Greg :
I really think that it's important for us to sometimes just kind of stop and smell the roses. Like, look at how far you've come. Look at the lessons that we've learned. Look at the wisdom that we've extracted from those lessons. Okay, maybe we didn't hit our goal, but the goal really is to help us with creating the intention and the mindset of the type of work we're going to have to put in to help us get to where it is that we want to go. This is secrets for success. Welcome to the Secrets for Success podcast. I'm your host, Greg Todd.
Greg :
Thank you, as always for joining know today. I want you all to know this. I want you to know that I pride myself in continuing to learn, continuing to evolve, continuing to adapt. And the reality is that I don't have a choice if I'm going to continue to be an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, the results that I have as an entrepreneur are going to be directly correlated to my ability to continue to learn, to grow, to evolve, to build my skill set, to become better with my skill set, and to learn new skills and to learn more. And I have found for me, the fastest way to learning more is just to learn from others that they just have more experience in areas that I don't. You know what? To me, I just find the biggest hack. I don't know why people don't use this more.
Greg :
The biggest hack is a freaking book. I can tell you this for sure now, because now that I've actually written a book, a book is someone's life's work. And people that write books, they're like good at this one thing. And they decided to go all in on everything they know about this one particular thing that they've studied for so much, for so long, for so hard, and put it in a book and they're like, here, take it, take it. And to me it's like the biggest hack ever. So I read books, and I read usually about 20 to 30 minutes every day. That's like first thing I do in the morning before I work out, before I do anything else, usually. Sometimes I'll read after I work out.
Greg :
But for the most part, it usually just helps to get me in a right mindset because the reality is that the most important muscle that I got is my brain. And I need to work my brain first before I work out my physical body. So that's what I do. And the book that I'm actually currently reading right now is called the Gap in the game. And it's a book from Ben Hardy and Dr. Ben Hardy and dance Sullivan, who's probably one of the biggest entrepreneurial coaches on planet earth. So, anyways, I want to just tell you guys a few things that I have learned from the book that has benefited me and blessed me. And if you're an entrepreneur, and even if you're not, I still think this is going to really help you as an entrepreneur.
Greg :
So, entrepreneurs have the highest rate of suicide, have the highest rate of depression, have the highest rate of mental health issues, and I'm just being a person with you guys right now. I've never contemplated suicide or anything like that. But I can tell you that I have struggled with happiness. And I was actually just sharing this, this morning with my team that when I became a physical therapist, I always said to myself, when I hit this milestone, I'm going to be so happy. But then the happiness is very short lived. And then I shoot for another milestone. And then I shoot for another milestone. And I shoot for another milestone.
Greg :
I shoot for another milestone. And there is no way you could have told me 20 years ago that this was going to be my life, that I would make what I used to make in a year, in a bad week. You could have never told me that. And to think that there are still times that I feel like I'm not enough and that I'm not good enough and that I'm not like, what? Like, what's going on? And so it's just like most people say, hey, you just have high standards and whatnot. And there's a lot of truth to that. But I also know that what are we all trying to do? Whatever we're doing for, right? Whether you're trying to make more money, you're trying to provide, man, you're trying to be happy. You're trying to be happy by making the people around you happy, by making your family happy. That's what we're trying to do.
Greg :
What is this pursuit of happiness that one of our forefathers, Thomas Jefferson, talked about, the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence. Right. So what is it? And why are we always trying to pursue happiness, but not actually get happiness? Okay, so that's where I learned things from this book called the Gap in a gain. So here's what I want you to do. What I want you to do is I want you to get out a piece of paper. Yep. Stop the podcast real quick. Go get a piece of paper.
Greg :
And this is what I want you to do. I want you at the bottom of the paper. I want you to draw a line, and I want you to put start your starting point, all right? That is your starting point. Your starting point could have been when you started the relationship that you're in right now. Your starting point could have been for your business. Maybe it's a start of the year that we're in, okay? Or maybe it's when you started your business. All right? Okay. Now, what I want you to do is, at the top of that piece of paper, I want you to draw another line and I want you to put goal.
