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Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast, another special Transformation Tuesday edition of the show, folks. We are live on Facebook every single Tuesday to help you get from the place you are to the place you want to be? You can find us at Facebook.com/slashjohntesh. Join our Facebook group. But before you do that, listen to this episode. This is the audio taken straight from our conversation about getting you from the place you are to the place you want to be. You want to change your life. You want to set big goals.
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This is what you need to know in order to do it, ladies and gentlemen. Without further ado, here's me and John Tesh. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Transformation Tuesday. Today it is goals that stick. Get your goals right. Get your goals made. Get your goals accomplished. There is tons of research about the fact that if you want to change your life, it starts with a goal. The goal setting is one of the key factors in changing your life.
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Here with me, fantastically, is goal setter and achiever extraordinaire John Tesh. Thanks for being. And this is and this is what your daughter did to me. What you know when we picked her up at school yesterday, she's went. Hi, pop up. So that's my that's my new thing now. Is it? Thanks, Gib.
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What does this What does this mean?
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It's just you're just you're just being demure. You're being you're being I don't want to do that.
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Yeah, I know you don't want to do it, which is why I'm saying don't do that. Hey, have you heard that my Have you heard that my new Christmas record is out?
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You know I have been getting emails from people about your new Christmas record.
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Congratulations about how great it is. So if you if you would like to listen to it, go wherever you can listen to Christmas records. Actually, here oh I forgot I forgot to tell you this. Gib, you when we just lit this candle. You can go to tetch.com/slash Christmas and you can listen to songs without even paying for it. I mean, this is the the the record company that's Gib and Connie. The record the the record company is not happy about this, but you can you can absolutely listen for free. See right there, you can just listen for free. Here's the other cool thing, and Gib shot a lot of this footage. This is behind the scenes footage of what the orchestra is doing, right? Here's me looking like, yeah, real orchestra. No, yeah, none of that AI stuff. Here's me looking like I know what I'm doing. Actually, I look puzzled there. But but the funny thing is, is that exactly the funny thing is, is that here's here's Andrew Cinewick, one of the best guitar players in the world. He plays on he plays acoustic and electric guitars on the thing, and then there's also that's that's over there on the right.
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I don't think I can move this around because I'm not really good at this. But there it goes.
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I can do it now. Right on the on the bottom right there. That's that's Ray Brinker playing drums. Ray Brinker is on the road right now with Herb Alberts, who is 92 years old. So so these are really the you know the the the best of the best players, and that's Tim knows who this guy is right here. I mean, I mean, Gib knows who this guy is. Tim, that is Tim. Tim Layers. Tim knows. I'm going to his. It's a whole bunch of old guys making a Christmas record.
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This is Tim Layers. He turns.
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He's been with me, Gib, for 40 years. Yeah, and and we have been through it together emotionally, loving each other, hating each other, tolerating each other, and but he's always there, you know, and this is me pretending to write music. So it's all, it's all there at tesh.com/slash Christmas, and and there you go. That's our commercial.
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If you are anything like me and you like to start the Christmas music early, you should check that out. It is. It's a lot of the Christmas standards redone, opened up into epic, you know, into epic orchestrations and stuff. And again, everybody that we know of who has like people that are on this call and the Thursday call have have emailed in about it, and and it's it's great. I've listened to it; it's fantastic. So check that out.
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And that is, you know, that's a great way to backdoor into this idea of goals, because we're going to talk about how to set goals that stick, how to how to reframe your goals in a way that makes them achievable, so that you can get them done. And a lot of people, if you're here, you know, they know you from Entertainment Tonight, they know you from a broadcast career, from from sports, and then a little bit. Now it's more so, but a little bit of your music came out in round ball rock. But people didn't really even know that was you until years later.
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So this idea of being a musician was a surprise to everybody who was a fan of yours. Until it wasn't, and and that whole time that was in the background of your mind as your primary goal.
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How did you sustain that goal, even in the face of just difficulty in getting that getting known as and recognized as a musician?
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Yeah, I mean, I always had had my eye on. I guess you could say that the the the prize. I I was be besought beset by by we've talked about this before by by by stage fright and imposter syndrome and then what happened was I ended up in a job radio and television where I didn't have to be in front of anybody other than a cameraman whatever you you're doing the Olympic games and people are like, "How did you do that? Because you got one guy who you've known for like three years, who's got a camera in front of you, and you don't really think about the 250 million people who are watching you in 25 countries. You know, yeah. So what happened was, I mean, I got into into that world of television and radio, and I had didn't really, I had, I didn't grow up thinking about that. I grew up thinking about being the Beatles, you know, in rock rock bands and and and garage bands, but but there was I always had my eye on that, and and was trying to figure out a way to raise my hand and say I'm serious about about this, and nobody, as you know, nobody would sign me to a record deal, especially when I got to the level of of exposure of entertainment tonight, and entertainment time wasn't my favorite job, but it was it was probably one of the most important jobs. It was the most important job for my for my music career because they were so great supporting me, and they knew that I I wanted to be a full time musician. So I only worked for four hours a day, right? But there's that thing where you know you keep practicing and you and you and you want to be found ready. And then when I saw other these other artists like like Yanni and the Three Tenors and a whole bunch of people doing these PBS specials, and nobody knew who Yanni was, nobody knew who the Three Tenors were, but you watched how PBS just exploded their careers. That's when I contacted them, and and and and and then Red Rocks happened, and and all of a sudden we went from selling 200 records a monsoon to to close to 30,000, which was insanity. And and then I had the decision, and Connie and I were
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Do I continue to do entertainment tonight? And and but I really wanted to, and we talk about this all the time, right? Cortez burning the burning the ships, burning the boats, so so that his marauders wouldn't have a choice. If they if they were failing, they still had to keep going. And so I did. I quit Entertainment Tonight, and I quit early, and they didn't.
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They weren't happy about that.
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We ended up solving it, but but I did. I ended up getting sued by them. Not everybody knows that, but it was. So it was. so.
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You you remember all that? It was a it was a tough time. But but we all have that that one thing that we want to do before we die, basically. Especially when you're this you know when you're this age, and it's it's there for you if you don't do something stupid. I would never do what I did in 1994 again. I risked my family's savings. I risked being homeless. I mean, it was it was a real big risk.
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But there are lesser risks that that you can take if you have a you know if you have a concrete plan. But but the thing is, you know, I've heard these folks say this before. You know, and I'll land this. I promise, Gib, is that if if you don't follow your dream, eventually it's going to track you down. And if it tracks you down while you're on your death bed, you're probably going to have some regret. That's powerful and brutal, but it's true.
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So you're here, Transformation Tuesday. People are here in the Zoom. And by the way, if you would like to be a bigger part of our community with Transformation Tuesday, join our Facebook group right here at facebook.com/johntesh, and you can be a part of the community every single day. And also join us and watch us on Zoom. So if you're here, it means that you want to change something, that you want some movement in your life, and that you have goals that you feel even if you don't understand what they even are in your head, you have something that you haven't achieved, and you don't want to wait until the end of your life and look back and go, "I wish I had tried that. I wish I had spent more time working on this stuff.
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We're going to talk right now about, and we're going to reframe everything. I think it's helpful to reframe it against you and building your music career, and all the way to this current Christmas album, but here's here's Mel Robbins, who's got great insights into this stuff about the mistakes that a lot of us make with our goals and how that holds us back.
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The mistakes based on research that everybody makes when they
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you forget about the why.
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Identifying that is going to make all the difference in the world. You're setting too many goals. Stop committing to dry January, whole 30, learning Spanish, changing your job, all in the same month. You're missing the sweet spot. You see, there is this sweet spot with goal setting and goal achievement between it being way too easy and it being. Way too hard. You gotta hit the sweet spot. Mistake number four: the goal's too general. Dreams can be general. Your goals must be specific, and they must be definable. And finally, mistake
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Have you ever heard of a high low range goal? It's easier to lose two to four pounds than three pounds. So for me, you know what that means.
