Peak Performance For Entrepreneurs With Todd Herman

Creator of The 90 Day Year | Performance Coach to Pro & Olympic Athletes | Leadership Advisor to Entrepreneurs – Todd Herman

The effective “Stacking Poker Chips” method for goal achievement. How to avoid “getting into the loop” of procrastinating. The “Ow Brain” vs the “Wow Brain” reality. When “keeping your eye on the ball” is deadly. How to set up your day so that you’re immune to distractions and procrastination.

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

• Grit ‘n’ Hustle
• The90DayYear.com

Check out ToddHerman.me for more info!

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jaime Tardy:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire, I'm Jaime Tardy, and I am so excited to have Todd Herman on the show.  We met at Freedom Fest, out in New York City, where he was speaking, and I was blown away by everything he said, so I had to have him on the show.  You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this.  You can check him out on Toddherman.me.  Thanks so much for coming on the show today. 

Todd Herman:	Absolute pleasure, Jaime, thank you.  

Jaime Tardy:	So I've been in this industry a long time, I've heard a lot of [inaudible] [00:05:52] performance, and really helping people be more efficient and do more things in life, right?

Todd Herman:	Umm-hum.

Jaime Tardy:	I feel like I've heard it all, but when I was watching yours, I was taking so many notes, it was insane, so I - thank you.  B) Can you give everybody a background because you really have the education that's utterly insane in this space.  So tell us all your credibility factors.  

Todd Herman:	Yeah, so education-wise, I'm probably super weak on that side of things.  It's probably the experience where I have a lot of strength there, and that is - maybe I'm a little bit different than some in that I haven't been a visible kind of I guess professional in this space.  I've always been very much behind the scenes; I've owned and run two boutique coaching and consulting firms going onto the 19th year, right now.  I started out working with professional and Olympic athletes, all along the six inches between the ears.  

Mental toughness stuff, the zone, the float state, how can you actually go from what you're doing in practice - which is great - to showing it up on the field of play when it really matters, and crunch time.  Or you're going away to some big opportunity where you're getting scouted, and how can I make sure I perform there, and I don't get overwhelmed with just the anxiety and the stress.  So I built up my name in that space, starting out.  And then, the nature of how I built that business was I did it on the back of [inaudible] sort of just grinding it out, doing small little talks.  

	And the nature of that - you know this - that when you're standing on a stage, people will brand you as an expert whether you deserve it or not, and if you're kind of good with communication, you'll get people who come to you afterwards.  The great thing about whether it's YouTube videos, or just putting your content out there - even if you're talking to a very specific group of people, everyone always filters through your communication through their own experience.  

	So what happens is when I'm talking to say a 13, 14, 15-year old kids about mental toughness, and the importance of developing a [inaudible] [00:07:51] athlete, the mentally, emotionally, and physically tough athlete, a parent would come to me.  And they would be like, "Todd, I loved what you had to say about how when you go through this, it really develops strong leaders, but I'm dealing with an issue inside of my company," or "I own a business, and blah."  And they would always say to me, "Do you do anything for entrepreneurs, or do you do anything for "." 

	My first ever client on this second business, was the government of Canada.  As a consultant, you don't get governments as a client right out of the gate.  But it was because I came in through a side door.  I came in through their kid.  Essentially.  I wasn't planning it that way, right?  Like, I was building up my sports business, and people would say,"Hey, can you do this for my business?"  And the answer was, "Yeah, of course I can."  Because, it's just a different audience, I'd have to just regij the examples and yeah.  But I did learn a valuable lesson in that rejigging of examples, which we can get to whenever.  

Jaime Tardy:	Now, I need to know that.  

Todd Herman:	Well because I always talked about performance and execution, I always drew on examples from sport, and as soon as I went into the business world, I was like, "Well, the easiest metric to use is typically money."  And so when I started working with the division of the Canadian government, I was using money throughout this two day workshop as the example, and when I was doing feedback forms - and I developed a great relationship with the people that were there.  But this group for women came up to me and they said, "Todd?" - and I was young; I was like 23 at the time, or something like that.  

	They said, "You've got a ton of passion around this, and it's obvious that you really believe in this, but just so you know, not everyone is motivated by money.  We're not working in government because we love money.  Some of us are doing it for other reasons, whether it's service; we really want to give back to the country? or whatever capacity it is.  So it was great.  It was great to get that feedback really early on because I would've continued down that path of using that exact same example over and over again.  

	And yes, it was great to get that feedback early.  And so then my breath of examples completely expanded out, which impacted the audience then that much better. 

Jaime Tardy:	Your shirt keeps rolling up against you -.

Todd Herman:	I'm sorry.  There we go.  

Jaime Tardy:	So quick question because you're working with super high level entrepreneurs right now, so is the money not their main thing?  Is it time?  What are those people actually paying attention to? 

Todd Herman:	Great point, and this gets to my - it gets to an issue that I have with sort of the personal development, and sort of the self-help industry, and it's change and trying to achieve things, it's nuanced.  It's not about one thing, like everyone tries to espouse to all of us, and then because we're not doing that one thing, "Oh my God, I'm a bad person, of course, now I'm doing things wrong."  It's nuanced, there's a lot of different reasons and motivations why - I've worked at the Spanish Well Family, I've worked with billionaires. 

