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Foreign welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Buffini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. Here's a short classic cut from one of our all time favorite episodes.

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Well, the top of the morning to you. In fact, the top of the year to you. I want to wish you all a very happy new year. And I think I have the right message at the right time for you today. Our episode today is entitled Ready, Set, Goal. And. And this is always our most listened to episode every year. So I'm really gonna make it worth your while. I'm in the studio today wearing my Formula one jackets. Formula One is the basis of how I want to get your year off to a great start. Here's the question. Why do people need to be motivated at the start of a year anyway? According to cbs, fewer and fewer people are even setting New year's resolutions anymore. Two years ago, 43% of Americans set New Year's resolutions. And last year it was 29%. Why? Because I set a resolution and nothing happened. So now I'm not even going to have a New Year's resolution because I don't want to get me hopes up. By the way, that's not a great way to start. So we're not talking about New Year's resolutions. We're talking about something more profound called goals. But I have three major points for you today that I think will really help you. First, we need a formation lap. Second, winners start from the front. And third, we're going to talk about ready, Set, goal. So in Formula one, one of the things they have is called the formation lap. And, and they didn't always do this. And what they found is they were having a bunch of crashes on the first lap of the race, a bunch of cars burning out. And what it does, it allows the drivers to kind of hit some speed, weave in and out, get the tires warmed up, and it helped considerably. Cut down on the false starts and the crashes that were happening in every race. And apparently this is not just in Formula One. According to Harvard Business Review, January is the least productive month of the year. Now let me say this. We cannot have that. You cannot come out January flat or you're gone. Your year is guaranteed to be an uphill struggle. So we have to have a good start. We need that good formation lap. And that means a set of goals that will inspire us, a plan to achieve those goals, and a reward system set up for when the goals are achieved. So let's talk about our own formation lap. We need to warm up Our own tires. And for us, the tires has got to be our physical and mental well being. Make sure that we're all starting off the year with a good, first of all, mental diet, a good physical diet, and let's get moving. Anything that gets you sweating for 45 minutes a day is enough to get the job done. Whatever gets you moving seven days a week, 45 minutes a day, get a sweat that has been beyond all reasonable doubt, proven statistically to be the best way to improve your health. So get moving every day, warm up the tires. Second thing is make sure all the vital systems are working. That's the purpose of the formation lap. Now this can be as simple as having a clean desk, cleaning up all those unread emails, the texts. Believe it or not, that creates the space. You know, Albert Einstein said organized people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want. It makes it efficient, it makes it effective. So during this formation lap, let's put the good stuff into our head. Let's get sweating for 45 minutes a day and then get the vital systems going. Clean the desk, organize your workspace, organize your emails, organize your texts, organize your phone. If you got that done this week, you're off to a great start. Your formation lap is up, you're moving your body, you're putting good, good stuff into your mind and you're getting organized. And then the third thing we have to do in the formation lap is develop our race strategy. The days of going flat out to win in a race car are long gone. So what's our strategy? Well, first of all, what does a win look like for you for in your health? For example, what weight do you want to be? What size do you want to be? So we need this for every area of our life. For your business. Okay, what does a win look like for you in your business? What's the strategy? We've got to get into the game. We really want to be in the best spot we can. So doing the practices, not the results, not what shape are you in today, but if you could do it for a week, you're off to a great start. You've had a good formation lap. Second major point for you today is that winners start from the front. January is the most unproductive month of the year for the typical person. That typical person is not a winner. I'm sure there's people offended, but in life, in business, there are winners and there are losers. We represent a network of top producing agents. There are our agents producing over 400,000 a year. In income with five weeks off. Our leaders doing over 700,000 a year with eight weeks off. They're winners. Winners get off to a good start. January is the most important month of your year. You got to get off to a good start. So we need the formation lap, but then we got to start from the front, and the first thing we got to do is get in position to win. 34% of all Formula One races are by the person who's in the pole position. 