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I'm gonna make it a goal to journal between five and seven days a week. Oh, that feels achievable.
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Let me let me jump in. Let me jump in here first and just say I I know a lot about Mel Robbins. I followed her before she was really famous, and she has she has walked the walk. I mean, she had some some some problems that she really needed to get through, and and she did, and she took it one step at a time. But it's really funny for me that she would mention Whole 30 because because that's the eating plan that you're on right now.
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I'm doing Whole 30 as we speak.
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I wanted to reset, and so I did it. But she's got a point, right? Like you can't do Whole 30 and learn a language and do all of this you can't set goals in every area of your life that are big all at the same time and we're going to dive more into that a little bit and I've got more to say about that but I also love this idea when you when you don't make them specific enough right you have just a dream and I think you had this dream of being a musician, but it turned into small goals of like, okay, so I'm I'm a broadcaster, I'm going to write the music for the Tour de France as I'm doing it. I'm gonna that's a goal that you can achieve, and then you release that as an album. Like those are all stepwise motions that turn you into a musician, basically by default. But it seems-I mean, sort of-it seems like it's by default. But each one of those is a goal, and then you see, like again, in your back of your mind, is the dream of musician.
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But you see the three tenors, you see Yanni at the Acropolis, you see these things on PBS, and then that becomes the goal. It became specific in each of those instances.
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Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
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I, I, I actually, I want you to also know that you know it's there in in Romans 12 two. I'm always mentioned this scripture, which is you know be Paul talking, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and it's not it's not a one time thing because I'll just tell you that there's two things really about setting goals for me anyway, and and one is you forget about being embarrassed anymore, right? Because I remember that one of the first concerts we ever gave. This is going to sound ridiculous, was in the shoe department at Nordstrom's, and and so I had my I put together a band and I had music from the Tour de France, which is really intense music, and so they said, "Hey, what? Because I was at Entertainment Tonight, they said, "Let's get the Entertainment Tonight guy to play at this event. What it was was it was a thing where they opened up the store just to high rollers, just to people who were going to spend a lot of money, and they needed music. So somebody said, "Let's let's have John Tesh come and play. They had never heard Tour de France music, whatever. I didn't even really know who was who was going to show up to the shoe department, and so we were playing really loud rock and roll music, and it did not go over well, you know. But but it was like you don't you're not going to start at the Acropolis, right? You're not going to start at Red Rock. So really, as Mel Robbins said, you got to start you got to start small. The other thing is that that I don't, I don't know if any of that for me, if a lot of that would have gotten done, if there had been Netflix and Prime, what is it, Amazon Prime, and and and iPhones and stuff like that?
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Because I find myself when I when I come up against a, I'm really honest now. You you don't even know how bad it is with me lately, Gib, because I haven't told you. But I think you can probably sniff it out. Is that when I'm up against a big, really big challenge, and there's like three of them happening right now? They're joyous things to do, but it's just it's so much, you know. And if I didn't have Gib and and Chrissy and the rest of the team, it would be really hard for me to do that, but yesterday I made the mistake of watching the first episode of the of the new season of The Diplomat, and which is what is just one of the best written shows you've ever you've ever seen, and it's about you know it's it's it's it's about the it's about government basically, and it's sort of like at West at West Wing, and I watched four of those back to back. Now those are each 50 minute things. I've I've completely destroyed my day. I I would real I would try, and so we really you really if you want to to reach your goals, you got to decide what you're going to do with your your your distractions and understand that they're going to come after you.
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It's what Stephen Pressfield calls the the resistance. And listen to an old interview with with what's his name, Lin Manuel Miranda, who created Hamilton, where he said he speaks to kids and says, and talked to CBS 60 minutes about this and said if you want to do something this big. You're gonna lose friends.
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You're you're gonna lose contacts because in order to get there, you're gonna have to totally dedicate yourself.
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What was the who? It was Itzhak Perlman who gave a concert with playing the violin, and afterwards, somebody came up and said, "My dear man, I would give my life to play the violin like you. And he said, "But I have, you know, that he has given his life to play the violin. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's there's no easy path. There is no easy path. So if you have big goals, you can't have seven big goals. You can eventually, but step by step, you've got to have one goal at a time, or you know two or three max. But if you if you flood the zone, so to speak, you will you'll have this war of attrition with yourself where you are you can't decide what to do, fish or cut bait, and then you end up watching four episodes of the Diplomat because you get into this decision fatigue. So here's Andrew Huberman talking about that, and we'll I got a relationship to the sports on the other side.
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First of all, limit your options. Trying to pursue too many goals at once can definitely be counterproductive.
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Now I realize that life is complicated. We all have multiple goals that we're trying to pursue, but if we have particular goals that are important to us, we have to be careful to not get distracted by other goals. And many people run into this problem, so setting one or two or maybe three major goals for a given year is going to be more than enough for most people, and is actually going to be challenging for most people.
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Now, of course, we have daily goals and monthly goals and yearly goals, but if we have big, lofty goals, we need to be careful not to contaminate our mental space and our visual space with too many goals, right? You can't do too many things at once. You have to. You have to become singularly focused. And what I like about that, and this is something that you that you embody, is the idea of burning your ships. Right.
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This idea of removing your failsafes can be very effective because it doesn't cloud your mind with that as an option. Do you want to explain how you how you've done that in your life at various points.
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Yeah, I mean, part of it is just I don't can I don't think of myself as a courageous person, but but part of it is is is is having the courage to risk, you know. And I think what I think what launched me into the, and I don't mean this spiritually. I just mean literally that no one was coming to save me was was when I was a rising junior in college. I I real I took I had my GPA was horrible. It was like a 1.9. If you if you reverse that, that's what Gib was a 9.1.
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And and so I I I didn't like being in textile chemistry, which my dad had put me in because he was going to have a job for me at Hanes afterwards, and and it was just it was a struggle for me. And so my friend said, Steve Thomas said, why don't you take a Why don't you take this radio television course with me? I hear it's an easy A, and about 13 minutes into that that course, I knew what I wanted to do professionally for the rest of my life because I could see it all. I could be making music videos. I could be on, maybe I could make money on television.
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You know all the rest of that stuff, and so I went to all my professors and said, "I want to get out of this class and change my major. Can you sign this drop ad cart? And they were all really excited about it because I was killing the curve. And and when I got to my statistics professor, he said, "No, you're past the drop ad time. I have to keep you in the class. I want to follow university policy. And I, and this is in my book, right?
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And I, and I pleaded with him, and he said, "No. I said, "Well, listen, I'm going to have to wait, wait another year before I can. I'll probably flunk out. I have to wait another year before I can change my major. He said,"I'm sorry, I'm holding the line. Went back to my fraternity house, and one of my fraternity brothers, when he heard the story, he goes, "You're crazy, man! I just dropped four courses today. I said, "How did you do that? He goes, "I just signed my professor's name to the drop ad card, and I said, "That's forgery. He goes, "Ah, forgery.
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And so a couple of my other brothers said the same thing.
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They they never check. So I I may have had a beer and I I signed my professor's name to the drop ad card. Everything was fine for a little while, and then he found out, reported me to the chancellor. The chancellor wrote a wrote a letter to my dad saying that I was being suspended indefinitely, given an F for the course, and then my dad, World War II veteran, tough guy, threw me out of the house, and so in a 24 hour period of time, I I lost my place in in line in school.
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No education. It didn't seem like I was going to have a future of any education at all.
