Ep 2: Pre-journey Checklist – Goal-Setting for a Balanced Life

Alright, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Doug Sandler from Turnkey Podcast Productions, host of the Nice Guys on Business podcast. Welcome back to the pre-journey checklist, goal setting for a balanced life. Now they say that failing to plan is planning to fail, and I don't know about you, but I've had enough of both. Now today, we're diving into the pre-journey checklist for life and business because apparently, swinging it is not a great long-term strategy.

Ron Boxdaller is back with us, ready to give us some real meaningful goals instead of just making to-do lists that are, well, conveniently ignored. I know I have one on my desk somewhere. Sometimes I just kind of throw it off to the side, hoping those tests will all get taken care of. Ron, let's be honest, how many of us are doing this whole planning life just completely wrong here? I think most of us, most of us probably do, Doug.

So why is it so important to start with the end in mind? I mean, I think about reverse engineering, you know, my work-life balance, and I don't even know where to begin. So maybe talk about starting with the end in mind. So there's a couple of things that you don't have to go lay out a three, five, 10-year goal. I know some people want to do these long 10-year goals that really, it's hard to imagine what's going to happen in 10 years.

But when I think about starting with the end in mind, and when I started my business, I knew where I wanted to get to in three years. So what am I doing today that's going to get me to that point? And then when I got to that point, I knew what I wanted to be maybe in five years. So it kind of just kept expanding to where I wanted to go. Like I will tell you in the last few years, we've been planning our exit from our business.

So everything we started doing a couple of years ago was for a 20-29 exit. So thinking of the end in mind is, I mean, it's almost like if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. So plan with it, think like that, and you're going to see a lot more success. Well, let's talk about success for just a moment. How can someone define success for their life and not just for their business?

I know it could be dollars and cents. It could be vacations. It could be money in a bank account. What's the best way to define success for their life? You know, like look at a wheel of life, kind of break down your life into multiple different sections if it's spiritual, if it's financial, if it's friends, whatever it is for you.

I think there's a lot, I think in the book, we talk about eight different areas, but focus on each one of those and tell you here's what I want to be and then write that down because that kind of where it goes back to writing those goals down. So it's not just business goals you want to write down, but if you have a spiritual goal or for me, when I was, you know, training for an Ironman, I wrote down what I wanted to achieve. And if I didn't achieve it in that race, then what am I going to do in the next race? So I write those things down so I could focus on them and don't forget about them. I think it's ultra important just to put a dot on that I or cross that T a little bit.

Every New Year's Eve, we generally, my girlfriend and I sit down, we come up with the biggest accomplishments the year before, what we want to do personally, spiritually, mentally, emotionally in the upcoming, what type of self-help work we want to do, what type of financial goals that we want to set for not only ourselves personally, but for our businesses too. And it gives you a foundation throughout the course of the year to really look back and see am I getting any closer to them? Just the idea of writing them down gives you a target that you're shooting for. And oftentimes, your brain subconsciously behind the scenes will work at that, even if you're not realizing or staring at that goal from day to day. I'd love to hear just a few comments about that.

Well, you just made a good point when you said we look back at the past year and write down our successes. One of the things I mentioned in the book is let's talk about your past successes and write those things down. Because when you're in the year, in the moment, and you're thinking, I don't know that how am I ever going to get this done, it's really nice to sit back and pull that piece of paper out and look at all your past successes and start reading them and start remembering all the things you've done to pull yourself back up and realize, okay, I can do this also. I think that's very important and too often, we just forget about that when we're in the moment. Yeah.

And pro tip for those of you that are like, well, how am I going to remember all of the things that I have done, whether good, bad, or indifferent through the course of the year? If you just look back, if you keep a digital calendar, like I have my calendar on Google Cal, I just look back to all the meetings and sometimes the meetings will tell me, yes, I was able to put that person in my business or yes, I was able to speak at that summit or yes, I was able to close that big deal. You don't realize how many things you actually will have a very long list of things that you've done that you've accomplished if you just write those things down through the course of the year. I will add this, I got six children, I think we might've mentioned that in a previous episode, but my daughter's in Vermont in college as a freshman, she's crying, wants to come home and doesn't know how she's ever going to make it. And I sent her a picture when she was a little girl going through ballet, which has always been, you know, she struggled through and then became very good.