68% of all races are the people who are in first or second position. It's called a front row. How would you like to be in a situation where you knew two thirds of my success is based on how well I start? That's why we have to have a great January. Have to, not optional. If you want to win, you got to start off right. So how can you get on the front row? Well, first of all, what's the most easy and meaningful goals you can accomplish by the end of this month? When you get a quick win, it brings confidence and enthusiasm. You get that confidence because you did something you said you were going to do. So now we have apprehension about the future or what's the market doing? Is the recession coming? What are rates doing? What's happening in the marketplace, all the challenges we have as a society. None of that stuff can you control. But you know what we can control? Getting on the front row and giving ourselves a 68% chance to win with the month of January. So, ready, set, goal. The next thing is that momentum is everything. You get your achievable goals and you get after them and you start checking them off, you start getting some momentum. Slow, steady progress is better than daily excuses. I'm a coach. It's important to call out the excuses. We got to get in the game. Ready, set, goal. We're going to get the formation lap, warm up the tires, make sure the systems are working, and develop our strategy. We're going to get into pole position, we're going to win from the front, we're going to get momentum. And then a great little tip is just check off your goals as you achieve them. This is the stuff that changed my life. I can tell you that. I can put the segment in my life, a line drawn in my life, before goals and after goals and before goals. I was a driven, hardworking, ambitious, sometimes achieved, sometimes not. Guy. Once I got exposed to the magic of goal writing, everything changed. And I've been a goal setter ever since. So what do we know? Winners start from the front we want to get in a position to win. Momentum is everything and we want to check off those goals as they come and then we're going to talk about ready, set, goal. In Formula one there's a series of lights that indicate the race is about to begin. Well, by the time the fifth beep and the fifth light comes on foot down, you're racing full tilt. What does that fifth light look like for you? Well, you got to have a set of written goals that allow you to hit the gas. Goals to be achieved in the next 10 days, goals to be achieved in the next 10 months, and then a five year long term vision for your business and life because that keeps the direction of where you're going. Now the process that we've utilized is based on a principle by Nobel prize winner Mihaly Csikszekmihalyi, who wrote a book called Flow. The type of goals we recommend you set for this particular year are smart goal. And smart is an acrostic. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based. And that's a formula that's been around for a long, long time. But we just believe that right now from the coaching floor, these are the season that we're in. Is these smart goals so specific? They got to be very specific goals. They got to be measurable, achievable. Now again, I've also taught on the benefits of unrealistic goals and so on so forth and that might be more on your five year plan. But for this time, right now, to get off to a great start, we need achievable and the R is realistic and then time based. A goal is a dream with a deadline. You have to have time based achievement. They should be very specific in each area of life. Your business, your finances. I'm going to drop £10 by this time. Measurable, you can measure them all the time. It's achievable, you know, it's doable, you know in your heart you can get it done. It's realistic, you know, it's not pie in the sky. And then it has a time based achievement. I'm going to get this done by the first quarter, I'm going to get this done by the second quarter and I can be here by the end of the year. The last part in Ready set goal is don't go it alone. First of all, just make a commitment. You got to get the self out of self help when you're self employed. You got to get the self out of self employed. So I'm going To give you three tips. First, find a coach somewhat self serving for the guy with the largest coaching company in America. But look, there's a reason we exist. Coach can just provide the accountability to stay on track, the encouragement to maintain your enthusiasm and the perspective to know how you're actually progressing when your feelings take over. We've had people who've had phenomenal years who are ready to quit several times in a year because it didn't feel like they were making progress. So find a coach, obviously. I hope you come and check us out. If you're a small business owner, you should go to it's a good life.com check on the button to get a free business consultation. What a great way to start your year is to see if you know what we do is a fit for you. Second, don't go it alone is have a goal buddy. Nothing is as powerful as the word let's. Let's do this together. It just helps when you have a buddy on the journey with you. Someone who's got the same goal or a similar goal and they're trying to achieve and you're trying to achieve. It really helps. So finding a coach, critical. Finding a goal buddy, every bit is critical. And then lastly, find your tribe. People around us in groups we belong to have a substantial influence on our behavior that can help us reach our goals. The whole goal here is, yeah, life is hard, but it's not hard when we're in it together. We want to be in the game. We want to be getting off to a fast start. We want to be on the front row and we want to make sure we don't go it alone. You want to see that checkered flag and this time next year you're setting a new set of goals based upon the great year you've had. I just want you to know we're here for you. We got you. I'm excited for the new year. We have fabulous content, fabulous guests. Come and see us at one of our live events. Come and get a coach, come and get in the game. Get off to a great start. Our hope and prayer is to impact and improve your life and your livelihood. And I want you to know that you're important. You're important to me, you're important to our team and we want you to get ready, we want you to get set and we want you to achieve your goals.