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My parents threw me out. My dad threw me out of the house, and my mom was behind him, going no, and and I ended up and my girlfriend dumped me because I wasn't in school anymore, and I ended up in a tent in in Upstate Park in in Raleigh, North Carolina. This was at NC State, working construction and and bussing bussing tables and thinking this is going to be me for the rest of my life. What the hell, and. And so I had no choice but to go around to radio stations in in that in that whole greater Raleigh Durham area and try to get a job. And as the story goes, I was very I made a fake demo tape and whatever, and was just you know I got a job sweeping the floors at WKIX, which was the Rick D's station, and one of the guys came in. He'd had too much to drink, and I was the only guy at the station at the time. And so I got a chance to read the news on a Sunday night, and I got a job, and that started my career.
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And 36 months later, I was our correspondent at CBS News. But what what it was was being found ready for your for your time, it's like it's almost like the Cinderella thing, right? Where where I had been reading scripts, you know. As soon as I got the job sweeping the floors, I would go back to my tent, and I was and I was reading newspapers, you know, trying to practice being being ready. But I think that's that's when I realized that that that God granted me another chance, and and to never at that to be able to have that remembrance that that I'm always talking about that David he slayed when he slayed the giant, which is look back, find a victory, look back and use it every time that you're setting a goal.
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Well, and and and you know you really found your goal in there with your back against the wall.
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It forced you to be singularly minded. It forced you to say like, okay, I can't work in chemistry. I can't, you know, I'm expelled from school. I can't go this just mope on my parents' couch. I'm against the wall. I have no choice but to find a path forward, and every step that was available to you was the only step you could take. So it, in some ways, it was refining, and I think that you know, as we think about our goals, as we think about if we do have options, sometimes it's very refining to imagine if I lost everything that I think I have, I can rely on right now, what would be my next step and rebuild that? And again, this is that thing where if you have too many options, a lot of time it gets confusing and blurry, and then you and then you you you get forced into inaction. And I think about the comparison to like bodybuilders, right? We use sports and military here as a as a metaphor a lot, but one of the things about bodybuilders. If you want, right now, at any stage of your fitness journey, you can. If you are very precise, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
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You can. It's possible. It's at a certain point it becomes prohibitively hard to add muscle mass, and you have to you have to be measuring everything within you know one calorie. You have to be measuring all of your exercise with you know very very precisely, and all of your protein very precisely. But you can do it. But what the vast majority, what every single bodybuilder or everybody who every athlete has to do in order to add muscle mass is they actually flip it? What most people do, the guys that you see in mr. Olympia and all that stuff, is they spend three to five months getting fat-not fat, fat-but like they they eat a lot of extra calories, and a layer of fat shows up on their body.
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And what that calorie surplus does is it allows them to build muscle. Now there's a lot of faith in that process because I don't know about you, but when I'm when I'm working out a lot, seeing results that make me look fatter is not really is not motivating. And then they flip a switch and they go into a calorie deficit, and then they it's called the cut phase, and they are eating under their calorie demands in order to burn that fat, and what ends up happening is, ideally, the fat disappears, and you get a much bigger muscle base to look at underneath that fat, and that's that's how you get the bodybuilder look. But in that process, they isolate each part of the process. So for their goal to look like they will look on the stage when they're doing their their their final presentation of their bodies in the in the competition, there is a period of time where they are just gaining weight, and they are just eating in a surplus, and then finally they want to they want to shrink that because it it's it's it is possible, but it is highly improbable that you'll be able to do both at the same time, and that is a nice metaphor in my opinion for how we can approach approach things, and and you know we're going to move off of just one goal at a time. And I want to talk about the what is it? Who said? I think it might have been like Einstein or somebody. The greatest force in the universe is that of compound interest, which is you know money sits in an account and either accrues interest or you owe interest on the money, and it adds up over time. People with student loans have experienced the the compound interest negatively.
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People who have a huge block of savings experience it positively. It's because one small step at a time, like.
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Drips of water making the Grand Canyon ends up conquering whatever that goal is. Here's Jim Quick talking about that.
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But small, simple steps is sometimes that thing is too intimidating. So instead of working out, maybe an hour a day, it's putting on your shoes, right? Maybe instead of you want to read, you know, leaders or readers, you read to succeed. 10 pages a day is too much. Turn opening up the book is a small, simple step. Even with your children, putting one sock in the hamper, right? Little by little, a little becomes a lot.
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I want to. I want to jump in here real quick and sort of turn the tables on you, and just say, you know, part of, especially, well, it would give. and I are you know 30 years, 33 years, I think it is, you know, apart, and so it's going to be different, right? At this point, so one of the things that that you really have to think about is is before you set goals, I believe, is is paradigm. So when I was 1920, years years old.
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There was a huge paradigm shift that I that I that I made the decision, the fateful decision, and I ended up get getting out of it. And so, I my whole life after that thing was like someone's going to take something else away from me, you know. And so I didn't show up for Christmas as my with with my family back in North Carolina, but part part of it was they throwing me out of the house.
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But I would switch jobs about every two or three years. You know, I went from Raleigh, Durham to to Florida, to Nashville, to New York, and then to Europe. You know, and and I just made I made decisions for me for for my career. And I was married before before I before Connie and I got married, and and a lot of that destroyed that that first marriage because I I was not ready to get married and probably shouldn't have, but but I didn't have a family, I didn't have kids or anything, so I just kept I just kept going. Most of my success happened before I even met met Gib. I met Gib when he was nine years old, and became his became his stepdad when he was he was 10, and and so it's it's a it's different now. And and and the reason I bring that up is that when you're making a decision on goals, you got to consider your your current paradigm because I I have friends who have you know family with 334 kids, and and one of those family members decided that that they they needed to pursue their career more than they needed to be around for for their family, and and it's a mess, man. When you leave when you leave kids without attention behind you, you pay for it your your whole life, and you may pay for it at the Bima when you on on Judgment Day, you know when you when you meet God. So that's something that you really have to consider, and and I've watched I've watched Gib as an actor, as a comedian, and as a musician with me with me on stage, and I've watched him consider his his paradigm where he's got he's got three kids now that are right around you know 1513, and 10. They're all in school.
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They're all playing three or four different different sports.
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And he has said to me before,"This is the time when I need to be there for my kids. I'm going to be on the radio show. I'm going to be with you when we tour and all the rest of it. But but I have to remember that this that this is a fleeting time.
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And I think when his eldest, I know that when his eldest, when she ended up in in high school, it was like, okay, everything has changed now. Even more so, you know, where I have to look at in three years, she's going to be, she might be gone, you know, she might be in, she will be in college, you know, somewhere. And so, considering that that that paradigm is is really really important. It's like, what what can I do? And so, what Gib do was kids are playing all these sports. He becomes a he gets trained as a as a a soccer referee. He gets trained as a as a volleyball coach, realizing and now he's training other referees.
00:28:51.009 --> 00:29:19.200
You know, and and and he's like the head of the whole the the whole area here in in Los Angeles, and so that so he's he found a a purpose that is that is radio and television host, you know, musician, comedian, but it all he's found a way to weave that into the life that's gonna that's gonna have that's gonna have purpose, and when he reaches that that judgment day, it's gonna be you know well done, good and faithful servant.
00:29:19.710 --> 00:29:32.569
So that's really important. I've seen people play it the other way, and if I hadn't met Connie, my wife of 35 years, and and Gib, I would probably still be going hard that I'm going now, and and I'd have nothing at the end of it.
00:29:33.410 --> 00:30:23.690
Yeah, I mean, look, it is important to consider where you're at. It is important to take into the into consideration when we talk about burning the ships, there are other people involved oftentimes in people's lives. So you yeah don't don't burn those ships right right so so we're talking about burning ships in a in a metaphorical sense right they don't you know it doesn't mean that if you have this big goal that you have to necessarily leave your family in order to achieve it it doesn't mean that you need. Abandon your responsibilities in order to achieve it, but it does mean that sometimes you have to leave the harbor. You have to you have to do something that feels less safe, and and you have to you have to understand that every decision that you make. You know we've talked a lot today about having too many goals. Every decision, every yes, comes with a price. Every yes means you can't say yes to something else.
