255. Your “Yes” Is Killing Your Results

Winners and losers often want the exact same things. The same goals. The same dreams. So why do some people execute and others stay stuck?
In this episode of Mindset Café, we break down the real separator: standards and identity. Goals aren’t enough—because identity is built through repeated beingness, and every action you take is a vote for the person you’re becoming.
We’ll cover how to stop relying on motivation and willpower, how to replace 50 rules with one anchor question (“What would a wise man do?”), why the hardest “no” is family and friends who want access to the old you, and how every “yes” you say can drain your energy through context switching and lost focus.
If you’ve been chasing multiple opportunities, restarting plans, or feeling scattered, this episode is your reset: say no, finish the plan, build the identity, and make your results inevitable.

Transcript

Goals Are Cheap, Standards Win

SPEAKER_01 0:22

What's up? Welcome back to another episode of the Mindset Cafe Podcast. Today's episode is simple, right? Most people think goals are set uh separate winners. They don't.

unknown 0:33

Right?

Identity Beats Motivation

Wanting Is Free, Standards Cost

Fitness And Business As Proof

The Votes You Cast Daily

Break The Restart Pattern

Anchor Questions That Hold Under Stress

Choose Results Over Approval

Focus, No, And Shiny Objects

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Goals are cheap. Goals, honestly, everybody has goals, right? Everybody wants to be fit, everybody wants more money, everybody wants more freedom, everybody wants a better life. Cool. So does everybody else. Here's the truth winners and losers want the same things, right? The same goals, the same dreams, same intentions, yet they get different results. Not because one person is more talented, not because one person is more lucky, quote unquote, because one person has standards and the other person negotiates with themselves. Let me make this a little bit clearer for you, though. A goal is what you want. A standard essentially is what you live every day, even when you're tired, even when you're stressed, even when nobody's watching. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, right? You have to do the things that you need to do in order to get to the place you want to get to. Identity is honestly your engine to get there. Identity isn't what you identity isn't what you say you are, identity is what you repeatedly do, right? Your calendar tells the truth. Your calendar can tell your identity, right? Your mouth is gonna end up lying, right? You're gonna tell yourself that you know I'm I'm this because this is what I do. But then when we look at your calendar, not what you have on your physical calendar, but what your calendar would look like if we put everything that you accomplished today on it, that would tell your identity. So in this episode, I'm going to give you some rules. I mean, honestly, I don't really, I'm not here to motivate you today, not gonna hype you up today, right? Just straight up rules of how to align your identity with who you want to be, right? Because we're still in January, you don't need a new goal, right? You've you've set your new year's resolutions like you do every year, right? Whether you accomplish them this year is the real question. Because last year, did you hit all your new year's resolutions more times than not, right? So you need you need a higher minimum standard, right? You need to start acting like the person that you keep saying you want to become. So let's get into it, right? If you keep setting goals and nothing changes, this is why. Here's your reality: winners and losers, they want the same things, the same goals, the same dreams, the same, I'm gonna do it. Wildly different results, though. Your goal is normal, your standards are your issue. If goals were enough, everyone would be fit, right? If you have if you've ever had a personal trainer, I'm sure you've heard that before. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. If it was easy to get rich, everyone would have money, right? Everyone would have peace, but they don't. So stop acting like your goal is special, your goal is normal, just like everyone else. Goals don't separate winners and losers. Your standards and identity do, right? Your goals don't separate winners, your standards and identity do. So I'm gonna try to make this as simple as I can. I'm gonna give you some rules, right? Again, not now, no motivation, no quotes, you know, just straight up rules because you don't need motivation, you need a set of rules, right? You have the same goals, but you're wondering how why are you getting different outcomes? Why are you getting different results, right? Why aren't you getting the same results as someone else? Because wanting is free, you can want as much as you want, you can want to hit a goal, you can want to be rich, you can want to be fit, you can um want better, you know, want abs. You could want more money, a better business, a better marriage, more freedom. Cool. That doesn't mean anything because wanting is the common people want results, but they don't want to pay the bill, and that's why they lose, right? Fitness, for example, everyone wants abs. Not everyone wants to live like someone who has abs, though, because the cost of abs is good sleep, right? Steps, the protein, the reps, the time, the consistency. And most people want the outcome, but they don't want to put in the inputs for that. So here's the hard truth about that, right? If it if it only works on perfect days, it doesn't work. So if the if it's not the goal, then what it what is it? It's what you tolerate, right? And I would say the difference isn't what you what you want, it's it's what you're willing to tolerate, right? Most people tolerate late nights, you know, trash food, skipping your workouts, skipping follow-ups, messy calendars, you know, messy money habits, messy habits in general, and then they act confused on why nothing's changed, right? Have this conversation with members all the time, you know, why they're why they're in body and why they're um why their body scans aren't aren't the what they wanted to be. And then we dive into what their days look like, and it's like, well, no shit. Winners don't tolerate that stuff because they're they're not because they're lucky, but because they have higher minimums of minimums of standards, right? A goal again is what you want. A standard is what you live every day, even when