MM#310--Wanna Be 9x More Successful?

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. You know it's been some time since we've actually focused on mental toughness on this podcast, and I thought this is a prime time opportunity to get mentally tough again, and so we're going to cover a book that I read some time ago, way back in probably 2013, 2014, not sure, but it is a fantastic book. It's written by Jason Selk. Name of the book is Executive Toughness the mental training program to increase your leadership performance. With that, let's jump right into the book, because I'm excited to share. What you're about to read is intended to be the holy grail of developing mental toughness as it pertains to your high level success as either an executive or someone who aspires to become one. Although this book is specifically geared towards improving your achievement in business, the tools and the principles it provides mirrors the same methodology I use to enhance performance for anyone, from some of the world's finest athletes to the everyday individual trying to lose weight, stop smoking, improve his or her personal relationships. The 10 mental toughness fundamentals presented in this book will work for you, whether you are a high level executive, entrepreneur, mid level staffer or independent contributor, because they translate to coach John Woodens simple, time-tested philosophy of identifying and training the correct fundamentals needed for success. Isn't that just fantastic. Anybody that can connect a training level program to a former UCLA basketball coach, john Woodens time-tested philosophy of training the correct fundamentals is another that we can certainly get behind here. So what are these 10 mental toughness fundamentals that Jason Selk refers to? Well, let's dig into them. Number one define your win. Number two create your vision of self-image. Number three set product goals and emphasize process goals. We're going to come back to that one Prioritize priorities, create daily performance evaluation, control your arousal state, know your scripts, prepare mentally every day, develop a relentless solution focus and adopt gable discipline. So these are the 10 mental toughness fundamentals, and they support this overall. Overall series of, I guess, characteristics is what Jason talks about that he demands with executive toughness. He says accountability, focus and optimism are the three major characteristics that you need, and then, within that framework, comes these 10 mental toughness fundamentals. And so what I found fascinating was that we're always talking about goals here and how systems beat goals all the time. We shared that in a previous mojo minute. I will put a link in the show notes for that. But did you know how important goals are actually writing down goals. Research says actually shows, demonstrates that you are nine times more successful if you actually write down your goals. Imagine that nine times more successful if you actually just write down your goals. So if you have not done this and we are already in the first week of March I would highly encourage you to do that. In fact, we are going to grab a quote from the book. All about that writing down our goals. Going to the book, dr Cole, professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech University has found that individuals who write down their goals will have nine times the success of those who don't put their goals on paper. Yet Dr Cole's research suggests that only 20% of our population has goals and less than 10% take the time to write their goals down. So why is it that so few of us take the time to develop and make clear note, or make note of clear and concise goals? After researching this question for 10 years, I've come to the conclusion that the reason is quite simply that we are lazy. Now, granted, I understand it's anecdotal evidence, but still, if someone came up to you, if one of your good friends came up to you and said hey, if you write down your goal, you're going to be nine times more successful. Wouldn't you just spend the time to write it down? It's not like they're saying, hey, it's two times or three times or four times more successful, it's nine times more successful. Now that's just crazy. Why not just write it down? Keep it somewhere where you can see it each and every day and just see if, by you noticing it each and every day, reading your goal, processing it through your brain synapses, that you would actually begin to work towards that goal, whether it's the universe or God or whoever your higher being is, we know the world's crazy these days. Why not just write down your goal? As if, even to prove the negative, you could write down your goal, sit it in front of you for 12 months, just so you can come back after 12 months and say look, I wrote down my goal and I was not successful. And I bet you the crazy thing is dollar to doughnuts that if you do write it down, the fact that you're seeing it each and every day, you might just even accomplishment, accomplish it by happenstance, because it was in your face day in and day out for 365 days. So why not write down your goal? I'll go ahead and wait while you write down your number one goal that you're going to achieve over the next 12 months. All right, you got that goal written down, don't you? All right, very good. So now let's move from not only regular goals, general goals, to actual product goals. Let's find out the difference between product goals and process goals, because we're always talking about goals and systems, and that's at a very high level. Here's where Jason Selk excels, because he gives us the methodology to get down in the weeds. How do we actually do these things? How do we get them done? Go into the book. Product goals are result oriented and are potentially attainable within the next 12 months. Now, process goals versus product goals Process goals are goals. You focus on what it will actually take on a daily basis to achieve the product goals. So product goals are all great end points. You want to write them down as an important first step. Remember nine times more successful. But the truth is that setting product goals is the easy part. That is precisely where most individuals stop short. We want to take the next step. The real key is to develop two or three process goals for each of your product goals. Remember this process goals this is what it takes on a daily basis to achieve the product goals. Now, sometimes a process goal may happen less frequently than every day, but it still needs to occur on a regular basis to drive the achievement of the product goal. Let me give you an example. One area of my life that I want to improve is my weight. I've been overweight for probably the last eight years. I guess. So I wrote down, following Jason's theory, I wrote down my product goal I would like to lose weight. And then the process goals followed. At least three of them. What are they? Number one following my advice some time ago where I said we all need to move more because we're all moving less as a society, I'm now in week two of my self-challenge. Week one was I walked 8,000 steps every day for seven days. Week two, I will move that up to 8,500 steps every day. Week three 9,000. Week four 9,500. Week five 10,000. 10,500, 11,000. 11,500. Following that progression. In addition to that, I'm also weightlifting three times a week and I am food logging each and every day. So for the next six weeks. I actually started this at the beginning of Lent, but I'm going to continue on. I have a major birthday coming up soon and trying to do my best to get as fit as possible between now and then. This will probably continue on. But that is. Those are my process goals. So, starting with 8,000 steps, moved it up to 8,500 steps. That's one process goal. Again, my product goal is to lose weight. Bye-bye birthday. But the first process goal is 8,500 steps this week and increasing by 500 each week as we move towards my birthday. Over the next six weeks, weightlifting three times a day and food logging every day, you can see those three process goals completely delineated and actually, interestingly enough, jason Selk has this quote all about cardiovascular exercise. Go on the book. We put 30 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise is quite possibly the single greatest activity that you can do to improve your mental, physical and emotional health. If 30 minutes of cardio isn't currently one of your daily activities, I strongly encourage you to considering it, adding it in as one of your nine process goals. Now he's saying nine process goals because in the book he actually tells you to select three areas, three areas of your life that you want to improve. I gave the example for just one area of my life, which was weight loss. So in today's mojo minute, what goals do you have? Let's write one of those goals down. Let's find an area of our life that we need to improve. Let's write one of those goals down because why? We know? Nine times more successful, let that stick in your brain. Nine times more successful If you simply write the goal down. Follow that up with three process goals for that one product goal. Three process goals for one product goal. So write down the three daily steps and if it's not daily, something you have to do to regular interval. You heard mine walk 8500 steps per week, increasing 500 each and every week. Logging food logging each and every day, all the food that I eat, and getting my workout in weightlifting, strength training, three times a week are my three process goals for my product goal of weight loss. So how about you? Let's write down your goal. Be nine times more successful if you do, and let's, let's write down your three process goals, because when we do, when we do all those things we know, we will be on the road to a flourishing life.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at team mojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.