00:30:24.230 --> 00:30:52.089
So be aware of that when you commit to something, when you sign on for a new job. If you're if you're going to change jobs because you want to get ahead in in some capacity, you're going to move cities or whatever. But you have kids that are that are school age. You've got to you've got to take into account the fact that you're now separating your family, and you're moving things around, and you're you're you're putting yourself into that position. A great movie that takes this into account is the movie Cheaper by the Dozen.
00:30:49.329 --> 00:31:11.849
I mean, that is the the book and the movie come from that concept of it's two parents who are both chasing dream opportunities of a lifetime, and then the impact that that has on their family of 12, which which is insane. But true story book with a great movie, and that that concept is exactly what we're talking about here. Is that you? Also, yeah.
00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:22.490
Also, also go on Spotify or Apple iTunes and listen to "Cats in the Cradle" by Oh my god! Oh my god! Well, it's not catchy.
00:31:26.809 --> 00:32:24.529
Yeah, and and one more footnote, Gib. I know you have other stuff to do, but one more footnote, and that is the other person that's on this call from our from our team is Chrissy Whalen, and and and Chrissy has been in this business for a very long time, but she had to make the decision. Her dad is is sick, and and she's got you know she has a family member with a special needs child that she's auntie to, and and she's got a she's a single mom of a of a of a teenager, and so she had to make the decision to move you know out of a place where she was comfortable to New Orleans, and and to live her life there, and and unfortunately, you know, she can work for us and does it well, you know, remotely. But but then what happens? She goes to the doctor because she's got some symptoms, and she has a brain tumor. And I'm sure Chrissy wouldn't mind me saying this because it's just she is what the Bible calls an overcomer, because Gib and I would be like, hey Chrissy, are you gonna be on the call today?
00:32:22.549 --> 00:32:24.529
Yeah, but I'll be a little late.
00:32:24.589 --> 00:32:34.160
I gotta get a hole drilled in the side of my head. What you know? But she, you know, she she she's got none of this. She doesn't see any of this stuff.
00:32:31.369 --> 00:32:48.970
Nothing, you know. It's like it's like it's it's like it's like Robert Duvall in in Apocalypse Now, where all the bombs going off, and he's like,"You got to fight, or you got to surf. He's standing there; bombs are going off all around him. I see Chrissy in that, you know.
00:32:50.170 --> 00:32:51.369
What was what was his character's name?
00:32:52.210 --> 00:32:57.609
He was the colonel of the yeah, or major of the of the thing that gets. He was the colonel.
00:32:58.029 --> 00:33:21.680
He was the colonel. Yeah, he was wearing wearing a cowboy hat, and you got to see yourself go go watch that movie, or just look just look at a clip from it, that surfing clip, and you got to you got to think of yourself as as as that guy, as Robert Duvall, standing on a on a beach with bombs going off everywhere, helicopters, and all he's thinking about is what what are we going to surfer or are we going to fight? It's nuts.
00:33:22.369 --> 00:33:32.390
Are you going to surf or are you going to fight? That is something that you should internalize in terms of goal setting, right? What are the goals? What is it that you want to get to? Are you going to surf? Are you going to fight?
00:33:32.450 --> 00:34:03.660
Are you are you going to be intimidated by the world around you, or are you going to just make the quick decision of where your priorities are? And look, there's a as Ecclesiastes says, and and the and the birds, there is a time to surf and a time to fight. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. There is a time for each of these things. We are out of time. Speaking of a time, we are out of time for today's Transformation Tuesday. I do want to leave you with one last thing, and this is again from Mel Robbins, because I don't want you guys to miss out on this bit of wisdom from her, and and then we'll let you guys go.
00:34:04.140 --> 00:34:10.440
And that is, well, there's two things that you need to achieve every goal, and I hope that you internalize this concept.
00:34:11.248 --> 00:34:33.768
There's two requirements for any goal, any project, any change you want to make. The two requirements are the will and the way. This research, it's going to change the way you think about goals for the rest of your life. It comes out of the University of Oregon, and it was conducted by Professor and psychologist Dr. Elliot Berkman.
00:34:29.509 --> 00:34:40.099
And so, the first component that we got to have based on the research is what Dr. Berkman calls your will. That's why I'm going to call it as your friend.
00:34:40.548 --> 00:35:02.668
You got to have the why and the way. Why does this goal matter to me? When you get clear about why you want something, it taps into this thing that psychologists and researchers call intrinsic motivation. That is the truest, purest form of motivation because it has come.
00:34:58.028 --> 00:35:23.719
From an internal source that is personal to you. Now let's talk about the second component, and this is the way. You got the why, and you got the way. And what does that mean? That just means how the heck are you going to do this thing? Imagine that there is a beautiful brick path that is in front of you that leads you to the thing that you want to insert into your life.
00:35:20.449 --> 00:35:39.858
Every single brick just represents one action that you're going to take. Whether you take it once a day, whether you take it once a week, whether you do something once a month, because the way that you do anything, the way that you lay a path is just brick by brick by brick.
00:35:42.079 --> 00:36:27.590
What I really like about that is, you know, we talked a lot today about burning your ships, about all of this, and about you know prioritizing family over over some stuff. Let that be your why. Let that be the thing that gives you the will to be to work on those goals in order to in order to support the people in your life that you want to show up for to keep showing up for yourself, so that you put the oxygen mask on you before you put the oxygen mask on the people in your life, so that you're actually better able to help them. So let that be your why. It doesn't have to be an either or. I know we talked we talked a little bit about about that today, but let this idea of of your will coming from the thing, the people in your life that that matter to you. Let that why come from you know.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:50.110
John didn't quit entertainment tonight until he had until that step was there for him to take to step into music. That that he was rec he was he was being recognized as a musician. He was selling those records. So let the why help you determine your way, and and take those small steps. Right, commit right now to take one small step towards that goal. Pick that one goal.
00:36:50.619 --> 00:37:36.199
Make sure it is achievable and time bound, and all of the things that make your goals smart. And see the path in front of you. Don't have to see the whole path. You just have to see as as Mel was just saying. You just have to see that first brick so that you can build the path as you go. If you would like to learn more about this kind of stuff and you want actionable stuff, actionable things that you can do right now to move the needle on your life, be sure to sign up for the Intelligence for Life newsletter and join our Facebook group right here at Facebook.com/slash John Test for Transformation Tuesday. And of course, John's got it up there. Listen to the new Christmas record while you set these goals. Is he on the phone? He's on the phone. So listen to Epic Christmas. It's available at tesh.com/christmas.
00:37:29.900 --> 00:38:13.199
It is a place where you can you can get this ahead of. I mean, I gets me in the holiday spirit, and they're awesome, high energy versions of of Christmas classics. So I hope that you guys enjoy it, folks. Join our newsletter. Join us here every week. Thank you for joining us for this Transformation Tuesday for for John Tesh, Chrissy Whalen, everybody at Intelligence for Life. I'm Gib Gerard. We will see you guys next week. That's it for the show today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate, comment, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. It helps us out a lot when you do that. We also try to respond to every mention of the show, every DM about the show.
00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:17.909
You can tell us what you think about it because ultimately, we do the show for you guys. So thank you so much for listening.
00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:34.789
Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast, another special Transformation Tuesday edition of the show, folks. We are live on Facebook every single Tuesday to help you get from the place you are to the place you want to be? You can find us at Facebook.com/slashjohntesh. Join our Facebook group. But before you do that, listen to this episode. This is the audio taken straight from our conversation about getting you from the place you are to the place you want to be. You want to change your life. You want to set big goals.
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This is what you need to know in order to do it, ladies and gentlemen. Without further ado, here's me and John Tesh. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Transformation Tuesday. Today it is goals that stick. Get your goals right. Get your goals made. Get your goals accomplished. There is tons of research about the fact that if you want to change your life, it starts with a goal. The goal setting is one of the key factors in changing your life.
