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How to do more in six months than most people do in 10 years. So Elon Musk said something that broke my brain the first time I heard it. He said, take your 10 year goal and now ask yourself, why can't you do that in six months? Now that quote gets shared a million times a day. It gets screenshot, it gets posted, put in books, gets like a thousand likes and a hundred fire emojis. And then nothing actually happens for most people because nobody tells you actually how to do that. Like, okay, Elon, cool, you built rockets. I'm just trying to buy a rental property and stop checking my bank account with my eyes closed. Now how does that actually help me? Well, the reason that most people can't do their 10 year goal in 6 months isn't ability. It's not resources, it's not even hustle. It's that they're just missing a system. A specific stackable system that turns big dreams into daily actions and daily actions into results that compound so fast it almost feels like cheating. So today I'm going to give you that three step system. And it comes from three books. And when you stack them in the right order, you will do more in the next six months than most people do in 10 years. Now I'm not being dramatic here. That's my story. Now I've read Conservatively, you know, three or 400 different books, like business books and self development books. Like, I highlight them, I take notes, I build systems, I learn. I'm obsessed about this. I'm like a productivity nerd with a real estate habit. But most of those books, while they're good and some are great, there's only a few that have actually really fundamentally changed what I do on a day to day like Monday morning. So these three books did that. When I started applying these specific books in this stack, not just reading about it, actually applying it, things got strange in like a really good way. I went from grinding 50, 60 hours a week with no clear direction to building a real estate portfolio worth over a billion dollars. I built companies that generate millions of dollars in revenue. I wrote books, I launched programs, I did deals that 10 years ago I would have thought were absolutely impossible. And here's the part I'm most proud of. I still make time to spend time with the family and the kids. I jump on the trampoline on random Tuesday afternoons. I take real vacations, like the kind where the phone stays in the drawer. Because the goal was never to just get rich. Like, who wants to just get rich? The goal is to build a life that was worth living, wealth and freedom, not one or the other. So this system is how I did it and I hope it helps you do it as well. Now, one more thing before we dive into it. I'm a real estate guy. I'm a real estate investor. So all my examples today, they're going to have to be based in the real estate world. But I want this to be clear here. This applies to anybody building anything. A business, a career, a fitness goal, a creative project. The framework is completely universal. Just swap my examples for yours. All right, three books, let's go. Now in my mind, most people fail at big goals for one of three reasons. And it's almost always the same three reasons. Number one, they don't know exactly where they're going, so their vision is kind of blurry. Number two, they're trying to do way too many things at once and making progress on almost none of them. And three, they don't have a system holding that all together. So they're just relying on willpower and discipline and that always runs out. So each of these three books solves exactly one of those three problems. Stack all three and you've really eliminated every and any excuse everyone. So here's the order, clarity, focus and system. If you miss one of those, you're just going to drift. If you miss a couple, you're going to spin out. And if you miss all three, well then you're in trouble. Now book number one, Vivid Vision by Cameron Herald. So Cameron Herald built a couple different billion dollar companies before he was 35. He's one of the most well respected operators in the business world. And his most important idea that has gone wildly viral is deceptively simple. It's vague goals produce vague results. That's it. Like that's the insight. Now the implications are enormous though. So here's what most people's vision for their future sounds like, if they even have one. I want to be financially free or I want to grow my business, or I want more time with my family or I want to look good naked. Now those aren't goals, those are wishes. And you can't build a plan around a wish. So the Vivid Vision book is different. Vivid Vision is a written document, usually like a few pages long that describes your life and business three to four or five years from now in present tense, in sensory detail, like you're already there. Now the way I did it, and I always encourage people to do it, cause I love it this way is to make it sound like a newspaper Article from the future. Like, what if the New York Times wrote an article about your success? Like, three or four years from now? What would you love to read? Like, what did you want to say? Not he owns rental properties, but by December 2029, the transformation was complete. The 12 rental units spread across three properties were generating $8,400 a month in net cash flow, enough that a property manager could handle every tenant call, every maintenance request, every 2am emergency. The portfolio demanded roughly four hours a week, a quick review of the numbers, a