Your Best Year Ever, with Michael Hyatt – Episode 229 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Bestselling author and CEO Michael Hyatt shares the 3 different types of limiting beliefs, how resources follow clarity, the 7 attributes of effective goal setting, why the journey is better with friends, and the secrets to having your BEST YEAR EVER.

About Michael:

Michael Hyatt is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

While serving as CEO of a $250 million publishing company, Michael Hyatt grew tired of the endless hustle. The toll on his relationships, health, and overall quality of life wasn’t sustainable. So, Michael developed a plan that would enable him to succeed at work without sacrificing his personal priorities.

After making changes to his productivity, goal-setting, and leadership, he was able to lead the company through an economic recession and deliver winning results, all while making it home in time for dinner each night.

Once he realized the impact his system could make on others, Michael left his role and launched Full Focus.

In 2014, the American Management Association named him as one of “The Top 30 Leaders in Business”, and his leadership development firm, Michael Hyatt & Company, has made the Inc. 5000, a list of America’s fastest growing, privately-held companies.

Michael started his career in the world of traditional media. In fact, he spent most of it in the book publishing industry, most recently as the Chairman & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, until it was acquired by HarperCollins in 2011. At that time, it was the seventh largest book publishing company in the U.S.

Michael was an early adopter of social media. His blog, MichaelHyatt.com, is one of the most popular in the world, with almost a million page views a month. His podcast, Lead to Win, ranked as an iTunes top 50 in Business. He’s the creator of several popular online courses, including 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, and Platform University.

Learn more at FullFocus.co.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
We have an incredibly insightful and influential and well known guest. His name is Michael Hyatt, if you’re not familiar with Michael, he’s the former CEO of Thomas Nelson, New York Times best selling author, Michael, you know how much I admire you and appreciate you. Thank you for being here.

Michael Hyatt
Great to be on again.

Host
So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is you mentioned a research driven system for achieving your goals.

Michael Hyatt
Sure, well, first of all, there’s an entire discipline, scholarly discipline of goal achievement research. So there’s all kinds of scholars icons, all kinds of studies out there, you know, we don’t have to guess at it anymore. You know, sometimes people wonder, well, what really works, and you hear this anecdote, and that anecdotes from this speaker and that speaker, but there’s really a scientific basis now for it. In addition to that, we’ve had 32,000 people in 110 countries go through my best year ever course over the last five years. So we’ve collected data from those people, we know what works, what kind of works, what doesn’t work at all. And we’ve been able to separate sort of the myth from the reality.

Host
You talk about limiting beliefs. So can you tell us what those are, and you know, if you can talk about the three different types?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, well, so let me start with this story that I actually tell in the book about my dog, Nelson. And so I had his dog when I was the CEO, Thomas Nelson, I thought it was kind of cute to name him after the company. But he would bolt out the front door, and we wouldn’t be able to catch him, like, for 20 minutes, we didn’t have a fenced in yard at the time and couldn’t have one. So we then put in an electric, or one of those electronic, invisible fences. And that was amazing, because he got so trained that when he would approach that invisible fence, he gets this little vibration in his collar, and he would shrink back from crossing the boundary, he got so good at this. So train, that we removed the collar, never put it on again. And he never would cross the boundary, even if we held treats on the other side of the boundary. Why? Because the fence had moved from the external world, to the internal world of Nelson’s brain. And that’s how limiting beliefs function. For most of us, we have some kind of experience some kind of setback, some kind of challenge. And we develop a limiting belief around it, which is like blinders or colored glasses that influence how we see everything. Some of these are global beliefs, like we think, you know, well, the economy is messed up. So there’s no possible way that we can succeed, or, you know, whoever’s president at the time, because of the President, we can’t succeed, you know, that’s like this, this global belief, or all men are, you know, pigs, or whatever it is, we develop these global beliefs. And there’s beliefs about other people where we start thinking about, you know, well, she wouldn’t want to spend time with me to present me that interesting, or I’ll never get the time of day from that person. But the most damaging ones of all, are the beliefs about ourself, I’m too old, or I’m too young, or I don’t have enough education, or I’ve got too much education, or I don’t have enough experience, or I’ve got too much experience. And I’ve heard it on both sides of the equation. But it really is a reality that for the most part exists inside our head. And that’s the only place that exists.

