Full Transcript for Your Environment Dictates Your Success, Not Your Goals

is what we're going to dive deep into today. 00:05:48.384 --> 00:05:56.692 The fourth says they have an environment that's supporting their current rather than their future identity. 00:05:56.692 --> 00:06:07.774 So I'll say it again you have an environment that's supporting your current rather than your future identities. 00:06:07.774 --> 00:06:12.190 So here's the theme of today's conversation. 00:06:13.500 --> 00:06:30.242 When you decided to become a solopreneur, you changed the rules that you must live by, you changed the standards in which you must operate, and it's very likely that you did this without even realizing it, right. 00:06:30.242 --> 00:06:39.303 Most of us change our goals, right, but we stay committed to the rules of our former selves, right? 00:06:39.303 --> 00:06:47.036 For example, if you know a little bit about my story, you know part of it was that I used to be addicted to cocaine. 00:06:47.036 --> 00:06:55.069 I used to, you know, obviously, party a lot, spend a lot of time in bars and nightclubs and all this kind of stuff, so drinking drugs, all these things. 00:06:55.069 --> 00:07:03.370 And you know, at the time, the goal and this was subconscious, but in reflection, the goal was to escape. 00:07:03.370 --> 00:07:05.612 Subconscious, but in reflection, the goal was to escape. 00:07:05.612 --> 00:07:25.932 I was suffering in many ways, mostly from previous traumas that I had endured, mostly from childhood, and I was subconsciously committed to escaping these pains, the shame, and the way that I was doing that was through drugs and alcohol and promiscuous relationships. 00:07:25.932 --> 00:07:28.447 So those were the rules that I was living by. 00:07:28.447 --> 00:07:29.745 The goal was to escape. 00:07:29.745 --> 00:07:34.531 So the rules and the standards were drugs, alcohol and promiscuous lifestyle. 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:51.673 Now, when not just when I decided to become a solopreneur or become a coach full time and work in the trauma space and all that, but also when I fell in love with my fiance you know we met, you know the rules changed my life. 00:07:51.673 --> 00:07:59.500 I wanted to commit to being a great partner, a committed partner, a healthy partner, not just physically but emotionally. 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:07.814 And when the rules changed, the standards I was living in, I was living by, had to change as well. 00:08:07.814 --> 00:08:13.713 The environments in which I was spending my time had to change because the rules, the goal, had changed. 00:08:13.713 --> 00:08:16.327 And the same is true for your business. 00:08:16.327 --> 00:08:25.154 When you decided to become a solopreneur and create a business that was ultimately going to change your life, you changed the rules. 00:08:25.154 --> 00:08:30.471 Therefore, you must change your environments. 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:38.791 Now I'm going to read a little bit about what I was writing this morning and we're going to break this down. 00:08:38.791 --> 00:08:47.298 So here we go when you change the goal, you change the rules. 00:08:47.298 --> 00:08:49.991 As a solopreneur, you've changed the rules of your life. 00:08:49.991 --> 00:08:58.840 You've made the decision to build something from the ground up that will completely change not just yours but the futures of all who rely on you. 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:00.423 That piece is key. 00:09:00.423 --> 00:09:08.024 When you decided to start your own business, I am certain that a core reason was you wanted to make a change in your life. 00:09:08.024 --> 00:09:14.998 You wanted to improve your life and the lives of those who you love, the lives of those who depend on you. 00:09:17.591 --> 00:09:43.261 So the challenge is as we've already talked about many times on the show and in my newsletters and if we've been working together, you certainly heard us talk about this the hardest part of becoming a successful solopreneur isn't the business right, it's not all the tasks that you must do the marketing, the accounting, the admin, the funnels, the copywriting, all that stuff right? 00:09:43.261 --> 00:09:47.453 Hell, we didn't even talk about the coaching or whatever service it is that you provide, right. 00:09:47.453 --> 00:10:07.666 But the hardest part of becoming a successful solopreneur Is you Right, because you are going to be in direct contact I'm sorry, direct contact with all of your doubts, your insecurities, limiting beliefs and the patterns of protection. 00:10:07.666 --> 00:10:12.635 Your insecurities, limiting beliefs and the patterns of protection right. 00:10:12.635 --> 00:10:15.240 Specifically, protecting the former identity, aka self-sabotage, right. 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:34.719 The hardest transformation you're going to have to make has nothing to do with business, but has everything to do with who you believe yourself to be right, and becoming the kind of person who achieves the goals that you have set is really what this journey is all about. 00:10:34.719 --> 00:10:38.044 Your business is a catalyst to becoming that person. 00:10:39.750 --> 00:10:43.562 So becoming a successful solopreneur is a game of personal transformation. 00:10:43.562 --> 00:10:50.062 You must become the kind of person who succeeds and who lives by standards and values. 00:10:50.062 --> 00:10:59.163 You must become clear on what the standards and values you live by are or will be. 00:10:59.163 --> 00:11:06.815 So, if you think about this, your standards and your values they're essentially the rules that you're living your life by. 00:11:06.815 --> 00:11:14.701 In order to become great at any game, you must understand the rules first and foremost. 00:11:14.701 --> 00:11:40.437 Most of us are operating in a life where we're not clear on the rules we're living by, which is why we feel like victims, we feel out of control, we feel uncertain, we feel unclear, confused all of these things not because we don't have goals, desires and visions, but because we are often

