328 - You Can't Quit If You Don't Start!

0:00This is podcast number 328. I do one podcast a week and so that is more than six years. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about was on Friday I put out a video which was Happy Quitters Day. The second Friday in the new year is usually when people end up, especially at places like gyms, just saying, well, I set these New Year's resolutions and yeah, it sounded great then, but I'm just not going to continue to do it. So they quit. So if you're listening to this and you listen to my podcast regularly, congratulations in that you didn't quit. But it was funny to see the replies I got from that YouTube.

0:45And if you're looking at it, just go over to my YouTube channel and you'll see it. Happy Quitters Day was the title of it. So one of the comments was, I am not a quitter. Okay, that's a good mindset. that? So I took that person's name, I went into my database and looked, and that person has, from everything I can see, not done anything. Didn't buy any courses, didn't pay attention much. He apparently did listen to that video, so that was a good thing. But I said back to him, you can't quit if you don't start. And so that's something that I see quite a bit, is that people sit on the sidelines. They think that they want to do this business acquisition thing.

1:34They watch videos, whether it's mine or somebody else's, and study that stuff, but they never get in the game. And so I wanted to talk about what helps me. You may be like me. You may be not like me, but this is what works for me. The first thing is, no matter what it is, I like to have a plan, and I like to have a written plan. So if I'm working out, which I do regularly, I have a physical trainer who every month gives me a new plan, and that goes to my mobile phone. If I do the workout, which I do, I end up checking it off. I comment on whether it was hard, easy, or whatever. I like to get those out of the way early, and I've always been an early riser, but this morning, Sunday, I woke up at 3.08 and I just lay in bed for a little bit, but then I said, you know, let me get up and work out.

2:34So I did that. So I finished that by, you know, before 5 o 'clock. And I like to get up and get things out of the way. this podcast I'm doing early. It's about 5 24 a.m. So I can check that off my list. If I want to lose weight, you know, one of the things that I learned early on was you've got to have a plan for that. So writing out a food log, what am I going to eat today? And then what did I eat? There's plenty of apps that'll help you with that. And I use, you can use any number of them, but I use the Franklin Planner, originally called the Covey Planner, I believe. I started that back in the late 80s, believe it or not.

3:21It's a paper planner, and it gives you a lot of things that you can keep track of, a prioritized daily list. I fill that out every day. You don't have to use that. You can use methods like the Ivy Lee method, where every night you write down the three most important things you want to do the next day. But in all these things, for me, writing them down, knowing what I'm going to do today, and then prioritizing them, not all of them are created equal. You may have that you want to have a group meeting, and you may have that you want to straighten up your desk. I would argue that your meeting is more important than straightening your desk.

4:05So prioritize those things. But all of, and business acquisition is no different. Know what you want to accomplish for the year. Write it down. Break it into quarterly goals. Break it into monthly goals. And then break it into the daily things that you're going to do. And habit or discipline is one of the things that helps the most. If I look at the podcast, I have done that every week, as I mentioned. It was a week I came close to missing it, but I didn't. It was like 3 o 'clock in the afternoon. I went, whoa, I didn't do a podcast. But that is a habit that would be hard for me to break now. In fact, I don't know how.

4:48If I was dead or unconscious, absolutely, I would potentially miss it unless I was able to record something in advance. But it's just a habit. I can't get out of that habit. And so working out is like that. Doing the things on the business acquisition journey is like that. Create those habits, whether that's so many cold calls a day, so many letters, so many outreaches, whatever it is. But come up with a plan in really all aspects of your life. Pay attention to it. Make sure your goals and affirmations line up. It's a great time of year to do that. and then work that plan and work it with discipline.

5:31And you will typically, and working out is a great example, geez, do I really want to feel like working out today? You go ahead and work out, and then afterwards you say, boy, I'm glad I did that. Doing the things on your prioritized daily task list will feel the same way. Sometimes the results won't be what you want, but you will have a much better chance of succeeding if you work those actions. If you don't, the answer is no by default. If you do work them, the answer is maybe no, but sometimes it'll be a yes as well. So I hope that helps. If you're looking to be around like people and have accountability, I've recently changed up the group coaching to do exactly that.

6:20So if you're interested in that, go over to my website, go under the coaching and look for group coaching. If you want to go there directly, just go.brucewhipple.com forward slash group coaching. But it's a great time of year to say, okay, the past is the past. What do I want to do? What lessons have I learned? Do I know how to do it? And then work on those goals and work on them every day with a disciplined, prioritized approach. And you will do better typically than those who do not do that.