• Start out with review and the past year. How did 2017 go?
• You should write your goals in stone, and then write your plans in sand.
• You have to give up some good things to receive some great things.
• What if all the barriers are imaginary?

Well, welcome back to another episode of Real Marketing, Real Fast. Today we’re gonna take a slightly different approach. I’ve got a couple topics I wanna cover. So, I wanna start with a BIG “Thank You” to all you listeners and subscribers of my podcast.

Just a recap, I launched this podcast on September 19th, 2017, so just a couple months ago, and it went live on the 20th.

• So far, we’ve produced and released 25 episodes.
• We release an episode every Tuesday and every Thursday.
• There have been 5,864 downloads in 53 countries.

So, I just want to say thank you for listening and thank you for your feedback. Also, I want to say thank you to the many guests that have joined me in this studio and that have been part of the show.

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I’d like to ask you for a favor.  – If you’d use the contact form on the Doug Morneau website, and tell me what type of guest you’d like to see coming up on an upcoming podcast, or maybe a different type of marketing or topic that we haven’t covered yet. So, if you’ll share a suggestion of one thing that you believe I can do better to serve you here on the podcast, and then also share one item that you really like. So again, I’d like to say thank you for listening so far, and I’m excited to be going into the conclusion of this year, and getting ready, and planning for next year.

So, with that, that brings me to my next topic, and that is goal-setting for 2018. So, I’m hoping to spend some time with you here on this episode and just share with you a little bit … Goal-setting, and get you thinking in that direction, and give you some tips, and maybe walk you through some of the stuff that I do that I find helpful and has been helpful in my business as an entrepreneur for the last 26 years.

So, it hasn’t always been that way, but it has for the last probably 15 years or so, where I have an annual event. And my annual goal-setting event isn’t the only time that I set goals during the year, but it’s the time of year that I find I can slow down a little bit. So, between Christmas and New Years’, we normally have a week or so off, and so I will take that time, and I will spend a little bit of time every day just thinking and reflecting on what I would like to see happen in this up-and-coming year.

So, it always starts with review and reflection. I look at this as a great time to sit down and look at … How was 2017? What went well? What didn’t go well? What was helpful? Who was a distraction? What tasks held me back that took more time than they should? Which tasks were repeated, and should be delegated to staff, or maybe even eliminated altogether? What habits was I following that prevented me from working at optimal levels of performance?

So, again, I just look back as a self-reflection. It’s not a discussion with anybody else. And I would just suggest that you may find this helpful just to look at your last year, and think of … What does a workday look like for you? What does the week look like for you? What are the things that cause you frustration? What are the things that you’re spending time on, and you know deep down inside that they’re not moving you’re business forward? So, maybe that’s really a way of procrastinating from working on your goals, or for me, working on my goals, by doing other stuff that’s really not related to our business.

You know that I’m a marketing guy, and I think in sales and marketing that lots of time, we spend time making pretty things and doing things, and they’re really just an excuse or a way to avoid doing what we should be doing, and that’s getting out, talking to customers, asking for their order, and generating sales for our business, or our respective businesses.

So, I set pretty high goals for myself, and I’m not suggesting here for a minute that I’m unique or different in the way that I approach business than you are, that I’m any better in the way that I do it. This is just the way that I operate. So, I set really high goals of things I’d like to accomplish. And I’d suggest you set high goals, or higher goals, and stretch goals, and do that without regard to how you’re gonna accomplish them. An example of one of this year’s goals was to write a book. I’d be a very wealthy man if I had a dollar every time somebody said, “Hey, you should you write a biography. Hey, I can’t believe your story. You should write a book and do a tell-all.” And I’ve just ignored it. So, for years and years I’ve ignored it, and then 2017, it actually made it to my goal list.