unaware of the unconscious rules that we're living our lives by that are governing our behavior. 00:11:40.437 --> 00:11:52.942 So you must become first clear on what those standards and values are, because when you decided to start your business, you changed the goals you have by changing your goals. 00:11:52.942 --> 00:11:53.812 I'm sorry. 00:11:53.812 --> 00:11:56.394 You changed the rules you have by changing your goals. 00:11:56.394 --> 00:11:59.738 Right, you changed the rules of the game that you're playing. 00:12:00.529 --> 00:12:14.783 And today I wanna talk about the one area that you have total control over, despite how it might feel you have total control over and you, it might feel you have total control over, and you will have and will have the greatest impact on how you show up in your business and, ultimately, in your life. 00:12:14.783 --> 00:12:30.099 Right, this one area, this one thing completely transforms the way that you behave and operate in life, and, in some cases, in small ways, immediately, but in reality, over time. 00:12:30.099 --> 00:12:34.059 Right, and that one thing is your environment. 00:12:34.059 --> 00:12:57.251 Right Now, your environment consists of many things, such as the spaces you live in, work in, the people you hang out with, the entertainment you consume, the food you eat, the things you drink, what you read, the clothes you wear, the things you listen to and the people you hang out with, and many more. 00:12:57.251 --> 00:13:05.052 And I imagine that you're in a current environment, the collection of all the things I just mentioned. 00:13:05.052 --> 00:13:11.283 That likely represents who you were, not who you're becoming. 00:13:12.529 --> 00:13:18.263 Perhaps, in some cases, you've begun to make the change, change the relationships, the things you consume. 00:13:18.263 --> 00:13:26.751 Clearly, you listen to a podcast like this, and I imagine it's not your first or your only so you've likely already begun making some of these changes, whether it was conscious or otherwise. 00:13:26.751 --> 00:13:28.712 So you've likely already begun making some of these changes, whether it was conscious or otherwise. 00:13:28.712 --> 00:13:57.148 But I'm willing to guarantee that if you are struggling to succeed, if you are struggling to really make the breakthroughs that you desire and you've been at this for a little while it is likely that there are key elements of your environment that have not evolved to match your goals, right, but they still are things that are representing or rooted in your past, right. 00:13:57.148 --> 00:14:07.316 So this is the greatest mistake that most of us make as solopreneurs. 00:14:07.336 --> 00:14:08.722 Again, the struggle as a solopreneur is you're often in isolation. 00:14:08.722 --> 00:14:11.270 You're doing these things alone, especially in the beginning, right. 00:14:11.270 --> 00:14:12.777 You're inside of your own head. 00:14:12.777 --> 00:14:15.167 You don't have people to

bounce ideas off of. 00:14:15.167 --> 00:14:20.751 That maybe understand what you're doing or what you want to accomplish or why it's so important to you, right? 00:14:20.751 --> 00:14:31.052 Because, as a solopreneur, we are often the black sheep, the outliers, the different ones in our family, right, and our friend groups and our communities. 00:14:31.052 --> 00:14:41.910 We're often the ones that break the mold, do things differently, go against the grain, swim upstream all of these metaphors and analogies, right, but it's true, we operate differently. 00:14:41.910 --> 00:14:47.481 We are committed to creating a life that looks different than the average person around us. 00:14:47.481 --> 00:14:50.354 Or the quote unquote, normal, right. 00:14:50.354 --> 00:15:00.899 So you know, we're the ones who made the courageous decision to create something in spite of the odds, right, and create something that's on our own terms. 00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:04.553 We live a life by our own rules, right. 00:15:04.573 --> 00:15:24.576 But to do this and to prove not just to ourselves but to everyone around us, we must become ruthlessly committed to transforming our environments to make sure they match our goals, instead of trying to create this new life, this successful business, inside of an environment that matches our past. 00:15:24.576 --> 00:15:35.802 So, for example, when I decided that I wanted to become a healthy partner to Allison when we met, I had to change my environment. 00:15:35.802 --> 00:15:46.977 I had to change the people I was hanging out with, right, because I couldn't continue to hang out in places that I was doing drugs and drinking, and you know meeting, you know random, you know people and all these things. 00:15:46.977 --> 00:15:51.125 So when I changed the goal, I had to change the environment. 