Dan Martell - How To Create a Vision For Your Life

00:00:00.000 Hey there.

00:00:00.500 Dan Martell here, a serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.340 and creator of SAS Academy.

00:00:04.020 In this video, I'm going to share with you

00:00:06.000 how to create a 10x vision map for your life.

00:00:09.840 And be sure to stay to the end.

00:00:11.080 We're going to tell you how to get access to my top book

00:00:13.920 recommendations.

00:00:14.760 If you've been watching my stuff,

00:00:16.120 probably asked me what books have shaped my life.

00:00:18.240 I'm going to tell you how to get access to that at the end.

00:00:30.000 So if you ever wake up and you're

00:00:34.380 feeling frustrated in your business

00:00:35.880 or you don't have that motivation,

00:00:37.500 or maybe you're even asking yourself,

00:00:38.700 why am I building this in the first place?

00:00:41.100 At the end of the day, I'm successful,

00:00:42.640 but what does having this business

00:00:45.120 mean in the grand scheme of things?

00:00:47.400 What I want to teach you is how to come to a place where

00:00:50.060 every day you're driven, you're motivated,

00:00:51.960 you're excited to go to work because the pieces you're

00:00:54.720 building today, you know how those stack and create

00:00:57.500 that bigger vision for your life.

00:00:59.280 Recently, I had a coaching client, Mark,

00:01:01.360 that was doing really well.

00:01:02.980 From everybody else's perspective,

00:01:04.560 he was extremely successful.

00:01:05.900 Over a million a month in reoccurring revenue

00:01:07.680 from his software business.

00:01:09.400 But one of the challenges he brought up to me

00:01:11.540 was like, I'm just not feeling as connected and driven

00:01:14.920 to my business, and I don't know how to fix that.

00:01:17.640 Like, I understand we have all these things

00:01:19.480 we've got to build to create more value for my customers,

00:01:21.520 but how do I fix the feeling I have inside where I don't know

00:01:24.960 why I'm doing this anymore?

00:01:26.560 So I walked him through the 10x vision map process,

00:01:29.660 a process that I've used my whole life now

00:01:31.640 for probably 15 years of understanding clearly

00:01:34.940 what I'm trying to create and how that's

00:01:36.780 going to come together.

00:01:37.780 And it's the backbone of all the success

00:01:39.880 I've ever had in my life.

00:01:41.360 And it's the byproduct of some really smart people.

00:01:43.920 I can't take credit for all these different ideas.

00:01:46.400 There's two people I want to shout out.

00:01:48.060 One is Dan Sullivan, who I think I've never met Dan,

00:01:51.320 although he's Canadian.

00:01:52.160 He's amazing.

00:01:52.940 He's been doing coaching for 40 plus years.

00:01:55.540 He is one of the OGs in the space.

00:01:57.620 And I saw a video where he talked about 10x thinking

00:02:00.360 and kind of the impact that will have on your business.

00:02:02.260 That inspired this conversation.

00:02:03.640 And then also the Vivid Vision book

00:02:06.620 by Cameron Harreld, a good friend of mine from COO Alliance,

00:02:10.000 and talked about the power of visualizing.

00:02:12.520 Now, I've always known this because I've

00:02:13.820 read a lot of personal development

00:02:15.120 in the early days of my journey, but just really

00:02:18.000 crystallizing it in the right sequence of what

00:02:21.660 you need to look at and also making sure

00:02:23.860 that you understand how it's supposed to look.

00:02:25.940 So in this session, I'm going to walk you

00:02:29.260 through exactly how to create that for you

00:02:31.060 and why it's going to have an incredible impact on your life.

00:02:34.320 Number one, vision map.

00:02:36.520 So one of the most important things

00:02:38.260 to really get clear on what we want

00:02:39.860 to have accomplished in our lives

00:02:41.560 is to understand what that looks like.

00:02:43.220 Most people, when I ask them, OK, fast forward 25 years

00:02:46.760 and tell me what your life, if you achieve all the goals

00:02:50.360 and things that you're after, what does that look like?

00:02:53.320 Walk me through your day.

00:02:55.040 Explain it in detail.

00:02:57.280 Tell me what you've accomplished so

00:02:59.100 that you know that you've arrived at that destination.

00:03:01.200 And a lot of entrepreneurs can't do that.

00:03:03.840 So what I always walk them through

00:03:05.180 is kind of these four quadrants of a vision

00:03:07.300 map of these four areas in your life

00:03:10.100 that you want to focus on to make sure

00:03:11.780 that you're making the right decisions

00:03:13.240 and you're moving in that direction.

00:03:14.740 The first one is your team.

00:03:16.360 I don't care who you are.

