Finish Line Focus: Master the Final Stretch to End 2023 Like a Champion

Rob Brown (00:05):

One of the things that I constantly do when I find somebody in this situation we’re trying to catch up, the question I always ask is, if you have a goal in mind, and you’ve been successful in achieving that goal is what’s worked for you

Phil Calandra (00:23):

before, I think it’s critical to always think about the inputs, the action steps, the actual things, or the disciplines that I’m going to undertake and recognize it. Now at this point in the year, you can only control the inputs through a largest set, we can’t control outcomes.

Rob Brown (00:46):

Welcome to the Truest Fan Blueprint, a podcast for financial advisors, and other professionals looking to get the most out of yourself and your business. I’m Rob Brown, and my partner Phil Calandra. 

And I promise to walk you through a journey that will allow you to take action in your business and your life, so that you can be the best that you can possibly be. Thanks for listening. Welcome back to the truest fan blueprint. Rob Brown here along with Phil Calandra. Phil, welcome to a new episode.

Phil Calandra (01:30):

Hey, Rob, great to be here. I’m really excited about this episode.

Rob Brown (01:34):

Yes, I am, too. If our listeners hear some cynicism in our voices, it’s only because we’ve been having major technological issues. But I think we’re I think

Phil Calandra (01:47):

we’re good to go. We’re launching now. Yeah, in

Rob Brown (01:50):

fact, last week, in the episode, we talked about roadblocks, and making the most of them having a good positive mindset to get through them. So maybe this is this is God’s way of seeing if we really met what we said about Roblox, we persevere. 

For sure. But anyway, I’m excited about this topic today. Because as we’re recording, we’re coming up on the fourth quarter of the year. And wow. Yeah, yeah. Hard to believe. Yes, it is, it is. 

And this is one of my favorite times of the year as a coach, because as I talk to some of my clients, or people that I’m considering or considering working with me, the big question is, how are you doing towards your goals that you set out for at the beginning of the year. 

And, you know, there are kind of three general states that you can be in and you can be killing it, which I hope everybody that’s listening to this is doing. And you can just make sure you just keep building on that momentum. 

So your year finishes as strong as it possibly can. But you could be just kind of do an okay, keep it in line with your goals. So feeling good about things. But you maybe have a little doubt are you going to be able to pull it off for the end of the year, or you could be behind your goal. 

And you’re thinking this is the time of year that you should throw out your goals. And Phil and I are here to tell you that this is the period, you have the power to rescue your year. And truly, you can make a great year greater a good year better, and allows the year getting right back on track. And that’s what we really want to focus on today. ever run into that before Phil?

Phil Calandra (03:50):

Oh, all the time. And it’s, you know, the word that you used in there somewhere along the way was momentum. So whether you’re killing it, you’re midstream, middle of the road, or you’re bombing, I think it really just boils down to the momentum that you choose to begin to build if that’s what you need to be doing. 

And that drives back to what I think is so critical in the success habits that we talk about is the mindset. You have to have the right mindset going into this fourth quarter, if you’re behind, because it just means you have to start thinking about things a little bit differently. And that’s challenging. It’s hard to do that. But it’s the mindset, that’s what’s gonna carry this forward. It’s the only way you’re gonna be able to do it.

Rob Brown (04:37):

Well, not the only way fail because we’re actually going to talk strategically, but I agree with what you’re saying. Mindset is important because if you’re behind and you think you can’t get caught up. 

If you think you can’t get caught up, you probably will not get caught up unless you get lucky. But we have a tool that we use with For our clients when we’re helping them do their planning, whether it’s starting out with their long term dreams and pulling it back to what they want to do this year. 

And more specifically, we’re going to talk about today is what you want to do. This quarter, or we call it sprints, what do you want to accomplish over the next 90 days relates back to those other goals. And we do that through a tool that we call the truest fan action plan. 

And it’s a way that we work with folks to say, okay, these are the most important things for me this quarter to get towards where I want to be to maybe making up that gap if there is one. In terms of your performance. 

So far this year, this could be business performance, but it can also be personal performance, or things in life that you haven’t accomplished, that you really want to catch up on. The mindset goes with the process, you’ve got to have a process, you can’t just hope your way into good luck by having a good mindset it has to invest to connect to a plan. Yeah, and

Phil Calandra (06:05):

when you think about the process, or you think about the the action steps, the truest fan action plan is really all about actionable items, that’s going to get you to the finish line. And I am often reminded of something that I’ve heard many times is, you know, what gets measured gets done. 

So one place that you can start here, as we come to the close of the third and end of the fourth quarter is where are your metrics? You know, we call those KPIs key performance indicators, whatever metrics you use, and hopefully you have some metrics that you’re tracking, you can then go back to those metrics those KPIs and say, Well, you know, if it’s, if it’s the sales endeavor, I didn’t have enough initial calls, I didn’t have enough discovery meetings.

