#255 | Four Moves To Make The Second Half Of 2026 Great: Touching Your Dreams

June is a scoreboard check, not a final score, and we can still make the second half of the year a turning point. We share four practical commitments that keep your energy high, rebuild belief, and help you win today. 
• using the “scoreboard” idea to stay in the fight 
• touching your dream so it feels real and doable 
• learning from Ed Mylett’s “touch the dream” practice 
• running a midyear audit with two questions about who we are being 
• spotting the gap between who we are and who we want to be 
• committing to one meaningful challenge so we can track progress 
• choosing one thing just for us without guilt 
• remembering “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm” 

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Transcript

The Midyear Scoreboard Mindset

0:03

Welcome to Win Today. This show is crafted for those who want to win in every aspect of their lives. Every week you will learn from a renowned thought leader that will share a piece of a winning playbook that you can incorporate into your life. If this show has a positive impact on you and you see value in it, please share it with somebody and leave a rating and review so we can help more people win. Happy June. As crazy as it is to say that, or as crazy as it may sound, there are approximately at the time of this recording releasing 214 days left in 2026. So if you're listening to this on Tuesday or Wednesday, then 213 or less. And some people recognize the beginning of June as the halfway point in the year. Some say it's not until the end of June. But regardless, a lot of people are beginning to look at the scoreboard, if you will, and recognize that we're in the second half, the second quarter, summer is approaching. This is often where people will tend to slow down and put goals and the things that are most important to them on the back burner. And the intention of this episode is to inject some inspiration and a few things that you can do to keep the candle burning, to keep the energy high. And if the first half of the year hasn't gone that well for you, then good. This is intended to help provide you with resources and a tool to change the course for the second half. As always, especially for my sports fans, you don't win any game in the first period, second period, third period. It's a continuous battle, and it's important that we stay in the fight at all times. So even if the scoreboard right now of your life shows that life is maybe beating you in whatever the case may be. We like to joke around. Ryan zero, life one because the power went out today. Great. Whatever your scoreboard says, it doesn't matter because the game doesn't end in the second half. So a few things, four things that we can do, that you can do to make the second half of the year great. Keep it on a great trajectory, get it started on a great trajectory, regardless of where it is right now, and make 2026 one of those years you look back on as wow, this was a pivotal year in my life.