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Here with me, fantastically, is goal setter and achiever extraordinaire John Tesh. Thanks for being. And this is and this is what your daughter did to me. What you know when we picked her up at school yesterday, she's went. Hi, pop up. So that's my that's my new thing now. Is it? Thanks, Gib.
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What does this What does this mean?
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It's just you're just you're just being demure. You're being you're being I don't want to do that.
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Yeah, I know you don't want to do it, which is why I'm saying don't do that. Hey, have you heard that my Have you heard that my new Christmas record is out?
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You know I have been getting emails from people about your new Christmas record.
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Congratulations about how great it is. So if you if you would like to listen to it, go wherever you can listen to Christmas records. Actually, here oh I forgot I forgot to tell you this. Gib, you when we just lit this candle. You can go to tetch.com/slash Christmas and you can listen to songs without even paying for it. I mean, this is the the the record company that's Gib and Connie. The record the the record company is not happy about this, but you can you can absolutely listen for free. See right there, you can just listen for free. Here's the other cool thing, and Gib shot a lot of this footage. This is behind the scenes footage of what the orchestra is doing, right? Here's me looking like, yeah, real orchestra. No, yeah, none of that AI stuff. Here's me looking like I know what I'm doing. Actually, I look puzzled there. But but the funny thing is, is that exactly the funny thing is, is that here's here's Andrew Cinewick, one of the best guitar players in the world. He plays on he plays acoustic and electric guitars on the thing, and then there's also that's that's over there on the right.
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I don't think I can move this around because I'm not really good at this. But there it goes.
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I can do it now. Right on the on the bottom right there. That's that's Ray Brinker playing drums. Ray Brinker is on the road right now with Herb Alberts, who is 92 years old. So so these are really the you know the the the best of the best players, and that's Tim knows who this guy is right here. I mean, I mean, Gib knows who this guy is. Tim, that is Tim. Tim Layers. Tim knows. I'm going to his. It's a whole bunch of old guys making a Christmas record.
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This is Tim Layers. He turns.
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He's been with me, Gib, for 40 years. Yeah, and and we have been through it together emotionally, loving each other, hating each other, tolerating each other, and but he's always there, you know, and this is me pretending to write music. So it's all, it's all there at tesh.com/slash Christmas, and and there you go. That's our commercial.
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If you are anything like me and you like to start the Christmas music early, you should check that out. It is. It's a lot of the Christmas standards redone, opened up into epic, you know, into epic orchestrations and stuff. And again, everybody that we know of who has like people that are on this call and the Thursday call have have emailed in about it, and and it's it's great. I've listened to it; it's fantastic. So check that out.
00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:52.899
And that is, you know, that's a great way to backdoor into this idea of goals, because we're going to talk about how to set goals that stick, how to how to reframe your goals in a way that makes them achievable, so that you can get them done. And a lot of people, if you're here, you know, they know you from Entertainment Tonight, they know you from a broadcast career, from from sports, and then a little bit. Now it's more so, but a little bit of your music came out in round ball rock. But people didn't really even know that was you until years later.
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So this idea of being a musician was a surprise to everybody who was a fan of yours. Until it wasn't, and and that whole time that was in the background of your mind as your primary goal.
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How did you sustain that goal, even in the face of just difficulty in getting that getting known as and recognized as a musician?
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Yeah, I mean, I always had had my eye on. I guess you could say that the the the prize. I I was be besought beset by by we've talked about this before by by by stage fright and imposter syndrome and then what happened was I ended up in a job radio and television where I didn't have to be in front of anybody other than a cameraman whatever you you're doing the Olympic games and people are like, "How did you do that? Because you got one guy who you've known for like three years, who's got a camera in front of you, and you don't really think about the 250 million people who are watching you in 25 countries. You know, yeah. So what happened was, I mean, I got into into that world of television and radio, and I had didn't really, I had, I didn't grow up thinking about that. I grew up thinking about being the Beatles, you know, in rock rock bands and and and garage bands, but but there was I always had my eye on that, and and was trying to figure out a way to raise my hand and say I'm serious about about this, and nobody, as you know, nobody would sign me to a record deal, especially when I got to the level of of exposure of entertainment tonight, and entertainment time wasn't my favorite job, but it was it was probably one of the most important jobs. It was the most important job for my for my music career because they were so great supporting me, and they knew that I I wanted to be a full time musician. So I only worked for four hours a day, right? But there's that thing where you know you keep practicing and you and you and you want to be found ready. And then when I saw other these other artists like like Yanni and the Three Tenors and a whole bunch of people doing these PBS specials, and nobody knew who Yanni was, nobody knew who the Three Tenors were, but you watched how PBS just exploded their careers. That's when I contacted them, and and and and and then Red Rocks happened, and and all of a sudden we went from selling 200 records a monsoon to to close to 30,000, which was insanity. And and then I had the decision, and Connie and I were
00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:34.519
Do I continue to do entertainment tonight? And and but I really wanted to, and we talk about this all the time, right? Cortez burning the burning the ships, burning the boats, so so that his marauders wouldn't have a choice. If they if they were failing, they still had to keep going. And so I did. I quit Entertainment Tonight, and I quit early, and they didn't.
00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:34.519
They weren't happy about that.
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We ended up solving it, but but I did. I ended up getting sued by them. Not everybody knows that, but it was. So it was. so.
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You you remember all that? It was a it was a tough time. But but we all have that that one thing that we want to do before we die, basically. Especially when you're this you know when you're this age, and it's it's there for you if you don't do something stupid. I would never do what I did in 1994 again. I risked my family's savings. I risked being homeless. I mean, it was it was a real big risk.
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But there are lesser risks that that you can take if you have a you know if you have a concrete plan. But but the thing is, you know, I've heard these folks say this before. You know, and I'll land this. I promise, Gib, is that if if you don't follow your dream, eventually it's going to track you down. And if it tracks you down while you're on your death bed, you're probably going to have some regret. That's powerful and brutal, but it's true.
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So you're here, Transformation Tuesday. People are here in the Zoom. And by the way, if you would like to be a bigger part of our community with Transformation Tuesday, join our Facebook group right here at facebook.com/johntesh, and you can be a part of the community every single day. And also join us and watch us on Zoom. So if you're here, it means that you want to change something, that you want some movement in your life, and that you have goals that you feel even if you don't understand what they even are in your head, you have something that you haven't achieved, and you don't want to wait until the end of your life and look back and go, "I wish I had tried that. I wish I had spent more time working on this stuff.
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We're going to talk right now about, and we're going to reframe everything. I think it's helpful to reframe it against you and building your music career, and all the way to this current Christmas album, but here's here's Mel Robbins, who's got great insights into this stuff about the mistakes that a lot of us make with our goals and how that holds us back.
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The mistakes based on research that everybody makes when they
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you forget about the why.
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Identifying that is going to make all the difference in the world. You're setting too many goals. Stop committing to dry January, whole 30, learning Spanish, changing your job, all in the same month. You're missing the sweet spot. You see, there is this sweet spot with goal setting and goal achievement between it being way too easy and it being. Way too hard. You gotta hit the sweet spot. Mistake number four: the goal's too general. Dreams can be general. Your goals must be specific, and they must be definable. And finally, mistake
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Have you ever heard of a high low range goal? It's easier to lose two to four pounds than three pounds. So for me, you know what that means.
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I'm gonna make it a goal to journal between five and seven days a week. Oh, that feels achievable.
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Let me let me jump in. Let me jump in here first and just say I I know a lot about Mel Robbins. I followed her before she was really famous, and she has she has walked the walk. I mean, she had some some some problems that she really needed to get through, and and she did, and she took it one step at a time. But it's really funny for me that she would mention Whole 30 because because that's the eating plan that you're on right now.