Host
One other thing on this resources are never the main challenge in achieving your dreams.

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, I have this fundamental conviction that resources, always follow clarity or vision. So the resources, don’t show up, show up until we get clear on what it is that we want. And so our job is to get clear on what we want. And then the resources show up. Now, when we get this backwards, it’s very dangerous. Because we might start thinking about the future. And we think, Well, I don’t really have the money to achieve this. So I’m not going to dream about it, I’m not going to think about it, or I don’t have a network of contacts, where I don’t have the time, it’s very important to get clear first, on what you want, and then trust that the resources will show up. And they do. But they always come to people who aren’t clear on what they want. And sometimes the clarity of that will attract the resources, you know, and we’re clear about what it is that we want. I mean, how could anybody aligned with us or lend us their resources, or use their resources to help us if we’re not clear what we want? So there’s an attraction factor that happens when we get clear. It’s a way of enrolling other people in the vision to where they can bring their resources to the table and help us.

Host
So I want to talk about risk. Why are you saying that risk is a necessary part of this journey?

Michael Hyatt
Well, you know, in in corporations, especially, but I’ve really noticed that some on salespeople, a lot of times people will quote sandbag their numbers, you know, they’ll they’ll aim for a goal that’s in their comfort zone, because maybe in the past, they’ve been upgraded or fired or penalized in some way, where they missed a goal. And they didn’t like to feel into that. They didn’t like the results of that. So they dial it down to something that safe. All the goal research says that that is a prescription for not hitting your goals. Why? Because of the goals in your country. for its own, it’s not going to ignite your imagination, it’s not going to demand innovation, it’s not going to focus your execution. Instead, it has to be dialed up into the discomfort zone, the goal has got to be risky, not in the comfort zone. But in the discomfort zone. Now the major feature of the discomfort zone and how you know, you’re there is the ear uncomfortable, you feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt, you know, you feel like there’s some risk that if you fail, you’re afraid of that. Or maybe you’re uncertain of the path, you’ve never done this before, you’re not quite clear how you’re going to get from point A to point B. And maybe you’ve got some doubt even about your ability to pull it off, do you have what it takes to achieve this goal? If you feel that way, that’s awesome. Those are positive indicators, your goal that your goal is set in the discomfort zone. Now, here’s the distinction, though it’s important. You don’t want to be in the delusional zone, you know, where you dialed in so far up there, that you don’t have a chance of hitting it. And you’re deluding yourself, you’re fooling yourself, it’s not going to happen. So the trick is almost like the three bears, you got to get it just right. I was talking to a friend of mine, and this guy had never made more than $75,000 in his life. And so he got all excited about goal setting. And he’d heard me talk about He’s actually my fitness trainer. And he said, This year, I’m gonna make a million dollars. And I said, Well, wait a second, you told me before that you’ve never made over $75,000 You’re gonna make a million dollars this year, and talk about talking smack. That’s exactly what he was doing. He didn’t have a clue. He was completely delusional. Well, as you can imagine, he got to the end of the year, he didn’t get anywhere close to it didn’t make any more money that he made the previous year. And you know what he said, and goal setting thing doesn’t work, goal setting works, goals in the delusional zone don’t work. And that’s exactly what he had done.

Host
Yeah, well, so let’s talk about the smarter framework. So there’s, you know, the seven sort of atrophy attributes of effective goals. So can you walk us through the seven just kind of high level?