you're tired. Most people negotiate that daily. I'll start tomorrow, I'll do it later, I'll make it up, I'll get serious next week. Winners don't negotiate shit, right? They execute because their standard is locked in. You can have comfort or you can have results. You have to pick. Let's go into business, for example, right? There's two founders that both want a million-dollar business, same goal. Founder A tolerates missed follow-ups, late replies, they don't track their stuff, no CRM, no pipelines, random offers, chaos, right? Where founder B doesn't, right? Founder B has rules. He follow up, he he or she follows up daily, right? Track the leads coming in, number of checked uh numbers get checked weekly, right? For their KPIs. Calls were made even when it sucked or they didn't feel like it. Same goal, different standard, different outcome. If you can't track it, you can't improve it, right? Again, I'm gonna say that one more time because this applies to business, but this also applies to fitness, and this is why I have members you know doing their in-body scan, body composition scans, right? Because if you can't track it, you can't improve it. Standards don't come from your motivation, they come from your identity, and your identity is not what you say you are, it is what you repeatedly do. You don't uh decide who you are, you prove who you are with actions, not with words, not with posts, not I'm gonna actions. Here's the the feedback loop for you, though, right? You do a thing, you see yourself that you did it, you start to believe that's who I am, and then you do it again, and that becomes your identity loop, right? Your calendar is gonna tell the truth of what your identity loop looks like, right? Because your calendar isn't gonna lie, and I'm not talking about the one that you make up and you get to put that you had a ton of meetings on there or whatever the case may be. Like the calendar of what your day looked like in reality, right? Because the things that you tell yourself you do, you're lying to yourself, right? Your mouth lies, right? So fix the calendar, right? Well, I'll give you another fitness example. Every time you train when it's not convenient, that's a vote you're putting into your identity. I'm disciplined. Every time you quit early, that's a vote though. I folded today, right? I gave up today, right? I wasn't locked in today, right? No drama, it's pretty much just votes, right? It's just patterns, right? And you have to, there's essentially a pattern recognition that you have to start to realize. So here's the rule for that, right? Every action is a vote for the person you're becoming. One vote doesn't decide the election, but the pattern does. So don't be dramatic about it, right? One cookie didn't ruin you and get you to the body that you wanted to, or one miss call didn't get your business the way it is now, but a week of fuck it did, right? One skip day didn't kill your business, two weeks of avoiding calls did. If you if you restart a lot, you know, this kind of goes into the new year's resolution that I was talking about. If you restart, if you're a person that restarts a lot or always says, I'm gonna start on Monday, well, here's the hard truth about that, right? You're not stuck, you're just avoiding the shit you need to do. Most people don't lose because they mess up once, they lose because they mess up normally, right? They have this pattern recognition or this pattern of I'll just do it later. I'll just do it tomorrow. You know what? I'll restart fresh on Monday. I'll restart fresh tomorrow. It's like why you still have the rest of the day, you still have the rest of the week, you still have the rest of the month, you have the rest of the year, get back on the train, right? You're you're turning into a pattern, right? If you're if you if you if you don't realize that you're you're hitting this pattern, right? You're you just you're just starting to call it like this is just how I am, right? No, it's just what you practice. You don't need 50 different rules to solve this problem. You just need one anchor, right? One question, right? When you're tired, when rules start to fail, when you're stressed, rules fail. When you're emotional, rules fail. Identity questions don't because the question forces a standard, right? So you pick one of these, right? And this is the question that you need to ask yourself when it feels like everything, when it feels like you're feeling like you're falling off the train, essentially, right? So I want you to pick one of these questions, then ask yourself this when you catch this pattern starting to form, right? What would the best version of me do right now? Again, what would the best version of me do right now? That's question number one. Or you could do something along the lines of like, what would the best CEO do right now? Right? You can put your title into it if it's a professional goal that you have. What would the best CEO do right now? Or what would the best founder do right now? Right? That's question version number two. Last one would be, you know, like more of like on the fitness side, what would the best athlete do right now? Right? Pick a role model or pick, you know, if it's not let's say in the profession, well, you know, what would and then that trait or that's that skill or that person do right now? Then do the next right thing, right? Not 10 actions, right? Just one. You don't need motivation, you need a rule, you need a pattern. So ask the question, do the thing, don't debate about it. Business, for example, the best CEO doesn't scroll, the best CEO doesn't avoid the hard calls, the best CEO just executes, right? You don't need a better schedule, you just need a stronger identity, right? If your plan only works on perfect days, it's not a plan, right? If your plan only works on perfect days, it's not a plan. Schedules break, kids get sick, travel happens, life happens, bad sleep happens, then your schedule starts to collapse. Winners don't rely on perfect days, they rely on identity. Identity holds under pressure because it's not a plan, it's just who you are. Calls happen because calls pay, right? Feelings don't. The hardest no is people who knew the old version of you, right? And so the question becomes, are you willing to disappoint to win? The hardest no isn't to strangers. And when I say no, it's you know, no, I don't want to go do this, or no, I can't make it to that, or no, I can't do this because I'm doing the things I need to do, right? So the no is to opportunities or events