	The reasons why people are doing it, sometimes it's greed.  Sometimes it's just - they do want more money.  Some of them just do want that.  Other people, it's about - it's a vehicle for financing more experiences in life, and those are the people that - that's typically [inaudible] [00:11:15].  It's "I'm not trying to accumulate money for the sake of accumulating money, I'm trying - it's a vehicle for me to go and just explore this thing that we get called "The human experience"" like, just go up there and play in this role that we have. 

	So some people, family is a really huge driver; I mean, it's one of my drivers, as well.  Some people are doing it for their country; it's really super altruistic.  Some people do it for their family name.  They're doing it because there's two different clients that I have, and one I still work with.  One, they didn't have a family name that was ever worthy of anything in fact, a fairly checkered past with criminals in it and stuff like this.  So they wanted to change the story line of their name and make it something different.  And then, the other person, their family name really does mean a lot to them, and they're really connected to their family history, and so they want to carry on and expand that name.  

	There's so many different ways that you can look at it, and whatever it takes for you to motivate and drive you to performance.  I tell this to clients all the time, when people contact me, it's the first thing out of my mouth when I start working with someone is, "Just a reminder, I'm not here to coach you on your happiness.  It's not that I really don't care about your happiness, but it's not something that I really worry about because, I care about one thing, and that's you executing and performing.  

Because, I know that if Janie is executing and performing, that typically means that you're putting stuff out there, and you're going to get feedback on that stuff that you're putting out there from people that you're trying to serve.  And it could be good things, it could be bad things, I don't know, typically it's going to be a great thing.  And however you want to personally internalize it is up to you.  I can't control that part.  That's a you thing, not a me thing.  And so I'm not here to coach you on happiness, I'm here to help you perform to the level that you've got  capable in you right now." 

Jaime Tardy:	Are people a lot of times not living up to their capabilities at all?

Todd Herman:	Oh yeah, of course.  Of course. 

Jaime Tardy:	That's why they're coming to you, of course, but we don't - sometimes we don't know what that level is.  We're like, "I'm doing pretty good, and we don't know what the capacity is.  Can you tell us how we can find out?  

Todd Herman:	Yeah, but I - yeah, sure.  I mean, I think it's a gut thing, anyway.  I wish that I could just give you a simple test to give, but I think we all know if we're not really performing, if we're avoiding the part of us that really wants to explore a new idea.  Typically the thing that we're most scared of, a lot of times is the thing we really, deeply want to go and find out if we can do it.  But the reason most people - I found - that they don't go after it is hope.  We all think that hope is actually this really positive thing, but I've actually seen hope being a really massive anchor that stops people from actually taking action.  

	Because, think about it, if I've always played with the idea of writing a book - and this is actually me, coming from personal experience now because, I just finished writing a book like, in its rough draft form. 

Jaime Tardy:	Congratulations. 

Todd Herman:	Yeah, well - I had an editor.  So anyways, if we've always had this idea in our head of writing something, and we tell ourselves this great story that "If I actually did it, it's going to be - it'll be epic, or amazing," or whatever that is.  The bigger that story is, if I - if I actually took action on it, and then - so I'm executing on this thing, and put it out there, and it wasn't this grand story, boom, well, now I've just lost that great story out of my head, which was hope.  So the longer that we wait on these things, the more we cling to this anchor of hope, and it's a huge distinction for people to make.  

	And yet, the reality is, there's so many other amazing things that happen in the pursuit of a goal that it's never the goal itself that's ever rewarding.  The point of the goal is for us to impact us in a way that is going to cause a whole bunch of other change to occur that we never saw possible.  So it has to be an attitude of exploration in life because, we have four intrinsic motivators inside of all of us.  And I've got two little girls right now, the one, Sophie is 15 months old, and Molly is two and a half, and you get to see - I get to see this daily, but they're motivated by new experiences, they're motivated by new experiences, they're motivated by exploration.  

That's why you see a baby constantly touching everything; they're just exploring the world around them.  They're motivated by growth, and they're motivated like adventure or learning.  And the moment that those four things stop, that's when we start to look to intrinsic things that we talk about money, or the car, or the view that we have in New York City, or things like that, which aren't really the spice of life, I guess.  

Jaime Tardy:	You just end up getting - you're probably used to the view.  I mean, it's so beautiful, I was like "That's a beautiful view," but it's like "Yeah" after a while.  Do those four intrinsic things stay interesting to us?  

Todd Herman:	Absolutely.  Because I talk about this idea of just achievement, and executing in performance all the time, and I tell people all the time like, "When I write a goal - when I actually decide that I'm going to go after a goal "'  Because, there's a lot of goals that I'll write, and I'll go through the process that I use, and I'll be like, "No, I don't actually want to do that."  Because, elimination is actually a big part of goal achievement; deciding that you're not going to do something.  You just had David Allon on not too long ago, and he'll always talk about the context of - you collect a bunch of stuff, and then you've got to actually organize it.  

	And the difference between collection and organization is collection is just capturing it somewhere, and organization is where the decision point comes, where we're going to actually take action on the thing that we just collected.  Same thing with goals; goals are no different.  Once you go through a really good process of goal achievement like - one of the things that I teach, you could actually make a good, smart decision and say, "Now isn't the right time.  

I don't have all the resources to go after this particular goal, and it would be better if I did this one, this one, and this one, which might not be as motivating, but they're the things I know I can make an impact on right now, and who knows where those little stepping stones are going to lead me."  And so for me, anytime I set a goal, and I decide I'm going to go after it, I've already achieved it.  There is no way that that thing isn't achieved because I know that the system I'm going to use to go after that thing is tight, and very well defined. 