Michael Hyatt
Yep, I’ll give you the ones that everybody knows that I’ll tell you how mine are different. So the S stands for specific goals. Gotta be specific, not vague. It’s got to be measurable, you know, if you can put a number on it, all the better because then you know, when you crossed the finish line, but it needs to be actionable. So I always recommend that people start with an action verb, not a to be verb, but a good strong action verb, like, you know, run, walk, lose ERD, increase, decrease something that’s an action verb. The R stands for risky, which we already covered. The T stands for time keyed in my system, because I make a distinction between habit goals and achievement goals are a little bit different. And the way that the time component works is a little bit different on each one of those, we can come back to that if you want to. But here’s where it gets interesting. The E in smarter stands for exciting. If the goal is not exciting to you, you’re not going to stick it out and cross the finish line, you’re gonna get to the messy middle, you’re gonna throw up your hands, and you’re gonna say, You know what, this golden mean that much to me, I just give up on it. So it’s got to be exciting to you. Now, this is an important distinction. Every goal is a project. But not every project is a goal. And one of the key distinctives of whether or not it’s a goal is is it exciting? So I had a lady in one of my groups this last year, who said, I’m having a hard time around one of my goals getting motivated. And I said, Okay, so what’s the goal? She said, I’ve got to reconcile my accounting. I’m several months, you know, behind on that, I got to reconcile it. And I said, Okay, are you excited about that? She said, Heck, no, I’m not excited about that at all. And I said, Okay, that’s a project. It’s not a goal. Every goal is a project, but not every projects a goal that set her free, then the R stands for the goal has got to be relevant. It’s got to be relevant to every other goal. You know, you can’t have conflicting goals. It’s got to be relevant to your season in life aligned with your season in life. What I can do as somebody who’s an empty nester with a lot of free time is very different than somebody that was small kids. So it’s a completely different season. And our goals need to be informed by that season. So that’s the smarter framework.

Host
Yeah. Do you think they’re all equally important? Or what do you think?

Michael Hyatt
I think they’re all equally important. In fact, that chapter is called goals that check seven boxes. So I use that kind of as the criteria when I’m evaluated a goal is it set up so that I can win? Now, here’s an important component of all this, your goals got to be written. Now, that sounds obvious. But I’ve spoken all over the country to a lot of CEOs, senior corporate leaders, salespeople, I always ask the question, how many of you believe in the power of written goals? I mean, every hand and the audience goes up. And then I say, Okay, I want you to be on it. So how many of you have written goals for this year, leave your hands up, everybody else put your hands down. On average, 5% of the people are left standing. They’ve got their hands up still. Everybody’s in it, you people practice it. But this is a key bit of research. Dr. Gail Matthews at Dominican University in California did a study, pretty large study. And one of the things she found is that people who write their goals down as opposed to just, you know, expressing them orally or in some other way, people that write them down, have a 42% chance, better chance of achieving the goal merely by writing the gold down, this really comes down to the fourth part of my five, five part framework in the book, where I talk about, you know, believe in the possibilities number one, complete the past as number two, design your future as number three. And number four is find your why. Now, here’s the thing, inevitably, in the pursuit of any important goal, we’re going to get the messy middle, you know, this is where like, when you’re running a half marathon, like I’ve done numerous times, you get to that point at about mile marker 11, where you’re too invested to stop, but you just don’t know if you’ve got the energy to finish. And it’s really easy to get stuck at that point and want to quit. Unless, before you begin, you’ve identified your why people lose their way when they forget their why. And so one of the parts of my framework is to really drill down deep at the very beginning of the process, once you’ve identified the goal, to ask yourself the question, why, why is that important? Why is it important that I achieved that and keep peeling the skins of the onion back until you get about three levels deep. And I say come up with three key motivations that will keep you going when you want to quit, because the goal all of a sudden is not going to be that important anymore. Unless you can remember the why. tell you story. Several years ago, when I wrote my book platform get noticed in a noisy world, I was writing it at a very busy season of my life, I was out speaking, I was trying to establish this new career as an entrepreneur. And I just got busy, I had a commitment to the publisher that I would have the manuscript in by the end of November. Well, it came up to about September, and I realized that I was so busy, my schedule was so jam, there was no way I was going to do that. I had a first draft, that, frankly, wasn’t very good. I wasn’t very proud of it. And I looked at it. And I got discouraged. Even though that was my number one goal for the year was to get that book written and turned into the publisher. So I thought, well, you know, maybe this isn’t the year, maybe I’ll just quit, they’ll give the money back to the publisher, maybe I’ll cue it up for another year. And then I remembered, I remembered that I had written down my key motivation. So I pulled out my goals looked at my key motivations. And I found things like this, I want to write the book, because I’m trying to establish my authority in this space, and nothing like a book will establish your authority. I said, I want to help 10s of 1000s of authors who have been turned down by publishers who said, great concept, but you don’t have a platform, I wouldn’t be able to help people build a platform and learn what I’ve learned about social media. So it was that why that got me to say, You know what, I couldn’t find time to finish this, I’m going to finish it, I’ve got to finish it. It’s a must. It was that motivation. And I did I was about a month late turning it in. But the book got turned in and went on to be a New York Times best seller. And so it all came back to identify in my why early on at the beginning of the process.