Touch Your Dream More Often

2:57

The first thing, I want you to touch your dreams more frequently and touch your dream. What does that mean? Simply stated, whatever your dream is in life, whether it is to launch a business, whether it is to travel frequently to luxurious destinations, whether it is to live on the beach, whether it's to have a non-profit, have a mastermind group, whatever the case may be. So let's just say that your dream could be to live on the beach someday. What touching the dream could look like is going on a walk on the beach in front of the house or on the same street that you dream of living on someday. What does this actually do? What does this create for your mind? A lot of things. Because our minds, what's beautiful about the mind is that it does not know the difference between fact and fiction, meaning that whatever we put into our minds is what the mind is then going to run with. Hence, you probably know the dangerous side of this in that your mind starts to believe all the negative self-talk, hence why it's important to audit the self-talk. But if we take that same concept and inject the things, the very things that we want, our minds believe it as, oh, this is something that we have, this is something that we deserve, this is what life is. It starts to recognize it as your reality, and that's what you want to become is your reality. So touching your dream in this case could be go and find that exact avenue, station, whatever on the beach that you dream of and go walk on it once a week. Go envision yourself sitting out and on the front porch, taste it, touch it, see it. I first learned this concept from Ed Milette, and here's what he did. So, Ed Milette at the time, if you're not familiar with him, highly recommend looking him up, look at his podcast, read his book, The Power of One More. He is by far one of my favorite speakers and one of the well most well-known speakers uh across the country, but definitely in the United States. Ed grew up in an alcoholic household. He is not the smartest person in the world by trade. He was actually his first car that he was driving while he was working as a financial advisor was a fake Mercedes-Benz that literally had parts duct taped to it. It was a Chrysler LeBaron that had Mercedes Benz parts duct taped to it, so it looked like a Mercedes. His dream was to live out on Malibu Beach. And so every few months, when he was able to work his his self up to be able to buy one night at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Nigel, which is one of the most amazing hotels in the world, by the way. And I said Malibu, I meant to say Laguna before. He would go spend a night with his wife at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Nigel. And he called that touching his dream because the more that he did that, the more that he would spend that one night in the hotel, then eventually turned into a weekend, then it eventually turned into a week. He continued to work incredibly hard, obviously, but every time that he got closer to that dream, it felt more and more real that, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is he had his whole nervous system, his whole body, his whole mind wired to think and believe. No, this is this is this is our life. This is this is who we are, this is what we do. Fast forward, guess where Ed Milette has a house now? On Laguna Beach, on Laguna Nigel, a mile away from the from the hotel that he used to frequent that gave him tastes of the dream that he lives today. And he credits a lot of that to every time that he went to that hotel was his opportunity to touch his future life. I just got back from New York City, had the most incredible experience over a weekend. One of the things that stood out was getting to interview on my friend Jonathan Cohen's podcast Inside the Inspired. Uh, we I flew up there primarily for this interview opportunity because he only does his podcasts in person now, in studio, on Broadway, in New York City. And many of you know that my dream is to take this podcast and everything that I'm doing outside of my corporate job full time. So every time that I get to go behind this mic, even right now in this very moment, is touching the dream, is getting me closer to that full-time reality. And when we look at the ultimate dream, it's sitting across face to face from the best of the best in the world to provide meaningful, to create meaningful, powerful conversations that turn into the tools that y'all use to improve your lives and win today. So as I'm sitting across from Jonathan in this podcast studio on Broadway in New York City, I'm smiling from ear to ear because this is touching my dream in the absolute finest. Sitting in that studio was like nothing that I've ever experienced before. I've I've interviewed in a few podcast studios before, but not in the mecca of one of the meccas in the world. That's how I see New York City as one of the business mechas and the most ambitious people in the world. That is one of the mechas. And this podcast studio that we are in, some of the biggest names that we often talk about, whether it's Cody Sanchez, Tony Robbins, Devin LeVake, I can go on and on and on. Modern Wisdom, Chris Williamson, when they're in New York, they often use this same exact studio to go and do recordings. So I'm like sitting there, like, holy smokes, I'm sitting in the same chairs that some of the people I admire the most, and people that are the source of inf inspiration for millions all over the world have sat in this same exact seat. I say all that to encourage you to go and touch your dream. Be clear on what your dream is. Go do some dreaming if you're if you're not sure yet. Go do some dreaming. But whatever that is, I want you to find a way to touch it. And touch it a few times at the in the back half of the year with the six months that we have left. And I believe that you will find yourself becoming more and more convinced that your dream can actually become a reality because I know that that's what doing this, even this podcast interview, the more that I connect to it, the more I believe and am convinced that this is gonna happen. There's no way that this dream is not gonna happen. I'm that convinced. And I believe you can be two with your dreams if you go ahead and touch it.

