The Ryan Hanley Show - This Simple Framework Unlocks Extraordinary Outcomes

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comWhat if you could turn your mental and physical exhaustion into unstoppable resilience and efficiency? 7 Ways to Make Better Decisions Using AI: https://ai.ryanhanley.comKeynote on YouTube: https://youtu.be/y1kAnNS75u4This episode shares my journey from hitting rock bottom at Elevate 2017 in Milwaukee to emerging as a stronger, more focused individual by the time Elevate 2018 rolled around. I share the critical moment that led to my overhaul of habits, which improved my health, sharpened my mind, and gave me a more positive outlook.We then explore Charlie Munger's intriguing decision-making frameworks, including the 80-20 rule and Occam's Razor, and how these models can transform your approach to investments and major life choices. I also opened up about my struggles with dissatisfaction and how regular counseling sessions became a cornerstone for personal growth and contentment. By understanding the opportunity cost and steering clear of emotional biases, I’ve made more deliberate and successful decisions.Finally, we tackle the productivity killers that keep you from reaching your full potential. From cutting down on alcohol and unnecessary TV time to embracing the Pomodoro technique and the Eisenhower matrix, I share actionable tips to boost your efficiency. Visualizing success and committing to structured frameworks have been game-changers in my life, and I’m here to guide you in implementing these strategies for extraordinary personal and professional achievements. Tune in to learn how intentional actions and disciplined frameworks can transform your life just as they did mine.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have an extra special episode for you. This is the recording of a keynote I did about two months ago titled, How to Become a Finisher, The Secret to Making Better Decisions and Creating Inevitable Outcomes. You've heard me talk on this show quite a bit about frameworks, mental models, mindsets that have allowed me to hit high levels of success over and over again, whether it's as an executive or in my own endeavors as an entrepreneur. And it's these frameworks that create guardrails for decisions that lead to consistent, positive outcomes.

We're never going to be 100% with our decisions. However, by using frameworks, by using mental models, we can be more consistent in our positive outcomes. And that's what we're trying to do. That's how we compound success. That's how we hit our goals. And that's how we become finishers. I hope you enjoyed this keynote. And guys, I created a resource. It's a free guide. It's like 40 pages, very detailed, called How to Make Better Decisions Using AI. And if you go to AI, the letter is ai.ryanhanley.com. There'll also be a link in the description or the show notes wherever you're either listening or watching this show. You can get that resource for free. Just enter your name and email and you will get that guide. Using AI to make decisions is the future of

leadership. It doesn't mean there isn't intuition. It doesn't mean our experience and our expertise doesn't play a role. It means AI has features, has use cases that allow us to create more consistent outcomes and be a true value add and enhancer to our business. This guide breaks it down for you. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy this episode of the show. I was proud of this keynote. It is the first time that I've gone fully outside of insurance with a keynote topic,

and I was very happy with the outcome. I hope that you enjoy it as well. Love your feedback. You can go over to YouTube, leave a comment, or just DM me. I'd love to hear what you think about this topic, what you think about the keynote in general. With that, let's get on to my keynote. How to become a finisher. Hello everyone. In 2017, in 2017, I had the distinct honor with my team and colleagues at Agency Nation and Trusted Choice, and one of which is in the room right now, one of

my favorite humans in the entire world, Sidney Rowe. We put on Elevate 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Was anyone there? Who was there? Jeff was there, right? Well, what many people don't know about that conference is that on the second day, there was a closing fireside chat. I was going to interview a man by the name of Michael Preen. I had been the emcee for the entire conference. This was the first time I was going to come out on stage

and actually interact with the crowd in any kind of capacity. And when I stood behind the curtain, I almost passed out. I had to be caught by one of our other team members that was behind stage with me. I had to sit down. I was seeing stars. And I was in a really rough place. I pounded a bottle of water real quick, stood up, looked at Michael Preem and said,

I might not make it. We walked out. I sat down, looked at him and mouthed the words, you have to take this. And thankfully he had the capacity and ability, he understood what was going on, he stood up and he finished. The audience didn't know the difference. I just sat there, tried to have a smile on my face and listened to him like that's the way it was supposed to go. But the truth was, I had allowed my mental and physical health to deteriorate to the point that I couldn't finish a two-day conference where all I was doing was emceeing I said and not that

emceeing is easy but you're out for two three minutes and you're back behind the curtain there was no reason for me to feel the way that I had felt. And at that time, I weighed 217 pounds. I drank. I ate terrible food. I didn't sleep well. I didn't nourish myself mentally. I didn't read.