And I said, you've gone through tough things before and that picture, it just cheered her up and then she realized, okay, I can do that. So it's something you can do for others also. Absolutely. I appreciate you saying that and sharing that with our listening audience. What are some of the mistakes that you think that people make when they come to setting goals?

Are they setting them too low? Are they setting them too high? What's your perspective on this? Oh, it's across the board. I think they set them too high and too low.

But I think if I were to look back, I think they don't reverse engineer, like they put that goal out there and then don't work back to what do I got to do today to get to the next step. It's like being a young salesperson, right? Okay, I'm going to get that $10,000 is my number. Well, how many calls do I got to make to get five appointments or, you know, I guess I'd put it this way, I need two sales to get to $10,000. So what do I mean?

How many appointments do I need to get two sales and then how many calls do I got to make to get? So you kind of reverse engineer that. I think people don't do that. They don't think about it. You talk about writing goals down as we just did just a moment ago.

Help us understand why that makes such a big difference. I know for me, I get lost in the moment. You get really busy during your day and sometimes you can almost get off on tangents. I had a consultant that sat with me for a while and he said, Ron, you got some great ideas. You know, you have a great idea, it's like a shiny coin.

You're like, oh, let me grab that shiny coin. And then you lose focus on what you actually need to be focused on. So when I write down my goals and I keep them in front of me, I look up on a regular basis. So I know what I'm doing today that I got to, you know, what I want to achieve this year. So I stay focused on it.

That's why I think it's important to write these things down and refer back to them. I think that any entrepreneur that's listening to this business owner, C-level person that's out there, you probably all suffer from a shiny object syndrome, as I know I do as well. Writing those goals down oftentimes will help you remain to those core principles, those things that you really want to try to approach in the upcoming year. Doesn't mean that you have to be static and not be able to expand that list, but it is a good foundation, a good starting point for you to achieve the goals that you want to. Talk about how people can ensure their business serves their life and not the other way around.

Because I do think very similar to, as I mentioned last episode, people get the leftovers to their life rather than giving the primary portion of their schedule to their life. So how do people ensure their business serves their life and not the other way around? That's a tough one. I mean, honestly, I think we all get caught up in our business and that's kind of what we're driving for. So I think the best way to do that, as we talked about earlier, is just sit down and write down what you want to achieve in other areas of your life each year.

And then allot enough time each week, each day that you, you know, set – put that workout on your calendar. You know, put those things on your calendar so you book set aside time and then hold true to that. Actually do those things and that's going to allow you – it actually change your perspective. So we're not relating ourselves as to this business person, right? When someone asks you who you are, maybe you start with one wonderful father and maybe you have a whole conversation, you never even bring up your business.

So I think it's that intentional focus is how you do that. Yeah. That's great. I just think it's so important for those that are listening to this that might be thinking, "Well, I love my business and I'm passionate about my business. I'm driven by my business." That's fine.

We're just not telling you not to have that same feeling. You don't want to ever be in a place where you're miserable day to day and hour to hour. But keeping your life on your windshield rather than your rear view mirror is probably a better way to approach being able to lead that way. Talk about how people can really work on their personal values and help their personal values play in shaping a business. Because oftentimes you could say things like, "Well, integrity, honesty, being genuine, those are all important values in my life." But talk about it in terms of being able to help shape their business.

How can personal values play a role in shaping a business? So I think your personal values, your company is going to be a reflection of you and it's going to be a reflection of your personal values. So what kind of company do you want to have? And that's one of the things when you sit down and you think, "Okay, what do I want my company to be? How do I want to be perceived in the business community?" And that's the same as how do I want to be perceived in my social community.

And generally, most of us would want to be perceived well, I'm an honest person, you come to me if you have an issue, I'm the person that can help you with things. So I think you think through who you want to be in life and that's going to be what your business is going to be or how your business is perceived. I want to talk about this because I know we spoke about entrepreneurs just a moment ago, but it is amazing how so many entrepreneurs actually lose sight of their original goals because they get distracted. And maybe that's the answer to the question, they just get distracted. But why do so many entrepreneurs lose sight of their original goals?