00:15:51.125 --> 00:16:07.951 My goal became something much more fulfilling and meaningful, but I had to first go through the challenge and the emotional and sometimes literal pain of recovery, right, of healing. 00:16:07.951 --> 00:16:15.076 And we must do the same even if your environment isn't as toxic as the one that I was living in, right? 00:16:15.076 --> 00:16:17.221 So how do we do this? 00:16:18.323 --> 00:16:30.964 Right, most people wait until tragedy strikes or some, you know, extremely challenging and unnecessary circumstance arise. 00:16:30.964 --> 00:16:38.816 You know that forces them immediately to change, because they quite literally are, you know, backs against the wall, they've hit rock bottom. 00:16:38.816 --> 00:16:40.303 You know they have to make a change. 00:16:40.303 --> 00:16:44.154 They've got a diagnosis, they had an accident, they lost someone they care about. 00:16:44.154 --> 00:16:57.303 These major events often spark immediate and drastic change and you'll notice, those people change their environments, the things they're doing, who they're hanging out with, what they're reading, what they're consuming, what they're eating, drinking, etc. 00:16:58.809 --> 00:17:07.320 But one of the most difficult things for any of us to do is to make those changes before disaster strikes, before it's too late or we have to. 00:17:07.320 --> 00:17:22.073 Right, to consciously choose, uh, to change and transform is going to be very painful, emotionally right, mentally, in some cases, physically right. 00:17:22.073 --> 00:17:25.738 So how do we do this? 00:17:25.738 --> 00:17:30.204 Um, it's going to sound much easier than it is, as most things do. 00:17:30.204 --> 00:17:36.082 But if you choose to commit to one of these, just one of these, and begin to stack. 00:17:36.082 --> 00:17:48.519 From there, you will begin to understand the power that your environment has on everything that you have, what you have and, ultimately, what you create. 00:17:49.690 --> 00:17:52.720 So what we first need to do. 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:59.423 If you listen to the show, you've heard me talk about this in other contexts, but it is imperative. 00:17:59.423 --> 00:18:20.357 You first must define a clear and specific goal that you want to accomplish by the end of this year and I say that with intention right, because it's achievable, it's close enough that it's real, but far enough away that you have time to make the changes right. 00:18:20.357 --> 00:18:35.896 So you must be uncomfortably clear on the specific goal you need to accomplish by the end of this year in order to feel like a success, in order to feel like your business is moving in the right direction, your life, your relationships, your health are moving in the right direction. 00:18:35.896 --> 00:18:57.503 One clear, specific goal, because that goal is going to dictate the rules, right, and so when we're clear on this goal, then the key is to reverse, engineer this goal and identify the key characteristics of the kind of person who accomplishes such a thing. 00:18:58.569 --> 00:19:08.396 If your goal is to complete a marathon, right, a literal marathon that goal is going to determine the rules you must begin living by. 00:19:08.396 --> 00:19:14.115 The food you must be eating, the training you must do, the sleep. 00:19:14.115 --> 00:19:19.444 All of the things revolve around this one goal, right. 00:19:19.444 --> 00:19:21.292 So the same is true in your business. 00:19:21.292 --> 00:19:34.756 Once you get clear on the goal, the specific goal you must accomplish, that goal determines the rules and the standards that you must begin living by, starting with your environment. 00:19:34.756 --> 00:19:56.200 And then we must begin to design your environment to match this future self, to match the person that accomplishes this goal, the person you will be a year from now, because that person, if you're committed to this, will be different than the one that's listening to this today. 00:19:56.200 --> 00:20:19.499 So what this means is we must begin auditing and I mean honestly, ruthlessly auditing your physical space, the environments

in which you live, right Work, et cetera, what you consume this is a major one what it is that you consume on a daily basis. 00:20:20.325 --> 00:20:43.991 These things include what you're eating you are what you eat, what you're drinking, the entertainment that you're engaging in, what kind of movie shows like, for example, I used to love watching true crime, and I still do, and it's still still get me every now and again. 00:20:43.991 --> 00:21:00.227 I'll get hooked on something, but what I began to realize is when I'm consuming true crime mostly stories about murder I'm consuming that energy, that anxiety, that fear, that energy, that anxiety, that fear. 00:21:00.227 --> 00:21:42.727 And I would find that, you know, once I got done listening to or watching any of those stories, man, it was heavy, right, I'd walk away and was devastated and you know, just low energy, low motivation, all these kinds of things, right, and I found that I had to begin eliminating, you know, those shows and those podcasts, because it was completely destroying the energy that I needed to really show up to the goals that I have as a solopreneur and a husband and, you know, future father and all these kind of things, because I needed that energy in order to achieve the difficult things that I've set out for myself, right, the transformation that I have committed to. 00:21:42.727 --> 00:21:53.493 So, what you choose to entertain yourself with matters, right, and it's not just television, but the biggest one in our modern world is social media. 