 I didn’t ask properly for the referrals, or whatever it may be. But what gets measured gets done. So start there, and begin to think about what you’re going to have what what are the inputs you’re gonna have to put in, that are different from what you’ve been doing? That’s the point, I think of the action plan.

Rob Brown (07:13):

Yeah, it absolutely is understand what those inputs are. It’s not to say, Okay, I didn’t get I’m not on track. So I’m going to do like 10,000 different things, which are physically impossible to do is saying, what are the 123 things based on those metrics with that positive mindset that I can set about doing, and I know if I do them, day in, day out week in and week out, because it, it does flow towards my plan that’s going to show results quickly, most often. 

Because a lot of times when we fall behind, it’s not because we couldn’t do what we thought we wanted to do, or thought that we could do is because we fell back on our routines and our habits and our plan, and we ignored it.

Phil Calandra (08:01):

Yeah, and that goes in all areas of our life that doesn’t only apply in our businesses or in our vocations. But, you know, if you fell behind on your diet plan, because you went to the beach, or you went on vacation, I know that tends to happen to me, if I get out of my routine, then I tend to slip back in some of the habits that I tried to consciously procure for myself, the diet, the exercise regimen, the routine, the things that we do, and the natural course of the lifestyle that we build for ourselves. 

And when you fall out of that, whether it’s a vacation, or you know, something that’s disruptive, that’s the way life goes. But you have to be disciplined. I call it the three Ds desire, determination and discipline, right? You’ve heard me say this before, number one, you have to have the desire to hit the goal. 

Number two, you have to have the discipline to do what needs to be done over and over and over. That’s discipline, and then determination, which is when it gets hard, you dig down deeper, and you and you have that determination to see it through. So everybody’s gonna go through it, and everybody’s gonna have to experience it in their own way. And that’s where I go back to the mindset will be a key part of that.

Rob Brown (09:21):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s one of the things that makes our views of how we look at things interesting fail is we both believe in the mindset part, we both believe in the process part, but if anything, maybe you get accused of being like the best cheerleader, the one with the greatest aptitude for wanting to help with the mindset piece. 

And obviously, but wait, wait, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the process in there. And that’s why we created the true is fan action plan is because it allows you to combine those things. You know, I was talking with a client a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about Where their year was going because they were having a major disruption because of some difficulties they were having with members of their team. 

And that’s a great reason to sometimes fall behind on your, on your goals and where you want to be. And what we had to do is we had a look back at the sprint, the action plan that we had set up for the last quarter identify those things that didn’t get done, because of the time that was being sucked up with this crazy team issue. 

And say, you know, we don’t really actually need to do anything differently than we planned, we just need to recommit for this last section of the year to those four or five things that he wanted to do. 

And his business actually wasn’t four or five was just two things he wanted to do in his business, that were related to making sure that he was having more conversations that would enable him to upgrade the relationships that he has, with some of his smaller client relationships to make sure they really fit his business. 

But he also had, you know, a couple of personal things that had fallen by the wayside, too, he had made a commitment in the last sprint to take off more time and spend it with his family. And because that was just regenerating for him. 

And we’ve plugged that right back into his sprint for the quarter, too. So that action plan is critical for saying, Okay, what do we need to do is going to get us back on track if we’ve fallen off track. And Matt can help us realize where, where the shortfalls came into play.

Phil Calandra (11:39):

Certainly, and I think when you use the what we call T fab trust and action plan or whatever, whatever tool or whatever resources you have, I think it’s critical for me to always think about the inputs, the action steps, the actual things, or the disciplines that I’m going to undertake and recognize it. 

Now at this point in the year, you can only control the inputs. To a large extent, we can’t control outcomes, right? The outcomes are a byproduct of things that are generally out of our control, take the stock market, for example, I can control the input, which is I save $1,000 a month, I have absolutely no control over the outcome. December 31, if the market went up or down, and there’s so many other you could just go through any number of areas of life where you can only control the inputs. 

That’s your action plan. You cannot control all the outcomes and just accept that and continue to build and dig and Be determined. Be disciplined. And you know, I am an optimist. Optimism is the only realism. So I’m always, you know, not always but I tend to look at the the brighter side of life, I guess. Yeah,

Rob Brown (12:53):

yeah, me too, but with a grain of salt into a system that’s experienced. Yes, but And that’s I mean, because ultimately, as true as fans, we’re cheerleading, we’re, as we often say, rooting for the success of those that we encounter through this podcast or through the the other work that we do in fill as you were describing some of the importances of this mindset and attaching it to success habits and numbers and metrics, one of the situations that I work, I love stories, and I love it sometimes when what I do in my work spills over into some of the causes and the other things that I care about. 

And I can remember a few years ago, about halfway through the year, the the leader of a fundraising committee that I was on to build a business or build a building for an Outreach Center said, we’re not going to make our goals, I think I need to step aside. But we had to get things done by the end of the year. And I was asked to step in, because I actually like raising money for charities or for causes that I care about. 