00:03:18.640 You're only going to accomplish or produce results

00:03:21.560 based on the quality of your team.

00:03:23.120 If you don't think strategically and deliberately

00:03:26.540 about the kind of caliber of people

00:03:28.900 that you want as business partners, as executive

00:03:31.280 leadership teams, as investors, et cetera,

00:03:33.680 if you don't understand what your team looks like,

00:03:36.180 then you're going to have a really hard time producing

00:03:38.800 output, right?

00:03:39.580 Because at the end of the day, it's

00:03:41.060 the leader that grows their team the faster,

00:03:43.960 grows the fastest.

00:03:45.240 And that's for my buddy Brad Pedersen.

00:03:46.620 So number one is team.

00:03:47.520 Second is your product, your business.

00:03:49.700 If you're a software entrepreneur, for me, it's the product.

00:03:52.660 What category do you want to own in the world?

00:03:55.720 What problem do you want to solve?

00:03:57.320 What do you want to be known for?

00:03:58.600 What is the purpose of building your product?

00:04:01.600 To what standard of quality do you want to go after?

00:04:04.780 So if you don't have a vision for that,

00:04:06.320 it's going to be really tough for you

00:04:07.820 to connect the work that has to be done on a daily, weekly

00:04:10.380 basis to a larger vision for the product.

00:04:13.360 The third is your empire.

00:04:15.300 I really believe if you're an entrepreneur,

00:04:16.900 you're probably going to build other companies.

00:04:18.980 I don't care if you're Bill Gates or Michael Dell

00:04:22.020 or you name the person, they, yes,

00:04:24.980 have their primary business, but they also

00:04:27.100 have other things that they're involved in,

00:04:29.700 other nonprofits, other business endeavors.

00:04:32.480 Maybe they create a fund.

00:04:33.460 Maybe they're investing, et cetera.

00:04:34.800 But you've got to ask yourself, like, I'm building an empire.

00:04:38.340 I think even just saying that word, empire, that's

00:04:41.580 more than just this one little business.

00:04:43.400 Even if you're starting off in as day one,

00:04:45.200 think to yourself, what kind of empire

00:04:48.000 do you want to build for your life?

00:04:50.440 What does that look like?

00:04:51.400 How does your role fit inside of that mechanism?

00:04:55.180 And if you're having a hard time coming up with that,

00:04:57.700 just dream a little bit.

00:04:59.640 Have some fun with it.

00:05:01.020 There's no limits.

00:05:02.000 Just design.

00:05:03.380 What would your perfect business environment look like?

00:05:06.160 So that's three.

00:05:06.700 And then four is lifestyle.

00:05:08.440 I truly believe that most entrepreneurs go after success.

00:05:13.920 They climb that ladder of success

00:05:16.360 only to get to the top to find out

00:05:18.320 that it's leaning against the wrong wall.

00:05:21.140 And the cool part is that starting

00:05:22.880 today at the first ring on that ladder,

00:05:25.280 you can actually decide which direction, which wall

00:05:28.880 do you want to lean that life on.

00:05:31.080 And choosing today to have a very clear picture

00:05:34.400 of what you want your day, your week, your month, your year

00:05:37.280 to look like from a lifestyle point of view.

00:05:39.140 Who do you want to spend time with?

00:05:40.260 How do you want your family incorporated in this?

00:05:42.200 How do you want your day and your work to look?

00:05:44.760 How do you want your health to show up

00:05:46.180 into that lifestyle vision?

00:05:47.820 That's super important because I have no doubt

00:05:50.880 that you could be successful.

00:05:52.440 It's just, are you going to choose

00:05:53.820 to focus on the right things?

00:05:54.900 Are you going to make some sacrifices not knowing

00:05:57.300 that you had a better vision for that lifestyle?

00:06:00.000 And the cool part is, is you can have it all

00:06:02.460 if you decide, if you focus on that vision.

00:06:04.640 So those are the four parts, the team

00:06:07.680 that you want to build, the product, the empire creating,

00:06:10.540 and the lifestyle you want to have part of that.

00:06:13.080 It's kind of the glue of the whole vision.

00:06:15.200 Number two, thinking.

00:06:16.800 What I've learned is when we start thinking 10x,

00:06:19.700 Whatever your goals are, 10x.

00:06:22.100 It's not about trying to create.

00:06:24.300 This is not a big, hairy, audacious goal.

00:06:26.160 I think a lot of people talk to some of my clients,

00:06:28.040 and I'm like, where do you want to be in 12 months?

00:06:30.420 And they're like, well, I want to be 15x growth.

00:06:32.520 It's like, all right, that's cool.