	So then I get really motivated by "I can't wait to see what this goal does to me," and that's the attitude of exploration that matters.  "I'm going to discover what it's really like to go after this thing."  And it's a good reversal of attitude because the hardest part of goal achievement - and it's just life.  We use the term "Goal achievement" but really, life is just a process of just - hopefully, for most people, going after goal, after goal, after goal, and it leads to this - whatever life that is for us.  

And so when I - most people, when you're going after a goal, you realize that after like the first couple of days, you're like, "Holy crap, there's a lot more effort in this than I ever thought," or "The seven steps I thought it was going to take is actually 70 steps."  But that's what I want to find out.  I want to dive into this goal and explore, and really find out what it's really all about so that I can come out the other end of the deep end and tell the other people, and give them good advice.  

	Because, I'm no good as a coach, or an advisor to my clients if I'm not out there constantly taking action.  Getting back to the whole idea of writing a book, I essentially avoided it like well over a decade.  And I've got dyslexia, so that was one of my little things that I had, but I wasn't going to kind of basically put up with it anymore because I want to speak from a place of wisdom and experience of what it was really like to do that.  

Jaime Tardy:	Okay, so I wrote a thousand things down.  So I think it's amazing - we talk about the journey here, a lot, but I am so impressed with how sure you are over your goal setting process, so I feel like you've teased us on your goal setting process like, I knew exactly -.  So can you tell us about what this goal setting process is like?  You're so sure. 

Todd Herman:	You know what, I used the basically the kind of - maybe analogy of playing poker.  So we're sitting across from each other at a table right now - well, not really, but we're going to pretend.  I've got a pretend table right here.  If we're playing poker, and you have a huge stack of red white and blue chips sitting in front of you, and I've got a small stack of chips sitting in front of me, no matter what cards are laid on the table, we're both going to be playing with those exact same cards.  You're going to have your hand.  I'm going to have my hand. 

	But who's going to probably play bigger at that game?  You.  And that's even if you had a weaker hand.  If I have like an ace and a king, and there's maybe a king on the table; I might go all in, who knows, but I'm going to be losing everything.  Which means, I'm risking everything to go into it.  The reason I use that as an example is I'm trying to stack up for my clients.  And for me, just one poker chip at a time because, I know - essentially, the example I'm trying to give is the more that we just achieve little things, they stack up on top of one another, and that adds to our total view of our self-concept; what I'm able to do.  Our self-efficacy.  Our self-esteem.

	And so I like little winds because, little winds stack up to me being able to take advantage of the really big opportunities, then.  Or people see all those - that stack, and they go, "Oh, that's someone I want to play with."  So to carry that forward, the eventual millionaire has this large audience of people than someone who is an [inaudible] [00:21:25] says, "Yeah, that's a poker table I want to go play on because there's an opportunity for me to expose myself and what I have to say to a larger group of people.  

	All of these little things that I'm going after, and the certainty I have towards them, I'm eye-balling, I'm stacking poker chips, baby.  I'm just accumulating more and more stuff so that I can play bigger, which helps other people play bigger because I have - I know I've got my system that I can show other people to do the exact same thing.  

Jaime Tardy:	Okay, give me some examples of small winds because, this is the thing that I don't think people understand.  I don't think we reward ourselves, our at least acknowledge enough that we are making these small winds.  We're like, "Oh but we're entrepreneurs.  There's always the next thing."  So what are some examples of small winds maybe from you, especially when people are listening to you, and you're like, "I've worked with billionaires," you've seen different.  You're like - "Well, of course he can do that." 

Todd Herman:	Of course he can do that. 

Jaime Tardy:	His small winds are like huge to me, right?  

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  But I mean, that's always comparing someone else's finishing line to someone else's starting line.  There is no better place in the world to do that in than New York City.  Just the other day -well, it was last month that I was reading - I love reading the real estate section of the New York Times on Saturdays.  And there was one week where a brand new deal had just gone through, and someone had bought two floors of a huge condominium here, in New York city for - I think it was $82 million dollars.  Great.  Huge.  That's too big for this cowboy to get engaged in. 

	And so the next week, though, there was another person who came in and bought a place for $118 million dollars.  So someone who just like [inaudible] [00:23:07] it up to $82 million, just got beat up by someone else with $118 million.  So if you get caught up in that comparison, this town will absolutely eat you up.  And that's why there's that kind of saying, it's like, "If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere," which is a nice idea.  But I always thought, "Well, that's very kind of arrogant of the New Yorkers who like to think that only their town is where you can make it."  

	But I will say that after having lived here now for eight years, that there is a different level of kind of showmanship that happens here, and you better know yourself really well because, if you don't, when you get here, you're going to get caught up in that kind of tornado of comparison and contrast. 

Jaime Tardy:	What do you - that's the thing, I feel like it's also that way with the internet.  We have so many stories of all these people doing utterly amazing things, and it just - I feel like it takes people down.  

Todd Herman:	So my attitude is all about curiosity.  I'm always - and it's a phrase I had to train myself because, I am not a natural optimist by any stretch of the imagination.  Totally not.  No.  Think about it, the one thing that I've been out there trying to teach was the one thing I needed to learn myself, which was mental toughness; it really was.  And my brother - I've got two older brothers, one of my brothers, Ryan, who I'm really, really close with, his biggest issue - not issue with me, but the thing he always tried to coach me on was like, "You're trying to do so much for other people that you never take care of yourself.  

