You Don’t Rise to the Level of Your Goals, You Sink to the Level of Your Systems

Welcome to The Missing Secret Podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield

Hey, and I'm John Mitchell. So we have a cool topic today, and I want you to think about this. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Now, let me just repeat that again. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You sink to the level of your systems. I just think that is profound, and I wish I had come up with it. James clear, who wrote atomic habits, said that, had you ever heard that before?

Kelly, I have not. I have not heard that. It's so true. I love how succinct it is. And I mean, it's so true when, yeah, as soon as I heard that, I'm like, Oh my gosh. You know it's that is such it could, there couldn't be a truer statement. So I'm excited to dig into this topic a little today, too. And I love James clear, for anybody who hasn't read that book, atomic habits. It's an excellent book,

You know. Now I wish I hadn't told you that he, he, that's his quote. Then I could have claimed it as my own. Anyway, you know. So think about this as this relates to to think it be it so the 12 minute a day technique is a system for controlling your actions. It's a system for controlling your mindset. Okay, well, this technique that we teach of stepping back from your life twice a week to just think to deep think, hey, system for thinking. Then we have a system for being organized, where you plan your day the night before and time block your day and using our forms a system. And then we have a system for being a conduit of learning. Of course, all this is affirmed in the live GPS template, but, but that's what think it'd be. It is. It's just a series of of systems, and it really brings home this foundational idea that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And so I think it's, it's a cool way to sort of look at think it'd be it, you know, one of the things that that wanted to talk about is, is this idea of of people not growing intellectually on an ongoing basis, And I am teaching this to my class tomorrow, but I've told them before that the average person doesn't read three books the rest of their life after they graduate from college. Kelly, did you buy that? Do you believe that

I cannot believe that that's true? I mean, like, I cannot believe that's true, but you're coming from someone who just like, you know, I am a voracious reader. I love to read, and so for me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that would be like, taking air away from me, you know, yeah. But so it's hard for me to even wrap my head around that that's true. Is that, do we, like, know that that's that's true? Yeah?

Well, you know, yes, and, and Darren Hardy says you know, he's in a keynote speech I was watching. He says it and, and I did the research to me, it is amazing, and, and, but, but we're, we're growing sweet, you know, which is hard to fathom that, but I'll tell you, I I knew this, and I bet you could see this too, if you went to your employees and said, What do you do for personal growth, you would find that they think they're growing, when in fact, they are entertaining. You know, to me, personal growth is where it's both consistent and strategic relative to what you want to accomplish, and so I dare say that very few of them are doing anything that is strategic relative to what they want to accomplish, unless you're forcing up to which you probably are. Right?

Yeah, we have a mechanism within the organization where people are forced to develop and learn and grow. But if I were to ask that outside of the framework of the organization, yeah, I think that there would be a lot. There would be the sound of crickets,

Right, right? No kid. So, so what tell us about your system? How does the system work?

So we've got a couple of different things that we do. So every week, on Wednesday, we have what we call Wednesday wisdom. And so it is about getting good at our craft, you know, recruiting. So it's specific to the recruiting space, and, you know, new anything that's going to help you get better at being a recruiter. So it could be, you know, talking about new scripts. It could be talking about new. Technology that's out there. It could be debriefing a a deal that was either a success, one that went sideways, it's it's really all about the art of recruiting. And then we've got our monthly that we do on the last Friday of every month, that's an hour and a half, and that's more of our high performance training that we do. And it's specifically related to, like, just you as a person. So it's, you know, we've, we've had where we've done a book, you know, somebody, they're reading a book for the month, and then that hour and a half discussion is all about that book we read. So we did that for Mel Robbins book, right? Her most recent one that she just that she launched, and why is the name escaping me right now? It's about letting go, let them be, let them theory, yep, the let them theory, yeah, that's what we Yep. That's what we did. So, so that's kind of how we have our frame. So we have a weekly one that's specific to that, and then we have a weekly personal growth one that's just about you and your development as a person.

So who's conducting those? Are you connecting them? Yes, you're the only one that could conduct them. I bet, right,

Well, and I think other team members will contribute, yeah. So, um, you know, I give everybody the opportunity. Like, hey, if you've got a topic you want to, like, teach on or train on or educate on, please. Like, I need some, you know, I need some good stuff, if there are you. So, getting the ideas from the team, having them lead it So absolutely, and usually it's not me leading a discussion, you know, I'll set up the framework for it all. I'm in the discussion pointing things out to people that maybe they're not recognizing or seeing. But it is a group discussion that's being had, you know, with questions, facilitated questions and everything to keep the conversation moving right.

