I need to make four thousand dollars a day every day for the year to get to a million dollars the math is logical but the achievement of that is not because in order to make that money every day other people need to decide to pay you you see so you need to really make sure that the plan of action contains activities over which you have absolute control and will rely on nobody else's decision so that's number two is to set that plan of action and make sure that your activities are you have full control over and the third piece is that I think you need to have an accountability partner this is why I love so much what you're doing with with Jay wealth is that part of your organization is to help members hold each other accountable for these activities and for a goal achievement so you need some way to hold yourself accountable and to report on the the achievement of the activities more than the outcomes and then the fourth thing that I think is critically important is you need to give yourself permission to change you have yourself permission to go off course to change the plan if it's not working try something else you know change the number of activities or reorder the activities and remove some and add others so change the plan as you go as required and you do that by measuring how close you are to the desired outcome without emotion if you get attached to that desired outcome in my judgement you're at risk of separating yourself from it when you start to fall away from it so those are the four main things that I think that I would suggest to help somebody achieve whatever goals they set whether it's this time of the year in January whether it's any other time of the year whether it's starting a new job starting a new project you know joining the Jay wealth community or any other endeavor in which they embark that's the process I believe that achieves the highest outcome beautiful Steve I love that we are having this conversation as one of the first steps in the Jay weld Club because this is in my opinion and I know you agree the fundamental ingredient for somebody to really make it big consistently and predictably make sure that you get the desired outcome and the best way to get the desired outcome by focusing on the activity every day which is a big big major part of the Jay wealth Club thank you so much for being with us today Steve and I hope we all gonna see you again very soon I'm sure we will thanks for the opportunity and good luck thank you [Music]