I wasn't going and seeing a counselor. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't nourish myself mentally. I didn't read. I wasn't going and seeing a counselor. I wasn't doing anything. I was barely getting by physically. But I had convinced myself I'm an athlete because I played sports in college. I'm fine. I'm in good shape. I'm okay. I'm getting by. But my body shut down.

And it was in that moment, it wasn't in that moment. I was flying home. I was flying home from that event. And as much as it was an amazing experience that to this day I think back on very fondly, it was a profound and life-changing experience I was disappointed in myself I didn't go home with a big huge smile like some Victor who had just conquered a mountain I felt like I had let myself down in 2017 I was 37 years old. At 37, I should be able to get through two days. And I vowed that that would never happen again. I would never allow myself to be so unprepared for a situation that I couldn't operate at my absolute best, regardless of the circumstances. And I began a journey that I continue on today. I started reading. Jordan Peterson, I started listening to different podcasts,

Ed Milet and others. And I came across a quote by Marcus Aurelius. Now, I know all men are into the Roman Empire, so some of you will have heard this before, right? Can't be a dude and not be into the Roman Empire. That's what the internet tells me But in 2017 I came across this quote And there was something about it that just grabbed me It's wedged in my brain.

I come back to this quote all the time. Because we are responsible. We're responsible for what we put in our brains, for what we put in our body. We're responsible for these things. And if we want our best out of us us we have to put the best in and I was not doing that how could I say I was being the best version of myself for my for my wife how could I say I was being the best version of myself for my kids how was I saying I was being the best version of self for the team name I had 19 team members on my team at the time for my audience for our customers

if I wasn't reading and feeding myself good stuff if I wasn't putting good fuel in my body if I wasn't exercising and taking care of myself I wasn't surrounding myself with people who are positive your soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts it becomes who you are and I didn't like who I was and I went on a journey and 12 months later we put on what I believe no offense to sue the single greatest insurance conference in the history of the world of all time, Elevate 2018. We had 817 people. We had 315 people in 2017. We did 817 people a year later.

Again, I had an amazing team. But in large part, this was due to a massive energy shift. Not only was just in general was I able to produce more, work more, and work longer hours, but I also was more positive with my team, more accepting of the challenges that they were facing, able to answer and take questions in a positive way without reacting. Because I had changed what I put in my body and was slowly re-d redying my soul to what I wanted it to be. During that time I developed a mental framework that I use to this day to make big decisions and to get projects done. The title of this talk is how to become

a finisher. And what I'm going to ultimately share with you is what I call the finish formula. It is a very simple formula. We don't use it for every decision we make during our day, but for the big decisions, the big things, those projects that are paramount, that are crucial to our success,

that mean something to us, and they don't have to be business-related. This formula is something i come back to over and over and over again but first we have to address why we make bad decisions in the first place now what is the color that enrages bulls like when bulls get all pissed off what's the color that enrages bulls? Like when bulls get all pissed off, what's the color that they see? Red, right? Red? Do you know that bulls are colorblind? Right? They don't see red. We all said red. Red's in all the shows.

They don't see this color. It's a belief that most people have that's intrinsic false. How much of our brain do we use? It's not a trick question. How much of our brain do we use? Right? 10%. We are told and have been told for 90 years that we use 10% of our brain. and if only we can figure out how to tap into the rest, we'll all be geniuses. And it's just not true. We actually use, in every 24 hours, essentially 100% of our brain. The reason we think we only use 10% of our brain is because of a random misquotation of the original study in a news article

in which the author of the news article changed it from utilization to capability or from capability to utilization so the author was saying though we use a hundred percent of our brain we tend to only operate at about 10% of our capability the author of the news article changed it from that to we only use, we only actually use 10% of our brain, and that single misquotation has created 90 years of misinformation. Yet we believe, we base entire beliefs on the fact that somehow if we eat this mushroom or we do this breathing exercise, that somehow we're going to tap into more of our brain.

There's more of these, we're going to fly more of our brain there's more of these we're gonna fly through a couple of them just because they're fun oh I didn't get that this clicker sucks there we go boom there's a 10% one I'm gonna do this I don't know why it's not flipping maybe I'm not pointing at the right thing There we go. You cannot see the Great Wall of China from space. Can't do it. We've been told that for how long?

