EntreLeadership - #296: Setting Goals Together with Wendy and Jay Papasan

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Twelve years ago, Wendy and Jay Papasan made a decision to get intentional about their shared goals, and they’ve never looked back. In fact, they are so passionate about casting a vision for their life that they now hold goal-setting retreats to teach other couples to do the same. Tune in to find out how this easy-to-do practice can change everything—it helped Wendy and Jay become net-worth millionaires in only 10 years—and how to do it yourself. entreleadership.com/podcast Wendy & Jay Papasan's Couples Goal Setting Retreat EntreLeadership Goal Tracker How to Achieve Work/Life Balance from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People don't decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. What a special treat we have for you today, folks.

Going to go a different direction, a direction that I think that I, I think is much needed. How about we talk business, we talk leadership, and we talk marriage, all in one conversation. A lot of you, men and women out there are leaders, and a lot of you are married. And folks, this conversation is very timely, certainly, as you get ready to move into a new year. Wendy and Jay Papazan are our guest. Now, this is fun because I sat down with Jay and Wendy here in our studios live after they spoke to our Entree leadership team. They talked about personal, professional goals.

And then how do you get down into a process with your spouse where you set all those types of goals, personal, professional, family goals, financial goals? So this is a great process. You're going to hear more about it in this conversation. Wendy is a real estate rock star. She leads the Papazan Properties Group. Jay is the bestselling author of The One Thing and Vice President at Keller Williams Realty. International. This is the world's largest real estate company. So both of these folks are high achievers and they happen to be married. Now folks, this is lean in, take notes type stuff. I promise

you. And you know what I recommend? If you listen to it by yourself first, how about listening to it with your spouse or sending it to them so they can listen to it and you all can connect? And I also recommend that you do this over a very nice dinner. Good stuff. Let's get right to it here are Wendy and Jay Papazan. Well, Jay, Wendy, this is a big treat. It's always fun to have our guest in studio with us. And we're going to talk about some fun stuff today. But what I want our audience to hear is a little bit about what you've done so far today. You've been with our team, which is great. We have a great team. A lot of very successful men and women out there doing some great stuff. And I know you spoke to the team. So give us an overview. I think it'll set us up

beautifully for what we're going to talk about. Sure. So when we were setting us up, we were in the process of planning for our goal setting retreat. And I was looking for a reason to be in Nashville because I have a lot of friends here. And so that's how the two came together. And when I mentioned a couple's goal setting retreat, the team was like, well, we're a very family-oriented organization and we're also business people. We like to set goals. How did those things come together? So we just did a little lunch and learn with the team here on how to host your own goal-setting retreat with your significant other. And it was fun. So where did this start with you two? When did this enter into your habits, if you will? Now you've really streamlined it. We're going to talk

about that for our audience today, but when did it start for you? Well, it really started about 12 years ago. So we had two young children, and I was a stay-at-home mom. I'd quit my job as a marketing executive, and our kids were about 16 months apart. And so I was just feeling, honestly, a little bit lost being a stay-at-home mom, not in a bad way necessarily, but so much of our identity is wrapped up in our work. And so here I wasn't working anymore. And so I just really wanted us to get on the same page, and also just to have a little retry. from this craziness that had been the last couple of years. And so I said to Jay, hey, I want to do a goal-setting retreat.

And I want to talk about business. I want to talk about our personal life. I want to talk about our family and where we're going. I want to talk about what our finances look like. And so I created this whole sort of three-day, two-day retreat for us that's really evolved over the last dozen years. Yeah. So if it's been going a dozen years, what was the evolution like, that first retreat,

maybe to the second year retreat, third year retreat. Well, how did it develop for you guys? The first time when she told me this, I was kind of terrified. I had no idea where we were going. I just heard that and I felt a lot of pressure. I know. It was like, honey, we need to talk when you get home. But it was like, this is even bigger.

We're going to have to leave town to do it. But I was also exciting because I think the first retreat was the first night we ever spent away from our goods. Oh, wow. Which is a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal because we were in the trenches with two and diapers. But in the beginning, it was a little uncomfortable. because we were having very purposeful conversations, intentional conversations around the big stuff,

not just finances. A lot of it was around finances. We had a net worth goal we can go into, but it's also like our family and how we were going to raise our kids. And those conversations need to be had, but it's not always comfortable the first time. So in the beginning, it was very awkward. I'll just say that from me. Oh, it was awkward. I was reading the questions and blushing. Like, really, we're going to talk about that. And it was great. And then we got more and more comfortable having those conversations and not just having the conversations, but setting goals around it. And also just the first one just took a lot longer because it was really a foundation that we were able to build on. So that first year, it was a lot of asking the questions, being thoughtful,

writing down the information, documenting it, and all the years since then have just been sort of, like I said, building on top of that. It's been organic. Yeah. Now we're going to talk about the content in a bit, but I'm just curious, is it methodical now, meaning you've got a set schedule, You send X amount of minutes on. Okay, that I think would be really good for people to hear before we dive into the stuff that we need to be talking about. Well, there's a priority. I'm not going to say we're so methodical. Sorry, we got 10 minutes.

