What Do I Want? Masterclass

3 steps from stuck to keep moving forward

System For Winning

It can feel hard when you’re stuck, can’t it?

And stuck can mean a lot of things.

Sometimes you can feel stuck in a way that’s temporary.

Say, at a time in your career or life you’ve just gotta work through.

But other times you’ve gotta make a leap.

Maybe that’s a defensive leap because you don’t see things playing out as you planned.

Or my favorite, offensively leaping to what you TRULY want.

Either way it can feel hard, when you want it to feel natural, like you’re just taking steps.

Or leaps!

“I’m seeing the next level,” said a client.

Now I will say, for decades all he’s done is keep reaching the next level!!

And he’s very good at it.

Over this time he’s made a number of HUGE career leaps.

Changing jobs at his firm.

Moving geographies.

Strategically leaping to different firms to skip a couple of rungs on the ladder.

Doing this he’s catapulted himself to near the top of a huge business.

And now he’s looking at two different leaps from here.

They’re both awesome.

But this too is where OPPORTUNITY can turn to stuck!!

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Upgrade YOU 1.1. Stand for nothing, or your bigger why

Ray McGuire is standing for something.

After a long career on Wall Street he’s stepping down as Citigroup’s vice chairman to join the race for NYC mayor.

It’s a crowded field.

In many ways the politics has turned against wealthy businessmen like former mayor Bloomberg.

Yet he’s still standing.

Perhaps it’s easy for him

He’s been making serious coin for decades.

Has strong relationships on Wall Street, in business, and the civic and political world too.

After a lifetime of it perhaps being a disadvantage, in these times his black skin might advantage him.

So perhaps all this is easy for him.

To leap from a prominent position on Wall Street.

Put time and money behind his campaign.

His reputation as a winner on the line.

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Upgrade YOU 1.1. 2 ways why goals are important

There’s lots of stuff on why goals are important.

Here I’m not talking about why you want goals.

As a winner I’m assuming that’s obvious to you.

Here I’m talking about the why of your goals.

Why do your goals matter?

You’ve likely heard of the powerful notion of starting with the why.

Yet in this short video we’re focused on the other end.

Finish with your why

The why of your goals is to finish.

To achieve.

Get it done.

Get what you want!

Goals aren’t there for you to look at and talk about.

They’re devices you’re using to get your mind and actions in gear for driving the results you want.

In this way goals are about your achieving.

And also your process.

As well as who you are being driving your goals.

In this video we whiteboard on two levels the why of your goals.

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How do you set business goals, NOW?

You have no idea what will happen in a business!

That’s what I most learned as a distressed investor at the Carlyle Group.

Investing in public securities you convince yourself that the management team and you can somehow predict where this quarter or year is headed.

Yet, as a control investor, sitting on the board, with more information, you quickly see how little you know.

And the nothing you can actually predict.

The illusion of predicting the future

Yes, yes, we all know our world is based on guessing the future.

Economic forecasts.

Revenue projections, all the way down to EPS.

It all seems smart and thoughtful and precise, and rationalized by data…

And then, well, for any number of reasons, the world doesn’t behave according to our models!

As we’ve seen this year…

Man, our predictions would have been right on if it wasn’t for Covid!!

For better and worse, btw. (e.g. Amazon vs. United Airlines)

I saw the same in 2008.

The credit crisis and recession blew up many businesses, and completely blew out all projections and cash flow models.

The question we were forced to ask is…

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How to focus on crucial goals, without any clue where the future is headed

“How are your 2020 goals looking?” I asked a client I might take on.

“A complete disaster, “ she said.

Not surprising.

Her business is directly tied to public appearances, which in a world of social distancing is equivalent to leprosy.

“Just the last two weeks our business is 90% off forecast,” she added.

That’s why forecasts are useless…

Now, don’t get me wrong, of course there’s real value in long-term planning…

And all of my methods are built around projecting out your Grandest Reality.

The problem is we fool ourselves into believing we have any clue what the future holds.

The human brain HATES uncertainty, and does anything it can to “create” stability.

Yet as I say in this video, I can’t know if my heart will be beating by the time you’re watching this!

Still, how much time do we spend thinking we can plan our careers, businesses, lives?

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Do You Even Know What You Want?

What Do I Want

Was a question that started all this for me.

It seemed such a strange question at the time.

Before, I thought I knew the answer.

But when I started thinking differently, it wasn’t like a bolt of lightning, some epiphany.

More like over time my brain kept coming back to my question…

What Do I Want?