It's you care more about their stuff than you care about your own goals, or the things that you're trying to do.  You bend over backwards for people.  You're a mat for other people."  So I was a people pleaser, and I'm a natural extrovert. 

Jaime Tardy:	You do. 

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  I'm a natural extrovert.  In fact, when I did the old Myers - Briggs Test, the lady came back in and said, "You're as far to the left on the "E" level as you can possibly get.  In fact, you probably broke it."  And so yeah, it's something that I naturally had to learn.  But over time, I just developed a real lens of looking at life through an attitude of just complete curiosity.  And so if I see that person who did the $118 million dollar deal, I've got two phrases that I basically - I don't consciously think about them anymore, but I did at one point in time.  They're either "I wonder" - "I wonder how they did that?" or "Isn't that interesting."  

Jaime Tardy:	I say that all the time.  Someone called me out on that the other day.  
Todd Herman:	Yeah, "That's interesting."  "That's interesting.  I wonder what path that person took to get to the place where they could afford to plunk down $82 million dollars.  I wonder what that - I wonder what their life experience was like."  Because, coming to New York City, or someone out there who knows - they're making $50,000.00 a year, and they're busting their butt to make that $50,000.00 a year.  Then, they have someone else who is doing the exact same job, but they're just in a different vertical market, that's called finance, and they're doing the exact same job, but they're making $500,000.00 a year.  

	And someone says, "But why?  That's not fair."  Listen, if you're looking for fairness, you're going to have to be putting everyone else into the psychologists? chair to make yourself feel better.  It's just not going to work.  Life isn't about fairness.  And so why is that person earning $500K?  It's because the closer to money you get, the more you get of it.  So no place is closer to money than the finance industry.  That's the banks; they hold the money.  So in a business, the closer you get to money, the more money you make.  Who makes the most money?  Sales people, typically, are going to make the most money.  Why?  Because they're the closest to the money; that's where the transaction happens.  

	Or the entrepreneur, the owner of the business, or whatever case.  And so the further and further you get away from the money, the less you make of it.  It's just - maybe that's a new idea to some people, and hopefully that may open up -.  But I had a mentor who explained that to me, and I was like, "Yeah."  So now, I'm not going to sit there and begrudge someone else because they're making more money.  Because, I go, "That's interesting.  I wonder how close they were to the money in order to get that much of it to spend on a home here, in New York City."  

	Even though we've kind of carried on this conversation, I really don't think about them that much.  I'm pretty much knee-deep in tutus and little dolls most of the time to be worried about what other people are doing. 

Jaime Tardy:	So I want to talk a little bit about "I don't know if you want to call it productivity, or whatever, but some of the tactics that you talk about.  Because, like you said at the beginning - I've heard a lot of this stuff before, but this was in a different way.  I feel like, I don't know if that's you explained it differently, or - do you know what I mean?
Todd Herman:	Yeah.  

Jaime Tardy:	You've got different analogies or something.  Tell me some of that stuff to help some people.  

Todd Herman:	Yeah, so I think that the day and age - we're in the 21st century, and the biggest issue that I have, and kind of the personal development self-help space, or coaching space, or whatever is that people still lean way too much on anecdotal evidence.  Meaning like, "It worked for me, so of course, it's going to work for you."  Here's the reality, like if it worked for me, I have a lot less things going against me than many other people.  And this isn't about racism or discrimination; I'm a white man living in the 21st century.  It is way easier for me to achieve things than other people.  

	I don't have to walk down the street and deal with some of the prejudices that other people have to deal with.  I talk about it on the podcast with people all the time because I want to kind of bring this stuff to light.  So I can't be a white man telling other people how to be successful because there's no shortage of white men out there telling people how to be successful.  

Jaime Tardy:	Just because I did. 

Todd Herman:	Of course, you can do it.  I had both my parents together, and they're both loving parents, and I never got hit as a kid.  So I think we need more than that.  So the way that I look at developing programs for people is it has to be run through more than anecdote, and it's not going to be based on my experience.  But the only experience that it's based on is the fact that I've spent well over 50,000 plus hours now - it's well over 50,000 plus hours - working with people one on one, in conversations like this, where I'm really finding out the deep dark things that are stopping a person from actually moving forward.  

	And those stories vary in ways; there's different challenges for people.  But we have - I have hundreds of thousands of data points because I also have a research firm in my sports business that we've been doing lots of studies for a long time.  I want to be basing it off of "What's proven to work?  What's actually happening in science?" like neuro science, what's the research that's out there.  Because we're learning so much about how the brain works, so how can we move this - how can we filter this stuff through the language of like behavior and habits, and so there's all of these different components that come together. 

	And so when I was doing that talk that you're referencing, I was basically just describing a phenomenon called context switching.  
Which is essentially that if you're working on two things at the exact same time, there is a hard cost that is lost to the brain have to constantly going back and checking in on these two things that you're doing.  And so what does that look like in your day, that could be like you're writing an email, but you also have another notes area open that you're running a blog post.  

	So you're responding to email, and you're going back and you're typing in your blog post.  The amount of time it takes for the brain to actually get re-associated and reacquainted to that place that you were in either one of those is completely lost time.  We lost that time.  It's gone forever.  And it's 20 per cent.  So for every additional thing that you actually add to the list that you're doing simultaneously, you're losing 20 per cent for each of them.  So if you have one hour in your day that you can actually work - because, you've got people that are listening right now, that they work a full-time job.  

