Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brains Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brains Coach and it is my job here to learn and share. Bring to you the most fascinating, well-researched, science-backed, applicable and transformative brain-body tools so you could take better control of your actions, of your emotions, of your thoughts, so you could shape the life experience that you absolutely love living. Guys, it's that time of the year goal-setting, envisioning the future ahead. Are you the kind of person who sets goals? I definitely am, I think.
Speaker 1Since I was a kid, since I was a teenager, I've always had this practice of goal setting at every opportunity that arose, whether that's end of the month, end of the year, end of the week. Goal setting for me is how we shape our life experience and how we become the captains of our ships, not just someone who's thrown from one side of life or the universe to another right. So goal setting, when done right, it can work like magic when it comes to life creation, life creation. And if I learned anything in almost what is it? 17 years of my coaching career and more than 20 years probably closer to 25 years of goal setting and working through my plans and strategies. If I learned anything is how not to do it and how it doesn't work. And so I think this year is going to be really transformational because I finally am putting together all of the things that I know do work and are based on real life cases and science. So it's not just me thinking about that, it's me learning from other people who achieved a lot, and also learning from the best science-backed practices. So, when it comes to goals, guys, you know, once in my life I got the abs, abdominals, six-pack abs that I wanted. I got into shape that I've always been in and I'm kind of staying there now easily. And you know how I got there and why I never struggle, even though I did used to struggle a lot with my weight, with my fitness, with my health and fitness habits.
Speaker 1And now that I don't, I realized that the only thing that I did differently and that actually leads to many different things, many different behaviors and habits that I changed. But the only thing that I changed was I stopped looking for some magic and I started listening to research, to science, people, to people who've done what I wanted to achieve, listening to their reasoning, listening to their methods and their tools, of the rationale behind that and the research behind that and the numbers, and I started applying that consistently. Numbers, and I started applying that consistently. And whenever something wouldn't work, I get back to my research, learning from people who are smarter than me, meaning who got the result that I wanted and who are able to maintain it and who have really solid logic. And so I stopped believing in magic. I started doing what smart people did and it worked and I got it the best shape of my life.
Speaker 1And now, whenever I have a fitness and health goal, I know that I can achieve it, but I got to get back to those people who did it Science, research, not some magical thinking of one person. My goal for 2025 has nothing to do with health and fitness. I kind of got it. I do what I wanted for now, but it's a financial one, a very important area of transformation for myself. I feel like I'm lagging behind.
Speaker 1And the thing about financial goals yesterday I was talking to a client and we were discussing how financial goals, or being financially abundant, allows you to express all the other values that you have, whether that's taking care of your family, serving your community, serving your message, serving your impact and purpose. You want to create in the world. Financial abundance and stability and having exactly what you want there will help you to fulfill all of those other aspirations and really leave your values, what you believe in, to the fullest. And that's why I believe managing and learning how to be financially where you want to be is important. Not because any specific number adds any quality or happiness into your life, but what does happen if you are able to use that financial freedom for things that you value, for taking care of others, for moving certain purposes and aspirations forward, making the world better in a way you see it right. So financial freedom allows you to do so, and that is why I believe, at some point, people understand that, yeah, that is important and that's why I'm doing that.
Speaker 1Or people just play it as a game and like, oh, but now I can do all of these things because of my financial freedom. And it also transforms you, because making money in the real world, creating businesses and creating this financial abundance it actually changes who you are and you have to work with the world. It's not like you're going to just wish for it and without adding value into the world, you're going to get it. Financial freedom and working on your financial transformation is going to change you as a person and going to force you to learn from reality, as it is not what you think it should be or supposed to be. So it's a transformational tool and that's why I believe, if you feel you want to work on your financial freedom, financial aspirations, it is a worthy goal as any other personal transformation and impact and purpose goal. And I personally believe if somebody tells you otherwise, it's probably because they tried it and they failed miserably at it and that's why they decided to focus on other things, because it is painful when you try and you fail and you start feeling less confident about yourself. But I also believe that you can achieve any goal, financial or any other, if you just don't give up, keep learning, keep changing and improving Financial goal.
Speaker 1So my goal is $1 million consultancy agency or firm. Is it ambitious for me? Yes, absolutely. It's going to require a 15x stretch, but is it doable? You know why it feels absolutely real to me?