Ever? Can't see it. Chinese actually sent an astronaut up because they didn't believe us. And he goes, yeah, yeah, I can't see it. All the pictures we have of it are from cameras or video cameras that have amplification characteristics. One more. I am sorry to tell you, and as a major baseball fan who's been to Cooperstown probably three dozen times, Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball. Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball. There's an entire town in upstate New York that I live about an hour and a half from,

based on the fact that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, he did not. Abner Doubleday was at West Point during the time, and in 1939, or 1839, I'm sorry, when baseball was invented by Abner in Cooperstown, he was actually running drills in West Point. There's not a single article, the travel schedule for West Point, all his journals, all his writings, he was never there. The whole Abner Doubleday story was invented by a guy by the name of Abner Graves, who was a lunatic. Two convicted murders ended his life in an insane asylum. He wrote one letter, which was complete fiction, that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, and no one gave two craps about it until 1910, when Robert Spalding, who had ultimately founded

the Spalding Athletic Company, wanted a national pastime and needed someone to build around and he took this one singular letter invented the Abner Doubleday myth and now we all go to a Doubleday field in Cooperstown. My point in sharing this with you guys is that we operate on a day-to-day basis through beliefs, through information that we don't we don't ever confirm, right? We let our emotions guide us. We want to believe that Abner Doubleday invented baseball. I want to believe it. I've played on Doubleday field three times. I'm actually like I have like about 600 average, a home run, and a couple doubles, so I'm doing all right there. But it's not true.

My pitch to you today is we have to remove belief. We have to remove emotions and feelings from our decision-making process. And instead, replace that with a series of frameworks that we work our major decisions through, not moment to moment, but our major decisions through in order to more often be successful and consistently successful in our decision making over a longer period of time. There's some reasons why we hold these biases anchoring. How many of you have ever negotiated on something? Right? If you're buying, offer low.

If you're selling, anchor high. Because whoever gets the first offer in, we then negotiate from that number. Anchoring. So whatever your first thought is, it is very, very difficult for you to move too far from that original thought. Right? Status quo bias. Essentially, this is what our entire industry is based on. right? We don't like to change. Survivorship bias. We will take one individual case in which something was successful, and despite all the exceptions in that particular case, we will play that out as an absolute and something that should be duplicated.

Base rate neglect is a terrible series of words in order, but essentially it means there is an entire database of information that we choose to neglect in exchange for one data point that we actually agree with. entire political system and ultimately the most insidious of all these is hindsight bias which Annie Duke who's a professional poker player more than five million and winnings in her career she wrote an awesome book called thinking and bets assuming that decision-making is good or bad based on a small set of outcomes seemingly one is a pretty reasonable strategy for learning chess and what she means by that as a linear game as soon as you put uncertainty into the equation business life relationships in this case poker as soon as you put uncertainty into the equation business life relationships in this case poker as soon as uncertainty is added to the equation we can not take one singular outcome and decide whether it was a good decision or

not think about your first marriage. Right? Good decision? However, it doesn't mean you shouldn't get married again. It just means maybe we should reevaluate the way we pick the other human we decide to spend our life with. Because if you use the same structure for making the decision on the second person as you did the first one, you will probably have a third. Now understand hindsight bias. What is a better way? Frameworks, filters, and ultimately we're going to get to finishing.

Charlie Munger great decision maker one of the best investors of all time used frameworks and mental models to make all of his decisions why so many people were able to criticize him while he sat around and did nothing yet consistently made some of the best bets on stocks and on companies in the of any investor in the history of the world is because he did not make emotional or belief-based bets. Charlie Munger had a series of models that were his, and he applied them to situations,

and if the situation came out no, the answer was no. No matter how he felt about the CEO, no matter how he felt about the industry. A good example of this is crypto. Berkshire Hathaway has not invested in any form of crypto. Certainly not up until the time Charlie died in November. Wasn't because they weren't interested in it. Wasn't because they didn't think there wasn't potential.

But the models that they used that had made them consistently successful for over 60 years in investing, it didn't fit. So they were able to emotionally remove themselves from the idea of chasing easy profits and continue on. And I think they have like 187 billion in cash as of their last report. So they're doing all right, right? It's good enough for Charlie Munger, be good enough for us Schmucks okay other frameworks these are some commonly ones you know we're gonna fly through these 80-20 rule right we all know this one none of us practice it although we all love to talk about it at when we're having drinks after conferences your 20 your top 20 percent of your customers make 80 percent of your revenue and this

applies almost to every aspect of your life Occam's razor if we're given two solutions the simplest solution will more often than not produce better results more often than not we're never gonna get every decision right no matter how many I don't know what frameworks we use but the idea here, what I want you to take away from this, is that if we remove emotion, belief, and ideas that we haven't verified from our decision-making process, we can set ourselves up to make more better decisions that will consistently produce positive outcomes over the long term. At any given moment, in any situation that has uncertainty,

we can potentially win. Think of all those people who are pulling the slot machine handle. They have one data point. One time, I won once, and therefore, pulling a handle is going to make me money, and I'm going to keep doing it, removing the entertainment value from the thing. Opportunity cost. Do you weigh both the positive and negative ramifications of saying yes and the positive and negative ramifications of

saying no to this decision and weighing them out in a math equation? Or do you just go, you know, my favorite insurance nerd likes this new CRM, so I think I'm going to drop everything we're doing and buy that one. Because it feels good. It feels like we're doing something. Did you do an opportunity cost analysis? Is it more or less complex to switch CRMs?

