The 3 Keys Every Financial Advisor Mastermind Must Have

[00:00:00] Nick: You gotta think about what do you want the most, and then how do you get back from it? Start with the end in mind. It's not about what do I think I can get to. Let's talk about visions. Visions, visions, visions. Doesn't matter how long I've been coaching for, how many clients, how many thousands of hours, how many businesses I've helped, visions are always something which is really hard to get your arm around. People know, generally speaking, that you need to have a vision.

[00:00:26] Nick: but why? Like, you need to have a destination. You need to know you're moving towards something. There's some examples to give. If we were traveling across the country and I said, "All right, we're on the West Coast, I'll meet you on the West Coast." It's like, "I'll meet you somewhere in California." okay, great.

[00:00:39] Nick: You could start off heading that way, and, we could end up both in California, but I could be in San Diego, and you could be in San Francisco. We're gonna be still very, very far apart. But you might say as well, "But, at least we're still in California." It's like, yeah. That's why it's important to have a vision, and it's important to keep that vision front and center.

[00:01:01] Nick: Now, if you're traveling across the country, there's a lot- there's a long- it's a long way. There's lots of miles in between. And you might say like, like I don't really care so much about where it is in California. A lot of times trying to get through the next place, get to the next stoplight, get on the next freeway.

[00:01:14] Nick: Wait, like, stop for some food." All those things are true. But I find that the vision work that we need to do in our life and our business is, number one, the most challenging piece to do, because it feels so far away. It feels es- esoteric. It feels like, something that needs to be done, but it never is important enough to, or excuse me, urgent enough to get it done.

[00:01:39] Nick: But also something we need to continue to work on. Once we've done it once is not enough. Doing some one piece of vision work is not enough. And so I'm here to tell you today that we want to start to think about laying out in the specificity where are we going. I want to give you a framework for this.

[00:01:53] Nick: There's no right and wrong to do it, but the, you know, the best, best framework is the one that you'll use. A lot of people a lot of times will ask me, "Hey, what's the best way to do this? What's the best way to do journaling? What's the best way to think about my goals? What's the best way to have the right mindset about my life?"

[00:02:07] Nick: It's like, well, there's plenty of frameworks to do it. The best one is the one that you'll actually use or the one that you actually use right now. So here's my invitation to you to use this framework, and take what you want from it and push the rest to the side. I start with three years out. Three years out because it's long enough to get a lot of stuff done.

[00:02:23] Nick: Not so far out, it just seems ridiculous. but you can play around with it. But again, here's my framework. Take three years. Take three years to the date, to the actual day, not even the month, but the actual day, out of that starting point, and start to write down the story. And look, if you're doing this for your business, you might think, "Well, I want to do it in terms of my business.

[00:02:40] Nick: I want to have this much revenue. I want to have this much staff. I want to think about this much clients." It's too granular for this piece. You gotta start with the dream. You gotta start with as far out as possible. You gotta start with, like, what is the story? It's a story. You gotta start with this point.

[00:02:57] Nick: Where do you wake up? What's the house in, house that you, you live in? Is it the same house you live in today? Give yourself the granularity. What time you wake up, and the time of the year. Is it gonna be light when you wake up? Is it gonna be dark? What's it gonna be? The more specificity you write in this story, the more you can put yourself in the, in the position.

[00:03:16] Nick: This is the power. 'Cause what happens is people go, "Well, you know, it's three years in front, and so what I could probably get to that time is..." Ah, wrong. That's when you're screwed. You gotta think about what do you want the most, and then how do you get back from it? Start with the end in mind. It's not about what do I think I can get to.

[00:03:36] Nick: Here's an exercise you can think about right now. Think about the things in your life that you've accomplished that one time you didn't even believe that you could get to, that one time were absolute dream for you. Everyone can do this, no matter where you are in your life. You can look back at something in your life and go, "Wow, I can't believe this is just something I have.

[00:03:56] Nick: In fact, I do believe something I don't even think about because it's just part of my life now. But at one point, there's no way I could've got there." You've achieved amazing things- And you can achieve amazing things going forward, and you're going to. And just think how much more it could be if we're really intentional about it.