or birthdays, whatever the case may be, right? So the hardest no isn't to strangers, it's gonna be to your family and friends because they want to access that old version of you, the version of you that they've knew known forever, right? They have a picture of you that you've been, right? Available, easy, same, right? And growth threatens that picture they have of you, so they're gonna pull, right? With jokes, with guilt, with just this once or just one more, right? So you need to pick one, right? You can't live their dream version of you and your dream version of you at the same time. So you need to pick one. Let their dream version of you die, right? So yours can live. No one is coming to save you, right? Build a system so that you could be so you could save yourself. That doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it. It just means stop living for approval because approval is expensive in terms of your goals, right? It costs you time, focus, standards, identity, temporary discomfort, right? Permanent a permanent capacity of what you can accomplish in a day, right? Every yes costs you more than just time. Every yes, again, costs you more than just time. It costs you focus, it costs you momentum, identity, right? Business, for example, that quick 15-minute call can kill a two-hour deep work block. A quick call is how losers stay quote unquote busy. It steals your best hour, and that's why you can't get ahead if you keep saying yes to random things. You are donating your best hours to other people's priorities, then you act confused why you're behind. You're not behind, you're just undisciplined with saying yes, right? So you need to focus on saying no, focus on not saying yes. Focus is saying no to a hundred good ideas, and good ideas are the enemy of your great execution. Most people collect ideas, winners collect the reps that get them to the goal that they need to get to, right? Entrepreneur example for you, right? There's always gonna be that shiny object syndrome, right? A new, a new venture, um, a new business, a new, you know, thing, new crypto, you know, e-commerce, a new agency, you know, a coaching side of their business, a real estate, you know, deal. Chasing all that means, mastering none of it. Chasing all of that means you're going to master none of it. And then you are going to compete against someone else that is going all in on the one thing. Right? So now you have 10 different things you're working on on in different areas, and then you're going against 10 different people that are only focusing on taking you out of that thing. Most plans work if you just don't abandon them, right? So here's the truth about it. Honestly, most plans work, but you can't abandon the game plan. Most people don't fail the plan, they fail the boredom, they fail in the middle. Let's go into fitness for example. I'm sure you've tried a fitness program, you know, meal plan or a uh a workout plan, and you're like, you know what? This isn't working for me after a couple days or a couple weeks or a month, right? And so you switch to a different program, same thing. Next program, same thing, right? You start program hopping, right? A new split, a new muscle split every two weeks, a new diet every Monday, but yet you've had the same body for five years. That's not genetics. And if you're telling yourself it is, you're lying to yourself. That just means you don't have consistency. So if you restart a lot, restart your plan a lot, you're not stuck. You're just avoiding sticking to the plan. And winners stick to the plan, then they stay long enough to actually get paid with results. They stay long enough to get paid with the results because it takes time, right? Willpower is unreliable, right? But your environment essentially is what's going to help you win. So stop trying to so stop trying harder, right? Start designing harder. Remove the options, right? Remove the temptations, right? You have two choices only, really. You do the work or you stare at the wall. And what I mean by that is you're creating your environment, right? If you need to focus on something, eliminate the distractions, right? No phone, no tabs open on no extra tabs open on your computer, right? No, let me just check this real quick. You don't need motivation, you just need constraint. Make it work. Make work the only option, right? Boredom rises, then work becomes the escape. That's the point. So let's make it math, right? Let's let's let's kind of make this a little equation for you. Standards plus identity plus your environment equals repeatable results. Again, I'll say that again. Standards plus identity plus environment equals repetitive results. You don't get 10x results with a 1x character. Results lag who you are. So you have to. This is the I would go into this. This is the order, right? Be do have, right? Be who you say you are, do what you need to do, and you'll have the results, not the other way around. For example, in business, track leads, track calls, track your close rates, track your follow ups, protect your deep work daily, not once, right? So I'll close I'll close with this, right? We're done talking. Here's your assignment, right? Tonight, I want you to audit your votes. Remember your votes are the things that you did or didn't do. And I want you to ask yourself, what did I vote for today? Not what did I planned today, not what did I feel today, what did I do? And then three simple actions, right? Then three actions, right? Simple, measurable, just remove one distraction that affected you today, delete it or block it. Say no to one missaligned request for the next day, and then use the anchor question once, right? That we talked about in the beginning. What would the best fill in the blank do? When you want to slip up, that's what you ask it. That's when that's when you ask it, then act. What would they do? Or what would this version of me do? Then do it. You don't need better goals, you need better standards and the courage to live like the person you keep saying you are. Goals don't separate winners, standards and your identity do. So I hope that helped. I just want to make sure that you guys are actually doing the things that you need to do in 2026 to achieve the goals that you set out to achieve this year. Don't if you didn't achieve your goals for 2025, don't let that repeat this year. If you guys need anything, you can know you can always reach out, shoot me a DM. Um, but otherwise, you guys know I love you guys. I appreciate y'all. I'll see you guys on the next one.