No. You're like, he's cool, she's awesome, they're both on that CRM, that means I'm a dork, I need to get on that one. That's what we do. And then we chase the shiny object. And then our staff hates us, and we spend more money, and we never actually use it, because we're using emotions, beliefs, and unverified ideas to make a decision instead of just applying a framework to it. And if the framework says yes and you want to do it, great. Because now you work through something that removed all the emotion and belief from it. So, before 2017, before Elevate, before that moment,

I operated most of my life with just a general sense of dissatisfaction. I probably couldn't have put my finger on it at the time. I thought I was doing good stuff. I had good friends. I enjoyed being a dad. But I never felt like I was like 100% me. I never felt like I was everything that I could possibly be. That I was, I wasn't, not that I wasn't proud of myself, but I knew I could be more. And I couldn't figure out what it was going on inside of me that didn't allow me to get there.

Maybe I didn't want it enough. You know, maybe it's because my dad's an alcoholic, right? Like, we all have stuff. You have your stuff, I have my stuff. For 37 years of my life, I used my stuff to be 80% of what I could be. And this was what it was. This was the easiest list to make out of my, all these slides. A general sense of discontentment. You just never feel 100% happy. I'm just dissatisfied. Like, even on my wins, I'd be like, yeah, but. Right? You ever get like a good win and then throw a yeah, but in there? You're like, why did I do that? I just had a win. Where'd that yeah, but come from? Just fast to get frustrated. Why didn't that go my way?

What's wrong with me? When's it my turn? And I had to take a really hard look at myself. I don't like these things. I don't want this. This is terrible. And then I had a friend throughout the idea of silent suffocation.

And actually, this friend is also a mentor. And he said to me something that has changed my life. And use this, don't use it, but it's what's worked for me. He said, go find a counselor. Man, woman, doesn't matter. Mine's a woman. Meet with that person every other week for the rest of your life and just consider it a life expense. Whether you're doing great, whether the world's on fire, whether you're happy, sad, or

anywhere in the middle, just show up at the thing and talk. And what I found myself after a few months, right, I was really struggling with this. What I found myself explaining was this idea where I was like, I feel like I get my head above water for a minute, and then all of a sudden I'm back under, and I don't know how to stay above water. I don't know how to stay, to swim on top of the water. I keep coming down in it, and then I work my way back up, and then all of a sudden I'm back underwater again, and I hate it So I'm constantly working and I don't want that. I want to get ahead right I want to be on the yacht All right, I'm gonna be doing one of those dives off the yacht that you see all the rich people do from the second story That's amazing and I want to do that someday

But I can't do that when I'm trying to get air, you know, cuz I can barely keep my head above water And she said to me, you're making decisions with your emotions, feelings, and beliefs, and they're lying to you. Because we are not our emotions. We're not. Our emotions are data points trying to keep us alive in this exact minute. That's it. That's all they are. They're chemical reactions happening in your brain. They're trying to keep you alive right this second.

They don't care about five minutes from now. They don't care about a year from now. Yet we operate like they're a guiding path. They are not your friends. They're data points. It's important to understand what they're saying to you. But we can't make decisions on our emotions. And when I learned this lesson through a lot of freaking work, although you're getting all of that for free today, so you're very lucky. She charges me $65 for this.

When I started to let that sink into me and really grab onto it and started to listen, started to listen to those emotions and what they were actually telling me and how misaligned they were from what I actually wanted, right? You worked out yesterday. You need to work out today. No one's going to know if you show up to work a little late. Send that email tomorrow. You can just, on the plane ride,

you can fix that thing before your talk or your presentation. Because there's a Netflix series that your buddy told you was awesome, and man, it would be really cool to talk to him about that series. Yet none of those things are getting me where I want to be. When I'm alone, I know exactly who I want to be, and then I let myself get talked out of it. How we get there is by applying frameworks, filters, and mental models that will consistently help us make better decisions over the long term. And when done, as we see on the quote here from Naval Ravikant, those good decisions start to compound over time. Each good decision compounds on the next one,

and the next one, and the next one, and all of a sudden we wake up and a year later we've lost 27 pounds I'm as mentally clear as I've ever been in my life I can operate for days and we pulled off the greatest insurance conference in the history of the world ever it's the best one ever and everyone will like it