	So they do work a full-time job - which, hats off to you.  Then, you come home, and you might have kids you have to deal with, and you've got to put dinner on the table, and all that stuff - help kids with homework.  That's a lot of energy.  And now, you have - it's 9:00 p.m., it's 9:30 p.m., and you haven't even relaxed for your day yet.  Or maybe you did, 30 minutes in the car, but you were thinking -.  And now you're asking yourself at 9:30 p.m. to get a bunch of focused hard core work done to actually take this little [inaudible] [00:31:28] that you've got going to another level. 

	And then, when you're working inside that 90 minutes that you have for yourself, you're doing four things.  That's a completely ineffective way to ask ourselves to actually achieve this sort of vehicle that's going to help us escape this job that we might have, that we don't like.  The trick is - and David Allon would talk about it, and any good productivity person would talk about it, is sitting down and really just focusing on one task, to be using a timer.  I'm a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique.  There was like 18 months or a year where I was like their poster child testimonial on their homepage.

	Yeah because, I talked about how I used the Pomodoro technique with training athletes, and working with athletes.  Anyways, but sitting down and committing to 25 minutes only working on that one thing instead of getting into this loop.  Everyone's loop is different.  Especially if it's people who work on computers everyone has a loop.  Your loop is probably different than mine, but the loop goes like this: email, to Facebook, to ESPN to check out scores, it could be to CNN, or whatever it is.  Everyone has their three or four places that they go to, and then they go back to their email. 

	And this loop continues, and it's just an absolute fury of activity that doesn't produce any sort of traction, at all.  So there's consumption, but there's no creation, and creation matters.  

Jaime Tardy:	That's where you see results.  

Todd Herman:	That's where results happen.  So the tactic is - just like I said, sitting down and just committing.  And that could be - like what I do, is I'm a big pen and paper person. 

Jaime Tardy:	Me too. 

Todd Herman:	So I have index cards, and I've got my - I just call them my index cards of choice, but that is that I will write down on my index card for the next 25 minute what my focus us.  Now - I used to write actually a sentence like, "The next 25 minutes, I am focusing only on blah" like, crafting the outline for this speech, or whatever it would be.  Now, I just write in, "Speech," and that's just a signal to this, that in a physical world, I have committed to this thing called "Speech," hit the timer, and then just work on that one thing. 

Jaime Tardy:	I love that.  Okay, wait - tell me - and actually, we were talking about there's actually a link you can get a video that actually -.  It's hard to explain this without visuals because, I saw the visuals - and it's really impactful.  So what's the link that everybody can go to see the video on this to? 

Todd Herman:	People can go to the 90dayyear.com and -. 

Jaime Tardy:	90, the numbers 90. 

Todd Herman:	Exactly.  The 90dayyear.com and they could watch it in that video.  And in that video, I'm going to be talking about a lot of other things in the context of goal achievement and why it's - why we still struggle.  Think about it, when people hear the word - you think it would be good, and yet it's only getting harder, harder, and harder.  Technology is moving at such a rapid pace, and the way that we work is very different than we've ever had to in the past.  And we're actually getting confronted with way more entertainment options for ourselves.  

	And entertainment, it's just - our brain loves it.  Dopamines love that stuff because we just get to consume stuff.  But consumption is the enemy; it really is - to an achiever, to someone who wants to achieve.  So we need to really re-learn a new way of confronting this new world that we're living inside of, and that's why I have the 90 day year.  90 day year is just an archaic set smart goals.  Think about it, smart goals, if you look at it, it's actually a way to write a sentence.  That's all it is.  Specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time value.  That's a great way to write a headline.  It's not a system to achieve because, think about it.  

Jaime Tardy:	It's nothing. 

Todd Herman:	It's nothing.  We need routine - routines are a big part of achieving things.  You know that, you've got routines that either serve you, or sometimes they don't serve you.  But I talk about a few of those things in that video, on the website. 

Jaime Tardy:	Okay.  So make sure everybody, check that out, too because, that's the thing that I think is really important.  So one thing is to set goals.  Most people write them in a book, or leave them on some place on their computer, and then never look at them again. 

Todd Herman:	Yeah. 

Jaime Tardy:	Or even put them up on their white board.  Do you know what I mean?  Go like, "Okay, this is my goal."  But what I found is so interesting on what you talk about is the journey part.  How can you make yourself stay that focused and create those habits that actually work?  Because, usually - I mean, you know, starting January, and then you're like, "Oh, by February," and everyone's like, "No." 

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  

Jaime Tardy:	So how do we continue making that - those small winds add up without "forgetting about it."

Todd Herman:	Yeah, sure.  So a big part of - a big part of this whole system is - especially when we're learning something new - this is for someone who's really starting to learn something new, or like you're going after something that you've never done before, which is typically what a goal would be.  Unless, I'm dealing with marathoners - they don't need to relearn what it's like to be a marathoner, but they're trying to shoot after a new career higher, or something. 

	But the nature of going after a goal is we need feedback loops built into them.  And what most systems lack is we're not checking in on how much are we improving by any stretch of the imagination.  And there's a real difference between how people with a success mind thing about going after challenges or obstacles because a goal is essentially a challenge.  It's an obstacle.  You don't look at the goal as the obstacle, but the moment you try to go after the goal, 56 obstacles automatically landed your way in order to get to it. 

	It's an obstacle course.  That's essentially what a goal is for ourselves.  And so what a success minded individual thinks about is "Wow, I wonder?" they think in the context of "What are all the opportunities I'm going to get from this?  How is life going to change?  Or how is my business going to change because of achieving this goal, or going after it, or adding this new thing inside of my business?  What are we going to gain from it?"  It's all about gain, it's all about - like, it's going to be adding something.  