So, here are a few tips regarding goal-setting for 2018 that I’m gonna put into practice. So, as I mentioned, I plan for a few days, take a few days over the holidays to let it percolate and set in. So really, nothing’s out of the question, all areas of my life in terms of health, and family, and business, or relationships, and travel … All the stuff that I’d like to do, and see, and accomplish in the year … I write it all down, and without any thought to, is it realistic? And who really is to determine what’s realistic in the world? You and I are the ones that have to go out there and make it happen. So, I write it all down, and then I’ll look at it over the next couple days and refine it, and then at the end of that week or so, I’ll have a list of what I would like to see happen for the year.

And admittedly, some years I’ve built a list that is just about impossible to accomplish. This year happened to be one of those years. And other years, I really wonder what I was thinking because there was barely anything on the list. But the good news is we have an opportunity to write and set goals every day, not just an annual event, but for me, I just find … And like many others around the world, the new year is a time to think about the new things and the new possibilities that we have.

So, start out with review and the past year. How did 2017 go? There’s plenty of time for us to reflect on 2017 and then start planning 2018, and the question that people ask me, “Well, I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. I don’t know if I have this, or if I have that, or I have the resource, or I have the money.” And the best-laid plans tend to change, and the way that I’ve heard it summed up is, “You should write your goals in stone, and then write your plans in sand.” So, our goals will always stay the same hopefully or stay focused on those, but the plans may have to change as life comes along, and side-tracks us, and moves us off our goals.

The other thing is, if you want to get more out of your life, you’re gonna need to stop doing some stuff. And in some cases, you may find this sacrificial. I heard a friend of mine say, “You have to give up some good things to receive some great things.” And I can’t speak for you, but for myself, I like to do a lot of stuff, and I have a pretty high-capacity for production, and that’s actually a downfall. That’s a downside because I tend to take on more than I should. And I think if I really pared some stuff down, I could probably have some great stuff if I gave up some of the good stuff.

Next, write your goals down. If you write them down, there’s something about writing them down that’s a commitment. And if you can find a picture, or a picture, or two, or three, or four, add them. I have a goal book, and in my goal book, I have a number of goals in a number of different areas of my life, and they don’t all relate to work or finance. But I put the goals down, and I put a date beside each goal, and I like to accomplish it, add a photo, and then I’d suggest if you’re comfortable, maybe even if you’re not comfortable, share your goals with somebody that you trust and you know will support you.

So, I’ll give you a quick example of what many people would’ve considered to be an outrageous goal. Six years ago, I was fat, I was obese, I was out of shape, I was on five medications, and I decided after three months in bed with a severe case of pneumonia and nearly dying, that I was gonna turn my physical life around and I was gonna get in shape. So, I set a goal to get in shape, and this was about the beginning of December. So, six years ago, that was a decision. I went looking for … What does that look like to me?

So, I found a picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson before he was wrestling. He was still in pretty good shape, but he wasn’t quite as large as he is now. I cut out that picture, I added that to my goal list and my picture book with all the other goals I set. And then, when we began interviewing trainers, and we found the trainer that we liked, he said, “What do you want to accomplish?” I opened this book, and I said, “This is what I want.” And I knew he was the right guy at the right time because he didn’t laugh, he didn’t scoff. He just said, “That’s a lot of work,” and I said, “Yeah, I realize that’s a lot of work, and maybe that’s not exactly where I’ll end up, but now I have a target.”

So, if we applied the filter to this as, is this a reasonable goal? Looking at somebody who’s six foot six and 285 pounds, you would’ve said, “No, that’s not a reasonable goal.” But what I’ll tell you, is within 12 months, I had lost 80 pounds. So, that’s an unrealistic goal, but I was willing to put in the work and just to do whatever it took. My commitment, at that point to my trainer, is, “I will do whatever you tell me to do.” So, that was the sacrificial part. I had to set some stuff aside in my life. I had to set some time aside. I had to make a commitment to go work with him in the gym an hour four times a week, and then, we eventually reduced it after a year to three times a week, working with him for an hour. In addition to that, I had to change my eating habits. I had to change a bunch of stuff, but I set a goal, and I wanted to attain that goal, and I did attain that goal, but … So, I suggest … Think big. Stretch yourself.

