Now that you know how to set a vision, start your progress by learning how to create an action plan. Listen to our mini-series finale to discover how to execute your strategy and direct yourself toward your goals!
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Now that you know how to set a vision, start your progress by learning how to create an action plan. Listen to our mini-series finale to discover how to execute your strategy and direct yourself toward your goals!
Key Takeaways To Listen For
Connect With Us
Master your context with real results leadership training!
To learn more, visit our website at www.greatsummit.com.
For tax, bookkeeping, or accounting help, contact Dr. Nate’s team at www.theincometaxcenter.com or send an email to info@theincometaxcenter.com.
Follow Dr. Nate on His Social Media
[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
There's all kinds of reasons for that, for my vision not becoming real, why couldn't I make this vision real? That's a question that you ask when it comes to New Year's resolutions. I'm gonna tell you the answer to that. Many times, our New Year's resolutions are not anchored.
[00:00:17]
Hello, my friend, and welcome to this final episode in our three-part series on leadership. We're talking about vision specifically, and on these Solo Friday episodes, just you and I, we're in the trenches. We're just hanging out, going through one specific tool to add to your leadership tool belt. And so this is a three-part series. If you haven't heard parts one and part two, I would encourage you to go back and listen to those two.
[00:00:42]
But we're talking about vision, and this is just an overview on vision, different aspects of how we craft and execute a vision. And this last part is about the execution. So we talked a little bit about how to create a vision for our future. Begin with the end in mind, which was our first episode. Writing our legacy, where is it that we would want to be remembered?
[00:01:04]
How are we to be remembered? And then we start adding aspects of our life and identifying where specific aspects of our life in our vision would be best served. So for example, we looked at different areas such as our needs, our wants, our family, areas of gratification, business, friendships, hobbies, all the line items if you will, that encompass our entire lives.
[00:01:33]
Because, we're not just one aspect of a life. We are every characteristic of a life, every season of a life, every part of a life. So it's so important to identify all of those pieces that will bring us fulfillment and joy, help us to aim for greatness, but also in so doing to create an irresistible offer of life.
[00:01:54]
And so here we are. How do we do that? Well, my friend, I look at three different kinds of people in this world. There's lots of different kinds of people, but there's people who are dreamers, there's people who are doubters, and there are people who are doers and dreamers are just that they think about, wow, wouldn't it be amazing if life would be like this?
[00:02:12]
But they never actually take action. Then there's doubters who get locked up and all the reasons why things can't happen, why we can't make this vision real, why we can't do this, this, and this to embody a better future state. And so what do they do? They become, paralyzed, and then they just wallow in their own doubt.
[00:02:31]
But then there's your third kind of person, and I know that's the kind of person who you are. There's the doers. People who actually get out there, step up, show up to do the work that's necessary to move our vision forward and make it real. That's you. That's me. That's why we're here today together, because we believe that we can be a part of the solution of life, and life is a series of challenges and problems and situations and contexts and circumstances that paint this portrait, this picture of how we exist. So we embrace that to what, adapt and overcome all of our challenges and obstacles.
[00:03:15]
And so today I'm gonna break how we actually execute our vision for the future. Now, there's all different ways to execute a vision. These are just some suggestions. These are ways that I found not only work for me, but for the students who I get to have the privilege of serving. So one of the first things we do is we identify what it is that we want to accomplish.
[00:03:42]
Like I said earlier, right on a previous, those previous two episodes in this series on vision, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. You have to know the destination. There's no other way to reach a place than to actually identify where that is. You have to start there. And then once you identify, you're gonna face all kinds of roadblocks, all kinds of challenges, twists and turns.
[00:04:07]
And the question is, what do I do? Well, the first thing we do is we walk the vision backwards. Okay? Before we even embark on the vision. On the journey, we create a strategy. And interestingly, strategy comes from a Greek word, which means to lead the army, so to strategos or strategos, which means to, it's a military term.
[00:04:28]
And so when we create a strategy, we are creating an action plan. And that action plan is going to determine our steps toward reaching our future. And so, without a plan, we're really lost. And so, so many of us go into a vision or somewhere we want to go, and we just say, let's just go, well, hold on a second.