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I'm doing Whole 30 as we speak.
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I wanted to reset, and so I did it. But she's got a point, right? Like you can't do Whole 30 and learn a language and do all of this you can't set goals in every area of your life that are big all at the same time and we're going to dive more into that a little bit and I've got more to say about that but I also love this idea when you when you don't make them specific enough right you have just a dream and I think you had this dream of being a musician, but it turned into small goals of like, okay, so I'm I'm a broadcaster, I'm going to write the music for the Tour de France as I'm doing it. I'm gonna that's a goal that you can achieve, and then you release that as an album. Like those are all stepwise motions that turn you into a musician, basically by default. But it seems-I mean, sort of-it seems like it's by default. But each one of those is a goal, and then you see, like again, in your back of your mind, is the dream of musician.
00:11:49.870 --> 00:11:59.799
But you see the three tenors, you see Yanni at the Acropolis, you see these things on PBS, and then that becomes the goal. It became specific in each of those instances.
00:12:01.419 --> 00:12:05.039
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
00:12:01.419 --> 00:13:34.940
I, I, I actually, I want you to also know that you know it's there in in Romans 12 two. I'm always mentioned this scripture, which is you know be Paul talking, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and it's not it's not a one time thing because I'll just tell you that there's two things really about setting goals for me anyway, and and one is you forget about being embarrassed anymore, right? Because I remember that one of the first concerts we ever gave. This is going to sound ridiculous, was in the shoe department at Nordstrom's, and and so I had my I put together a band and I had music from the Tour de France, which is really intense music, and so they said, "Hey, what? Because I was at Entertainment Tonight, they said, "Let's get the Entertainment Tonight guy to play at this event. What it was was it was a thing where they opened up the store just to high rollers, just to people who were going to spend a lot of money, and they needed music. So somebody said, "Let's let's have John Tesh come and play. They had never heard Tour de France music, whatever. I didn't even really know who was who was going to show up to the shoe department, and so we were playing really loud rock and roll music, and it did not go over well, you know. But but it was like you don't you're not going to start at the Acropolis, right? You're not going to start at Red Rock. So really, as Mel Robbins said, you got to start you got to start small. The other thing is that that I don't, I don't know if any of that for me, if a lot of that would have gotten done, if there had been Netflix and Prime, what is it, Amazon Prime, and and and iPhones and stuff like that?
00:13:35.000 --> 00:14:43.269
Because I find myself when I when I come up against a, I'm really honest now. You you don't even know how bad it is with me lately, Gib, because I haven't told you. But I think you can probably sniff it out. Is that when I'm up against a big, really big challenge, and there's like three of them happening right now? They're joyous things to do, but it's just it's so much, you know. And if I didn't have Gib and and Chrissy and the rest of the team, it would be really hard for me to do that, but yesterday I made the mistake of watching the first episode of the of the new season of The Diplomat, and which is what is just one of the best written shows you've ever you've ever seen, and it's about you know it's it's it's it's about the it's about government basically, and it's sort of like at West at West Wing, and I watched four of those back to back. Now those are each 50 minute things. I've I've completely destroyed my day. I I would real I would try, and so we really you really if you want to to reach your goals, you got to decide what you're going to do with your your your distractions and understand that they're going to come after you.
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It's what Stephen Pressfield calls the the resistance. And listen to an old interview with with what's his name, Lin Manuel Miranda, who created Hamilton, where he said he speaks to kids and says, and talked to CBS 60 minutes about this and said if you want to do something this big. You're gonna lose friends.
00:15:01.950 --> 00:15:06.750
You're you're gonna lose contacts because in order to get there, you're gonna have to totally dedicate yourself.
00:15:07.470 --> 00:16:00.899
What was the who? It was Itzhak Perlman who gave a concert with playing the violin, and afterwards, somebody came up and said, "My dear man, I would give my life to play the violin like you. And he said, "But I have, you know, that he has given his life to play the violin. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's there's no easy path. There is no easy path. So if you have big goals, you can't have seven big goals. You can eventually, but step by step, you've got to have one goal at a time, or you know two or three max. But if you if you flood the zone, so to speak, you will you'll have this war of attrition with yourself where you are you can't decide what to do, fish or cut bait, and then you end up watching four episodes of the Diplomat because you get into this decision fatigue. So here's Andrew Huberman talking about that, and we'll I got a relationship to the sports on the other side.
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First of all, limit your options. Trying to pursue too many goals at once can definitely be counterproductive.
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Now I realize that life is complicated. We all have multiple goals that we're trying to pursue, but if we have particular goals that are important to us, we have to be careful to not get distracted by other goals. And many people run into this problem, so setting one or two or maybe three major goals for a given year is going to be more than enough for most people, and is actually going to be challenging for most people.
00:16:31.370 --> 00:16:54.850
Now, of course, we have daily goals and monthly goals and yearly goals, but if we have big, lofty goals, we need to be careful not to contaminate our mental space and our visual space with too many goals, right? You can't do too many things at once. You have to. You have to become singularly focused. And what I like about that, and this is something that you that you embody, is the idea of burning your ships. Right.
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This idea of removing your failsafes can be very effective because it doesn't cloud your mind with that as an option. Do you want to explain how you how you've done that in your life at various points.
00:17:06.029 --> 00:17:44.859
Yeah, I mean, part of it is just I don't can I don't think of myself as a courageous person, but but part of it is is is is having the courage to risk, you know. And I think what I think what launched me into the, and I don't mean this spiritually. I just mean literally that no one was coming to save me was was when I was a rising junior in college. I I real I took I had my GPA was horrible. It was like a 1.9. If you if you reverse that, that's what Gib was a 9.1.
00:17:37.940 --> 00:18:08.910
And and so I I I didn't like being in textile chemistry, which my dad had put me in because he was going to have a job for me at Hanes afterwards, and and it was just it was a struggle for me. And so my friend said, Steve Thomas said, why don't you take a Why don't you take this radio television course with me? I hear it's an easy A, and about 13 minutes into that that course, I knew what I wanted to do professionally for the rest of my life because I could see it all. I could be making music videos. I could be on, maybe I could make money on television.
00:18:08.910 --> 00:18:31.130
You know all the rest of that stuff, and so I went to all my professors and said, "I want to get out of this class and change my major. Can you sign this drop ad cart? And they were all really excited about it because I was killing the curve. And and when I got to my statistics professor, he said, "No, you're past the drop ad time. I have to keep you in the class. I want to follow university policy. And I, and this is in my book, right?
00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:56.619
And I, and I pleaded with him, and he said, "No. I said, "Well, listen, I'm going to have to wait, wait another year before I can. I'll probably flunk out. I have to wait another year before I can change my major. He said,"I'm sorry, I'm holding the line. Went back to my fraternity house, and one of my fraternity brothers, when he heard the story, he goes, "You're crazy, man! I just dropped four courses today. I said, "How did you do that? He goes, "I just signed my professor's name to the drop ad card, and I said, "That's forgery. He goes, "Ah, forgery.
00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:00.390
And so a couple of my other brothers said the same thing.
00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:30.109
They they never check. So I I may have had a beer and I I signed my professor's name to the drop ad card. Everything was fine for a little while, and then he found out, reported me to the chancellor. The chancellor wrote a wrote a letter to my dad saying that I was being suspended indefinitely, given an F for the course, and then my dad, World War II veteran, tough guy, threw me out of the house, and so in a 24 hour period of time, I I lost my place in in line in school.
00:19:32.059 --> 00:19:38.660
No education. It didn't seem like I was going to have a future of any education at all.