and there never will be I'm very biased because I put it on with a bunch of my friends but I have the microphone so I put it on with a bunch of my friends but I have the microphone so I can say whatever the fuck I want. The truth is the difference was night and day not just in my energy not just in my physical appearance but in my attitude I was happy I was doing something that I that I was finally able

to love I loved it I loved it supposedly in 2017 although I felt dissatisfied discontent like I was underachieving doing the same exact thing a year later and just everything about it was amazing I was I was allowing myself to experience all the feelings because for that year I didn't live my life on my emotions or my feelings or my beliefs or unverified information. I set a series of frameworks with the help of my counselor, and I just went off the frameworks. And you know what the framework said? Go to the fucking gym. I know you don't want to. I know you don't like the gym, but you know what? You want your brain to work better?

You want to be happier? You want to stop being depressed? Use your body. Can't get around it. Doesn't mean you need to be an athlete. Doesn't mean you need to be a donus. You don't have to be in swimsuit models or swimsuit magazines. Just move your body even when you don't want to, right?

We all talk about cold calling. No one likes the cold call. Cold calling is the worst. What do you do? Just make the calls. Same thing goes for everything in our life? apply the filters frameworks and models that get you to the result that you want and be relentless in your commitment to those models and What will happen is over time the results compound and compound and compound and we find ourselves in a place we never thought we could get to.

100% of who we are. I get chills just saying that. I don't know that I'm there right now. But man, I've felt it for moments. I have. It feels very fucking good. 100%. You are operating at your current max capacity. You are satisfied in who you are. You are achieving results. You are able to work through obstacles. People enjoy being around you. You got a big ass smile smile on your face, and you are awesome at sex

Hundred percent of who you are who doesn't want to be awesome sex um all right. Sorry. I like sex jokes, so what um The mistake that I was making was actually quite small and I worked with again worked with my counselor in this particular putting this all together but the mistake I had been making unbeknownst to me was I valued these three pieces of information the most I wanted to be prepared I wanted to know know this I wanted to know, know this stuff, have the right connections, be in the right place. I wanted to be able to work at a pace,

meaning have an ability, have the energy. And I knew I was willing to put in the hours. And when you think about how prepared you are, the pace you can work at, and the number of hours you're willing to put in, you get your max growth capacity. And every single one of you can do that equation, and most likely does that equation with most things. And somehow, we still don't get exactly where we want to be.

Even if we do, we don't go as far as we're capable of. And the reason is we forget the denominator. And that is what I have been doing for the first 37 years of my life. If we do not consider the distractions, then the growth doesn't mean anything. Because every distraction cuts into that max growth. Every single distraction. Wake up hungover with foggy brain because you can't not have that drink the night before.

Growth potential comes down a little bit. Have to watch Netflix every night for some reason? That comes down. Refuse the time block, take every meeting, don't outsource, refuse to use virtual assistants, still feel like even though you're the owner or the top-level producer that you need to do the $5 an hour work because that's who you are,

you are limiting your upside you are not 100 of yourself we all remove forget to remove the distractions so distractions for me were I felt I needed to have a beer or two every night just for whatever reason you know wind down I got ADD my brain's going on high level you know I gotta wind down I need to have a beer or two every night, right? That's 360 calories that my body does not need. Alcohol also slows your metabolism. So not only are you putting extra calories in your body that it doesn't need, your metabolism, what actually burns all the stuff that was already in there, slows down. Also, regardless of what you think and alcohol's impact on your ability

to fall asleep, you sleep like shit when you've had alcohol in your system. And I have tracked it multiple times using multiple different devices. You are not special or unique if you have a drink, you sleep worse and you have less energy when you wake up in the morning. It's just the way it is. I'm not saying you shouldn't drink. I love drinking, guys. Just so you know. We just need to make decisions on actual information. But that was a distraction for me, right? Instead of doing an extra hours worth of work or reading or spending time with my children, God forbid,

or just going to bed earlier, I felt the need to sit up on the couch by myself. That was a distraction. I had to cut that out of my life. If being the best version of myself was a priority for Elevate 2018, I had to cut that out of my life. I the best version of myself was a priority for for elevate 2018 I had to cut that out of my life I didn't stop drinking altogether I made a rule I get one night a week that was my rule I go one night a week that's fine right that's reasonable I stopped watching bullshit TV I watched a few

sporting events and, during the time when I normally would have distracted myself with the television, I read. I read books. I read a lot of books. That's what I chose to do. And so on and so on, I started attacking every aspect of my life and saying, what are the necessary distractions that I need to move now we're never gonna get rid of all of them I wanted to hang out with my children compared to my goal of being the best version of myself for elevate 2018 spending three hours on the floor of my kids is probably could be considered a distraction but I wanted to do that that was a I was willing to take slightly less growth in that area for that distraction my point is not that you

live some sort of caveman or like, what do they call it now? Like monk mode. Isn't that what all the kids are saying? Who's under 35 here? You understand that language. Monk mode. Am I saying that right? Brohim over there knows. Yeah, he knows. He's, he, he confirmed. Um, so I'm not advocating for a particular lifestyle because frankly, you know what you want more than I do. What I want to give you is a tool that you can use to pass the decisions that you make in your life through if a certain goal is important to you.