[00:04:50]
Let's map it out. Right? And so when we talk about mapping it out, we're literally, we're creating a map of how we're going to accomplish this. And we're doing that, I like to start with the end result and work it backwards. In other words, let's just use an example. So for me, I wanted to begin working on my leadership development group, and I wanted to have 12 people in my group and max it out at 12.
[00:05:16]
And so I knew I couldn't get there unless I started backwards, right? So backwards was this. Okay. So if I want in 24 months to have 12 people in my group. Then I must start with 24 months out and work it backwards. So in 18 months, I want to have nine members of my group. In 12 months, I want to have seven members of my group.
[00:05:40]
In six months, I want to have five members in our group. In the first three months, I want to have three members of my group. Okay, so now I've worked that plan backwards in terms of the measurables, and you have to have measurables. You have to have quantifiable data to help you to reach those goals. And we're gonna talk a little bit about smart goals here soon.
[00:06:03]
So as you begin to identify what those milestones are, and then you can work backwards to reaching that goal. So for me, the first step then was how do I get my first three people in this group? Well, then I identify what are the steps I need to take to do that? Number one, I need to actually create a model for the group.
[00:06:26]
I need to say what those markers are. So for me, the group models were I looked at other models, and before I even started the group, I actually attended and was a part of another group. So I did my research, and this is part of discovery. Remember, if you remember, if you're new to listening, you may not have heard this before, but I repeat my own personal definition of leadership is this.
[00:06:47]
Leadership is the discovery of influence toward an achievement of shared purpose. Lots of, lots of definitions of leadership, but in my scholarly research and my dissertation, that's how I identified leadership. It starts with discovery, moves into influence, and then effective leadership is achievement oriented, but it's all based around shared purpose.
[00:07:08]
So as leaders, we must first discover. So my first step, even before I started my group was, I was in discovery mode of what these groups might look like, so I attended, and I was a part of another group. I also, when I was working on my PhD, I was a part of a cohort, so I took notes on how the group model worked in a cohort environment and with different aspects that I thought brought the group closer together.
[00:07:33]
So I started, kept taking my notes, so as I'm forming my plan, I'm researching. So are you researching? Are you spending time in R&D learning now? And sometimes the research is you directly, sometimes it's with a team. Sometimes you send different members of the team out, whatever the research looks like.
[00:07:53]
You've gotta be data gathering, and research doesn't end. Once you start a plan, it continues. And it continues to progress. So as you develop your plan, you begin to identify specific milestones in areas that you have to accomplish to reach that goal. So for me, I began to develop this model.
[00:08:15]
So the model I'd had to have certain aspects that were non-negotiable, I thought were essential. One was group time. Two for every month for the group members to get together. And talk about their problems, but not just any problems. Problems they're having from decision to decision. And when I say decision to decision every four months was another piece is that we have a retreat.
[00:08:37]
We have a group retreat that identifies where I'm at, where I want to be in the next four months, and then how I'm going to get there. And so every month we do a check-in and find where we are in that journey, what roadblocks we're facing, and then everyone combine together to help one another along that journey.
[00:08:56]
Another aspect was the one-on-one piece. I wanted to have some time one-on-one, where I got to interact with each group member and help them along their way and just really help solve problems. And so the retreat, the one-on-one time and the group time were the three essentials for the group. Another essential was I had to want to hang out with you.
[00:09:19]
I had to wanna be around you and maybe even take a vacation with you there. There were non-negotiables because I didn't wanna be around people or be coaching people who I didn't find to be people who I could enjoy time with, because my time is limited and truth be told, I don't wanna hang out with jerks.
[00:09:36]
I wanna hang out with people who share an affinity for the possibilities and who have kindness and patience and compassion in their heart. People who share my values. And incidentally then I had to create a system of values. What is it that were non-negotiables in terms of what you valued? So I created a list of values, which were integrity, accountability, transparency, growth, generosity, and a legacy. Wanting to create a legacy that lives beyond me. Those were aspects that I had to check with every potential group member. And so when I began to do that, guess what happened, friend. I began to form a plan for this group, you see? So then I began to invite people who I thought might fit that.