Speaker 1Because once, some time ago, learning from people smarter than myself and more successful, I learned to ask myself this question what will it take to get there? Get there, not if I can do it or not, any sort of questions that will doubt that ability. But what will it take for me to get there? And then I did my research in consulting world, where I want to work and the kind of services that I want to provide with the right clients. It boils down to 10, 20 clients over the course of the year who sign up with me for year plus engagement, and that's it. And I have a whole year to work on it, on those 10, 20 clients. And I've put a lot of work already and I have more than 15 years of coaching experience. So I can translate all of that into strategies that will deliver that result. And from questions to action.
Speaker 1I didn't just ask this question, I actually went a lot further and that's what I learned works the best when you don't just stay in your head, in what you know and can come up with. You see, when you haven't achieved a certain goal, whether that's financial goal or fitness or health, you don't have a good playbook. So you've got to get very curious and humble. Meaning you don't know what it takes to get there. That's humility. So you gotta seek advice and help from people who are smarter than you in this area, meaning they have more experience and they have better working frameworks and playbooks, and those are the people that you need to learn forgetting about that. I need to be right. Actually, in the areas where you don't have the result you want but some other people do they are objectively smarter than you are in this area.
Speaker 1So, let's say, I don't know, for some reason I thought of my mom. If my mom cooked a lot more meals of different varieties of three decades or a couple of decades more than I did, I probably should listen to her how to do certain things, especially the things that she did many times. If so, if I want to make a million dollars in revenue company, I gotta listen to people who've done it. Not to myself, because I don't have a good playbook, I don't have experience in it. Not to myself, because I don't have a good playbook, I don't have experience in it. Not to other people who give you advice from a place of oh, I read this book. I think this is how it works. That's nice, that's probably better than nothing, but the best sources are people who've done the journey, and you should always have your prioritization system, and that's what I learned in terms of who you get your advice from. The best people are people with experience, real life, hard experience, people who did it and the closer their experience to what you're trying to achieve, the better source they are.
Speaker 1And so what I did? When I asked myself this question what will it take to get there? I didn't trust my own answers. What I did? I started learning from experts in that particular pursuit. I started listening every day and this is my homework for me every day. I started listening to consulting success podcasts, where the host interviews consultants who build the kind of firms and agencies that I want to build and they tell you okay, this is what it takes to get your first client and this is how I grew my business and this is how I grew my team and this is what I found worked and that didn't work. And when you listen to like 30 of them, you start seeing patterns.
Speaker 1So if more than 90% of those people did not say, go on LinkedIn and start cold reaching out, but instead said activate your network and go and talk to people you worked in some capacity first, and when people start saying, you know, you're going to get probably like 20% response for this specific service that we provide, which is on a higher price range, you're going to get about 20% or less response and from that, about 20% or less actual engagement. So at the beginning, it's probably not the best return on investment of your time and you shouldn't be pursuing that as your main course of action, but instead focusing on real-life conversations, reaching out to people you know, to your network, doing the legwork, doing the calling, getting out there and putting some steps in, so to speak. Talking to real people, real business owners or whoever it is you need to work with, and then keep learning from the experts, people who've done the work. So I did that. I reached out to a lot of those consulting firms, ceos and founders, and I asked them questions and ask about their journey and what they think someone should pay attention to more when they are at the beginning.
Speaker 1So I started to remove magic from the equation. This is how people actual people in real world who have companies, companies that have records, that do real work in the world. This is how they did it, and so I shouldn't be listening to again someone who read a book and thinks this is how it should be done. Well, maybe it will work out, but you haven't done that. So I'd rather listen to a few tens of people that I listen to who've done the work, who got the result that I want. The same is fitness and health.
Speaker 1It's not that one specific person will have all the answers, but if you talk to 20 people or you follow, let's say, 20, 30 social media accounts of people who maintain results for, let's say, 20 years or, I don't know, 10 years, you start seeing commonalities, the things that they say, how they do things, and you're like, ah, this is what people do when they succeed. This is probably a good idea for me to give it an honest try, because, again, when you don't get the result that you want yet, you don't have a good playbook or framework for getting that result, and so your answer is a worse kind of answer compared to the answers that people with more experience will give to you. So, again, that's where you gotta exercise that humility and you gotta listen more than you talk, falling in love with learning, not with being right, or you can keep falling in love with being right, but then if you don't get the result, don't blame anyone but yourself. And that's the note to myself and that's, I think, the major lesson that I've learned in over 20 years of setting goals and giving them a goal and, more often than not, not achieving results. I'm like, oh, this strategy did not work for so many years, so again back to insanity principle. Probably I should change something, and that's what I'm changing.