What really matters to you?

What’s your life about?

Is this what you dreamed it would be?

What you want it to be?

Who you want to be?

Do you even know?

Back when I started asking these questions I had no clue.

And even less clue where it would lead me.

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Try [Try, Try]

Pink sings—

Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burned

But just because it burns, doesn’t mean you’re gonna die

You gotta get up and try, and try, and try

She Might Be Singing About A Man

But we all know she’s talking about something more.

We all have dreams.

Things we burn for.

It’s better to have loved and lost, they say.

But the fear of loss can be so scary that we never try.

Are You Just Getting By, By, By?

Ever worry that it might be ruined

And does it make you wanna cry

When you’re out there doing what you’re doing

Are you just getting by

Tell me are you just getting by, by, by…

You gotta get up and try, and try, and try

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Looking For Not Purpose

Many people are seeking more purpose.

It’s not just a buzzword of the era, but us humans have always been driven by a deeper sense of meaning.

A problem for many of us is that we don’t know where to look to find it.

And this leaves many of us stuck…

Looking In The Wrong Place

Purpose is one of those funny topics in our society.

Like sex, purpose is talked about all the time, but nobody ever teaches us how to get it.

How do you even know what it means?

Where do you find it?

Under that rock over there?

Shake the tree and more purpose / passion / meaning might fall out?

Maybe, but what’s for certain is where it’s not found.

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Go For What You Truly Want (Even If You Don’t Know What It Is)

What do you truly want?

What is the most amazing life you can imagine?

Are you going for it?

What holds you back?

How Do You Leap Forward?

I don’t know why this became my life.

But I do know exactly how.

I really liked my job at Goldman but I felt there was something I needed to keep exploring.

From where I started in life Wall Street was a huge leap, but my brain wouldn’t let me rest there.

I needed to keep leaping.

Into The Unknown

If I know the answer I’m already bored.

Stepping back and asking my question—What Do I Want?—I had no idea where it would lead me.

It was easy to stay in a job I liked and make good money, but if you don’t leap into the unknown what might you not find?

Who might you not become?

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Do You Know What You Want?

Growing up we’re told we can do what we want…

Well, how many of us are doing what we want?

How many of us have the careers we want?

The business we want?

Are living the lives we truly want?

How many of us even have a grand vision for our life we’re every day advancing?

Not many. Not enough.

How many of us can even answer the most “obvious” question…

What Do You Want?

In my experience few of us even know what we want.

I’m not just talking about young people, but many later in life are still waiting to figure out what they want when they grow up.

I’m not just talking about the big questions either; the small stuff is hard enough too.

Do you stay in your job or retire? Keep working for the man or start something of your own? Get married or have a harem 🙂

No matter the question, it’s the “Structure of Choice” that keeps many of us stuck.

Question That Started This For Me

I know this all too well for it was the question that started all this for me.

For about 10 years I asked this question.

Reading thousands of books only seemed to make the question more complicated.

Goals. We know we should have them, but with crappy goal-setting advice it’s hard to even get pointed in the right direction.

Over a decade of doing this work for myself I not only answered my question but built a system for all of us to answer.

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New Year’s Resolutions Are Stupid. Set Goals.

What Do I Want

Note: To add to this article, I just recorded this video on 5 ways to turn stupid New Year’s Resolutions into powerful goals.

People keep baiting me on the topic of New Year’s resolutions.

Perhaps because I’ve called them stupid in the past, they think I have a negative view of such resolutions…

But that’s not true—I’m fired up about any catalyst that gets people to change.

It’s not New Year’s resolutions that are stupid, only how people pretend to use them!

Phony Goals

Like a political speech, people so proudly announce their New Year’s resolutions—

I hereby proclaim that starting on January 1 (but no sooner), I will stop watching cat videos on Fakebook and go to the gym at least 6 times a day.

And just like a parent applauding their 7-year-old’s school play, we‘re expected to celebrate their “achievement” in making such a resolution.

Good on you, Timmy!

Let’s hope you’re not in the 80% of people who give up on their resolutions by the second week in February…

New Year’s “Aspirations”

Nearly all resolutions fail because they were only aspirations to begin with.

Every day of the year you can make a new resolution, but repeating it to yourself and others doesn’t make it a goal.

An aspiration is to Get In Great Shape This Year. A goal is to specifically define how you are eating better and exercising consistently.

Resolutions become goals when they are backed by action, and that’s where, by definition, most resolutions are destined to fail.

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