[00:10:26]
And as I invited them, my group began to grow, and so I'm happy to say 24 months in, this month, we are at our 12 members. So the plan worked. Now were there challenges and roadblocks and hiccups, of course, but in that journey, some things had to happen. In your journey, it's the same as you're forming your plan of execution month by month, quarter by quarter.
[00:10:53]
Work it backwards. You're gonna face challenges. And even in my own students, they face challenges. And that's just with this particular example. I can give you an example in my accounting and advisory firm, I can give you an example in my own family life with my spending time with my son and my spouse and working a plan to invest in them.
[00:11:13]
I can tell you from the perspective of my own personal development, for example, with learning or with health, you say you might, at the time of this recording, it's the end of the year. This recording will go just right before New Year's. And of course, what do we do? We do New Year's resolutions all the time.
[00:11:29]
And those New Year's resolutions tend to fail within the first 30 days. People just check out, and there's all kinds of reasons for that, for my vision not becoming real. Why couldn't I make this vision real? That's a question that you ask when it comes to New Year's resolutions. I'm gonna tell you the answer to that.
[00:11:45]
Many times, our New Year's resolutions are not anchored, and when I say by anchored, they're not anchored in a purpose that lives beyond the momentary needs. And I'll give you an example. When I was a kid, you know, my dad, he ate what he wanted. He drank what he wanted. He was very sedentary. And as he grew older, he smoked.
[00:12:07]
He didn't have a healthy focus on his life. And in my family, we have heart disease, is hereditary. So my dad had his first heart attack when he was in his early sixties, and the doctor said he needed a stint and he refused it. Well, he died shortly thereafter, and that was 2004, and 2007 my son was born and I never got to see my father hold my son.
[00:12:30]
Now, my father made his own choices, and I don't judge him for that, but I thought in my own life, you know, if it's up to me, I'd like my son to be able to see me hold his child or children if he so desires to have kids. And in order to do that, all things being equal, as if I don't get hit by a bus or some other thing that's beyond my control, I can control my choices with what I eat, because in my family, if I choose to eat poorly and in other words, foods that lead to high cholesterol and heart disease and things like that, and of course my exercise, how I take care of myself and my sleep, my stress levels, then the possibilities increase for me to be able to live out that anchored vision.
[00:13:12]
So when I have a New Year's resolution, this last holiday, I kind of fell off the wagon a little bit with chicken wings and pizza and foods that are not heart-healthy. Let's say like I'm accustomed to like salads and lots of greens and lots of lean meats and vegetables. When I make my new New Year's resolution to get back on, it's anchored in that long-range vision that's so much more important to me than that cheeseburger or that slice of pizza. It's a risk return. It's a sacrifice reward. It's a cost benefit analysis that leads me to make the choice not to pick that up. And I know that a habit takes about 21 days to form, and it takes several months for a behavior to really solidify itself.
[00:13:59]
So I know that with my plan, I've got to hold myself accountable for the next 21 days to begin to form a new habit. And in so doing, I have to speak it out, verbalize in my own way personally, is to share what my plan is. Because if I share it, then I'm holding myself accountable with others around me. And as a leader, it motivates me to actually have the discipline to finish a task that I commit to because I'm that kind of a person.
[00:14:29]
I'm very commitment oriented. So if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. And so for you, it may look different. For you, you may have different parameters, but you've got to anchor that vision with something that's more important to you than the object of whatever it is that you're trying to overcome.
[00:14:52]
And so you lay out a plan. Now, part of the plan is I'm gonna eliminate all of those high fat, high cholesterol foods from my pantry. Might do that. Might eliminate the prospect of going to dinner. You might have someone in your life who loves to go out for, you know, pizza and wings and beer. You have to tell them, look, please don't tempt me.