You know, that's a great use of your time. And I did the same thing when I was in the reverse mortgage business. I didn't, I didn't at the start, but then I saw exactly what we've been talking about, that then most people are not growing. And if I didn't give them the growth, they weren't getting it. And so I remember every, every Monday morning with my loan officers, I would, I would conduct, you know, a 45 minute session. You know, it's just amazing to me that that people don't appreciate the power of personal growth. I mean, the reality is, nobody's far enough to be highly successful on their own. If you don't have the wisdom of experts coming into your head, you're going to be challenged to be successful. And so, you know, I love what you're

Yeah. And I think the thing that I want to point out, you know, is that this is like anything else. This is like any other habit, you know, any anything else that you're trying to build, you know. And that's why our system, you know, the actual life, GPS, where you are, through repetition, programming these things in is so important, because we all know things are going a million miles an hour. You are in a reactive mode the majority of the day, dealing with your life, with the things that it it's easy to to say, because I think we've all said this at some point, and I remember John, you know, when we were talking about early before you really put an emphasis on on personal growth in your life years and years ago was I'm so busy, I'm too busy with that. I'm like, you are running a million miles an hour. You're not making the time for that, you know? And I would argue, you know that not investing in that time like it's one of those things for me that is about working smarter. If you slow down a little to gain that, you know, to break new things into your life, you're not like spinning your wheels trying to figure out something on your own again. It's just saves you, it shortens your path to success. It, you know, all of those things that we've talked about. So for those that are listening that haven't made that a huge you know, foundation of their life, you know, or who have used that excuse? I'm so busy, I'm like, I argue on several fronts with that, which is, use your and I guarantee 90% of the people listening make time for social media, right? The mind most scrolling you're doing on your phone, some of this, too, is just about dialing in your algorithm too do that. It's about making sure you're following the people who are experts in whatever area you're wanting to be focused in, so that how you are spending your time too, is feeding you, you know, new information and bringing new ideas into your awareness. So there's, there's

lots of different ways to do that now, but I wanted to just point that out, because it's like everything else in life, if you don't figure out a system, you know, and then with the life GPS, you've got a way to install that, you know, and build that habit and install that system, then it's not going to happen. You're gonna. Your eyes, and five years have gone by, and you'll be like, Oh, I really been wanting to do that. And then five more years will go by, you know, and so anyway,

Well, and like you say, it comes down to, to a system and and I'll, I'll show you, maybe by, by example. And I look back now and I see how freaking unenlightened I was at at 50. And like you alluded to, I've I was too up until 50, I was too busy for personal growth. And it's I'm really assessing that. Why am I not more successful than I should be? I'm like, you know, right there, that might be a good place to look at you're too busy for personal growth. And and I saw, saw that was a problem, and, but it's interesting. I read, Think and Grow Rich. I see that's a problem. I hadn't quite figured out how to create a system for personal growth. And I know I've told you this story, but you know, a couple of years after I started doing this, and you I meet the ging and and the ging tells me, she says, Have you ever seen Success Magazine? And back back in the day, of course, Darren Hardy was a publisher, and in the magazine, they literally had a CD in the magazine, and Darren would interview like four world class people, and, you know, they'd be great people, well known people like the future is for Google, or might been The legendary Jack Welch, probably the the most successful CEO ever, or it could be people that were unknown, but they were experts in like the field of marketing or communication or employee empowerment anyway, so I remember ging suggesting I read or listen to it. Of course, she's probably thinking, God, I gotta help this poor schlub. You know, may marry the guy, because I had to put him on my shoulders and carry him across the goal line. And so I go ahead and I read, I listened to the first CD. It's fabulous. Then I the next month, I get get it again, fabulous and like, then I'm I remember calling Success Magazine and saying, hey, I want to buy 36 back issues. And so I buy 36 issues, back issues, they come. I pull all the CDs out of the magazines, throw the magazines away, create a drawer in my office, throw the CDs in, in the