call with the manager. Done. Eight months earlier, John had handed in his resignation letter. And three months ago, Jane did the same. And in October, the couple boarded a flight to Italy. Not a working vacation, not a I'll just check email once in a while kind of vacation, a real one. And they went for an entire month. Now, do you feel the difference in that? Like, the first version is a quick little bumper sticker. It's a wish. The second version is a mission, a map, a moment. Right now. I hung my vision, I blew it up on a poster, put it on the wall of my office. And that newspaper article said that I own $50 million of real estate in the next three years. Three years later, I didn't own 50 million. I had 300 million. And I've since gone on to buy over a billion. That's crazy. I would not have gotten there without that vision on my wall. I promise you that. And when you write your vision, your brain starts to work differently. Decisions get easier. You stop wondering, well, should I do this or do this? And you start asking, does this move me toward my vision or away from it? It becomes a compass every single day. So write it before you do anything else. And if it helps, I made a very simple AI tool that can actually help you create a compelling vision for your future. It's super fun. It's super easy. Takes like 5 minutes toy free. Just go to firstdeal.com vision tool. I think you'll like it. Now on the book number two, you got your destination. You know where you're going. You got this beautiful, specific picture of a future in your head. Now the second mistake happens. People lose focus, you know, at multiple levels, they lose focus. So nothing really gets done over the long haul. That is the issue that authors Gary Keller and Jay Papan sought to solve in their fantastic book, the one thing, the surprisingly simple truth about extraordinary results. The key to success isn't doing more. It's usually just doing less. Like, let's use a quick metaphor. There's Two made up islands. Here you live on one of the islands and the other one you want to get to, we'll call that one Success Island. And in this imaginary world, there are no boats, there's no planes, and it's too far away to swim. The only way to get from one island to another is by a bridge. And here's a mistake people make. Heck, the mistake that I make, like all the time we try to build 10 different bridges to that success island. You know, like people will dabble in real estate and they start constructing that bridge and a few feet into the ocean, they run into some problems or some unknowns or they just get bored. And then they learn about this cool crypto strategy and that fires them up. So they start working on that bridge and then they go back to the real estate one a little bit and then back to the crypto one. And then, oh, they got this cool idea. A buddy came and introduced them to this new multi level marketing, door to door sales opportunity. Oh, they could make money that way too. So they start building the third bridge and then they become a Tupperware salesman. And you know, you get the idea, right? Those bridges all work, let's be honest. Like, most of those would work just fine, but what doesn't work is building 10 of them at a time. Like, you don't make any progress on 10 different things and you finish none of them. So in the book, the one thing, the core question they give, and I think this one might be one of the most important questions in all productivity, it's this. What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary. Now let me say that again because it's so important. What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary? Now, it's not what are the 10 most important things? Not what's my priority list look like, what's the one thing, the single domino that when it falls over, it knocks over everything else. And it's not just about the, you know, the high level bridge that you're building to success island. It's also about the individual actions you do while building that bridge. For example, let's just take the real estate thing. The beginner real estate investor, they want to read the books and they want to build the website. They want to try direct mail marketing and they also got to get their business cards figured out and they got to go to the meetups. What's the one thing that if they did it makes everything else Easier or unnecessary? I'll tell you it's landing a good deal like, and I'll explain why in a second. But let's go deeper. What is the one thing that if you do, it will best help you land a deal? I would argue it's analyzing deals. Because if you can analyze a deal, you can recognize a good one. If you can you recognize a good one, you can make an offer. And if you make enough offers, you'll buy the property. And if you buy a good enough property, you can get other people to fund it. So everything comes down to can you analyze a deal? Everything else unlocks it. One domino. Find it and hit it. Now, here's where the book starts getting really interesting. And I remember when I was listening on the audiobook for the first time of the one thing I literally pulled my car over to the side of the road to write down. This concept totally changed my life, and I think it'll change yours. The idea that they bring up is called goal setting to the now. It's this piece that connects the vision that you have down the road to what you were doing in the next five minutes. So it starts with your vision. Like December 2029, I'm gonna have units, $8,400 a month in profit, et