	A person who's got - who's very much afraid of the goal, they want the exact same goal, but the people who have gotten into this cycle of thinking in the context of essentially, pain, they go, "What am I going to be missing out on?  What's it going to be costing me?  What are all the possible ways that I could fail at this?  I've never done this before.  Who am I to think that I can even go after that?  There's already 96 other people who've already done this and are further along the pathway to doing this.  How could I even catch up to them?  There's someone who has more money than me."

	It's just - it's an avalanche of all these reasons why they can't do it.  Same goal, same opportunities sitting in front of both people, one is looking at the improvement side of things, and one isn't.  So if we're caught in this trap of - I call it the "Ow brain," and the "Wow brain."  So there's "Ow brain" people, and there's "Wow brain people."  They think of like, "Wow, what's all the opportunity?"  "Ow" is like, "How's this going to hurt me?"  So it's pain and pleasure; it's back to that.  

Jaime Tardy:	Can you change that? 

Todd Herman:	You can change it.  Yeah.  You can change it.  And - why am I losing her name - a friend of mine, Carol Dweck, who wrote the book Growth Mindset.  Fantastic book.  We met because we actually - I came from the sports world talking about this, and she came from the academic world talking about - she talks about growth mindset and fixed mindset.  And so essentially, "Ow brainers" are fixed mindset, and growth mindset are "Wow brainers."  

So how we can get people who have this "Ow" brain mentality out of it is we need to reinforce improvement.  So when we're looking - if you and I were set up, I'm an "Ow" brainer, and you're a "Wow" brainer, and we both start going after the exact same goal, we've got the exact same education, and all that kind of stuff, and we do the exact same activities after week one.  So week one, we've done the exact same amount of activities, and we're actually at the exact same place along the path.  And what you do is you look back, and you go, "Wow, look how far I've come.  
.
That's cool.  Look at the improvement I've made this week.  I didn't think I could get this far.  Or maybe I thought I could get a little bit further, but whatever.  I've improved."  You're focused on where you were, and where you are now.  "Ow brainers" will go, "Look how far I have to go before I even get there."  And so all these people, all along that have been telling us, "You've got to keep your eye on the ball," yet, it's a great sports race, and me, coming from a sports -t's a great idea.  But if you're a person who isn't success minded already, it is a killer idea to your goals.

	And this gets to my point of we have all these people out there who are anecdotally telling people how to be successful.  But if you were already success minded, and you're saying, "Well, of course, keep your eye on the ball.  That's what I did.  And I won."  But if you have someone sitting in front of you who hasn't flexed that muscle, and maybe hasn't had a bunch of winds in their life, terrible prescription.  It's like telling people - you've got to use affirmations.  Affirmations scientifically proven to not work. 

	Why?  Because their brains are explicit.  You're telling me that I'm rich, and that voice in my head goes, "You're full of shit.  I'm not rich."  What are you doing?  If you actually flipped it slightly -  There's been a new study that just came out about a year and a half ago about asking the question "Why am I rich?'  Because, our brains are asking questions all the time anyway.  You walk into a room, or networking, or an event, or something like that; you walk into Freedom Fest with our buddy Ryan Lee, and you immediately go - your brain goes, "Okay, do I know anybody here?  

Where are the cool people at?  It happens completely unconsciously, and it guides you into certain directions.  It's constantly asking questions.  And so we need to ".  Anyways, getting back to that whole - we've got people out there that are telling others how to achieve success, and yet '- I want the data.  And so I want - there's nuances to this stuff.  So when you're just starting out at things, folks, like I'm telling you right now, focus on the improvement.  And then, what that does is it unwinds the "Ow" brain in you, and it gets you thinking success minded.  That is one of the biggest things that you can do. 

	So one of the things that I haven't said [inaudible] [00:42:11] program, and the system, we offer achieving things, is this constant feedback that's happening like, "Where am I?"  "Have I improved?"  The thing that I - the strategy that I'm using to actually go after this goal; is it actually working?  Because, sometimes people to a strategy that they're not suited for, or the resources that they have aren't suited for them right now.  And so they end up spending their [inaudible] for way too long, and they don't get the results that they could or should. 

	The whole reason why I have it as the 90 day year, when I started using this 11 years ago - originally, it was called "The 90 day sprint" because I was working in sports more.  But then, when I started doing a lot more stuff in corporate, and with entrepreneurs - we all operate off of the calendar, typically, so I changed it to the 90 day year.  But the world moves way too fast.  There are industries that change so quickly, that I want to compress this thing down into 90 days because we can get amazing things achieved in 90 days that could make a really huge impact on where we are today.  
	And the whole point of the 90 day Sprint, when I originally was doing it with athletes was, they're doing - they're practicing so many different skills.  And unfortunately, when you're practicing, trying to improve five different skills all at once, you don't get - you get little tiny incremental improvements, but it doesn't impact the performance on the field.  So instead, I want to shrink it down to "The next 90 days is about this one thing.  And 80 per cent of your practice time is devoted to that one skill of improvement.  20 per cent of your time is only devoted to the maintenance of the other things."  

	So a basketball player, it would be - so he's focused on all of this speed and quickness over the next 90 days.  The rest of his time is focused on just maintaining his shooting ability, his dribbling ability, whatever.  And then, all of a sudden, he gets this massive performance boost on the field of play because he did just one thing.  So for you, it could be if you're starting in business, and it's online, it would be - you need an audience.  At the end of the day, we all need an audience to talk to.  It's way easier to launch products, to sell things when we have an audience of people to talk to.  So the first 90 days is just about me doing only activities that is about gaining an audience.  