[00:15:15]
Please help me because I'm on this mission. You've gotta set up very clear parameters in that strategy to reach that goal and make sure that goal is not beyond what's actually possible. In other words, you might say, well, my goal is to lose, you know, 25 pounds this month. Well, that may not be realistic, and it might not even be healthy.
[00:15:36]
So set a goal that's realistic and then begin to work that goal day by day and give yourself a praise report every time that you resist the temptation and replace that temptation. For example, hunger. You know, I might, late night snacks is, is something I know that I and many others have struggled with.
[00:15:56]
So I'll replace it with a bottle of sparkling water, and that sparkling water tends to fill my stomach. And so then I don't have that craving hunger or when it's for sweets, I used to reach for cheesecake or what, or things like that, or a bag of pizza rolls. Now it's a date. I'll put like a little fig date out of the fridge and that sweetness quenches my desire to eat that later.
[00:16:17]
Some people chew gum, whatever that might look like for you. And then give yourself a reward whether it's a tangible or intangible reward for overcoming that day because small victories build courage. And that's courage we need as we progress on this journey, because sometimes we might fall off a day, and then we have to get back up.
[00:16:38]
Sometimes it's not about the diet or you know, seemingly small issues. Maybe they're big issues. Maybe you've got a house that needed to sell, and it didn't sell, and you've got all this equity in your home. This actually happened to one of my students. All this equity in your home and you need to access that cash and you can't access that cash and you've got issues there.
[00:16:58]
And so what do you do? What do you do? You reach out to your group, you reach out to your peer group. If you don't have a peer group or coaching group or a mastermind group or others who can encourage and help you and give you, help you with solutions, then you need that. You need to create that group. How do I create that group, Nate?
[00:17:15]
Well, you reach out. We reach out to people who you think might be worthy to join you and apply to serve one another and grow. So what did I tell my student? I told my student, well, you've got a business. There's a line of credit option with a bank. Let's see about accessing that particular option and get you some working capital in the short term until your property sells.
[00:17:38]
Right? Wow, that sounds great. I'm all for it. Boom. Send an email, introduction. You see, it's not, we don't do this alone. When we're faced with reaching our goals, making our vision real, we must unite with one another. That's what binds us. That's what holds us together. That's what keeps us moving forward. We're not isolated individuals.
[00:17:59]
We work in social community, human beings progress through communication. We progress through shared values. We've progressed through shared vision, shared purpose. We progress cuz we work together. That's the human condition. That's the human experience. And if we're, if we're not taking advantage of that experience, we're missing out on so much humanity has to offer one another.
[00:18:25]
So some things that might be holding us back, we may have had trust in others in the past, and that trust has been broken. I know that's happened to me in my own life. I've been a person who has been burned. I know you've been burned. Sometimes I've burned others. But that doesn't mean that all hope is lost.
[00:18:45]
No. That just means that we have to use discernment. We have to set boundaries. We have to be rational. We have to be focused on judging character and not giving trust where it has not yet been earned in some ways. And of course you give trust without being earned. I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole today, but you know what I'm saying.
[00:19:09]
What I'm saying is that you make the judgment of who and when you will move forward. And so it starts with, it starts with that big vision way out there, and then it goes into working a plan. And I'm gonna talk with you just a little bit before we close about these SMART goals. So you might have heard of these SMART goals.
[00:19:29]
And really the smart goals are just, it's an an acronym for goals that are specific, measurable, realistic, attainable, and time-bound. I got that backwards. It's specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. So your goals, make sure your goals are very specific. What is it specifically that I must do?
[00:19:51]
Because then measure those goals, whether or not you're achieving them, and then make them incremental day by day. Have I met this goal today? Sometimes you don't have goals that you can reach day by day. Sometimes they're week by week, and then make sure they're realistic. Make sure that your goals are not goals that are so lofty that are going to squander your progress because you just can't make them anyway.
[00:20:15]
Right? Like I said, losing 30 pounds in one month, that may not be realistic. All kinds of things that you think might be, if, say you want to be in politics and you wanna change a force for change for good. And you wanna help the culture change its trajectory so that it serves one another. Well, that's a big goal, right?