But if you're not using some sort of framework to get to your goal, then it's all just bullshit. That's what your goal is, is bullshit. It's pandering and it's posturing. It's your goal is, is bullshit. It's pandering and it's posturing. It's your ego going, I'm going to write $250,000 in new business next month. And then you don't do any of the shit that you need to do to actually get there. You still futz around in the morning for an hour. You stand at the coffee thing and ask Tina about her day and Tommy about his kids and whatever instead of getting to freaking work or whatever your goal is your goal could be it works amazing I want to be a better spouse okay let's work through this are

you prepared do you understand who you know I'm a guy so I'll talk who do you understand who your wife is like what's important to her what she really values the life she wants to live? Do you understand how she wants to evolve as a human? When's the last time you can talk to her, right? Do you have the ability, the attention span, willingness to be present in the moment with her so that she feels like you're actually listening to her? And then are you willing to put in the time? Take her out to dinner or, God forbid, you go grocery shopping or something together that's just like regular.

Spend a little time if that's your goal. And then remove the distractions. Guess what you don't get to do? Desk scroll when she's talking to you. You don't get to go golfing four times that week. You don't get to check out when you get home and go into the garage and don't talk to anybody. If that's your goal, right? Are you prepared? Do you have the ability? Are you willing to put in

the time and can you remove the distractions? That is how you get shit done. But it's a framework. There's no emotion in there. Your decisions are your decisions. I'm not telling you how you need to feel or what you should believe. If a goal is important to you, this simple formula will get you there if you're willing to stick to it. And this could be a short-term goal, long-term goal, etc. Here's the other part you can reevaluate them at any time. Right? Beliefs? Beliefs are different. Beliefs are tough.

Right? You believe something. It doesn't really change. I believe this. If you make a decision based on a belief, and you have to change it, that means your belief was wrong, that means you're wrong, right? No one likes that. I don't want to feel wrong.

But if you're using a framework, you could be a month into a project and just reevaluate. What's going on? Hey, you know what? I'm doing pretty good, but there's this one distraction I haven't removed yet. Or, hey, our goal has changed slightly, and we need to do a little more preparation in this area so that we can get more done on the top end. Maybe we need to hire somebody, or I need to go get a particular training. With a framework, we can constantly reapply the formula to what we're doing and adjust course as needed to get to where we want to be. But if we're basing it on emotions, emotions are crazy, right?

I thought emotions are bad when we're young. As we get older, our freaking emotions are all over the board constantly. I cried at a commercial the other day. I don't even know why. right status health mindset technology relationships these are just distractions and not all of them are bad and at different times some will be good and some will be bad some will be fine sometimes you do just need to wind down. And desk scrolling, how to teach 10-year-olds how to hit baseball works for me. So I don't, you know, as long as I'm not doing it all the time and it's not impacting my thing, I will say, hey, I'm okay with a little bit of distraction here. I just need to turn my brain off. I'm all right with that. But it's a decision. It's not just happening to me. I didn't just open my phone and two hours later wake wake up, an expert hitting coach, but didn't get any work done

that day. I want you to bear with me through this next section here. I'm going to ask you to participate. The best part is I see at least a dozen of you death scrolling right now. I'm going to ask you to participate in this process with me. I want you to close your eyes. Okay, close your eyes. Just relax. Just let your brain go. Just relax into your chair.

I have my eyes open. Nothing's going to happen to you. Okay? Just let yourself relax. I want you to picture a milestone. Not a life-changing goal, just a milestone, a really solid, something you'd be real proud of, a nice milestone in your life 10 years from now.

10 years from now. Now, pull it back to one year. What do you have to get done in one year to hit that milestone? Just picture that in your head. So you have a 10-year thing you want to do, something you're really proud of. Where do you need to be in one year to be on pace? And again, you don't have to go all the way down the rabbit hole here. Just have a vision in your head.