Yeah, that's not the greatest word. Yeah, not bit of my minute. Give me the system then. Well, so what it looks like is typically on that first Friday night, so if you do the two-day version, which we've done both two nights, and sometimes just if we don't have enough time to go two nights away from a family, we just do the one night. But I would say for the very first one, you want to start out with the two nights. And so what that looks like on Friday night is just having a, like connecting with your partner. So no goal setting, just having dinner, having a nice glass of wine, if that's what you want.

And then the next morning is really the work. And the work is really, first of all, reviewing your net worth, right? And we're going to talk about that. But really just like for us, that's been the habit that's really helped us with our financial success. So reviewing our net worth. Right about this time, just all that thought. Right about this time, I had been working on a book. with my partner Gary on millionaires.

I know you all have a book coming out, which I'm super excited about. But I'd interviewed 120 of them. And I remember going to Wendy and said, do you want to try to do that? Do you want to try to be a millionaire? And so net worth became that goal where we were both rallying around

and we set a 10-year goal. And so that was like, it wasn't by accident that we were talking about net worth. That came from that research. And how do we grow our wealth? And it was scary. Like I don't think either of us thought we were actually going to do it in 10 years,

but we wanted to be on that journey. So that's where it started and is around where's our goal for this year to be on pace? And what do we have to do to hit it? Yeah, that's good. So that was the first thing Saturday morning. Yeah, first thing Saturday morning, net worth, budget, and then really the goal setting questions. And the goal setting questions are really extensive.

And they involve finances, family, marriage, children, physical health, spiritual health, just a ton of different questions. questions. And so it's really working on the questions all day and really diving deep into them. And really just seeing and listening to your partner, like, where are you at with that? Where are you at here? What is really important to you? What's not so important to you? Where are we wildly divergent? Where are we really on the same page? What do we need to work on? So that's Saturday. Saturday night is, again, just relaxing and letting the goals kind of sink in. And then Sunday is setting our vacations for the year. So one of the things,

that I think we do really well is we always set our vacations for the year in October. So this past weekend, when we were here in Nashville, we set all of our vacations for 2019. So they're all in the books. We know exactly where we're going. And one of our big goals is to spend a month traveling every year. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. And then that's really it. And that's a, yeah. That's like a secret weapon. I mean, it's something I have all of my staff members do as well. Like, I want them going into January with their vacation on the books. Because in January, if they want to take off three days and August to go to a big music fest, I'm going to say yes. But if they show up the day before the music fest and say, hey, boss, I want to take off, can I leave? It's now putting me in a really

tough position. But if you plan for it, work will go on either side of it. And when people reactively take a vacation, one, they're already in a bad place. And a lot of times they end up with a laptop on the beach. And we've been those people and we didn't want to be those people. I think for a lot of families, you know, especially for us, we own seven businesses. between the two of us. We've got an almost 13-year-old and a 14-year-old. And just that time off is almost the most important thing for us. And if we're not scheduling it out, then it really doesn't happen. So it's like getting that counterbalance. And so just knowing going into March, oh, we've got this plan. We've got this plan in May. That just makes everything else easier.

Now, I don't want to spend too much time here, but I think this begs the question. Are you saying, well, spontaneity is just not that important? Or are you guys still open to saying, hey, let's just go do a weekend away? Okay, so you're not saying spontaneity's bad. We called this trip. We had an idea of when we were going to do our goal setting retreat, but we hadn't picked a town. So the conversation with Alex on the Entry Leadership team allowed us to go, hey, let's make it in Nashville. And we can, you know, see some friends here.

I sense that, but I just, I want the audience to hear you saying, you're not saying if it's not on the books in October for the following year, you can't do it. That's not what you're saying. No, no. All right. But a lot of times it won't happen if you don't talk about it. I think you're absolutely. Well, there's no question because life just kind of happens. That happens.

Yeah. And, you know, boy, especially the season you're in, we're in a similar season with kids. And their activities can eat up your entire year. Yeah, exactly. It's unbelievable. Yeah. And something Gary shared with me once, we, he asked me before spring break, like, where are you all going for spring break?

And we just bought a house with Swingpool and we were going to do a staycation. Yeah. And he said, hey, you know, Gus was six then. He goes, maybe you've got 10 left, spring breaks left, if you're lucky. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. And it just made me think, also, if we're not being intentional when our kids still want to hang out with us, like, if we have 10 spring breaks left to hang out with Gus and Veronica. I know. It's crazy.

I know. And it just gave you a different sense of there's something else at stake, not just us not being burned out at work. But this is time when they actually are fun. They want to go with us. It's true. They're not bringing a boyfriend or a girlfriend yet. Oh, yeah. That's a whole thing that I know we get to look forward to.

Thanks, Jay. I know. Terrifying. It's terrifying. But this idea of Gus, Veronica, Jay, and Wendy going on vacation, we've got a season for that. We're in it. So let's be purposeful about it. All right.