cetera. So what do you need to do this year to be on track for that vision? Okay, well, maybe I got to buy my first three rentals. Okay, well, let's go deeper. What has to happen this quarter to stay on track for that annual goal? Well, I gotta buy one unit. Okay, great. To stay on track for that quarterly goal, what do you gotta do this week? Well, I gotta, you know, I gotta make five offers. Great. Well, to make five offers is like, what do you gotta do today? I gotta analyze a couple deals from Zillow. Okay, great. Now to analyze those deals from Zillow, what do you gotta do right now? Well, I'm going to go to Zillow and type in my criteria. Great. That's it. So the dream of making $8,400 a month in passive income and retiring all comes down to one little task. Pulling up a list on Zillow. How hard is that? It's not hard at all. It takes like two minutes of work. And this is the secret to success. Maybe the biggest secret to success, that no one realizes. Every big goal you have is at the end of a chain of easy 5 minute tasks. I mean, even building a rocket or doing brain surgery or losing 50 pounds or making a billion dollars, it's all Small easy tasks where people struggle is that they A don't identify what the next task is or B they never get around to actually doing the task or they give up somewhere. So that's it. The vivid vision helps us establish that big compelling future to run towards. And the one thing helps us focus and identify our actions. So this final book I'm going to bring up here ties them two together with a boat. So you actually get the important stuff done. Because here's the dirty secret about everything I just told you. None of it really matters if you're just relying on your willpower to execute. Like willpower is a battery. It charges while you sleep and it drains from the moment you wake up. Every decision you make, even the tiny ones. It costs you a little bit of motivation and by 3pm most people are running on fumes. You can't just willpower your way to success. Island no matter how good of a bridge builder you are or how great your bridge is, you need a machine. Gino Wickman's entrepreneurial operating system EOS is that machine. His book Traction lays out a complete operating system for running a business, a team or honestly like your life. So what is EOS gives you a system for setting goals, which they call rocks. It helps you build a team, helps you solve issues when they come up. It helps establish your weekly rhythm of meeting, like your meeting cadence and ensures like that you're on track or off track of your goals and more. It's like I think about this way you can go to the gym and you just go like start moving things and you know, getting in machines. Or you can go to the gym and have a detailed workout plan. Do this lift five times, this one three times. Run on the treadmill for 12 minutes and it's based on the body you want which one's going to be better for you. The system is way more intentional and Traction is the book that turned my like hobby of real estate investing into a full fledged business. Far too many entrepreneurs rely on willpower and discipline and emotion and feelings and motivation to get anything done. EOS from Traction will ensure your business and your life runs like a well oiled machine so that your goals are set and hit, your weekly actions are taken, the right people and the right seats. So Traction will help your little business grow up and act like a grown up business. Now let's zoom out just for a second. Vivid vision gives you the destination. You know exactly where you're going. So like December 2029, I'm going to do this thing Right. We talked about the vision. The one thing gives you the focus, like the one bridge, the ladder, I guess you could call it. From your vision all the way down to what you're doing in the next five minutes. And every action is connected to every outcome. And then traction gives you the operating system. So you get the three rocks per quarter, like your goals. You get your weekly review meeting that keeps the machine honest. There's no willpower required. Now watch what happens when you're missing even one of them. You got no vivid vision. Well, okay, great. You're focused, you're urgent, you're systematic. But you're aimed at the wrong target. Right. Know one thing, you got a beautiful vision out there. But you're scattered across priorities and you're moving the needle on none of them. No traction. You've got everything right on paper, but there's no weekly system holding it all together. And so you drift. And life gets busy and the plan collects dust. But you do all three. The compounding of all three gets almost unfair. This isn't three separate ideas. It's one machine with three parts. So six months from now, there's two versions of you that exist. One did nothing with this video or with this knowledge. You nodded along, Maybe you saved it, and you just kept doing what you're already doing the other. Read the books, wrote the vision, picked your bridge, and then showed up for your weekly accountability meeting. Even when it was inconvenient, even if you're alone, that version will look back, genuinely stunned at what they built. The only difference is what you do today. So, hey, if this was useful, I put out content like this every single week. So follow along and please smash that little, like, button with your left pinky. If you found this helpful and you found this beard fantastic or repulsing. I'm Brendan Turner. Beardy Brandon on Social, signing off.