Host
You actually talk you kind of talk a little bit about how visibility is essential. Can you talk about that? And you know, how are they related or not related?

Michael Hyatt
Well, this is a part of quick proofing your goals as well. You’ve got to keep the goals visible. And so often I see people frame up a set of goals, you know, they get eager at the first of the year or whatever, they come up with a list of goals, and then they file them away and don’t look at them again. And we used to do this on a corporate scale, even autonomous know. So when I was there, do an off site planning retreat, come up with a brilliant plan come back. And it was like it was very difficult to get back to that and to review it on some kind of regular basis. So I encourage people in the book to follow a process where they’re reviewing sort of the top line goals seven to 10 goals for the year, reviewing those every day. Just a quick scan, ask yourself, Is there anything I could do today to move forward on one of these goals? And then once a week and a weekly review, process review not only the goals, but your key motivation so you can connect emotionally and intellectually with why that goal is important. And then on a quarterly basis, ask yourself the question, Am I still committed to this goal? Does it need to be revised? Does it need to be removed? Does it need to be replaced by something else? But you’ve got to keep your goals visible. You’ve got to keep reviewing and if you don’t do that, I can virtually guarantee you that you’re not going to achieve your goals.

Host
When you talk about, you know, finding, finding your why I think a lot of people struggle with that. And how do you know when you have it? Is it is it? Is it basically that you have an emotional, you know, response to it?

Michael Hyatt
No, I don’t think it’s just emotional. I think it could be intellectual, it could be intellectually compelling to you, you know, maybe just something that you’re trying to solve some problem that doesn’t really have an emotional component. But if you could pull that off, it would really be interesting to you. And allegedly, it could be moving emotionally. You know, either one of those, but I think you’ve just got to ask yourself the question, why is this important. And if you can’t come up with a good reason of why it’s important, because honestly, it’s going to take a lot of effort to accomplish the kind of goals that are in your discomfort zone. And if you can’t come up with a compelling Why, you’re probably not gonna go the distance that actually achieved the goal. So I just think asking yourself, not let yourself off the hook. But just ask yourself the question, why is that important? And just brainstorm it. Keep writing, keep writing, why is this important? They give every reason you can then go back and rank them. And I throw out all of them. But the top three, I feel like if I can focus on those top three, that’s efficient.

Host
So this is the last thing and you mentioned, the journey is better with friends?

Michael Hyatt
Yea, well, let me just quote this great verse from Solomon. In the book of Ecclesiastes, he says, Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor, for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to the one who falls when he is alone, for He will not have another to lift him up. So you know, this is ancient wisdom, but it’s also been verified by science. Now, I’ve heard for a long time, in fact, I used to practice this. go public with your goals. And then I saw that very famous TED Talk by Derek sybers. Maybe you’ve seen it to where he says, no, no, no, no. The problem with going public with it and the research shows is that you get the same psychological bump as if you’d have as if you’d accomplished it. So you don’t want to do that people that go public with their goals, all of a sudden, think, in their subconscious, that I’ve accomplished the goal. And there’s a lot of distance that has to be covered between announcing it and actually achieving it. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep your goal to yourself. So Dr. Gail Matthews, whom I quoted earlier, another goal researcher, one of the things she discovered was that people who have accountability with other people raise their chances of achieving their goal by about 50%. And what you’ve got to do is share selectively share selectively with people who will give you inspiration, feedback, and hold you accountable, not beating you up or shaming you, but holding you accountable to what they know and you know, you want to achieve. So I always suggest you get a small group of friends or a group of like minded people who are all in this together, who will encourage one another, be positive in one another’s lives, and reinforce one another’s best thinking and best achievement. What you don’t want to do is share your goals with people that are negative people that will say, Oh, yeah, I remember the last time you tried that, and it didn’t go anywhere. You know that that’s not helpful. And you don’t want those kind of you don’t want to share your goals with those kinds of people.

Host
Yeah, thanks for making some time for us.

Michael Hyatt
Appreciate you having me on.