I love that. Now, quick snapshot, I want our audience, just get a sense of what your day-to-day, week-to-week lives are like as business owners. So Wendy, we'll start with you. So I'm the owner of the Papazan Properties Group, which is we're 29 people in five cities. And so for me, I'm out of sales now. So I'm the CEO. there have been times in my life where I've been uber busy at work when I was a sales agent and just working, you know, too long of hours, missing dinner, things like that. But now I'm the CEO,

so I have pretty regular hours. But, you know, we've got that business. You know, I manage all of our investments in Austin. So we have a sluer rental properties. And then, of course, we have two kids, 13 and 14. And my goal always was to be out of sales in real estate by the time they were in middle school because I think your kids actually need you more in middle school than they need you in elementary school. And I think that's true. It's just being there for both of our kids. But this is good because I think this is great. I want to go in here. Jay, hang on. We'll get to you a second. This is great. You bring up this middle school thing. You're out of sales, but you're still in leadership. Yep. Take us there because you're still full time leading. But is it that you just have

more flexibility in leadership? I have a lot more flexibility. Yep. And I would say that I'm able to work on the business instead of in the business. So I can focus on things like what are our values, what's our culture look like. We had just recently had a big team retreat and a big part of what we talked about was culture. You know, we have a big giving back culture. And so it's like, how do we just take that and run with it? And that's how we attract people to, you know, our growing team and focusing on those things that are so important. But when you're kind of in startup mode, you're not always able to do that. Good. I love that. If I could observe it. for her just because I'm on the outside.

The thing that she's doing really well as the leader is she's made her priority. Instead of taking listings, she's going on appointments with people. So she's trying to get in business with the best people possible. So like when you think about going on appointments and lead generating now, I think she's looking for talent,

which ultimately, if you're going to have an amazing business, you've got to surround yourself with great people. And I feel like the last three years, she's been really on the road to mastery on that. Well, it's a great example of how you're developing the team so that you can work on the business and you don't have to be involved in the weekends. You can be totally engaged with those amazing teenagers and your husband knowing, hey, I've got a great team that I'm personally

training. That's great. All right. And then take us through what you're doing, Jay. My big evolution has been, we did our first business book after multiple real estate books. So the last five years that the one thing has been out, I've been helping building our trading company around that book. We have a coaching partnership around that book. And I've been doing a lot more public speaking. So I'm kind of an introvert. I'm the writer guy. That's right. And I've had to learn how to stand in front of audiences and get comfortable, being uncomfortable, but that's part of being an author, right? Promoting the books. So a lot of my journey has been focused around building that platform because it's kind of like if you can just do all

the hard work of getting that business in orbit, all the resistance is gone and now has a chance to kind of keep going on its own. That's right. And we can build a business around it. But I spend probably half my time creating content. That's still today. That's my job. So the audience can figure out, you've got a lot going on. And yet here you are passionate about this couples. And I know it's the retreat and everything, but this is just wonderful. This is couples communication 101.

I'm so excited about going through this because I think our audience really needs to hear this. So I'm just going to say if you're watching, if you're listening, this is me going to school for me and Stacey. And so hopefully you can learn from me, but I think this is important stuff. Let's get back into it. We kind of touched on a little bit. Now I want to get into it.

When we talk about the budget, when we talk about the net worth, And I want to just throw it out here. So when you start to have that conversation from your experience, doing it together than coaching other couples, what levels of, okay, I'm here, I'm there, you know, we're not completely on a safe age. How much of that is okay? And I want people to understand maybe this isn't a perfect process, but it is a communication process.

Just talk about the importance of that because money creates a lot of tension with couples. Absolutely. I think in general, the biggest fear people have about this is that they're going to go in and set long-range goals with their partner, whether it'd be about money or anything else, and find out that they're not in alignment. Right. And I don't know where we got this idea that being married, I mean, we know it's a lifetime commitment.

That's what we said, when we said I do. That's right. But we're not going to always be perfectly in sync. Yeah. We're both going to be growing at different rates. And I think this process acknowledges that at different points in our life, we're both growing at different rates. We're going to be going in and out of sync.

So I do think that that shows up the most around money because money statistically is the number one reason couples fight. Right. So getting on the same page about why are we saving to invest? What will this do for our future? Why is that important to us? It's important to us for different reasons. Well, and the big goals will pull you through the smaller things that cause you strife. So like we got on the same page where we said, you know what? We have a net worth of $2,200, which included. That's where we started. Yeah, that's where we started a long time ago, which included like a beta, you know, Toyota Tersell. We said we're going to become net. worth millionaires. And that was a huge goal for us at the time. We said we're going to do it in 10 years. And honestly, it seemed like pie in the sky. But getting on the same page about the big goal and then every year looking and saying, what do we need to do to make this goal happen? Or if we're looking at expenditures, we're like, we're not going to buy this sofa because it's going to negatively affect our net

worth. So that pulled us through some of those little decisions. And sometimes I think it's the little decisions, especially about money that caused the most friction, right? But if you're on the same page with the big goal, the big decision is going to pull you through some of those. Well, when you're getting married and you're learning how to live on the same debit cards, I can remember going in when we were doing the, we're going to live on a cash only, like no credit cards, trying to really get our budget under control, because we distilled it all down to at one point, if we can net, say, $1,500 a month, we were on pace for our future goals because that added over the course of a year, that became a down payment on a rental property, yada, yada, yada.