	Boom.  Like now I have a theme, that's going to start informing the types of goals, and the projects that I take on.  If someone comes to me and says, "Hey Todd, I have a great book on developing systems in your business."  And you've heard from someone else that the [inaudible] [00:44:47] is a great book on systems, you're like, "Of course I should read that book," and "Of course I should implement that thing."  Listen, the great thing about the 90 day year is no, you just decided based on the theme of that 90 days, that it's about audience.  It is not about systems.  And by the way folks, if you're in business, and you're just starting out, trust me, systems are the last thing you need to be implementing. 

Jaime Tardy:	Make the money first, and then worry about systems because you'll be losing it. 

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  Start breaking shit.  Break shit.  That's what entrepreneurs are good at.  Break it.  Break it.  Break it.  And then a lot of the people coming in put systems together.  

Jaime Tardy:	I love that, though.  Because, especially - because I've heard a lot of people talk about theming their years, and picking three themes or whatever, but being really specific, and going "This 90 days is this.  This 90 days is this."  Actually, I  it's funny that you - the reason why I started Eventual Millionaire is to ask people what they were really doing because, I kept reading books from gurus that were like, "This is the way.  This is the way."  And I'm like, "Okay, I want to know what people that aren't writing books about "This is the way," and then tabulate that information, and figure out what the best things are based on that."  

	So that's the whole reason why I started doing this, too, to find out all different people, all different walks of life.  Though, I have to admit, it's harder to find women and minorities, and all that fun stuff.  I look in people - they email me all the time.  I know, I'm looking.  But it's insane to see that each person takes a different approach.  

Todd Herman:	If you want females, and minorities, I've got a whole [inaudible] [00:46:05].

Jaime Tardy:	Good.  

Todd Herman:	I'm the exact same way.  I'm actually - I think there needs to be more - there needs to be less people like me out there.  While I like getting my platform out there for people, but I think we do need to put more females and minorities out there to see the different lens that there is.  And so like I have a podcast, as well, and on [inaudible], my entire focus for the last six weeks has been about getting nothing but females and minorities on there.  And so I've had a string of just phenomenal people.  

Jaime Tardy:	See - I think - like I was one of two women speakers on stage, which is fine, but it's still one of those things where I'm speaking in December, and I'm the token girl already.  So it's like, "Oh, there's the token girl, again."  I'm fine with, I'm talking with some amazing people, but still, it's one of those things where I think we need all those perspectives.  Because, you're right, everybody has  different perspective.  And what I love is that you're paying attention to that.  One of the things I loved about you is the tech side and the neuro-science side about going and actually paying attention to what the studies are.  

	Because, no offense, I really think the personal development space in general, doesn't even pay attention what's going on in tech, and brain science, and where we're going.  I love the singularity and where we're going with biotech and what we can do in the future.  Where do you see some of that stuff going?  I feel like you're the guy that would know some of those things.  

Todd Herman:	Yeah, it's - I don't know if there is - I think it's hard to predict where it could go.  I think that we're at this interesting place where I think if there's ever a more important time for us to learn a skill of maintaining focus, or getting things done and executed - whatever the word is.  It's now because - it's only going to become more and more prevalent that there's just all these other things that can do things for us.  Like we have IFTTT, we have Zapier, we have all these little apps that can help automate things.  

But I think what we're losing, is we're losing a level of awareness of the world around us by doing that.  And a good case in point, for me was, I've always been very good with maps, like knowing where I'm at.  The moment I bought a car, several years ago, that had a GPS system inside of it, I stopped paying attention to which exits I was taking.  When I first moved to New York City like - you do need a GPS.  I will say that because, getting out into New Jersey with all the interstates and stuff like that, it's not easy to navigate.  

But I would take the exact same trip almost every single day, and even then, there's times where I still have to rely on it.  And I'm like, "I've driven this 300 days in a row."  We've sort of offloaded our awareness onto other things, and I think that we're losing a little bit of what it means to be human, then.  Even this, like we've offloaded relationships to Facebook, and to Twitter, and to Instagram, and now we're getting this very curated lens of people's lives that is nothing like the real struggle that it means to be human.  

	And then, we're not having as many face to face meeting with people as we would've in the past.  And so we're kind of losing this soft skill touch that helps us to really be human.  I think it's - I don't know if I could actually say what the interesting thing that's going to happen with the future, but yeah.  I don't think I've got a good answer for you on that one.  Sorry.  

Jaime Tardy:	No, I love it.  I think that's what's so interesting.  I think it's almost inevitable the way that technology's going, and the way that we're interfacing with technology instead.  I go, "Is it a good thing, or a bad thing?  Is this how we evolve?  Or do we really want to be back to?""  Do you know what I mean?  Anyway, I love this stuff, and I love trying to figure out where we're going and how that impacts things.  

Todd Herman:	I think a bigger question for people, and it gets back to - this question has been asked for millennia, is know yourself.  I think when you know yourself, you can find your place inside of whatever this role that we're stepping into.  It kind of gets back to like when I moved to New York City.  Thankfully, when I moved to New York City, I did know myself really, really well, but I met a lot of people who came here, wanted to live the New York City life, and they got kind of chewed up and spit out of it.  And it's tough to find yourself in New York City because it can move you in a lot of different directions.  