Now I want you to imagine yourself in that moment, one year from now. You've done the thing. You're on pace. Who are you as a person? Think about it. Are you happy? Do you have a good relationship? Do your team enjoy working with you? Do you feel satisfied in hitting this goal? Is it a goal that's meaningful to you or is it a goal that's meaningful to somebody else? Feel who you are in that moment. You're thriving. You've hit, you're doing exactly what you set out to do. So few people do that, but you did it.

You did it. Hold that feeling. It feels good. Right? You're killing the game. You're doing what you said you would do. You're someone who can be counted on. People know that you finish projects. They look up to you, they respect you,

and you feel good about yourself. Now, on a scale of one to ten, I want you to pick a number on how confident you are you're going to be. Not just hit that mark a year from now, but be that person. Just pick a number in your head. First number that comes to your head. No right or wrong answer. Keeping your eyes closed. If you're at eight to a ten, I want you to raise your hand keep your eyes closed 8 to 10 5 to 7 5 or under thank you okay guys open your eyes 30% of the room is an 8 or a 10 it's. And actually, I know some of the people who raise their hand, and I know that they are very process-driven individuals. So I think that says something. About 30% of the room. The other 70% of the room is a 7 to guarantee that you get there. There's a way to make it a 10. But you have to commit to it.

And it's a simple formula. A finished formula. It's having that goal in your head. And the key for me when I do this visualization, because I was unwilling to commit to this. I don't like this stuff. At my heart, I'm like a wild creative.

I would have been one of those, like if this were the 70s, I definitely would have been naked in the woods, like painting people's bodies. High, like that definitely would have been me. But, you know, that's not as acceptable today. Certainly not in Texas. painting people's bodies high like that definitely would have been me but you know that's not as acceptable today certainly not in Texas so I wanted to fight this I don't like structure and fired from every job that's tried to put

me into a structure but I was also so unhappy with where I was and who I was becoming, and I just saw this path. And I originally wanted to give credit to my counselor for saying this, but then when I Googled it, it's actually an Oprah quote. What you focus on is who you become. There's nothing more to it. Right? You want to be a good dad? Focus on it? You want to be a good dad? Focus on it.

You want to be a good spouse? Focus on it. You want to be a good leader? Focus on it. But focus isn't enough. You need to have a framework that you're working through. Because it's very, very easy to get off track

and it's very easy for our focus to get taken away. Again, we make light of the technology decisions, chasing shiny object syndrome, ha ha ha, but it's because we don't have a framework behind the decision, right? It is easy to change our focus, but how do we stay on that point? To get that done, we need to have something that we pass it through. And this formula for this particular need,

getting a project finished, is the best formula that I have come across. I've used it for more than, what, 2004? I guess it's almost eight years now. Started my own independent insurance agency seven days before the zombie apocalypse happened was able to be acquired in two years exited in 2023. i've had a 15-year speaking career most of which before 2017 was an absolute friggin mess

of which which was all just random my life was random before I started adopting this process my results were random they were lucky I just happened into things and it wasn't until I started applying this very simple formula are you prepared to do the thing? Do you have the skills, knowledge, experience, connections, network, et cetera, that you need?

Do you have the abilities? Can you apply yourself in a manner that allows you to be successful? Are you willing to put in the time? And can you remove the distractions from your life that will allow you to hit as close to that goal as you possibly can, right? This shit's not easy, but easy is ordinary. You guys wouldn't be here if you were ordinary. You have to know that about yourself. I've been doing this for a very long

time. It takes a lot to come to this. I know that. You made a sacrifice and a commitment to be here. You have people at home, you have a business at home, you have things that need to get done even if you live by here and you're taking days out of your life to connect with like-minded individuals, to learn from people, and to grow. That means you're not ordinary. Ordinary people don't do that. If you haven't given yourself credit for that, you sure. Clap it up right now. Give yourself credit for spending time in this place. It's meaningful, right? This isn't some event that you have to go to because it's mandatory. You paid real money to come here and get better. That means you're not ordinary.

But not being ordinary is not enough we have to be intentional and that is what I am asking you to be not just not just extraordinary but intentional intentional with your actions intentional with the path that you take and there's there's simple ways to move distractions I'm gonna spend a lot of time on this because you can just Google this shit, but like prioritization, right? Use the Eisenhower matrix.