00:19:35.599 --> 00:20:33.650
My parents threw me out. My dad threw me out of the house, and my mom was behind him, going no, and and I ended up and my girlfriend dumped me because I wasn't in school anymore, and I ended up in a tent in in Upstate Park in in Raleigh, North Carolina. This was at NC State, working construction and and bussing bussing tables and thinking this is going to be me for the rest of my life. What the hell, and. And so I had no choice but to go around to radio stations in in that in that whole greater Raleigh Durham area and try to get a job. And as the story goes, I was very I made a fake demo tape and whatever, and was just you know I got a job sweeping the floors at WKIX, which was the Rick D's station, and one of the guys came in. He'd had too much to drink, and I was the only guy at the station at the time. And so I got a chance to read the news on a Sunday night, and I got a job, and that started my career.
00:20:33.680 --> 00:21:21.829
And 36 months later, I was our correspondent at CBS News. But what what it was was being found ready for your for your time, it's like it's almost like the Cinderella thing, right? Where where I had been reading scripts, you know. As soon as I got the job sweeping the floors, I would go back to my tent, and I was and I was reading newspapers, you know, trying to practice being being ready. But I think that's that's when I realized that that that God granted me another chance, and and to never at that to be able to have that remembrance that that I'm always talking about that David he slayed when he slayed the giant, which is look back, find a victory, look back and use it every time that you're setting a goal.
00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:29.210
Well, and and and you know you really found your goal in there with your back against the wall.
00:21:25.789 --> 00:22:36.170
It forced you to be singularly minded. It forced you to say like, okay, I can't work in chemistry. I can't, you know, I'm expelled from school. I can't go this just mope on my parents' couch. I'm against the wall. I have no choice but to find a path forward, and every step that was available to you was the only step you could take. So it, in some ways, it was refining, and I think that you know, as we think about our goals, as we think about if we do have options, sometimes it's very refining to imagine if I lost everything that I think I have, I can rely on right now, what would be my next step and rebuild that? And again, this is that thing where if you have too many options, a lot of time it gets confusing and blurry, and then you and then you you you get forced into inaction. And I think about the comparison to like bodybuilders, right? We use sports and military here as a as a metaphor a lot, but one of the things about bodybuilders. If you want, right now, at any stage of your fitness journey, you can. If you are very precise, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
00:22:30.200 --> 00:23:15.839
You can. It's possible. It's at a certain point it becomes prohibitively hard to add muscle mass, and you have to you have to be measuring everything within you know one calorie. You have to be measuring all of your exercise with you know very very precisely, and all of your protein very precisely. But you can do it. But what the vast majority, what every single bodybuilder or everybody who every athlete has to do in order to add muscle mass is they actually flip it? What most people do, the guys that you see in mr. Olympia and all that stuff, is they spend three to five months getting fat-not fat, fat-but like they they eat a lot of extra calories, and a layer of fat shows up on their body.
00:23:16.230 --> 00:24:51.609
And what that calorie surplus does is it allows them to build muscle. Now there's a lot of faith in that process because I don't know about you, but when I'm when I'm working out a lot, seeing results that make me look fatter is not really is not motivating. And then they flip a switch and they go into a calorie deficit, and then they it's called the cut phase, and they are eating under their calorie demands in order to burn that fat, and what ends up happening is, ideally, the fat disappears, and you get a much bigger muscle base to look at underneath that fat, and that's that's how you get the bodybuilder look. But in that process, they isolate each part of the process. So for their goal to look like they will look on the stage when they're doing their their their final presentation of their bodies in the in the competition, there is a period of time where they are just gaining weight, and they are just eating in a surplus, and then finally they want to they want to shrink that because it it's it's it is possible, but it is highly improbable that you'll be able to do both at the same time, and that is a nice metaphor in my opinion for how we can approach approach things, and and you know we're going to move off of just one goal at a time. And I want to talk about the what is it? Who said? I think it might have been like Einstein or somebody. The greatest force in the universe is that of compound interest, which is you know money sits in an account and either accrues interest or you owe interest on the money, and it adds up over time. People with student loans have experienced the the compound interest negatively.
00:24:51.910 --> 00:24:59.500
People who have a huge block of savings experience it positively. It's because one small step at a time, like.
00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:05.339
Drips of water making the Grand Canyon ends up conquering whatever that goal is. Here's Jim Quick talking about that.
00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:27.440
But small, simple steps is sometimes that thing is too intimidating. So instead of working out, maybe an hour a day, it's putting on your shoes, right? Maybe instead of you want to read, you know, leaders or readers, you read to succeed. 10 pages a day is too much. Turn opening up the book is a small, simple step. Even with your children, putting one sock in the hamper, right? Little by little, a little becomes a lot.
00:25:32.960 --> 00:26:02.250
I want to. I want to jump in here real quick and sort of turn the tables on you, and just say, you know, part of, especially, well, it would give. and I are you know 30 years, 33 years, I think it is, you know, apart, and so it's going to be different, right? At this point, so one of the things that that you really have to think about is is before you set goals, I believe, is is paradigm. So when I was 1920, years years old.
00:26:02.279 --> 00:26:26.119
There was a huge paradigm shift that I that I that I made the decision, the fateful decision, and I ended up get getting out of it. And so, I my whole life after that thing was like someone's going to take something else away from me, you know. And so I didn't show up for Christmas as my with with my family back in North Carolina, but part part of it was they throwing me out of the house.
00:26:23.779 --> 00:28:01.200
But I would switch jobs about every two or three years. You know, I went from Raleigh, Durham to to Florida, to Nashville, to New York, and then to Europe. You know, and and I just made I made decisions for me for for my career. And I was married before before I before Connie and I got married, and and a lot of that destroyed that that first marriage because I I was not ready to get married and probably shouldn't have, but but I didn't have a family, I didn't have kids or anything, so I just kept I just kept going. Most of my success happened before I even met met Gib. I met Gib when he was nine years old, and became his became his stepdad when he was he was 10, and and so it's it's a it's different now. And and and the reason I bring that up is that when you're making a decision on goals, you got to consider your your current paradigm because I I have friends who have you know family with 334 kids, and and one of those family members decided that that they they needed to pursue their career more than they needed to be around for for their family, and and it's a mess, man. When you leave when you leave kids without attention behind you, you pay for it your your whole life, and you may pay for it at the Bima when you on on Judgment Day, you know when you when you meet God. So that's something that you really have to consider, and and I've watched I've watched Gib as an actor, as a comedian, and as a musician with me with me on stage, and I've watched him consider his his paradigm where he's got he's got three kids now that are right around you know 1513, and 10. They're all in school.
00:28:01.259 --> 00:28:03.359
They're all playing three or four different different sports.
00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:16.559
And he has said to me before,"This is the time when I need to be there for my kids. I'm going to be on the radio show. I'm going to be with you when we tour and all the rest of it. But but I have to remember that this that this is a fleeting time.
00:28:16.589 --> 00:28:50.890
And I think when his eldest, I know that when his eldest, when she ended up in in high school, it was like, okay, everything has changed now. Even more so, you know, where I have to look at in three years, she's going to be, she might be gone, you know, she might be in, she will be in college, you know, somewhere. And so, considering that that that paradigm is is really really important. It's like, what what can I do? And so, what Gib do was kids are playing all these sports. He becomes a he gets trained as a as a a soccer referee. He gets trained as a as a volleyball coach, realizing and now he's training other referees.
00:28:51.009 --> 00:29:19.200
You know, and and and he's like the head of the whole the the whole area here in in Los Angeles, and so that so he's he found a a purpose that is that is radio and television host, you know, musician, comedian, but it all he's found a way to weave that into the life that's gonna that's gonna have that's gonna have purpose, and when he reaches that that judgment day, it's gonna be you know well done, good and faithful servant.
00:29:19.710 --> 00:29:32.569
So that's really important. I've seen people play it the other way, and if I hadn't met Connie, my wife of 35 years, and and Gib, I would probably still be going hard that I'm going now, and and I'd have nothing at the end of it.