Jaime Tardy:	I could only visit for a short period of time.  You're from Canada, though, right?  

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  I grew up on a huge farm and ranch, so this is very different than my experience growing up.  

Jaime Tardy:	Which is crazy.  Anyway, we could go on forever.  I need to ask this last question, I always do because I know we're running out of time.  

Todd Herman:	Yeah. 

Jaime Tardy:	What's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward to their goal of a million?  Besides going to the 90dayyear.com.  

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  They don't need my program for that.  One action that they can take right now to move them forward - is that what you said?  

Jaime Tardy:	Yes.  

Todd Herman:	In their week.  I would say sit down, spend some time the night before your next day and map out what your day is going to be about.  And that is - there is a lot of reasons why we do this.  It allows us to step into the day with far more intention than we were - if you show up in your day, and you haven't thought about what's going to happen that day, then you're set up for distraction and procrastination to easily set in for yourself.  

	But if you decide ' so 6:00 p.m. every night, I'm going to sit down, and I'm going to take a look at my day tomorrow, I'm going to map out what's happening inside of it.  What I end up doing is I make sure all of the really important things are getting done in that day, and I don't allow the world to try and come in and chew up my day on its behalf.  Winston Churchill had a habit of staying in bed until 11:00 a.m.  Why?  

Because he knew that staying in bed, no one was going to come to bother him in bed.  And he could get all of the important matters of diplomacy off the table before everyone else started trying to get his attention in his day.  So there's a lot of really smart people that have kind of done it that way.  Implement that.  Spend some time the night before to map out what your day - tomorrow.  And that could be like if you've been struggling with putting meditation into your - put it in there and then commit to doing that.  And that gets back to the whole thing we were talking about earlier about context switching.  

	Like, "I'm deciding what's going on.  I'm the master of the day, and I'm going to steer it, not allow other people to steer that ship for me." 

Jaime Tardy:	I love that.  Do you put fun in your day too?  Do you schedule that stuff in, or do you just let that go?  

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  Yeah, I will say, I am kind of a scheduler of fun in some ways, but it's - I have a blast with my kids.  And people, for me, are fun, honestly.  I'm an extrovert.  Doing stuff like this - this is fun stuff.  This is not work stuff for me, at all.  Talking to my clients, that's fun to me.  I love working and chewing on problems that other people have.  So yeah, I would say I'm probably bad a little bit at consuming hobbies in some way.  Like, I love to golf, but I didn't golf enough this year.  And I like to draw and paint, and I haven't done that. 

Jaime Tardy:	Really?  

Todd Herman:	Yeah. 

Jaime Tardy:	I do too.  I just drew a huge painting - you can't see it, but I did a huge painting right there. 

Todd Herman:	Here's a random one for you - yes, Jaime.  Do you remember like Teen Beat Magazine?  Well, you might be ?.  

Jaime Tardy:	I probably do. 

Todd Herman:	I'm a little bit [inaudible] [00:53:48], so my sister had Teen Beat Magazines lying around the 1980s, and they always had these contests in the back of the books where it would be, "Draw this picture of the little turtle."  

Jaime Tardy:	Yeah.  

Todd Herman:	That was put on by the Art Institute.  It used to be called the Minneapolis Art Institute, now it's the Art Institute.  So anyways, I was bored one day on the farm, and so I actually drew that out, and sent it off, and I actually won.  So I won the contest.  

Jaime Tardy:	I felt like it was fake or something. 

Todd Herman:	No.  They flew someone in to [inaudible] Alberta, Canada, and yeah, I won this art scholarship.  So I started learning that stuff when I was young.  Interesting thing, though, they always brought in sometimes guests- people to rate what you did.  And I think it was like unit number 11 for me.  I sent it in, and it was a landscape of a covered bridge, and some trees, and stuff.  I sent it in, I got it back, and I got a grade of B- on it, and it said, "Great work on your composition, you need to strengthen your use of shading," or something like that, and it was signed by Charles Schultz.  

Jaime Tardy:	What? 

Todd Herman:	Yeah.  

Jaime Tardy:	Really? 

Todd Herman:	And apparently, he came out of the Art Institute.  Crazy stuff.  

Jaime Tardy:	That's insane.  So now you're going to go home and paint, right?  

Todd Herman:	So sign up for contests folks because, you never know who's going to judge it.

Jaime Tardy:	That's an awesome story.  Awesome.  Thank you so much for coming on.  Where could we find more about you?  I know, everybody should check out - I meant that they should check out the 90dayyear.com, not that they shouldn't.  So make sure, everybody, write that down, take a look at that.  But where else could we find you online?  Either on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever?  Or do you avoid those?  

Todd Herman:	Todd_Herman on Twitter.  On websites Toddherman.me and all the social stuff is linked off of that as well.  And I have a podcast which is on the blog, as well.  Called [inaudible] [00:55:38] and hustle.  Real and raw stories of how achievers actually made it, which is kind of what you're trying to get to, as well.  

Jaime Tardy:	So if you liked this podcast, you'll definitely like his, too. 

Todd Herman:	Exactly.  

Jaime Tardy:	Thank you so much for coming on the show today.  I really, really appreciate it.

Todd Herman:	Jaime, it was a pleasure, thanks for having me. 

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services

Tags: Focus, Health and Wellness, Healthy Business, millionaire interview, Ow Brain, Procrastination, productivity, Stacking Poker Chips, The 90 Day Year, Todd Herman, Wow Brain

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Goals, Millionaire Interviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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