Use something. Google how do I make, how do I prioritize better? There's like 15 frameworks. Pick one. Try them, right? Structured time. I actually really like the Pomodoro technique, basically where you take 20 or 25 minutes out of every 30

and leave the last either 5 or 10 minutes of that block to basically address distractions. What it tells your brain is, hey, you give me 25 minutes of work, and I'm going to give you five minutes to do whatever the hell you want. That's a good trade. You may know that right now you're not the best

at removing distractions, so allow the distractions to happen and just break up your time in a way where you are giving yourself Permission to be distracted for a period of time if you earn it by doing 25 minutes of hard work That's cool, right there's others right stop eating sugar sugar's the devil it would be a schedule one drug if it wasn't for corrupt politicians and doctors it's essentially cocaine that we are allowed to put in our body so stay away from sugar even though it's amazing i mean cocaine's good too but um set boundaries as much as you can that wasn't a recommendation i've just heard that on the street so we're go to sleep change your physical space,

right? Like if your physical space is tough or you're distracted, you got to change it. I can't work on the kitchen table. So my office is in the basement. Close the doors, tell the kids off and I can actually get shit done, right? So change your physical space. Maybe get a co-working space if you work from home or if you actually have an office space and you really struggle to get deep work done there and you're not the boss, maybe talk about, hey, can I have one day where I don't go home, but maybe I have another place I can go that allows me to get that deep work done. Change your physical space. That's another way. Daily debriefs. Before I move on, daily debriefs. This is something that I actually picked up during my Rogue Wrist days, in that

five minutes at the end of the day, even three minutes at the end of the day, just to go how did today go? Like how many of you ask yourself how did today go at the end of the day? Good. Good. I knew you were going to say yes. Come on, man. Just that simple question, how did today go pretty good but geez I let that one customer monopolize an hour of my

time probably should have passed that one off or whatever and we just learn we're fallible we're gonna make mistakes the point isn't to be perfect right with daily debriefs the point is it allows you to check in and course correct as needed. There's nothing that feels better than getting that thing done. And having it get done exactly the way we said it would happen. You know those people in your life? They're like, when you say you need something done, they just get it done. Think of the amount of respect you have for that person.

Regardless of what their role is in your life my dad is one of those people my dad says he's gonna be somewhere he's there there are a lot of other things he doesn't do but I I'll tell you what. When I need somebody somewhere, he's there. Always. He has left work without telling anybody. He's changed entire weekends of plans. He's made all kinds of sacrifices. So when my kids, in particular, most of the time, that's what I need him for.

And I need him. He's there. And any of the messed up stuff that I had with him when I was younger he has earned all of it back of being the kind of guy that shows up and that's his thing now if we want to be that person. Because that feels good. I know it's a point of pride for him. He likes to shove it in my face when we're busting balls. If you want to be that person, then we have to consistently finish the things we say we're going to do. And this formula right here,

this framework, mental model, filter, whatever you want to call it, it's incredibly simple, it's incredibly straightforward, it's easy to apply, it makes complete sense, and you can use it over and over again, and I have this just as a sheet of paper that floats around my desk, that's how I keep it, it's not even taped down, and the reason for that is I want to randomly find it. I want to be sorting through papers and find this and go, am I still on it? Am I still on it?

Where are the distractions? And come back to it over and over again. The power of frameworks is to make better decisions and ultimately create inevitable outcomes. We want to become finishers. When we finish things, we're more satisfied, we're more content, we're happier,

we show more love, we communicate better, we walk tall and proud, we speak with authority, we're more compassionate of other people. Because when we believe in ourself it is way easier to believe in others and what I'm trying to give you today and I hope you will use is a simple formula to get there now if you would do me a kindness I have one more slide it is my second favorite framework for getting things done. But first, just to help me

understand, this is the first time I've ever done this particular keynote. If you take a quick snapshot of this and just leave me some feedback, that's it. And I'll give it to the guys at Soup too so they can have it and use it. And if you do that, you'll also immediately get emailed a copy of the slides for the presentation. So this helps me with that, helps me get better at what I do. I'm going to give you just a second, and then I have... Finish formula is my favorite framework. What I'm about to show you is my second favorite,

equally as powerful. And it will make immediate sense when you see it. So I'm going to give you five, four, three, two, one. You guys ready? Okay. Second favorite framework for getting things done.

Shit. Oh, I fucked it up. Why is it not working? There it is. I messed that up. It would have been much better if I had kept it on that one. So, guys, my point in saying this to you is

use this, don't use it, try it out, mess around, right? We don't know what works for us. This has worked really well for me and I think that it is simple enough and clean enough for you to apply it to whatever makes sense to you in your life. But what I ask of you

is to not let our biases, our beliefs, and our emotions keep us from getting the things done that we want to get done. The things that we came here to figure out, right? You came here to get better. You came here to grow. This is gonna help you get there and so is the Finnish formula. Pick what works for you. I wish you nothing but the best. I love you for being here. Thank you so much. Every week, we share the ideas, stories, and insights of elite performers that you can use in your business and life.

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