Speaker 1I also had a mastermind with a friend of mine yesterday and this was the first one and we talked about how, yeah, we should spend less time in our heads thinking and planning and strategizing for the whole year or the next two, three years, and instead get out there, get a better playbook, ask for advice and test it and test it, and test it, and then only repeating and keeping what works in real life, instead of again setting some plans and strategies for the year ahead without having the proof that it actually works. If you don't have real-life proof that this, what you are about to do, works, then your goal is not to make it happen, but to learn from it and figure out a better way of achieving the results that you want. So reach out to people who've done it. Ask for advice and make a plan to test it, not to make a plan for the next couple of years thinking, yes, this is for sure will work. Yesterday, at our mastermind, I also brought up this quote from I think it's Mike Tyson, some of the greatest fighters out there, and he has a quote no plan survives the contact with reality. No, I think actually that was not his quote, but instead he said everyone has a plan until you punch it in the mouth, meaning you can have your plan.
Speaker 1And again, note to myself you can strategize and have the ideas, but come into the implementation phase with the mindset of let me try it. It might not work, but I'm going to learn from it, and because of that I'm going to do better. And because of that, if you don't know how to achieve certain result, and because of that I'm going to do better. And because of that, if you don't know how to achieve certain result and that is again a no to myself schedule a lot of tests and learn from them and then build better tests, and do that until you find what really works and then do more of that. Doing more of what you have no proof that works isn't smart. It's actually quite wasteful in terms of your time, resources, energy, and you're not going to get the goal that you want Right. So reach out, ask for advice, create plan tests and then learn from them and then plan more and better tests until you find the thing that works.
Speaker 1And I also again back to this idea of not sitting in my head but getting out there and talking to people. I started asking my clients clients that I actually work with and worked with I started asking them more questions. A lot of my clients are very self-aware people and so when they would come to me, they usually already know, like this is what I want to do would come to me. They usually already know, like this is what I want to do. And that's why very often I wouldn't have a clear idea of what was the actual problem Like. Why did these people who paid me thousands of dollars came to me? Why did they come to me? What problem did they try to fix in the first place? What was in their head? So they came to meet me, came to the course and then decided to pursue coaching and got the results. Now I know the results that we got and you would think, well, that is what they wanted.
Speaker 1But what research shows is people come to changing something, working on something, when they have pain, when they feel lack when they feel there is a problem. And I never well, not never, and definitely now I'm doing this, but before I never spent enough time asking my clients like what was the pain? What made you approach me at that specific moment with that specific request? What was the pain that you wanted to alleviate? Because, again, I don't even think that there is a case when the person has no pain whatsoever, even if the pain is staying the same. So if the person experiences no pain whatsoever and then they decide to dedicate a year of their time to coaching, I don't think it's possible, and definitely not for people who are into goal setting, high performance and being effective and being their best self.
Speaker 1So the lesson for me there was talk to your clients more specifically about the pains that they wanted to work through, so then you can communicate that pain to your future clients, and that goes to one-on-one clients, but also corporate clients, and that's what I'm asking also people who already hired me for corporate coaching, for team coaching. I'm asking them why did you hire me? Now, you told me what you wanted to work with, but what was the pain you were trying to avoid or eliminate? And I started getting a lot more aha moments. I'm like, ah, this is what you came to me for, and now I'm going to be designing a lot better communication in terms of my content. Speaking to the pain that people are looking to eliminate when they sign up for coaching Whether, again, that's one-on-one coaching or that's team coaching company's coaching. Whether, again, that's one-on-one coaching or that's team coaching company's coaching and so that's what I'm going to be doing differently in 2025. I'm going to be not sitting in my head, but instead reaching out to more people, asking more questions, reaching out to people, specifically who did what I'm trying to do, asking them for advice for what they would do, starting out how they did it when they were, starting out the lessons that they learned, the things that they wish they knew earlier in their career. So that's what I'm going to be doing More conversations, more questions, coming into the interaction with potential client, not with answers, but with questions Like what's painful, what's hurting and what will help you to deal with that, and whether I'm going to be the one who's going to alleviate their pain or somebody else.