Greg :
Now, all of us, we come up with goals, right? We come with goals of what we want to do in our business. We come with goals of what we want for our relationships. We come with goals on what we want, for our fitness, for our health, right? That could be losing weight. That could be gaining weight. That could be, hey, I want to be able to get married by this age. You know what? I want to make sure I'm not married by blah blah blah blah, whatever, okay? That is our goal. And for most of us, especially for those of us that are entrepreneurs, we are constantly focused on getting to our goal, getting to our goal, getting to our goal. And it's our goal or bust.
Greg :
Okay? Now here's what I want you to do. In the middle of the page, I want you to draw another line and I want you to put achieved. I want you to put achieved, okay? And so here's basically what the book is. Premise and based on. The book is based on the fact that the majority of people, especially entrepreneurs, they focus on their gap. And the people that are the happiest people focus on their gain. Okay? So you see those three lines that you have. At the bottom you have the start, in the middle you have the achieved, and at the top, you have the goal.
Greg :
Well, the gap is the space between what you've actually achieved and your goal. I'm going to give you a perfect example. This year as I'm doing this podcast, this is going to end up being the achieve wise. This is going to be the best financial revenue year for our mission. Smart, success, healthcare. It's going to be our largest financial revenue year that we've ever had. All right? That's what we achieved. Okay? Now let's talk about our goal.
Greg :
Well, for what we had set out for the year, we fell short of our goal by. We're probably going to fall short by more than 35%. And what we as entrepreneurs, focus on is we focus on the gap. We focus on what we actually achieved and how much gap there is from our goal. So if you had a goal of losing 20 pounds, but you lost 16 over the course of four months, we're not happy because we never hit our goal. Right. If you said that, hey, by the time you were 25, you were going to be engaged. But we're 28 and we haven't hit that goal.
Greg :
We focus on the fact that we're not engaged by the time we said we were going to get engaged. If you said that, hey, you know what? I'm going to have 150 new patients in my practice by the end of the year. But you're at 80, even though you started the year at zero, we're not happy because we never hit our goal. And that's us focusing on the gap. We're focusing on what we achieved and the gap between what we achieved and our goal. Okay? And the reality is that that's not really good because we're always moving that bar. We're always raising it up more and more and more and more and more. What the book has talked about is talked about the power of focusing on the gain, and that is from where you started to what you achieved.
Greg :
So if I started off the year, every year, we basically start off at zero. We start the year at zero. And the fact that we started the year at zero and we have achieved something that we haven't achieved in any year prior. If we focus on that, we can focus on the fact that we have been able to bring more value, help more people, create more impact than what we've done in any year prior. So which one are we focusing on? Are we focusing on where we started to what we achieved, or are we focusing on from what we achieve to what we said we were going to do with our goals and we haven't hit that. And so that's the gap, the first one, versus the gain from where we started to where we achieved. And I really think that it's important for us to sometimes just kind of stop and smell the roses. Like, look at how far you've come, look at the lessons that we've learned.
Greg :
Look at the wisdom that we've extracted from those lessons. Okay, maybe we didn't hit our goal, but the goal really is to help us with creating the intention and the mindset of the type of work we're going to have to put in to help us get to where it is that we want to go. And so anyways, that's been extremely powerful for me and me not always beating myself up and not always stopping and smelling the roses of how far I've been able to come, but making sure that I'm focused on the progress that I continue to make, the progress that my team continues to make, the progress that I'm making with my health, the progress that I'm making with my marriage, the progress that I'm making being a father to my kids and really just helping to put me in a mindset of understanding that it's about the journey, it's about the progress that I'm making and not about the lack of where I wanted to be versus where I'm at. I hope that helps you guys. The gap versus the gain. Dr. Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan. It's a fantastic book, and if you're an entrepreneur, I would just tell you this.
Greg :
There's nothing wrong with having big, audacious, scary goals, but don't put everything into you achieving a goal. And the goal is a reflection of you. The goal is just to help, to give you direction. It's not a reflection of who you are. Okay? So just remember that, and I hope that helps you guys. As I continue to read more books and learn more things, I make sure that I share it with you guys. Till next time.