And I said, well, let’s just keep the plan going. So I tried to keep the plan going of the person that I would succeeding. And honestly, we kept getting similar results. Nothing really good happened in the third quarter. But we had to hit our numbers by the end of the fourth quarter. So I said, let’s throw that all away. 

Let’s create an action plan where we specifically name who is going to call how many people and who those people are going to be and what we’re going to ask them for and make sure that all of our numbers add up to the real possibility of hitting our goal. And yeah, obviously it wouldn’t tell the story if it wasn’t a success, but it was a huge success. 

We went well past our goal, though. It was because we added an action plan action steps, key performance indicators to that opportunity to serve our community and it worked out really well and I Think that’s the same thing as we’re talking about with making sure you know, whether you’re thinking about your business or your life and you’re feeling like you’re behind and 2023 isn’t going to be the year that you want it to be. It’s not too late, you just have to have a process for stepping into it.

Phil Calandra (15:16):

Yeah, and I think for most people, they tend to make the process too difficult. Don’t overthink it, focus on the KPIs, the key action steps, the key inputs. And for many of us, it is the things are the action steps that we’ve done before, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. 

We talked in the previous podcast about our passion, you and I the passion for reading. So if you don’t have an experience in what inputs need to go into it, go find a good book on it, learn from somebody else’s experience. 

And that will help you along the way. And short circuit, if you will, you know, we don’t want to make this harder than it is. Obviously, if you’re having a struggle this year, because maybe has been a little bit tougher than you thought, let’s make it easier and focus on the key performance indicators, the key performance inputs, using the action plan methodology to get you from where we are and where we are, as where we are, I have to remind myself this because I tend to be my biggest critic, don’t beat yourself up over it, you are where you are. 

But that doesn’t mean you have to stay where you are, you can move forward. And if that finish line or whatever the goal is for 2023 You got the time, don’t kill yourself or beat yourself up over the head, you know, look at the mirror and just tell yourself your wonderful soul and go for it.

Rob Brown (16:41):

Yeah, yeah, there’s no yeah, there’s no reason to look back. There’s no reason to be to give yourself more of a hard time just because you aren’t going where you want to go. And I think one of the things that I constantly do when I find somebody in this situation, and we’re trying to catch up, the question I always ask is, if you have a goal in mind, and you’ve been successful in achieving that goal before, and most of the people that we work with have a large degree of success, because you know, through their experience, and through the years is what’s worked for you before. 

So instead of adding something brand new, that you’ve never tried to your action plan, what’s worked for you before, and ask yourself is that tool is that resource is that activity that you undertook still the thing that’s capable of taking you over the top? And if it is, build that into your action plan and marry that up with those KPIs that you’re that you’re going after?

Phil Calandra (17:44):

100%? I agree. All right,

Rob Brown (17:46):

Phil, I think it’s probably time to land the plane on this podcast. So as always, we want to make sure that we give you a specific action step. So think about it, where are you so far this year? And where do you want to go? And how confident are you that you’re going to be able to get there. 

And whether you’re confident or not, what you want to do is make sure that you have confidence in yourself, put behind any failures, that failure that you might be feeling, and write down what are the two or three things that I can do that allow me to achieve whatever it is you set out to do, and do it in terms of actions and things that you can work on, that will produce the results don’t artificially just write down what you hope the result will be it has to be tied together. 

And if you want to do that, using the truest fan action plan, you can go to the link in the show notes. And you can just click the button and say I’d like a copy of the truce fan action plan and we’ll send one straight out to you if you if you have some other planning tool that you prefer or or think has worked in the past use that but you can also do it on a sticky note because you know the the action plan items that you need to track on shown over complicate this, yeah, shouldn’t take a ton of space. 

They you just need to call them out. You need to you need to, to name them. Phil, anything else you want to add here before we

Phil Calandra (19:20):

know he’s gonna say Don’t overcomplicate things, go on to the show notes, get the the truest fan action plan and get going is still plenty of time to have a miraculous comeback or keep building. 

And if you’re already killing it in 2023, then just think how much further ahead you’ll be in 2024. And I can’t believe we’re already talking about that. The new year but get it done, guys.

Rob Brown (19:45):

It’ll be here before you know. And so as always, we want you to know that we’re rooting for your success. And we’d ask that as soon as you’re done listening, share this podcast with somebody else because I’m sure there are other people who could use the same kind of advice So you’ve been listening to today. Thanks a bunch, and we’ll talk to you next week. 

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Truest Fan Blueprints. If you want to learn more, head over to our website truest fan.com on the site, you’ll learn more about becoming a truest fan. You’ll also find today’s show notes and links to the other gifts and resources we talked about during this episode. Again, thanks for listening and remember, we’re rooting for your success.