– Running the business is hard. It's busy, you get caught up in the day-to-day and the day-to-day leads to, if you're not focused and you're not segmenting your time and sticking to a schedule, that you start thinking about one project, you go home, you're still thinking about that project, you get up, you're thinking about that project, you're back to work, you're working on that project. And next thing you know, Monday runs into Tuesday, next thing it was Thursday and then it's Monday again and you never feel like you took a break and that's bad, that doesn't help your business, you're not helping those around you, you're not helping those that may live with you, it's just not a – you won't have success that way. It's kind of like the harder your work doesn't mean the better you work. Break away, separate and have different parts of your life and be able to – I always – my wife always says I have a short memory, I said that's a good and a bad thing, you know, it's like being a basketball player, you miss a shot, you don't want to be living with that shot the rest of the game, you need to just okay, miss, move on and take the next shot.

What's the same thing in running your business? Have a short memory when it comes to what you're doing and if it's time to move on, move on. You can always come back to it but put on your schedule when you're going to come back to it. The people that are picking up this book are probably naturally ambitious people, they're trying to find, to strive to that next step for them to find work-life balance. How do you balance ambition with personal happiness when you are that entrepreneur, business owner and leader that is just always so driven by the next block, the next thing that you can get across, the next hurdle.

Sometimes entrepreneurs look at hurdles as personal missions to get over. So how do you actually balance ambition with personal happiness? I envision those that are picking up this book are going to be a lot like me, they're going to be very driven, very focused, you know, working 20 hours a day is – that's what you do when you're getting started and that's fine and so you're always go go go go go. So as I met earlier, being balanced has to be very intentional. So find those things you really love to do.

If you love hiking, you're going to find time to go hiking. If you love biking, you're going to find time to go biking. If you like going to the movies, you're going to find time to go to the movies. So be intentional and find the things that you love to do because that's going to make it a lot easier to break away from your business and go do those things. All right, let's help them take a small action item step number one.

So what small step can someone take today as you're listening to this, right? As soon as this episode is over to create a more balanced life for themselves, Ron? First thing I do is I focus on what you want to have your personal – what's your life? What do you want to look like? And then write down what you want to accomplish, what you want to achieve in your personal life outside of your business.

If you didn't have your business, say you retired and you don't have a business, what do you want to do? Start right there. Start documenting those things you want to achieve and then look, how am I going to achieve them? So that's basically you can go through the same process as you go to as with your business every year, where you break down where I want my business to go this year, let me write those things down and then work backwards as to what it's going to take to achieve those things. Do that exact same process on your personal life.

All right, let's talk about you personally for just a second. How has goal setting personally impacted your own journey? I don't believe I would have experienced the success I have in life without goal setting. So I'm a very goal oriented individual. I will write down my goals and then I will look at them and I'll evaluate and when I don't achieve that goal, that's nothing wrong with that, I just reset the goal of where I want to go.

But I actually reset it. There was a couple years during the pandemic where I guess I was like that ship without a rudder. I didn't – I was a little bummed we were in the pandemic, I didn't know what was going to go on. I figured, you know, I'm good, I'm just not going to write any goals down and it was a miserable two years as I look back. I didn't see it when I was going through it.

But as soon as I got back into it, I got to write down what I'm doing, what do I want to do and doing what I wrote about in this book was I wrote down my goals for my personal life, I wrote down my goals for my business, all of a sudden this ship just – you don't always know how, right? It just writes itself. Business is going really well, all of a sudden I got this focus on my personal life. I have goals with my wife that she and I'll do together, I got goals with my children, I got my personal health goals. All those things all start to come in and you find – I don't know how it just happened but I'm feeling really good and I feel happy.

Whereas I was kind of going through a couple years where I was just like, you know, day to day, here we go another day, you know, what am I doing? Stan – Understood and I appreciate you sharing your own personal journey. So we're going to wrap for today, Ron, I appreciate you sharing. We'll be back with a couple more episodes sharing more of the insights that you share in the book. Thanks for being on the show today.

Ron – Thanks Doug. Stan – For those that are listening, big thanks to Ron Boxdaller for sharing his insights on how to balance life and business without losing your sanity. If you want to dive deeper, grab a copy of his book, Don't Lose Your Balance, Live Life, or Build a Business, do both. It's packed with real world advice, practical steps and a few hard-earned lessons that you don't want to miss. If you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a friend who really needs some work-life balance.

Thanks for listening. We'll catch up with you next time.