drawer, and now I'm like, Okay, I got to create a system. And so the system was pretty simple, first thing every Monday morning, before I did anything, I'd walk into my office, close my eyes, pick two CDs, and then I barge into my garage and stick them in the CD player in my car, and my commitment to myself was to listen to both of them by the end of the week. Now that's a that's a system. And then all that was articulated in my life GPS template, which is another system. So it was a system within a system. And and I started doing this. And, I mean, it was transformative. I mean, I remember my inner circle coming to me and going, where the heck are you getting these ideas? I mean, it's an idea a week. And I I told him, I said, hey, they're not my ideas. They're these are the ideas of true experts, and if it was such a transformation in me. And of course, you that's great thing about you. You've been, you've been a learner and grower all your life. But that was not the case with me, and it's not the case with most people. But again, you got to have the system that's, that's the difference and so. And one other thing that you'll find interesting. So, you know, I teach our methodology to Chris do Connie, that the athletic director at the University of Texas, and in the process of teaching him this, I'm like, I promise you your coaches are not growing as as much as they should, because, quote, unquote, they're too busy for personal growth. Well, you know, they're just like, you know, of course, I was older than most our coaches, and so I could have that perspective, and they're myopically focused on on winning, but but to their detriment in terms of not sharpening the saw. And so. So that was the, the genesis for, I created, like six years ago, a weekly Personal Growth program for our 18 head coaches that I run every week and so, but again, the big lesson is systems. And you know, one other thing I might mention, and and Kelly, I bet you would agree with

this. This idea of of having a great Daily, Weekly to Do system is really pivotal with your team. How do you make sure they're organized?

Yeah, so we, we've got a couple of different things that we do, and so the first is, you've got a plan the night before, right? You have to walk into your day with a plan for the following day.

Did you find that people are resistant to that? Or,

Well, totally like it was a foreign concept. Planning their day at all was a foreign it was a foreign concept. Oh, my God, you know, let alone, you know, planning your day the night before, you know, and so that you're walking in and hitting the ground running, you know, that ways

You know, how the hell can that be? These are intelligent people, and they can get that.

I mean, it's reactive. It's like, I'm on a wing and a prayer every day. Like, that's kind of like that. I'm going to go where the wind takes me, right versus, you know, coming in with a strategic plan related to, because they've got, you know, they've got an activity bonus, yeah, they're eligible for each month, and they've got excellence, you know, so instead of like, looking at like, okay, how am I gonna, you know, organize my day so that I'm sure I'm hitting all of the things that I need to hit. And so the planning, the day, the night before, time blocking and those key priority, you know, so getting your your major the things that move the needle. So what those top three things are, right first thing in the morning? Because I know what happens from a psychological standpoint when you're thinking about those things all day, because typically, there are things that aren't maybe your favorite thing to do, sometimes Yeah, and they're also Yep. And so we've got our training, you know, and then also to at any given moment it is, hey, pull your calendar up for me, you know, to, you know, to help either optimize it, whatever the case is. So it is something that they know I'm paying attention to, and it's important to me. And it's just about working smart again, it's about helping them understand how to leverage their time so that they're, you know, getting the most out of everything that they're doing. And so, yeah, that's how we do it within our organization. And they have their they have their electronic calendars, and it's just the generational thing. They like the, you know, they're, they live on their calendars, their their Outlook or Google calendars, right? And then they will use their own like to do system. So, like I use Microsoft to do because it syncs up with my and I can use chat GPT to organize everything for me and everything. But, you know, my business partner, she loves a handwritten to do list that she literally can cross.

Can can cross, you know. And so your system can be, it's one of one, it's what will what it's what works for you. Exactly that is what you need to do. But you've got to have the, you know, I think the you've got to build that habit and having that life GPS that helps you with through repetition, you know, get into the habit of planning the night before time right in, you know. So anyway, that's what we do within real station. That's what I do. I live my life is I live my life by my calendar,

Well, and I see I was telling my classes, you know, from a 30,000 foot view of success, success is really so easy because the bar is so freaking low with most people. When you look at the masses out there and and they're not very organized, scale of one to 10, they're probably a five. They're not growing, they're not impacting their mindset. You know, they're not stepping aside each week to think, when you really look at it from a 30,000 foot view, and you see that you're doing those four or five key things, and other people are not. I mean, it's like night and day. I just my, you know, success is not that, that hard. Now you got to, you got to be applying all that. If you're talking about success in your career, you got to have a viable business to be applying it to that's foundational. But if you have that, and you're doing those four or five things, you're at such an advantage over everybody else that just if you do those things, just know you're going to be highly successful because the other people aren't doing it. So okay, well, with that bit of hopefully wisdom, we will see you next week.