And so we distilled it down to every month. Our battle was around that 1,500. And that allowed us, like, if you go to Target and we're trying to now, to do that, we're learning how to live on cash so we don't accidentally spend too much. You have that horrible moment in Target where you don't have enough money to pay for what's in the card. And that could be a really bad situation, and it was still a little embarrassing, but like we knew why we were there. Now it became kind of a badge of honor.

Like, oh, okay, all right, let's go pull out a line. Let's sort this stuff out because this is not in our budget. Yeah, it's so good. Well, and I think also for couples, so much of the way we look at money is really our patterning with our families. That's right. And we don't always have that conversation or not always cognizant of it, you know, because we're falling in love and all that. But really that shows up after you're married. And so it's really sorting that out.

Like, who are you? where do you come from? What are your ideas about money? Do you think money's bad? No, money is good for the good it can do. So it's like getting on the same page as far as that goes. And that's sort of just like almost deprogramming yourself. Okay, I'm going to jump around because I think we don't have time to really cover all of this, but we'll tell our audience where they can dive in and you can really walk them through it. The money thing is first. That's why I locked in on that because I'm following what you shared. I love it. So without getting into your story, I mean, at some point you went home to be with the kids.

you got back in the business. When you've got a spouse that may not be working and you got a spouse who's working, and I hate that because we know that the spouse is working. Of course. My point is, I'm just hearing people send me an email right now. Yeah. I'm talking about working in the home versus working in the workplace. How important is it to make sure that that one spouse, let's call it to stay at home mom, it's an easy one for people to see. She's got dreams. She's got passions, one of which she's choosing to spend her time on with those kiddos right now. Talk about the importance of that part of the retreat and the conversation, because especially if Jay's winning,

okay, in the workplace, and you're dealing with diapers and tametrons. It's not easy, is it? It's really hard. Just share both of you there. Especially if you were, and most women are now who have children, they were, if you were a professional person. Before. Before. Yeah, you were winning. And, you know, we live in a society where you're in America where most of your worth is tied up in your work. There's no question. You know, when you meet somebody knew, what do you do? I used to tell people when I was a stay-at-home mom that I was a trophy wife as a joke. Which you were, come on. Obviously, still am.

Let's own it. Hello. That's right. Yeah. And so, yes, I think your worth is tied up into that. And I know that when Jay was working at Keller Williams, and I said this to your guys out there today, his mindset was getting bigger, right? His thinking was getting bigger. You know, when you work at a company like Dave Ramsey, you're constantly thinking bigger.

You're wanting to grow yourself. And if you've got somebody at home who isn't surrounded by those big thinkers all day long, you're with kids and whatever, that's a disconnect, right? And this is a way to come together. And for the person who's in an environment like that to share that with that person. So they don't feel left out and isolated. It's like, hey, come along with me on this journey. There's a flip side of that, too.

I think a lot of times the person who is the wage earner gets kind of the right of way on a lot of things, which is not fair at all. but when you set up the goal-setting retreat, so we set someday goals and five-year goals and one-year goals. Those are the three areas that we look at, like where we're going to be way out in five years and one year. And the fact that we both do our preparation separately. So even when she was a stay-at-home mom,

she was writing down someday five-year and one year. We both come together and try to merge. That's right. And so, like, her voice is exactly equal in that situation, and we're now negotiating, how do we support each other on these two journeys? I remember when she was heading back to the workforce. She got the opportunity to make sure I understood what jobs I was getting back

because there were jobs that she took over when she stayed home, but when she went back to the workforce. And so it just gives us a place where we can kind of have an equal playing field and both get our agenda on the table. And then we sort it out. And it's always a little messy. But it gets just a chance to sort it out. Well, I'm glad you said that.

I want to lead you all somewhere right there because you said it is messy and it is messy. And Stacey and I have not been this intentional, but we have done this many, many times. And I remember, you know, when she's back in the workforce, she's killing it, you know, because we've got some goals and things like that. You get this. But I remember when I was working my way up the broadcasting ladder and, you know, so we'd spend time talking about those goals. And then, you know, she's kind of supporting everything. But then it was a little messy. But then the payoff for this would be for us when we'd have conversations about us together as a family.

So yes, I had some professional goals at that time. Her only goal was just awesome kids and she was killing it. And she was winning. But then when we moved the conversation down the road, and even though it might have been messy, here's where I'm going to lead you, it's so worth it. Oh, yeah. Because when we got to the point where we were dreaming as a family, as a couple, that's when the payoff has always been great for us.