[00:04:12] Nick: So pick that date three years in front, and just write out the story of what that day looks like. And as you go through the day, I get up, it's 6:00, I go straight downstairs, I drink some- I drink a bunch of water, I start to get, my kids' breakfast ready for school, and then I go and get her out of bed and I start my stretching for the day.

[00:04:31] Nick: When she's done, she's done, ready for school by 7:00, then I get my journal out, I start journaling. By the way, that's just a part of what mine looks like at the moment. You've got to have that granularity, and as you get into your day, then you can say, "Okay, here's what my business is like. Here's what my job is like.

[00:04:45] Nick: Here's what my life is like." And you keep laying out that specificity as though you're telling a story to someone. And that is your starting block, and then from that point, everything comes back from that. You can work a year back from that point, three years, so two years back, then one year back. And then if you've got a year out, then you can set your goals for the year.

[00:05:02] Nick: Then the vision translates into the goals for that particular year. And when you've got the goals, the outcomes for that particular year, then you can start to know, okay, what are the breakdowns across the quarters for the year? Now, if you're in the middle of the year, and as I record this, it's beautiful May here in North Carolina, and so there's a little over half of the year left to go, but you can still break it down in that way.

[00:05:23] Nick: You can still say, "What do I want to get by the end of 2024 as I record this? What's most important for me? And if I get those things, does it set me on the way for my vision for three years' time?" And then you can say, "All right. Okay, good, they do. There's my checks, 2024, end of 2024. Okay. So where must I be by the end of Q3 in order to be where I want to be at the end of Q4, which is the end of the year?"

[00:05:45] Nick: And if you know where you want to be at the end of Q3, it's also quite easy to work out where you want to be at the end of Q2, and here we are, right in the middle of Q2. Six weeks left or so. And then you can know what to actually do that week, and if you know what you're gonna do that week, you can know what to do that day.

[00:06:02] Nick: And you might say, "That's very well, like, but it's complex." It's like, yeah, it is. And we can't do any- everything, but we can do anything. And so you want to go back to that vision and think about what are the most important pieces, and validate. It acts as a checks and balances, 'cause if you're accomplishing those things at the end of the year, you want to make sure that they're things that you really want for the future.

[00:06:23] Nick: oftentimes I'll work through this with clients, and we'll work on what are their activities. And they'll go, you know, "The most important activity is to, you know, get a new staff member in." And then we look at their goals for the end of the year, I'm like, "Well, hang on. You said that what was important for you was to get a whole bunch of new client revenue."

[00:06:39] Nick: And you've got to think about, okay, what am I actually doing? What am I doing? Is it actually going towards the things that I want to get to? That's the framework for vision. Start with that outcome, and going through and creating that one page, two pages, written or typed, from that, you can go anywhere you want to.

[00:06:54] Nick: If you do that, I'm telling you, you're going to get a whole bunch of new distinctions that come out of that. This is the primary work. And if you want more, you know, think holistically around your life, right? Okay, if you've got that vision, you want to then break it down into categories. 'Cause ultimately, what I'm giving you right now is the framework for life success.

[00:07:11] Nick: Because you've laid out what it is that you want most, and it changes. And you first do it, you want there to figure it out. "Ah, I want a bit more money." It's like, do you? "Well, you know, if I had more money, I'd be able to do this." It's like, okay, what if you had that? "Well, I'd be able to be close to my family, or I'd be able to spend more time working out."

[00:07:28] Nick: Something I did just this morning, I was speaking to my best friend, as I was walking around. It was about 9:00 this morning. It's a beautiful day, just like it is now. Today's the same day. And I said to him, "Man, this is what I wanted when I set out to work from home." To be able to, at 9:00 in the morning, just walk outside, get some fresh air, listen to the birds sing.

[00:07:49] Nick: And it comes from creating visions. It comes from creating visions. Something that feels far off right now, if we break it down, you'd be amazed what you can contribute to yourself, to the world, to your family, what you can achieve. But you've got to write it down. You've got to write it down as a starting point, and then from that, everything else will flow from it.

[00:08:12] Nick: Take care. Have fun. Good luck.