“What if all the barriers are imaginary?”

One of my favorite books, and it’s probably not a book that you’ve heard of, but I’ll share it with you here. And it’s called “The Quantum Leap Strategy.” And the author is a doctor by the name of Price Pritchett. And the quote that I really like and I reflect on often when I’m talking to people about goals and trying to accomplish things, and whether it’s my clients or my own business … And his quote is this, “What if all the barriers are imaginary?” So, as we think about things that we want to accomplish in our life, and with our business, and we start setting goals, just reflect back on that. What if the barriers are imaginary.

The second quote that I really like, and I actually like it enough that I re-worked it, and I use it on this very podcast, and that is, “Are you ready for a business breakthrough? Or are you just gonna settle for more of the same?” And I can tell you from my side, I’m not interested in settling for more of the same. I’m looking for a breakthrough.

And so, I roll up my sleeves, and I set my goals. I set my goals high, and I look for people that I can build with and do this. So, I’m just suggesting to you that, if you’re gonna set some goals, stretch a bit. The challenge often, and I’ll speak in a sales term, when you’re hiring sales staff, working with sales staff is, we sell to what our own comfort level is. So, what you or I might think is expensive because of the amount of money that we earn, or where we live, or how we live … There’s very wealthy that that would seem like a very small amount of money. So, we really need to get past this survey of one, and we need to look a little bit bigger, and really believe that we can accomplish a lot more.

Next is, don’t get discouraged when you get off track. You’re gonna get side-tracked, you’re gonna get derailed. So, when you’re setting your goals, don’t worry about how you’re gonna get there, and don’t worry about, is stuff gonna come up to get in the way? Because I can almost guarantee you that a lot of stuff is gonna come up and get in the way.

What I’ve found historically is, every time I set goals, obstacles come up. And the bigger the goal I set, the bigger the obstacle. So, I always know when I’ve set a really, big, stretched goal because something normally very massive has come up that tries to prevent me from moving and achieving that goal.

Next, I’d say be open. Listen and watch. Watch what’s going on around you. You’ll be surprised at how many people, how many opportunities that show up in your life and appear out of nowhere that can help you. Now, I’m not talking about “woo-woo” stuff. I’m talking about having a clear, written goal, having it written down, thinking about it, and then looking around you and listening. And what you’ll find is opportunities and people will be there to support your goals and help you get there.

Next is, get messy. Now for me, this was a really tough thing. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when I’m doing stuff, and it took me a whole bunch of years to get over myself and just start getting some stuff done. So, this podcast is a perfect example. When I was gonna launch this podcast, I spent some time and some effort trying to think of, “Well, what should the brand look like? How should I brand it? Should I have a separate domain name? How should I set it up?” And decided I was gonna run it on the dougmorneau.com website. And then, when I talked to my web-deb guy, I said, “Let’s just build it, and let’s re-build it live. Let’s not go totally offline, and we’re just gonna polish what we’ve got, and it’s gonna have to be good enough, and we’re gonna make changes, and continue to build it.” And the reality is, if I waited for everything to be perfect, it wouldn’t have launched.

So, my suggestion again is get messy, take some imperfect actions, and just get started, and then fix it as you go. Better to … If you’re gonna fail and it’s not gonna work, better to find out early than having spent years and years planning something, making it perfect to find out that there’s no audience for it.

Next, plan to take in some events. Who else can support you, and who are aligned with you, your vision, and your goals? Are there speakers, and groups, and associations, and masterminds that are out there that will help you reach your goals? You know what your goals are, whether they’re business goals, or family goals, or personal goals, or spiritual goals. Where do you need to be? What people do you need to hang out with that will help you accomplish your goals? This year, as an example, there were a couple events that we went to that were kind of pivotal.