Speaker 1It's not that important. Before you can serve anyone, you got to understand what they need, their pains, their wants, where it's hurting, and the better you understand that of your ideal customer profile or people you want to work with, the better you understand this, the better you'll be able to communicate the value of your service. So, 2025 goals have you asked the question? If you have a big goal for 2025, fitness business relationships have you asked yourself first this question what will it take to get there? And then don't seek for answers in your head or even chat GPT, but instead go and seek out answers and advice from people who've done it, and not just one person, no, many people. So you start seeing patterns, things in common that those people had.
Speaker 1Do the research, the proper research, a real life case studies, research, learning again from people who've done the journey. And when you do this, two things will happen. You'll realize you're not ready for the work yet or the lifestyle that goal demands. You know your price and your prize aren't matched and you're not ready to give what the goal requires. So either that will happen or two, you'll create a legitimate strategy that will bring you success. And if you ask me that any of those outcomes are better than setting a goal and hoping that it's going to work out and then getting frustrated and started thinking less of yourself because it didn't. Hope is not a strategy and your playbook is not good enough if you haven't created the result that you're seeking to create. So your plan of action for 2025 goals, guys, it's that time of the year.
Speaker 1Set a goal and then ask yourself do this work? In writing? Writing is always more powerful because of the way it engages your brain and your body. So set the goal and then ask yourself what will it take to get there? And then start asking people, start literally talking to people who've done it. Talk to at least 10 people and then you start seeing patterns and you will start get the idea of what this goal actually takes and you can answer your own question Am I ready to actually give it a go? Do I actually have the time, capacity, the energy, other resources? Do I care enough about that? That is a legitimate question. Do I care about that enough? A lot of my clients, when we start working on their health and fitness, they're like I want a six pack, and then after a while they realize well, that actually is taking a little bit more or a lot more work than I was prepared to give. So actually, maybe that is not the goal I want to keep getting after Because, well, to be very honest, six-pack abs not correlative with a lot of things health and fitness, and performance-wise yeah, looks yeah, they add to your looks and perhaps their confidence, but not much in terms of health, longevity and performance. So are you ready to give that goal what it requires once you know better answers, and then create a plan of action?
Speaker 1Run many tasks and then create better plans of actions. Don't schedule for the decade ahead. You just have no idea how it's going to turn out, especially with the pace of change that we have now. So schedule the doing, the tracking of the results, the reflecting, and then adjust, rinse, repeat and schedule again and run more tasks until you figure out a playbook for you to get the exact result that you want. And once you get it now you have your own playbook of things that worked, keeping in mind that your playbook is not going to be the exact playbook of somebody else, but you're probably going to have a much better playbook than somebody who never got the result that you want.
Speaker 1So the last piece of caution when asking for advice again, don't go to people who don't have what you want but have big egos or just want to feel bad about themselves. People love giving advice, but you always want to double check with you Is this advice coming from real life experience or is this advice coming from just people's thinking and what they read on the internet? Where is this advice coming from? Now, sometimes it can also come from sort of combination. If somebody had exposure to a lot of people achieving the result that you want, and so they analyze their patterns and then they're giving you advice from that experience, that also might be quite a legitimate source of information. But if the person just advises you on what they think, even though they never got any result in real life or did not talk to people who got that result, then they're not good a source of information and you'll save your time and you'll save your energy by not listening to that but instead seeking out advice from people who did it, who have real life knowledge and experience. That's about it, guys.
Speaker 1So what's the biggest, most important goal for 2025? You know, I used to have like sometimes 10 goals for the year, and now I'm like I'm just going to have one million dollar company. That's what I want, because it's going to transform me and will allow me to leave all my values and inspirations so much wider and deeper and better, and I am going to have a lot more influence on the people I want to help changing. So let's get after it, but in a better, smarter, real, life-based way. But in a better, smarter, real, life-based way. Thank you, guys, for your attention. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1I hope you found this podcast episode useful and it made you think differently. The most important aspiration of this podcast Please do share this podcast episode with at least one person who you're gonna work with on your goals in a smarter way. When we socially learn together, when we have each other for accountability, everything that we do sticks longer with us and we get better results overall because we just stick with it and we are more consistent, right? So share this podcast episode. Let's help each other change, reach our most ambitious goals because we can and till next time, have an amazing day. Reach out Angela at brainbrainstorycoachcom if you have any questions. And let's keep reaching for the stars with better playbooks. Because, well, even if we don't reach the stars, we'll end up in quite awesome. Because well, even if we don't reach the stars, we'll end up in quite awesome aspirational place, but with a better playbook. Who knows, we might reach all the stars in the first place. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening and have an awesome rest of the week.