I want you to just take that, take it and run with it. Yeah, well, I mean, I think a great example of that is, is like, do we want to be able to pay for our kids to go to college? and what does that look like? And what are our financial goals around that? And, you know, for Jay and I, this relationship has always been our primary. You know, I love my kids, but, like, this is number one. And what does our life look like when our kids are gone?

I know that 80% of all the time I'm going to spend with my kids is, you know, before they graduate from high school. And so what does that look like and what does our world look like? And, yeah, we love to travel, right? So how do we create enough passive income so that we can choose to work or not? So it's like having those really big goals and being intentional around it. Well, I mean, I just think if you acknowledge year after year that you have all these goals, they're not always perfectly in a line.

And some years, like, nothing gets done on them. I can't tell you how many things we thought we were going to do in five years that the next year we pull those up. And we look at them throughout the year too. And we're like, you know, we really didn't do anything on this. Is this really important to us? Like, no. And we give ourselves permission to just cross some stuff out. It doesn't feel like failure.

It feels like focus. Yes. And then there are things that we fail at, but we refuse to put on there. We won't take it off. Take off. And it's like, for me, I wanted to have a ranch. And that was really about not me having a bunch of land to maintain or having cattle or something like that. It was about I grew up in Tennessee being able to go outdoors with my dad.

And in Texas, there's not much public land. And I wanted to have that for me and my son Gus. And it's set on our goals for like three, four years, nothing happening. And it was hardly a priority for Wendy. But when that opportunity showed up, that became a conversation that we were actually able to have because we found a partner that wanted to go 50-50 with us. And suddenly it was an opportunity. But because we've been talking about it in this kind of... Year after year after year.

I could see it on Jay's goals. So it wasn't just like a whim, right? Sometimes we have these things inside our heart, but we don't share them with our partners. And so when an opportunity comes up, it feels like a whim. You know, I've always wanted a whatever. Oh, well, really? Really? Is it like a big life crisis?

or what's going on here? It's a very good point. And like, no. And so, like, seeing it year after year after a year, I was like, okay, yeah, this is important to you. It's not like every year we just show up and get to congratulate ourselves for checking every box. There's a lot of them that things, some things are happening really well.

And sometimes we have to confront the fact that we're not making progress and we really want to. But that's, like, part of the messiness that you actually kind of get used to. I mean, a lot of big success, I think, is just a lot of failures you survive. Failing through it. Well, here's what I want you to talk about. And this process is not powerful just because of the communication piece. That's a big part.

That's it. You just said to actually know what my spouse is thinking and feeling. But more importantly, when you begin to exchange goals. So Wendy says, okay, this is really important to me. And Jay says, well, this is really important to me. Walk us through what it's like when you, the spouse, go, hmm, that's interesting. What can I do to help Wendy get there? I think that's where the relationship goes to the next level.

You're exactly right. Speak about that. Yeah, it's all of a sudden you have, you know, two people heading towards this thing together, you know, because I'm not always going to be 100% on board with some of these big things that Jay wants to do. And yet, I do support them in it, right? Like, I'm okay with it. I love my husband. So I'm okay that we have this ranch. But then I think both of us holding each other accountable to it, right, is also really important because not only do we set these big goals every year, we sit down every Sunday.

and we look at them. We look at our goals once a week and just say where are we at with all these things and where do we want to be? So going out of the retreat, every Sunday you guys are doing this. Yeah. So we take the goals and we put them on something that we call a 4-1-1. So it's like four weeks, one month, one year. And all the big annual goals go on that and they're personal and professional. And you've got some that you own and I've got some that I own.

And some of them, especially the personal stuff for our children, they're on both of our 401. They're shared. Right. And so we spend probably 30 minutes to an hour every Sunday, not necessarily together, individually looking at them. And that's how you move the ball forward. The retreat tells us whose goal sheet, the 411, it goes on. Yeah. I'm going to carry the ball on this and you're going to that. And so each month we ask, well, based on where we are on this goal, what do I have to do this month? And each week, what do I have to do to be on track for my month? It's just you're breaking it down into manageable business. But every now and then, we're sitting there with our laptops out and like, Hey, what's happening with our giving? Like we were doing that. We set a goal, really ambitious goal to give way money this year. Let's add it up. Are we even on track? And we still have a full quarter, right, to hit that goal. We intend on doing it and how are we going to do it? But it allows us to kind of engage and have that conversation throughout the year. This is a key point here is that we can do all these things that you're talking about, but then if we don't review them every week, there's something powerful about the brain, isn't there? There's the flip side to this.

If I'm looking at it all the time, it's like the only thing I can see is my actions that I need to take, right? We know from psychology studies that when we go buy a car and we drive off the lot, we see it everywhere on the ride home. Particular activator, is that it? There you go. So there's some real power to this. Take us down that road. I mean, it's a huge part of what we're doing in our one thing business. I think a lot of people know how to set goals.