00:29:33.410 --> 00:30:23.690
Yeah, I mean, look, it is important to consider where you're at. It is important to take into the into consideration when we talk about burning the ships, there are other people involved oftentimes in people's lives. So you yeah don't don't burn those ships right right so so we're talking about burning ships in a in a metaphorical sense right they don't you know it doesn't mean that if you have this big goal that you have to necessarily leave your family in order to achieve it it doesn't mean that you need. Abandon your responsibilities in order to achieve it, but it does mean that sometimes you have to leave the harbor. You have to you have to do something that feels less safe, and and you have to you have to understand that every decision that you make. You know we've talked a lot today about having too many goals. Every decision, every yes, comes with a price. Every yes means you can't say yes to something else.
00:30:24.230 --> 00:30:52.089
So be aware of that when you commit to something, when you sign on for a new job. If you're if you're going to change jobs because you want to get ahead in in some capacity, you're going to move cities or whatever. But you have kids that are that are school age. You've got to you've got to take into account the fact that you're now separating your family, and you're moving things around, and you're you're you're putting yourself into that position. A great movie that takes this into account is the movie Cheaper by the Dozen.
00:30:49.329 --> 00:31:11.849
I mean, that is the the book and the movie come from that concept of it's two parents who are both chasing dream opportunities of a lifetime, and then the impact that that has on their family of 12, which which is insane. But true story book with a great movie, and that that concept is exactly what we're talking about here. Is that you? Also, yeah.
00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:22.490
Also, also go on Spotify or Apple iTunes and listen to "Cats in the Cradle" by Oh my god! Oh my god! Well, it's not catchy.
00:31:26.809 --> 00:32:24.529
Yeah, and and one more footnote, Gib. I know you have other stuff to do, but one more footnote, and that is the other person that's on this call from our from our team is Chrissy Whalen, and and and Chrissy has been in this business for a very long time, but she had to make the decision. Her dad is is sick, and and she's got you know she has a family member with a special needs child that she's auntie to, and and she's got a she's a single mom of a of a of a teenager, and so she had to make the decision to move you know out of a place where she was comfortable to New Orleans, and and to live her life there, and and unfortunately, you know, she can work for us and does it well, you know, remotely. But but then what happens? She goes to the doctor because she's got some symptoms, and she has a brain tumor. And I'm sure Chrissy wouldn't mind me saying this because it's just she is what the Bible calls an overcomer, because Gib and I would be like, hey Chrissy, are you gonna be on the call today?
00:32:22.549 --> 00:32:24.529
Yeah, but I'll be a little late.
00:32:24.589 --> 00:32:34.160
I gotta get a hole drilled in the side of my head. What you know? But she, you know, she she she's got none of this. She doesn't see any of this stuff.
00:32:31.369 --> 00:32:48.970
Nothing, you know. It's like it's like it's it's like it's like Robert Duvall in in Apocalypse Now, where all the bombs going off, and he's like,"You got to fight, or you got to surf. He's standing there; bombs are going off all around him. I see Chrissy in that, you know.
00:32:50.170 --> 00:32:51.369
What was what was his character's name?
00:32:52.210 --> 00:32:57.609
He was the colonel of the yeah, or major of the of the thing that gets. He was the colonel.
00:32:58.029 --> 00:33:21.680
He was the colonel. Yeah, he was wearing wearing a cowboy hat, and you got to see yourself go go watch that movie, or just look just look at a clip from it, that surfing clip, and you got to you got to think of yourself as as as that guy, as Robert Duvall, standing on a on a beach with bombs going off everywhere, helicopters, and all he's thinking about is what what are we going to surfer or are we going to fight? It's nuts.
00:33:22.369 --> 00:33:32.390
Are you going to surf or are you going to fight? That is something that you should internalize in terms of goal setting, right? What are the goals? What is it that you want to get to? Are you going to surf? Are you going to fight?
00:33:32.450 --> 00:34:03.660
Are you are you going to be intimidated by the world around you, or are you going to just make the quick decision of where your priorities are? And look, there's a as Ecclesiastes says, and and the and the birds, there is a time to surf and a time to fight. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. There is a time for each of these things. We are out of time. Speaking of a time, we are out of time for today's Transformation Tuesday. I do want to leave you with one last thing, and this is again from Mel Robbins, because I don't want you guys to miss out on this bit of wisdom from her, and and then we'll let you guys go.
00:34:04.140 --> 00:34:10.440
And that is, well, there's two things that you need to achieve every goal, and I hope that you internalize this concept.
00:34:11.248 --> 00:34:33.768
There's two requirements for any goal, any project, any change you want to make. The two requirements are the will and the way. This research, it's going to change the way you think about goals for the rest of your life. It comes out of the University of Oregon, and it was conducted by Professor and psychologist Dr. Elliot Berkman.
00:34:29.509 --> 00:34:40.099
And so, the first component that we got to have based on the research is what Dr. Berkman calls your will. That's why I'm going to call it as your friend.
00:34:40.548 --> 00:35:02.668
You got to have the why and the way. Why does this goal matter to me? When you get clear about why you want something, it taps into this thing that psychologists and researchers call intrinsic motivation. That is the truest, purest form of motivation because it has come.
00:34:58.028 --> 00:35:23.719
From an internal source that is personal to you. Now let's talk about the second component, and this is the way. You got the why, and you got the way. And what does that mean? That just means how the heck are you going to do this thing? Imagine that there is a beautiful brick path that is in front of you that leads you to the thing that you want to insert into your life.
00:35:20.449 --> 00:35:39.858
Every single brick just represents one action that you're going to take. Whether you take it once a day, whether you take it once a week, whether you do something once a month, because the way that you do anything, the way that you lay a path is just brick by brick by brick.
00:35:42.079 --> 00:36:27.590
What I really like about that is, you know, we talked a lot today about burning your ships, about all of this, and about you know prioritizing family over over some stuff. Let that be your why. Let that be the thing that gives you the will to be to work on those goals in order to in order to support the people in your life that you want to show up for to keep showing up for yourself, so that you put the oxygen mask on you before you put the oxygen mask on the people in your life, so that you're actually better able to help them. So let that be your why. It doesn't have to be an either or. I know we talked we talked a little bit about about that today, but let this idea of of your will coming from the thing, the people in your life that that matter to you. Let that why come from you know.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:50.110
John didn't quit entertainment tonight until he had until that step was there for him to take to step into music. That that he was rec he was he was being recognized as a musician. He was selling those records. So let the why help you determine your way, and and take those small steps. Right, commit right now to take one small step towards that goal. Pick that one goal.
00:36:50.619 --> 00:37:36.199
Make sure it is achievable and time bound, and all of the things that make your goals smart. And see the path in front of you. Don't have to see the whole path. You just have to see as as Mel was just saying. You just have to see that first brick so that you can build the path as you go. If you would like to learn more about this kind of stuff and you want actionable stuff, actionable things that you can do right now to move the needle on your life, be sure to sign up for the Intelligence for Life newsletter and join our Facebook group right here at Facebook.com/slash John Test for Transformation Tuesday. And of course, John's got it up there. Listen to the new Christmas record while you set these goals. Is he on the phone? He's on the phone. So listen to Epic Christmas. It's available at tesh.com/christmas.
00:37:29.900 --> 00:38:13.199
It is a place where you can you can get this ahead of. I mean, I gets me in the holiday spirit, and they're awesome, high energy versions of of Christmas classics. So I hope that you guys enjoy it, folks. Join our newsletter. Join us here every week. Thank you for joining us for this Transformation Tuesday for for John Tesh, Chrissy Whalen, everybody at Intelligence for Life. I'm Gib Gerard. We will see you guys next week. That's it for the show today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate, comment, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. It helps us out a lot when you do that. We also try to respond to every mention of the show, every DM about the show.
00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:17.909
You can tell us what you think about it because ultimately, we do the show for you guys. So thank you so much for listening.