One was in La Jolla California, and it was put on by a gentleman by the name of Frank Kern. And those of you in the marketing business will know who Frank is. He’s a really bright guy. So, I’ve often said, and if you’re a regular listener to my podcast, you’re probably familiar with what I’m gonna say. And never ask someone for advice who hasn’t done what you’re going to do, or is willing to pay the price that you’re willing to pay. So, I look at guys like Frank Kern, who have done what I wanna do. So, when Frank has an event, I go listen to Frank, and I go hang out for a couple days and learn.

The second event that we went to that was very similar was put on a gentlemen by the name of Chris Ducker. And the event was called Youpreneur, and this was their inaugural event in London, England. Again, there was a room of 350 people who, like myself, were entrepreneurs. Some were solo-preneurs. Some had larger companies. But again, they were from all over the world working in different companies, and working on different projects. So, this was an opportunity to join a mastermind, to get involved, to meet other people to contribute to ask questions, and also to share my journey.

So, a mistake that I made, and I’ll suggest that you don’t make this mistake, was with the Youpreneur as an example, was I need to apologize to that group. I had an opportunity to share with that group my journey this year. And what I learned by listening to people as they spoke at this event that we were at in London, was that they found people that they could relate to. They liked hearing your journey. They liked hearing my journey. They liked to know that we have struggles, and we have challenges, and we have problems, and that we can ask for help, and that we can often offer help to others that are in the same place that we are.

So, now I’m gonna share with you a couple of my goals. So, this is the real stuff of how I started my year. So, I mentioned earlier that I had a goal to write a book. I also had a goal to launch a podcast. Well, the book you haven’t seen, but obviously, you’re listening to this, so the podcast is real. I also had a goal to do a photo shoot for a fitness magazine, and I had a goal to launch our membership site for health and wellness website that my wife and I run, called Q4fit.com.

So, thinking back that … Here are my goals. This is how I’m gonna start the year, and I realize that obstacles are gonna come up, and stuff is gonna happen, is gonna derail me. What I wanna share with you is that when stuff comes up, what we need to realize is that we’re not unique.

I was reading, and if you’ve listened to my recent podcasts, you know I’m reading a book by Jeff Olsen, called “The Slight Edge.” And I came on this chapter that I thought was absolutely surprising to me, and if you’re into the space program, this might not be surprising to you. But I thought it applied really well to those of us who set goals and then we experience life. So, here’s a quote out of his book. It says,

“On the way to landing astronauts safely on the surface of the moon, the modern miracle of engineering was that the Apollo rocket actually was only on course two to three percent of the time, which means that for at least 97 percent of the time it took to get from Earth to the moon, it was off-course. In a journey of nearly a quarter million miles, the vehicles were actually on track for only 7,500 miles, or to put it another way. For every half hour, the ship was in flight, it was on course for less than a minute. It reached the moon safely, and returned to tell the tale.” Jeff Olson

So, my thinking when I read this was, “Wow.” So, I’m not trying to go to the moon. My goals are a lot simpler than that, but the point was really simple. Stuff’s gonna happen, so we need to correct. We need to pivot, we need to correct so the goal stays the same. And that’s why the plan’s in the sand. You have to be able to change the plans and keep going.

The other big “Aha!” moment for me this year as I was running through my goals was, having a better understanding of myself, my personality style, and identifying how I respond or react to life. So, how do I respond to life? And then, how do others see that? Because there’s a big difference between my personal style and how I react, and how other people interpret that. So, if you go back to an episode that I had with Patrick von Pander, it’s episode number two … Or actually, pardon me. It’s episode number 12, and it was called, “How to sell how your customers buy.” And we talked about personality styles. So, I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but I’m gonna share some details of my personality, and of how other people view that, and how it can sometimes put people off. But everybody’s got a different personality and strength. And the test that I’m using is called the Personality Style Indicator.