[00:20:34]
It's very difficult. That's not realistic to try to say, well, let's just do that in a month. I mean, look at Dr. Martin Luther King. How many years ago was that, that he said, I have a dream, right? We're still working towards those goals, and you can go all the way back in time and so many people along the journey.
[00:20:50]
So make sure your goals are realistic for us as a family, I went on a goal for 30 days to reach this, what I call 30 days of love and acts of charity, acts of kindness with me and my son. And that was a realistic goal. Our goal was simply to think of something each day to do and then to execute that and do something for someone else.
[00:21:14]
Just be kind. Just an act of service, and it was very realistic, and it was time bound because it was day by day. It was very specific because we chose an act to do, we could measure whether or not we were able to do it, and then we could attain it. It wasn't that difficult. In other words, it wasn't like, Hey, let's figure out how we can donate a million dollars to a charity.
[00:21:34]
Well, we don't have a million dollars to donate to a charity, so that's not attainable or realistic, but we could easily give $20 to someone in need on the side of the road, which we did. We can easily buy a box of donuts for our local precinct to just share our appreciation for their sacrifice and their service.
[00:21:54]
We could easily mow a lawn for a widow in need. We could easily listen to someone who simply is having a struggle that day. We could easily smile when someone looks down and out, those are things that are easy to do. They're very specific, they're measurable, they're attainable, they're realistic, and then they are time bound.
[00:22:14]
And guess what happened in those 30 days? We changed. We actually formed new habits to focus specifically on serving others. So we set out for a goal and we actually, in our vision, we actually achieve that vision day by day. So for you, what is your vision for this next year in different areas of your life?
[00:22:35]
And again, if you haven't listened to the last two episodes, go back because I go through very specific areas of your life. And then what am I doing day by day? What can I do today? to make that vision real. Who do I have around me to help me to do that? Because ideas begin to flow once you begin to ask people.
[00:22:52]
Another example is a couple of other, my coaching students, they came in and they have a goal of 100% customer satisfaction. They own rental properties. They're renters. They want their renters to be 100% satisfied. This is a huge goal, and so we started identifying ways which they could do that.
[00:23:10]
One of the ways was sending them an annual basket, a gift basket. And so they took action right away and sent edible arrangements to each of their tenants, and they began to get messages back. Thank you, thank you, thank you for these thoughtful gift. Now, I didn't tell them what the gift was, but we shared in creating a strategy to execute that, and they went right in and executed that vision.
[00:23:36]
They're excellent students. And you can see that's one step toward 100% customer satisfaction. We identified five or six other aspects of it through communication, through responsiveness, and so on and so forth. Having clean properties and having safe properties and a number of different aspects of it.
[00:23:54]
And do I believe that it's possible for them to do this without the strategy? No. Without the plan, no. But with it, I really believe they can achieve this. And I really believe for you with a strategy and a plan, and with the right people around you, you too can achieve your vision. Well, my friend, this has been a little introduction to vision.
[00:24:14]
We'll talk lots and lots more about vision, and on this podcast because leadership and vision go hand in hand. It's the fuel that makes vision real, and I'm so glad that you've joined me through this time together. I can't wait to see you, be with you on the next set of episodes of Series on Leadership.
[00:24:30]
In fact, just this Monday we're starting series on, I believe actually it might be the second episode. The second episode, and a series on different aspects of the market and the economy. Airbnb, Carvana, the search for authenticity. So definitely listen to the Monday episodes, which is co-hosted with Travis Revelle and Sam Salah.
[00:24:53]
You won't regret listening in to those as well. Well, my friend, we did it again. I'm so glad you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. If you've been with me on the show, listening in, you'll know this, but if you're new, you may not know that I created a free course for you, that you don't need to provide an email address.
[00:25:15]
You don't need to go anywhere but to stay right here in the podcast, I created the very first six episodes of the podcast because I wanted you to have the kind of value that you need to take advantage of to thrive as a leader. If haven't done that yet. Listen to episodes one through six, and I'll see you on the next episode.
[00:25:32]
I'm Dr. Nate Salah and this is A Call to Leadership.