The Two-Question Personal Audit

11:34

Now, as we're halfway through going into number two, it's time to take audit of where you're at and where you want to go. And I'll offer two simple questions here. First half of the year, so from January to now, who were you being? Who were you being? And think about the response in more of a from a traits perspective. Like, were you being confident? Were you being in alignment with your goals? Were you being anxious? Were you being held back by anything? And take brutal account of all of those things, meaning be brutally honest with who you were being. I'm I'm in the middle of this audit right now, and the first half of the year in many ways was great, in a few ways not so great. Who was I being in those not so great pockets was somebody that was quite I was being anxious depleted and I was disregarding my values and needs? Now the second question is who do you want to be? So who are you being and who do you want to be? And think about that the same way. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be confident? Do you want to be loving? Do you want to be caring? Do you want to be empathetic? Who do you want to be? What type of person do you want to be? Those two questions can give you a lot of insight on what needs to be changed, what needs to be done differently, what do you need to do more of, what do you need to do less of, what do you need to start, stop, and continue. Two questions. Who are you being and who do you want to be? And perhaps think about it as what are the gaps between those two? And then from there, what's the path to close the gap? And I don't want you to get super discouraged either when we think about who are you being in the first half of the year versus the second half? Because again, an entire half is a lot of time to to change things. It's a lot of time and it's not a lot of time because we know how fast it goes. But for the purpose of this, it is a lot of time in that you can make a lot of things happen in six months. Thinking about the second half, I think about it as we're we haven't even really gotten started yet. For my sports fans, you may remember when the New England Patriots were down in the third quarter of a fourth quarter football game, 28-3 against the Atlanta Falcons. Most people would have written that game off that it's over, it's third quarter, it's the Super Bowl, good night, we cashed in our bets, we're good to go. But Tom Brady in that team knew that game's not over until the clock says zero. And who are they being? They are being courageous, they are being ferocious, they are being dedicated just like they have the whole year. And they operated in alignment to that and ultimately came back, one of the greatest Super Bowl comebacks of all time, in the third and fourth quarter, when most people would have written them off. So why would you write off your own life when it's only June? The equivalent of the Patriots scenario here would have been cutting it off in October. I guess that would be a little bit more realistic than June, but still.

Commit To One Meaningful Challenge

16:24

One thing. I want you to commit to one thing because committing to something meaningful will help fill your days, will help fill your weeks, will help fill your months and keep you focused on something. It gives you something to make progress on. And the number one motivator for humans, and this is through a Harvard Business Review study, the number one motivator for humans is progress. It's making meaningful progress on something, on one thing. Because when you can, let's just say you commit to you're gonna you want to run your first marathon by the end of 2026, and we're gonna start that that journey today. Now, if you take log of all of the miles you've ran, start logging all of your workouts, etc., and then you start seeing, okay, you start getting a little faster, you start getting better at running, you start seeing that visually seeing, because you're you're logging all your all of your workouts in one place, that you're moving forward. Well, that energy, that enthusiasm, that belief parlays into the other areas of your life, and we create this winning formula by committing to something challenging, by committing to one challenge, something meaningful, that can then be the catalyst for making progress in other areas, maybe things that don't excite you as much. So I want you to commit to one challenge. Lastly,

Choose One Thing Just For You

18:01

I want you to commit to one thing for you. This could be anything. This could be a bucket list item, this could be something you want to improve, maybe that's something that comes from the audit. I want you to pick one thing that is solely for you because it is also important that we choose ourselves and that we become the best version of ourselves so we can be the best. You can be the best you for somebody else. You can't do that if you're not the best you for yourself first. If that means that you know you haven't been taking much time for yourself, find one day, find a weekend, or find an opportunity to go take a trip somewhere. Go book the weekend to New York, go to Boston, take a day off, go into the office a little bit later so you can go into a coffee shop in the morning and realize that the work is still there, regardless of what time that you show up. Do something for you that you can smile about and get excited about. And then you'll see that that one thing may become two things, maybe come three things. During the podcast interview with Jonathan, we were talking about self-care and self-compassion. And one thing that stood out to me that I heard years ago, I'll never forget it, my friend Dante mentioned it. Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm. Many folks that are listening to this are high performers, people that you have a very active lifestyle, likely in many categories. You're deeply committed to helping others, you're deeply committed to your work, and there's probably been seasons of your life, and maybe even right now, and I've and I've been in this boat before too, where you've been everything for other people, for your organization, for your job, and you've been nothing for you. And it hurts sometimes, and it can get tiring, it can get taxing. And the only way that we break that is when we decide to choose ourselves and do something for ourselves. And I want you to do that knowing that on the other side of that is a better version of you to all the things that you're already committed to. So pick one thing for you and start building that muscle as well. And if you already have it, then find something you haven't done or use this as an invitation to do the one thing you've always wanted to be always wanted to do so that you can continue to have a great year and crush 2026. So I

Four-Part Formula And Closing

20:48

want you to touch your dreams, give yourself a good audit, commit to one challenge and one thing, and I believe this is what helps create a powerful formula, and we'll call it even a drug, to crush the rest of the year and win today. Thank you.