So, my personality style is a B behavior, and so, my strengths would be, learns quickly, works well under pressure, helps situationally, works hard, problem-solving, be time-efficient, planning for the future, makes decisions, takes risks, delegates tasks, handles responsibility, works alone, sets goals, and being dedicated to a cause. So, those are my strengths.

Now, my weaknesses if you read the other side is, insensitive to feeling, stubborn about a change of viewpoints, belligerent when upset, authoritarian, rigid, unappreciative, poor team player, resistant to subordinate workers, ineffective communicator, socially aggressive, prideful, unapologetic, and humorless.

Well, I often … I don’t agree all those things, cause I actually think I’m pretty funny sometimes, but my point is this: that’s an example of a tool that I use and it goes through several personalities. There’s four different styles. That’s my predominant style, and it tells me what my strengths are, and it tells me what my weaknesses are. But one of the downsides to my strength is, people with my personality style tend to take on too much, and you heard me mention this earlier on the show. And my response to stress is to double my effort.

I was in an event, and they broke up the room into the four quadrants, and the people that had the same personality style as me were much older than I was, and I was the only person that quadrant who hadn’t had a heart attack. So, taking responsibility and doubling my effort definitely isn’t good. But also, knowing what my weaknesses are helps me to deal with and set my goals and helps me to deal with people that are gonna help me with my goals to understand where I need to work on and shift my style to meet them and to meet their needs as I’m trying to build a team and move forward.

So, back to where I’m at with my goals … So, my other goal was to publish a book. So, how I tackled this was, I researched how to write a book, how to be a best-selling author. I found a guy in the US by the name of Rob Kosberg, who offered an online course. So, I bought the course, I went through the course, I was very impressed with the course. And so, I thought, “Ah, well now I’ve got all the answers and how to do this. Now, this is the direction I would go to reach my goal.” The reality was, once I went through the course, I realized how much work it was gonna be, and I also realized how smart Rob was, and I would just rather hire Rob to do it, now that I knew what had to be done. And so, that was a change in direction.

So, Rob sent an invitation saying, “Hey, we’re having a session in LA. Are you interested in coming?” I went down to meet him. I went through their session. I spent two days with Rob and his team, and I said, “Hey, you know? Everyone’s been telling me I need to write a book,” and by this point, I had gone from being very hesitant and very skeptical to being a little bit excited. This was gonna be cool. I’m gonna write a biography, a tell-all. It’s gonna be so exciting. And he said, “Oh, no. Not a biography. Biographies are the toughest books to sell.” I said, “Okay.”

So, going back to my own advice, asking the expert, I said, “So, what would you recommend?” He said, “Well, I would recommend that you write a business book, something that you’re passionate about, and something that you do every day that helps your clients. It’s gonna be a much earlier win and a much easier sell to make that happen.” So, I thought, “Man, I really came here, and flew to LA, and invested all this time and effort thinking I was gonna write a biography.” I hadn’t even considered writing a business book on what I do, and I was so passionate about.

So, over the course of the next day, I spent some time thinking about it, and I came back to him. I said, “Well, hey. What if I write three books?” So, I explained my thinking and asked for their feedback, and that’s where we left. So, I went there thinking I was gonna write a biography, and I left deciding we’re gonna write three books. My first book is about email marketing, and how to use permission-based email lists. And my second book, that I’ve just completed as well, is my health journey, so basically how I got off all my medications. And the third book, which I’ll write next year, will be my biography.

So, my goal was to write one book. I left with a contract to write three, and I set myself a somewhat unrealistic deadline, and that was to publish three books within 12 months. And I think I started with Rob in May. So, I’ve completed two, the two will be out in January. And so, again that was just the ability to change and to shift my goal and to take the advice of an expert, and just move along and carry on.

So, if you’d like to get some more information on the process that I used and how that worked, check out the interview I did with Rob. Rob was actually my first interview on the podcast when I launched, and the title of the interview is, “Developing Expert Status, Generating New Leads in Sales,” and it’s podcast one.

Now, one of the last goals I had set was, I wanted to do a photo shoot in a fitness magazine, and the reason I wanted to do the photo shoot was, I was looking to do the photo shoot and to generate a story that would help our health and wellness business. So, I went to my trainer and I explained what I wanted to do, and he explained the process, and I was already working out with him three days a week, and he suggested, “Hey, you’re gonna probably have to up your scale, or up your work-outs.” So, I said, “Fine.”

So, he picked a date and booked a photographer, and we began a new regiment. Different style of work-outs, different intensity of training, and I continued to work out with him three days a week. I continued to work out on my own four days a week. And then I thought, “Hey, I should really add a second work-out.” There goes my double-the-effort personality style again. And so, I added a second one-hour work-out a day, and I did that. So, I was working out twice a day, two one-hour work-outs, seven days a week.

And guess what? My body fought back. It stressed my system, and I got shingles. So, here I was four weeks out from a photo shoot in excruciating pain, taking Tylenol with codeine every four hours, and reduced my work-out back to once a day, seven days a week, but now I had to do something I hadn’t planned on. I promised people that I’d do this photo shoot without being photoshopped, but now I had these big, ugly, red blisters all over my torso. So, it was obvious that I was gonna have to have photoshopped shopped out.

So, again, I set a big goal, and up comes the obstacles, so what’s the decision? The decision, at that point, was, should I cancel? And many people said, “Oh, you shouldn’t do the photo shoot. You should cancel.” The doctor said, “You should rest, and you should do this.” So, I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all responsible for our own decisions, and I just didn’t think I wanted to go back and start this process all over, so we just went for it, carried on, and we accomplished the goal. So again, it’s really about just shifting and pivoting as stuff comes up.

So, you may be wondering, “Hey, this is really interesting,” or maybe you don’t think it’s that interesting, and you wonder … Well, why am I sharing this? Well, as I mentioned earlier on … When I was talking to many of my peers at the Youpreneur event in London, what became painfully obvious is that, as you and I are building our business and going through life, some people are watching us. And we really don’t know where they are in life, and they might have some challenges and have some struggles, and if we can share our journey, and share a little bit along the road of what we’re doing and what’s working for us and what’s not working, it just may be the encouragement that they need to carry on, or give them the courage to ask a question or ask for help.

So my hope, with this episode, is that you’ll find one or two things that you can take away that will help you benefit you and your business, help you to get some clarity around setting goals, will encourage you to think big, and think out of the box, and set some stretch goals that make you uncomfortable.

So, what I’d like to ask you to help me with a couple things. I’d like to suggest that, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, that you would take a few minutes and just pop me a note. Go to the Doug Morneau website, use the comment box in there, and just reach out and let me know how we’re doing, what you’d like to see. I’d also like to suggest that you sign up for my email newsletter. So, I’m sending out an email once a week … Well, mostly once a week. Like everybody else in the world, I’m busy as well and I don’t often send out an email every week. But anyhow, most weeks it goes out. I’d suggest just sign up. It’s a way to start out dialogue, and then, if you like anything that you hear in this show, just take two minutes. Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your review makes a big difference in the success and continuation of the podcast.

So, thanks again for listening. I hope you found something you can use here. I look forward to seeing your feedback and your engagement. Don’t be afraid to reach out on social media. I’m pretty active in social media, and if you send me a note on LinkedIn, or you send me a note on Twitter or Instagram, don’t be surprised because I’m gonna answer you back. So, thanks again. Have a great week until next episode. Take care. This is Doug Morneau, Real Marketing, Real Fast.

Resources mention in this episode:

The health and wellness website site mentioned

• Q4fit.com

Masterminds & Communities

• Frank Kern
• Chris Ducker – YouPreneur

Books mentioned

• The Quantum Leap Strategy – Price Pritchett, Ph.D.
• The Slight Edge – Jeff Olson

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