What they don't know is how to have a relationship with them. Oh, Jay, that's good. Did I get one? They get the drop of the mic somewhere? No, no, you've got more than one, but I'm just telling you that right there is really good. The whole thing about the 411, you've got your annual goals. And each month, you update your monthly based on your annual. And every week, you update your week based on your month.

So it's just a really simple way to break those goals down. It forces you every week to confront those annual goals in a really small way. And we set five-year goals, our annual goals are based on our five-year goals. And our five-year goals are based on our someday goals. So, like, if I want to someday be the host of entre leadership, go back 10 years in your life or whatever that was, how do you know how to behave this week? Most people don't. So having a shared system, whatever that is, for how do we know how to behave this week? So we're on track to be millionaires or we're on track to own a ranch or we're on track to this professional goal or this spiritual goal, it gives us a way to have that.

that relationship with the goal on an ongoing basis and have it with each other. So it just becomes a, it's just a tool for making that happen. It's just, I personally think it is the thing for me. So the 411 is actually a construct of Keller Williams, something we didn't invent it. But it's something that I used a long time ago, even before I was with Keller Williams in my old job. And I would use it with my people. And so now my people use it in their business. So everybody on my team does a 411. and the idea is, is it's done by 830 Monday morning so that when you come in, you know exactly what your priorities are for the week, and their supervisor holds them accountable to the 411. So again, it's their goals.

I mean, I work mostly with 1099 real estate agents. So they tell me I want to sell 24 houses. Okay, great. So then in that conversation with them, hey, you told me that these were your goals, right? Why aren't you doing the actions required to kind of meet those goals? You're not on pace to sell two houses this month. What are you going to do about it? Yeah.

Instead of having an annual review where you load up all the good or the bad, every week you can do little course corrections. What works in business, right, works in life. That's right. So we've just adopted, I mean, how many corporations do retreats for goal setting? They send their executives off to some offsite. To get them out of their element, to give them perspective on their life, we're just kind of adopting these models for our personal life too.

So let me ask you, on the 401, you've got personal, physical, your marriage, friendships, professional, money. Is that right? Have I got everything in there? So that's a big four. The two big buckets are professional and personal. Okay. But if you looked on, like in the one thing, it's spiritual life, physical health, personal life, your hobbies, key relationships, job, business, money. Those were the seven big kind of buckets that we want to be good at. Yeah.

Like, it's important to win at those. Absolutely. And so we try to address the questions in the course of the retreat. We ask questions, what do we want our spiritual life to look like for us, for our kids? We go through each of those and try to, where it's. It makes sense. We set goals in it. Yeah. Yeah. So imagine, you know, if you have all the seven areas of your life and you're coming up with someday goals for each of them, like, how can I be my best self in these seven areas? And then you're breaking it down and saying, what do I need to do in five years? What do I

need to do in three years? What do I need to do in one year? What do I need to do this month and this week to be the best person I can be spiritually, physically? And, you know, we definitely don't get it all right. There are some areas where, you know, we're crushing it. And some areas where we're not. But it's always like it's not about the goal. It's about who you become on the way. Yeah. Because let's talk about that. I love that.

I do too. I do too. Thank you for leading us there. Because I know you have no problem with this, but we got to be vulnerable about this. When we teach us a little bit from your own life, when we see an area where we're crushing it and everybody who's listening to watch right now is going, okay, I got a couple of those. And in areas where we're just blowing it or we're not even touching it. We're just dreadful. Yeah.

What happens when we can see that? Because you just said it. It's not about the goal. It's about the growth. Sure. So what happens in our mind, at least we can look at it and go, oh, man, I'm dogging it here, crushing it there. What happens in the areas where we're dogging it? Well, I mean, first of all, I think when you crush it in one area of life, it gives you hope that you can be better in another.

You got some juice there. Yeah. You're like, well, if I did it here, I can do it here. That's right. But, I mean, you know, it's all about the journey. You know, we've, this past year has been a tough year for us in terms of our daughter. She's really struggling at school. And so, you know, sometimes, you know, especially as a mom, you feel a little like a failure.

I'm like, oh, I'm doing this a great thing on the business side. But like my daughter's really struggling. What do I need to do? And so we're, you know, doing different things to kind of pour into her. But I would say, you know, it's just, it's not, you don't always get a perfect 10 in everything in every phase of your life. Perfection is overrated too. I do think that, like, in the areas. that you're killing it, people have their gifts and their passions. That's right. And we tend to

put a lot more energy into those things naturally. That's exactly right. And you're going to be better. And it's actually easier to turn a seven into a ten than it is to turn a three into a seven. That's exactly right. And so I think part of the, what happens as a couple, well, if she's got a three somewhere, which is highly unlikely, right? If she had a three somewhere. Like a five at the lowest. But maybe I'm a seven there. So maybe that shifts to my responsibility. because it's something that I'm going to be naturally better at. And so I can take that guilt off of her plate and put it on a place where at least I'm proficient. But, I mean, I think there's progress, proficiency, and perfection.