00:06:35.140 But are you doing that because you

00:06:36.760 have a history of doing that, or you think you can do it,

00:06:38.720 or you just feel like you want to set a big vision?

00:06:41.460 So my whole thing is have a vision for 10x

00:06:45.680 and kind of keep that as your own.

00:06:48.040 Like, this is what I think I can do.

00:06:49.400 This is what I want to drive to.

00:06:50.600 But with your team, make sure that you're actually

00:06:52.900 performing and you're winning, because nobody

00:06:54.560 wants to teach their team that it's OK to lose.

00:06:58.040 But to do that is going to impact your thinking.

00:07:00.640 So that's what's great about having a 10x vision

00:07:02.960 for your life, for your business, for your empire,

00:07:04.760 for your team, for your product, is it's

00:07:06.480 going to allow you to make better.

00:07:08.860 It's going to allow you to think more creatively

00:07:11.000 of the problems you have to solve.

00:07:13.380 And I think that too often, if we're in the trees,

00:07:15.600 if we're not seeing the forest, it's

00:07:17.160 too easy to get lost in that.

00:07:18.680 We want to focus on 10x so it impacts our thinking.

00:07:22.320 Number three, innovation.

00:07:24.700 So the cool part about having this vision, this 10x focus

00:07:28.400 on our life is now, all of a sudden,

00:07:30.460 we're going to make different decisions about how

00:07:32.540 we solve problems, how we innovate,

00:07:34.640 because we know what we want to accomplish in the market.

00:07:37.140 We know what kind of product we want to create.

00:07:39.000 We know what kind of category we want to create in the world.

00:07:41.900 And for me, that ends up showing up

00:07:45.060 as innovation in our product.

00:07:46.780 And that, to me, is where I've seen so many companies fall

00:07:50.200 back because they didn't pay down code debt,

00:07:52.360 or they didn't add the features that their customers were

00:07:54.320 asking, or for whatever reason just

00:07:55.880 lost the love of innovating in their product

00:07:59.480 and just started doing me too copy features.

00:08:02.480 But what I love is that when we start thinking 10x,

00:08:05.140 it's like, huh, we need to get somewhere faster.

00:08:08.380 So there's no way we can do this in a linear way.

00:08:10.300 We need to start thinking about being innovative and adding

00:08:12.580 exponential growth or solving problems that are really hard

00:08:16.520 and not being shy to do that so that we

00:08:18.560 create something that's meaningful and foundational

00:08:21.900 to the market we're in.

00:08:23.400 Number four, decision making.

00:08:24.900 One of the most powerful things that

00:08:26.700 changes when you have that new vision

00:08:28.200 is that you're going to make different decisions

00:08:30.040 about how you solve problems with your team,

00:08:32.360 how you solve product innovation challenges,

00:08:34.920 and even more importantly, how do you go to market?

00:08:37.020 How do you improve your sales and marketing?

00:08:39.080 Recently, I was talking to one of my clients,

00:08:41.480 and they were having an issue with their VP of marketing, who

00:08:43.880 was really good at generating leads.

00:08:46.220 They were efficient, they were running the playbook,

00:08:48.860 and they were making it work.

00:08:49.980 But what was frustrating him was he

00:08:52.520 didn't feel like that person had any vision

00:08:56.300 for the marketing function.

00:08:58.160 There was no testing going on.

00:08:59.540 There was no R&D.

00:09:00.460 There was no like, hey, let's go test a new channel.

00:09:03.100 Let's go and invest ahead of our growth

00:09:05.300 to make sure that we can find some new channels of growth.

00:09:07.800 And what I suggested to him was, hey, why don't you sit down

00:09:10.980 and find out, one, that person might have a fixed mindset.

00:09:13.720 See, what happens is if we're really

00:09:15.440 good at hitting our numbers, that tells me that we're

00:09:20.080 able to follow the playbook.

00:09:22.000 But if we're not given permission,

00:09:24.560 if we're not challenged to go outside of our comfort zone

00:09:28.080 and start thinking about, hey, I'm going to go invest ahead.

00:09:31.120 I'm going to go run some R&D.

00:09:32.760 I'm going to ask for budget to go test some new channels,

00:09:35.920 then that just might not be native to their thinking.

00:09:38.400 And having you share with them the 10x vision

00:09:41.800 for the marketing function and what

00:09:44.320 does this look like at the end of the day?

00:09:46.180 And how does our market and our customers and our prospects

00:09:49.440 see our business from their perspective

00:09:51.780 based on the marketing we're doing?

00:09:53.380 If they don't understand that, then they

00:09:54.700 won't go outside of the realm they've created.