00:21:53.493 --> 00:21:57.351 You know, what are you consuming on social media every single day? 00:21:57.351 --> 00:22:01.851 Or the news is a big one what are you consuming every single day? 00:22:01.851 --> 00:22:22.213 You have to ruthlessly audit these things for your energy, right, because they will determine the way you view the world, the way you view yourself, which ultimately determines the way that you show up right, the way you treat yourself and others and your business and your people and your kids and your spouse and all the things right. 00:22:22.213 --> 00:22:34.421 And this is going to be difficult, because what this means is, when we change these things, we're going to begin changing the dynamics of the relationships that we have, because most of your relationships are currently rooted in who you were. 00:22:34.421 --> 00:22:35.644 Right. 00:22:35.865 --> 00:22:39.130 I can say this for sure as someone that's moved away. 00:22:39.130 --> 00:22:41.067 You know away from home, across country, lived in. 00:22:41.067 --> 00:22:43.295 You know various countries and all these different things. 00:22:43.295 --> 00:22:56.152 When I go back home, you know it's impossible to ignore the differences between me and the people that I used to spend all my time with and was raised around. 00:22:56.152 --> 00:23:00.470 And this is no judgment, but our goals are different. 00:23:00.470 --> 00:23:04.015 Our views on the world are

different. 00:23:04.924 --> 00:23:26.238 Therefore, how we operate is different, and what I found is that most people spend their lives committed to people that have familiar paths, instead of identifying people and courageously putting yourselves in environments around those who have a similar future. 00:23:26.238 --> 00:23:46.682 And that's ultimately what we're talking about today, because it's the conversations that you're in, it's the like I said, the things that you eat, and the ideas and the projects and all the things will change when you start to spend your time with people who have a similar future that you desire. 00:23:46.682 --> 00:24:04.291 When I started running trail runs and marathons, when I started spending my time around people who were runners, my habits began to change, right, certainly much different than those that I used to hang out with in the bars and nightclubs, right? 00:24:04.291 --> 00:24:41.442 So understand and it might feel like I'm beating a dead horse here but it's imperative that you get clear on what you want to accomplish reverse, reverse, engineer, right, the characteristics and the environments and the forms of entertainment and the foods and the conversations and the books and the podcasts and all the things that that person, or those people who accomplish those types of things, spend their time doing. 00:24:41.442 --> 00:24:42.605 And so it's not about wanting what people have. 00:24:42.605 --> 00:24:47.249 It's about identifying what they did to create it. 00:24:47.269 --> 00:24:50.401 Don't desire the things, desire to become the kind of person and do the work that they did to get there. 00:24:50.401 --> 00:24:58.298 So, again, you may need to spend time in places that people you look up to go. 00:24:58.298 --> 00:25:10.435 Read the books those people read, listen to the podcasts those people are listening to or are on, but if you're ever going to become the kind of person who succeeds at their goals. 00:25:10.435 --> 00:25:21.615 You must become the kind of person who intentionally creates their environment to match the goals they have, instead of the past they had. 00:25:21.615 --> 00:25:36.424 Right, because here's the truth you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your environment. 00:25:36.424 --> 00:25:39.037 You fall to the level of your environment. 00:25:39.037 --> 00:25:52.873 And another way to say that is you don't rise to the level of your potential, you fall to the level of your standards, and your environment is a direct reflection of your unconscious standards. 00:25:55.821 --> 00:26:00.834 So I'll leave you with this exercise, this homework. 00:26:01.535 --> 00:26:13.705 I want you to identify one area of your life, one it could be the space you sit down and work, the book you're reading, the podcast that you're listening to. 00:26:13.826 --> 00:26:15.868 Obviously, if you're listening to this one, that's certain you're listening to. 00:26:15.868 --> 00:26:19.675 Obviously, if you're listening to this one, it's certain you're listening to others as well that are supportive of your future. 00:26:19.675 --> 00:26:40.215 But I want you to identify one thing, perhaps it's the relationship you have to social media, and I want you to identify how would the person of your future, the person that accomplishes the goal that you have set for one year from today, how would that person interact with this thing? 00:26:40.215 --> 00:26:49.356 What is the relationship that person would have with their social media, with what they eat, with who they hang out with, with where they work. 00:26:49.356 --> 00:27:21.278 And I would need you not for me, but for you and all of the people that rely on you, all the people that are looking up to you to decide to raise your standards to match your potential, your potential. 00:27:21.278 --> 00:27:33.893 With that, I want to say I hope you have an amazing day and until next time, I look forward to seeing you on the other side of your future.