And I don't mind shooting for perfection like in our number one. I mean, I want to be great as a writer. That's my career, everything about it. I want to be great as a husband and a father. Those are really important to me. I'll take progress almost everywhere else. I just don't want to be moving backwards because I can't bear to look at. it. But if I'm really moving backwards, maybe that's something she can take for me, too.

So I just gives you a chance to get out of that perfection mindset and into, can we just make progress? Well, you know, I want to go back to something Wendy said, because again, we don't talk about this at all on this program, and I'm convicted about it. And that's this parenting thing. We can be, because something you said, you said, killing it at business, but my daughter is having a rough time at school. But she's also in middle school. And I am in my first. And I am in my first journey with middle school. Okay. So we've got a seventh grader and I'm learning and reading and it is crazy times. Thankfully not for us, but just in general, middle schoolers are nuts, the hormone thing. But you're doing everything you can and just because she may be having a hard time doesn't mean

that you, Wendy and UJ aren't doing a great job as parents. It's just called life and curveballs in the form of a middle school kid who's just got their whole world is changing literally them by the second. I do want you to speak to that because I thought you were vulnerable and transparent about it, but you're probably doing a great job with her. You're just figuring it out as you go. Well, I mean, the journey that we're on changes in every area of our life. Like sometimes you might have a, like my business, for example, might just be in an amazing place. Sometimes there might be a series of dominoes where a few key people leave for whatever reason. All of a sudden, you're like, you know, where am I at with my business? That can happen like that. Or a person turns crazy.

Yeah. I mean, because that happens too. Exactly. And so it's really just, again, it's just about where you're at in that place and just moving toward your best self in every area. And that's what the goals do is it's like, I want to be my best self in all these different areas. And these are the ways that I can get there. And so, you know, we were able to, at the goal setting a retreat, is to say, these are the things that we're going to do this year to help, you know, make sure that our daughters set up the most for success. And we had those coming into this year, too. And, you know, if we're getting on to ourselves, is that. that we're not moving as fast as we wish we were, it is such a high priority. You know, your job, your role, you know,

for me, it's first husband, second father. Like, you don't want to be, have a failing grade, even for a semester in those. No, no, no, no, yeah. So you do take that a little harder than, you know, well, I didn't read 50 books this year. Well, you know, great, you'll catch up. That's not going to kill anybody.

Where are you all at, though? I mean, I'm going deeper here because I think this is so important. Where are you all at with her character versus her grades? we've made a decision. We've actually put our kids in an alternative school that is a little bit kind of a mix of a one-room schoolhouse in Montessori. They have to set goals publicly every day. They have to manage themselves. And there's a lot of failure involved in that. But those are skills. I didn't know how to set goals. I was like almost out of college. Right. And so we've made a decision that it's more about who they're becoming. The hero's journey is the theme in this little school. And that's about, you know, the darkest hour and, you know, what happens after. But letting them learn that as early as possible, especially in this day and age. I don't even know what the value of a college education is. Yeah. Okay. This is great. Who knows? What does that look like? Look at the guys behind the glass. They know that Jay just hit my tuning fork. Okay. That's where I was going. Okay. I wanted you to share with our audience. They know how I feel. Yeah. But I think we,

so much parental pressure is based on peer pressure that we put on them because we want to be able to brag on our kid and their grades and they get accepted to this college. And I think it's just a bunch of hooey. I agree. Well, to your point, Jay. We can go way down the wormhole. How much debt a generation is taking on and for what? Exactly right.

Is it actually, are they getting disproportionate income? I mean, we could debate some of that. No, no, there's no debate, actually. Okay. Here's the reality. We have companies like Deloitte and Touche folks. I don't know if I've mentioned this on the program, so I'm going. We're already down in the wormhole.

Delight and Toosh, I could name Bank of America. I can name more. Intel are dropping college education as a requirement to work there. Yay. The world is changing. What skills do they have? Exactly. And so one of the things that Acton Academy does is it teaches kids how to learn.

Yeah. Right? And what our public school can have some challenges with is it much more of a passive education. I mean, I can go down that wormhole with you. We're on the same page. And what I always tell everyone is our children, all of our children, are probably going to be doing a job that doesn't even exist today. That's exactly right. And so if they're not being taught, how.

to learn, you know, like my daughter, two summers ago, taught herself two coding languages. She was like 10 because she knows how to teach herself how to do things. And so, yeah, she's definitely struggling. And some of it's just a junior high thing. Yeah, it's definitely not about the grades. No, for sure. Well, here's what we're doing. Last word on this.

We're creating. We can come back and do another podcast on this one. Well, here's what we're doing. Unintentionally, we're creating test takers instead of pathfinders. Absolutely. And we've got to create pathfinders. Yeah. Your daughter's going to find your path.

Oh, yeah. And I don't think anybody worries about that at all. Let's go back to the person we're becoming. This is talking about our kids. And I'm going to steal from my friend James Clare. We were talking about setting goals in areas. Like, are you setting goals around being able to do 100 push-ups? And his whole thing, which is very in the line with the one thing is,

or do you just want to be the kind of person who goes to the gym five times a week? If you're the kind of person who just goes to the gym, you're going to be healthy. If you're the kind of person who eats well versus loses X pounds. And so a little bit more focus on who these kids are becoming. who we're becoming, who our employees are becoming. That's about habits and skills. That's exactly right. The most Instagram quote in our book, that's what we shared with the team out there, is people don't decide their futures.

They decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures. Who we are is our habits. And so can we instill those in our kids? Can we instill those in our people? Can we lead by example? A lot of our process is around who are we becoming as an example to our kids and to our people at work? It's really good. And none of it's perfect.

Oh, gosh. Lots of work to do. We definitely need to have them back. And I think what I'd love to do is have our audience submit their questions. So I'm just going to throw this out there. Submit your questions for Jay and Wendy, we'll get them back on. Okay, before I let you go, I'd love for you to share the way for our audience to engage with you on this couples retreat stuff. The one thing is doing a facilitated couple's goal setting retreat. Right. How much does that cost? I think it's three different tiers like y'all do. Like there's the idea. $600 for two people maybe. Is that what it is? So is it an intensive where they come and you actually walk the couples through all this stuff? It's allowing people to do all the work, open up their calendars, book their vacations. You do all of that in the workshop. And it also provides a safe environment where there's a lot of other newbies. Well, not only would I like to come.

I think everybody should do this because there is an accountability of doing it the first time with some professionals. And you kind of have to do it that I think would set you up to really win for decades. That's why I think going to this retreat would be really, really fun. So I really highly recommend. Okay, it's in the show notes. Link for the retreat. Folks, I'm telling you, I think you have to do this. It works.

What a great couple. This is so refreshing. I took notes. This is really important stuff. And what we've got to do is we need to have Wendy back on and kind of do some stuff that would be great for professional women who are also moms and wives. I think that's really good. Would you be willing to do that? Of course.

That is her speciality. And that is not pandering. I think that that would be really good. Yeah, I speak all across country on that. All right. So we'll have Wendy back. So we'll get on that in a future program. So women, stay tuned.

It's going to be really great. We'll figure all that out. It's going to be a great conversation. Jay, you're awesome. Wendy, thank you. You guys, this is really helpful. We need to do more of this. So this is just the beginning of this conversation.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I took pages of notes, and I meant what I said. We really, really think this is a vital conversation. And so here's what we want to do. If you have questions, we want you to send them to podcast.

Podcast at Entreeleadership.com. Put Wendy and Jay in the subject line. So our simple email address, podcast at Entreeleadership.com. Put your comment, put your question in there that you'd love for them to weigh in on. But Wendy and Jay in the subject line, and we're going to get them. We might just have them back on. I want to have Wendy on for her point of view and everything that she's doing, which is so needed. How are you a high-achieving wife and mother and professional?

I mean, that's like she had a cape on. she just didn't let us see it. So again, I really want to further this conversation because this is important stuff. Now, you heard of mention the couple's goal setting retreat, they do. And we've got a link for you in the show notes. It's episode 296. So just go to entreleadership.com. Click on episode 296. We've got the details there. Also I want to point out that at the beginning of the interview, Jay mentioned that we have a millionaire's book coming out. Of course, he's talking about Chris Hogan's Everyday Millionaire's book. I just want to mention that to you.

If you've not heard about it, you'll hear more. But that releases in January. Visit Everyday Millionaires.com to get more information and pre-order the book. All right. How about our Entree Leadership tool for you this episode? It is the goal tracker. If you want to convert your goals into reality and momentum, this tool is going to help you do it.

It's going to introduce goal setting to you and your team, help you cast vision for yourself and your team. And it's going to help you and your team get involved in a continual goal setting process. So chock full of goodness is the right time of year to be doing this as you set the table for a great 2019. If you want to get it, text the phrase, goal tracker. That's goal tracker. Text that to 33444. That's 33444.

Or you can click on the link in the show notes. It's episode 296. While we're giving away good stuff. Infusionsoft bringing you the How to Achieve Work, Life Balance eBook. 70% of small business owners have sacrificed family or vacation time for work. 58% of those folks feel guilty about taking any time off at all. 48% of entrepreneurs and leaders have suffered from work-related stress in the past year. This e-book is going to address all those critical issues and more.

If you want to get it, go to infusionsoft.com slash work. life balance. That's infusionsoft.com slash worklife balance. Or you can click on the link in our show notes, episode 296. All right, folks, that's going to do it. Big thanks to Jay and Wendy for hanging out with us here in studio. On behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey folks, I want to make sure that you're aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of the Chris Hogan show. I am so excited to be able to Talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to talk about your money, your life, your dreams, and your goals.

You know why? Because I'm your coach. Whether we're talking about building wealth, paying off your home early, investing, paying for college, and guess what? How to become an everyday millionaire. We're going to focus on taking your calls because you matter to me. Together, we can do this. This is the Chris Hogan Show. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search the Chris Hogan Show in

Apple Podcasts or go to Chris Hogan360.com.