00:09:56.920 They could be incredible at hitting return on ad spend

00:09:59.300 and hitting the cost per leads and all these different metrics

00:10:01.500 in your marketing, but they won't have the vision

00:10:04.100 that you have to push the boundaries, which

00:10:06.760 is what was frustrating my clients.

00:10:08.200 So the cool part is when you start doing this,

00:10:10.200 your decision making, not only for yourself,

00:10:11.920 but also for your team starts to change and morph

00:10:14.440 and allow you to get more output.

00:10:16.160 Number five, communication.

00:10:17.740 So this one, to me, is the most powerful.

00:10:20.080 When you see somebody that's connected to their vision,

00:10:22.640 connected to their future, and understands clearly

00:10:26.140 where they're going, you feel it.

00:10:28.280 You see it.

00:10:29.120 They have a presence about it.

00:10:30.620 They have a confidence about it.

00:10:31.860 They have a certainty about the way they talk and communicate.

00:10:35.560 And to me, that is probably the most powerful thing.

00:10:38.440 If you're trying to recruit somebody

00:10:39.900 that's at one of your competitors

00:10:41.320 or is a high performer at another company,

00:10:43.620 you're trying to bring them into your world,

00:10:45.240 you need to communicate your vision, your excitement,

00:10:47.860 and your certainty about the future in your business

00:10:50.440 so that they go, man, this is going to be a done deal.

00:10:52.620 This is going to be a wild ride.

00:10:54.040 But I trust this person.

00:10:55.220 I want to follow this person into battle.

00:10:57.700 And communication is going to have a huge impact.

00:11:00.640 And it's subtle.

00:11:01.600 It's the email responses.

00:11:03.740 It's the Slack messages.

00:11:05.200 It's the conversations, the one-on-ones in the hallway.

00:11:07.760 In passing, when you walk around with that excitement,

00:11:11.020 where you know, hey, this is where we're going.

00:11:13.460 Now, maybe they only see the next 12 months,

00:11:15.420 because that's all that they really

00:11:17.200 need to see to kind of get the work done.

00:11:19.100 But you will transfer your enthusiasm and excitement

00:11:23.560 for that vision once you know internally what that looks like.

00:11:27.780 So be sure to not only have that vision for yourself,

00:11:33.060 but also ask yourself, how would I

00:11:34.840 feel if this was accomplished?

00:11:36.660 And start acting like that today.

00:11:39.080 So real quick recap, five things that you

00:11:41.700 need to do to create a 10x vision map.

00:11:43.200 Number one, create a vision map, your team, your product,

00:11:45.660 empire, and lifestyle.

00:11:47.420 Number two, change the way you're thinking

00:11:49.620 because of that 10x vision.

00:11:51.320 Number three, the innovation needs

00:11:53.240 to map to that vision as well.

00:11:54.920 Number four, decision making.

00:11:57.080 And number five, communication.

00:11:59.580 As I mentioned at the beginning, I

00:12:00.980 want to share with you an exclusive resource

00:12:02.580 called my top books for transforming

00:12:04.700 the entrepreneur's life.

00:12:06.800 Recently, I was asked by my cousin.

00:12:09.440 His son wanted to start a business.

00:12:10.940 And he was like, hey, Dan, my son Ben

00:12:13.340 wants to start a business.

00:12:14.340 What book should I recommend to him?

00:12:16.520 And it was such an interesting question.

00:12:18.140 It's like, I've read over 1,000 business books.

00:12:20.540 But if I had to kind of put together

00:12:22.900 a list of top books that he, as a first time entrepreneur,

00:12:26.300 hadn't read a business book ever, where should he start

00:12:28.580 or how should he think about it, I couldn't pick just one.

00:12:30.980 So what I did is I created essentially

00:12:32.940 categories for different things like leadership

00:12:35.480 in marketing, in sales, in operations, et cetera.

00:12:37.980 And I put my top three to five books

00:12:40.040 per category so that I could share that with him.

00:12:43.220 And then my designer took that, created this beautiful PDF

00:12:45.980 that you can download yourself.

00:12:47.220 So click the link below to grab a copy of the top books

00:12:49.880 to transform your entrepreneurial life

00:12:51.980 and take it to the next level.

00:12:53.220 That's my gift to you.

00:12:54.660 If you like this video, be sure to softly tap the like button.

00:12:58.200 Subscribe to my channel if there's

00:12:59.300 anybody that you care about that you think this could serve.

00:13:01.640 Feel free to share it with them directly.

00:13:03.720 As per usual, I want to challenge you

00:13:05.100 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,

00:13:06.860 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:13:10.060 Live on set.

Dan Martell - October 28, 2019

How To Create a Vision For Your Life

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript