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And I want to share with you the difference between goals and standards. Oftentimes when I'm coaching founders, they, you know, and I ask them what their goals and their dreams are that, you know, they can be very clear. They could say, well, I want to hit, you know, 25 million in ARR. I want to, you know, get this physical shape. I want to find a partner in my life that lights me up. And. And they can be very descriptive about their goals. But the thing that I focus on with founders when I'm coaching them privately, it's the standards. Because oftentimes what I've discovered is goals are easy to define. What people lack is the standard that they hold themselves to, the standards that they're going to change around that aspect of their life that is then going to unlock that goal or that dream. Right? And I'm going to give you three specific ways to improve the standard around the goal so that you can have the highest probability of knocking them out of the park. Okay? So this, this is. And I. I've been doing this for years. You know, I think when I was 24, I read good to great, and they talk about these concepts of like, shooting bullets and then cannonballs and, you know, just the habits and consistency. And when I was building my company sphere, I did this deck. It was like year one, six months in, and I. And I just set a vision for where I wanted to be in five years. And what I did, though, that was different is I asked myself, well, what would the day or life of a CEO running that kind of company? What would it look like? How would I show up? What skills would I have to learn? What habits would I have to implement so that I had the highest chance of hitting that goal? You know, I think at the time it was 25 million, 50 employees with four offices around the world. That was. That was the vision for Spherit. And. And that's what I executed against. That was the message I shared with the team. That was the. The vision. I had the dream. And it was crazy. I mean, I was 24 years old in a small town in eastern Canada, province of New Brunswick. No right whatsoever to dream about a global international company. But I. I wrote it out. And what's funny is, at the time, I thought that was like, crazy talk. I was like, whoa, this is a B hag. Big, hairy, audacious Cole, etc. And I did the work. But what was different, that I didn't even realize at the time, that I want to share with you guys, is that I Focused on the standard that I held myself to. The repetition, the habits, the. The discipline, the mindset, the focus to, to raise the. To raise what I was willing to accept, right? I don't believe you get what you desire. You get what you tolerate, okay? And what I did is I didn't tolerate negativity. I didn't tolerate lack of performance. I didn't tolerate month over month of missing numbers. I decided, this is the standard. I'm somebody that makes progress. Even if it's not as big as I want in a quarter, it doesn't matter. I'm going to make progress. So that was the vision. And crazy enough, four years later, we were on track to hit that number before we got acquired and we won, like, fastest growing company in Canada, profit 50. I won the entrepreneur award for the business and a bunch of other awards. And I share that because again, it's standards, not goals, okay? Standards. So everybody wants to talk about goals and big, hairy, audacious goals and all that stuff, and very important, but that's just as a direction. It's not the thing that's going to get you the outcome. Here's what I mean by standards is, you know, if you wanna, if you wanna lose weight, okay, what are you willing to tolerate? Are you willing to tolerate that you're eating desserts every day? That you're not going to the gym every day? Like, what standard for your life are you, Are you gonna change? Are you gonna. Are you gonna set new standards? Some of you guys are like, I want to achieve this in my business. And it's like, okay, so what's, what's the new level of effort? What are you willing to put out there? What, what are you will. How are you willing to show up and sacrifice to get this new goal that you've never done before? And if the answer is, well, I really don't want to, that's your problem. It's the standards, it's the habits, right? So a few things, three specific things on this. Number one is, you know, we don't get what we desire. We get what we tolerate. I've shared this a lot in the past, but it's the idea of, like, the highs and lows. Some of you, you are getting to a level where you've achieved stuff you didn't expect to achieve. And that was the old high. And you're. And when you get to this, this old high, meaning, like, if Your goal is 10,000amonth or 50,000amonth or a hundred thousand a month, and you've Gotten that you're not showing up with the sense, same sense of urgency. You've kind of taken your foot off the gas a little bit. And if you actually drop down to whatever the low used to be, let's say it's 3,000amonth or 15,000amonth or whatever it is, you need to act the way you did when you were at your low. Like, I hope that makes sense. But it's whatever your old high was, you need to make it the new low. So if it was 100,000amonth, you got to start acting like that's the old low right? Where it's like, oh, what if it was 10,000? How would you show up? How many reps would you do? What time would you wake up? What. What kind of effort would you put in? What would you do as a standard? What would you hold yourself to fix the problem? Some of you guys are not moving with a sense of urgency, and you've just accepted that that's the way it's going to be. So you don't get what you desire, you get what you tolerate. And what you're tolerating is a sub level standard of production, of output, of achievement. That's number one. Number two is specificity and being focused on the meaning behind the goals. So some of you guys want to achieve goals like, again, get in the best shape of your life. But you don't say why. You're not saying, like, I want to do this so that I have the energy to play with my kids, or I want to achieve this so I have the resources to donate to my church, or I want to do. I want to get this outcome so that I have the time to be present as a husband or as a wife, as a partner. And to me, you got to be specific. You have to write down, like, I literally. There's so many different questions I ask myself on a daily basis because I believe questions are powerful. One of them is who needs my best work today? And being specific, I actually will write down names of clients that I'm working with or some of you guys in the group, because I want to actually look at the person or I think of my kids and I write down Max and Noah and like, what age they're going to be. And like, I want to be in the best shape of my life all the time so that I have the energy so that when they're saying, hey, let's go play soccer, there's literally two soccer fields right there and they're like, hey, I want to play Soccer. I'm like, yeah, no problem. Let's go. There's never a time where I'm like, oh, I don't have the energy. I'm too tired, right? Like, if they're like, hey, I want to go. I want to go on that thing over there, this big vernacular or whatever it's called, and there's like a walkway. I'm not like, oh, sorry, guys. Yeah, maybe not. I'm a little tired. I have never, ever, ever, ever said that to my kids. No judgment if you have. But if that's not enough motivation to get you to be specific about why you need to get your health in check or why you need to get. Find another level of energy or why you need to change your mindset. Because a lot of it is mindset, it's beliefs. Oh, I worked hard. I need to relax. No, you don't. You just don't. So number two is specificity. Specificity, meaning. And the why. Why do you want the goal? The state like this. The. The goal is not the outcome. The standard lets you set a new level of production or, you know, if it's, you know, waking up early or whatever. What's the new standard? Because you're not going to get a higher level of goals and dreams if you don't increase your level of standard for yourself and what you're. And, and. And really hold people to that standard around you in your company. Number three is to break it down. Okay? If you have a goal, and I see this often with leaders, Leaders, some of you guys have a hard time doing this. For the people who report to you, if you have a goal of achieving a certain outcome, right, or certain kind of milestone, you need to ask them, what are all the things that need to be true for that milestone or dream to happen? Okay? And you got to break it down. And then for each one of those, you got to ask yourself, what's the new standard of. Of behavior? What's the new standard of activity or habits or fidelity or data quality or activity or just whatever it is? Like, what is the. So dream goal? Projects. And then what's the new standard for those projects that's gonna, that's gonna increase the potential of you hitting that goal? It doesn't matter what it is. You just break it down. Right? When I wanted to, you know, get in shape back in the day when I used to weigh 265 pounds, I said, Look, I'm gonna get to 216 pounds of 10 body fat. And then I broke it down. Well, if Those things are true. What do I need to do? I need to do a lot of stuff. I need to get my diet in check. I need to hire a coach. And I just made a list of like 12 to 13 things. I think there was on this list of stuff I was gonna do, the new standard I was gonna hold myself to. And because I broke it down, because I had that standard, I went to work and plugged away at it. Was I 100% successful every day? Nope, that's not how it works. You don't have to be 100% successful every day, but you do have to get up every day and get back on it and work at it and make it happen. So. And that's the same way, like, you know, in the last few years, from not only building two eight figure companies to running five Ironmans, two full distance Ironmans, that's how it works. You just literally got to take your goals and break them down and then execute each one of them again, each specific aspect with a new level of standard. When I started my company, SaaS Academy, I was very clear on the revenue and the profit. I was very specific and what impact I wanted to have. What was the, what was the purpose of it? All right? And that's how you hold yourself to a higher standard that gets the goals. But if you're focusing on just the goals and you're not asking yourself what new level of discipline, habits, structure do I need to implement in my life, then you're just going to be one of those people that keep setting goals and keep missing your targets because you didn't give up anything. You didn't, you didn't sacrifice anything that you think the person you are today is just going to magically produce these new goals and achievements. And that's just not the way it works. So real quick, recap. Number one, you have to make your old high the new low. You, you don't get what you desire, you get what you tolerate. And you got to stop tolerating substandard performance around you from yourself and from your team. Number two, you have to be specific on the meaning and the why you want to achieve these goals. You have to make it personal and be as specific as possible. Who do you want to serve? How do you want to serve them? Why is this going to be such an important thing for you to achieve? And then number three is you got to break them down. The goal is one thing, break it down into the specific projects that all those things would add up to. And for each one of them, that you're executing and say, what's my new level of standard? What's my new level of compliance? Is it 80% of my meals right now are lean and mean, protein and greens? Or are you going to go to 90%, you're going to go to 100%? What's the new level of standards you're going to hold yourself? 2. And I know when I say this stuff, a lot of you guys are like, do I have to hold this for the rest of my life? Yeah, if you want to. If you want to level up, yeah. But here's the beauty is that once you start doing it, it gets easier and gets easier and it just becomes the norm. It's just who you are. And once it becomes who you are in your identity, then it's not effort. And you will actually discover, as I have, that it just makes life a lot more fun and fruitful. And that's what I had on my heart to share with all of you guys. And I hope this finds you awesome. We'll talk soon. Peace.
Episode: Set Standards, Not Goals
Date: April 20, 2026
Host: Dan Martell
In this episode, Dan Martell explores the crucial distinction between setting goals and raising personal standards. Drawing from his own journey—building businesses from nothing, overcoming immense personal adversity, and coaching high-performing founders—Dan argues that real transformation doesn't come from dreaming bigger but from enforcing higher standards for yourself and your team. He lays out actionable strategies to identify, upgrade, and sustain these standards for meaningful, lasting success in both business and life.
Dan Martell’s message is clear—stop fixating solely on goals. Shift your attention to standards. Upgrade what you tolerate from yourself (and others), infuse your effort with personal purpose, and break every big dream into new daily standards. Over time, these standards will become second nature—and your results will transform accordingly.