Wedding Business Solutions

Lester Young - Smart Goal Setting!

• Alan Berg, CSP, FPSA, Global Speaking Fellow

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What would your business look like if you removed all your self-imposed limitations? Are your goals based on your possibilities or your fears? What if you stopped focusing on the "what" and started with the "why"? In this episode, I talk with Lester Young about how powerful a mindset shift can be for goal setting, why your goals should start with clarity and vision (not just numbers), and how to keep yourself anchored even when business (or life) throws you off track.

Listen to this new episode for practical strategies to overcome limiting beliefs, create focused and meaningful goals, and build the mindset that drives consistent progress—one step at a time.
About Lester: Lester Young is a 5 time author, keynote speaker, consulting   and Executive Director  of Path2Redemption Training & Consulting. Drawing from lived experience and years of mentoring, he trains juvenile justice staff and supports justice-involved youth and adults with practical tools for emotional intelligence, restorative practices, and successful reentry.

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lester.young.648899 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lester-young-b1b6a0106/

Website: https://path2redemption.org/

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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/

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Setting goals. Should you? Should you not? How do you do it? Listen to this episode, find out. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Lester Young on to talk about goals because I saw him post on LinkedIn the other day about this, and I said, Lester, we got to talk about this. Welcome, Lester. Hey, blessings.

Thank you, Alan, for inviting me, man. I'm looking forward to dig into this topic on goal setting. It's one of the things that has helped me in a lot of ways, sir.

Fantastic. And for background, Lester and I met at the National Speakers Association conference this past summer, his first time coming to it. I'm an ambassador and he was my ambassadee. I don't know.

I don't know. I just say this, that I really appreciate your, your, your warm welcome into, into the, uh, what's that, National Speaker Association, the conference. You made it absolutely easy for me to adjust, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again next year— and this year, actually. Yeah, I appreciate even after the conference, you and I are still staying in contact, man. So it speaks about— speaks volume about your character and what you're passionate about. So I thank you for that, man.

Well, well, thank you. So, uh, so talk about the, uh, the newsletter or article, whatever it is. I don't know what exactly what the format was that you wrote because I get it on email and I get it on LinkedIn. I call this stuff. So, um, what made you want to talk about goals?

The reason— because I think that for me in my life, man, the journey I've been on in my, my earlier 19 years of— when I was 19 years old, I was in a very dark place in life. And I realized the reason why I got off course and misdirected or off course, yeah, is because I didn't have goals. And I remember one of my mentors asked me one time, he's like, Lester, where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? And at this time, I was actually serving time and I was incarcerated at this time. And this, and this person asked me, he was the prison chaplain. He said, where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? I was like, man, I see myself in prison. Why? Like, what are you talking about? Right? And he was like, he's like, I want to, I want to challenge you to like, where do you see yourself? What are the goals you have for yourself? I was like, chaplain, I'm serving time in prison. There is no goals. I wake up and do the same thing every day.

But he continued to push me and he gave me this book called As a Man Thinketh, So Is He by James Allen. And that was the first book I ever read. Reading, I was reading maybe at a 7th grade level of education at 19 years old. And did not want to read this book. And this chaplain insisted on me reading this particular book, meaning that he will call me into his office and make me sit in a corner to read the book. And that's when I understood that the reason why a lot of the poor choices I made that placed me in my incarceration was a result that I didn't have any realistic goals. So that was the beginning of me understanding the power of goal setting and then having a mindset to accomplish the goal, which again pulled me out of a very dark place and put me in a position where I started seeing my life meaning something.

Fantastic. So goals are personal goals, are business. Um, let's talk about business goals here, right? People listening, uh, have a business, work for a business, want to start a business. I mean, all, all different things like that. Um, where, where does somebody start? Again, let's say somebody like you, they're just, they're just doing day-to-day, right? They're, they're just doing a day. They're getting leads, they're following up, they're making sales, they're doing whatever, but they're just just kind of rowing along on the same river every day with the same thing. How do you get out of that? Where should you start?

I would say, Alan, what is— what has been beneficial to me is before the goal setting, I think we need to step back for a minute and understand that you could have as many goals. You can have the beautiful, uh, uh, journals. You can have the vision boards. You can go buy a bunch of books on goal setting. You can sit in groups, accountability groups, and talk about goal setting. But what I realized early on in my, in my personal development and even in business is that it starts with a mindset first. Like there has to be a mindset shift. You have to really understand that the goal doesn't matter if you do not have the mindset and the discipline to reach the goal.

So I would always tell people, like, really begin to focus on your mindset, understand that the negative narrative that you've been telling yourself as it relates to a goal. So when you're in business or you starting off a business and you starting off, everyone has this period of the honeymoon stage or the romantic stage of goal setting. But then guess what happens, Alan? They hit the wall of rejection and no leads. Everything goes cold. What do you do now? Do you rely back on the goal or you rely back on the mindset? It starts with the mindset because it's going to be the mindset that is going to pull you off of that emotional roller coaster and put you back in the game. So I would tell before we write the goals down, take some time to, to start addressing the mindset. Focus on your limited beliefs.

That you have, focus on the narrative that you're telling yourself. Because sometimes we tell ourselves a story when we're rejected, when someone rejects our proposal. Oh man, I shouldn't have started this business. Or then you start associating, or your friends start telling you don't do it. So I would say first, Alan, before we go out and get the journals and all of this other fluffy stuff, spend some time on mindset. And how do you do that? I think that it starts with books like As a Man Thinketh, So Is He, you know, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Focused on that before you become rich in business. You first got to see it, but you first have to change this mindset first.

Yeah, my, my second book is called Your Attitude for Success, and it was the first present— it came from a presentation I did. I'm typically not a keynote speaker, I'm typically a breakout content speaker, and even when I keynote, it's, it's content. I want people to walk away with concrete things. And it was the first time that I wrote a presentation, and I can't remember how I thought about writing it. It was like a musician writing a piece of music. It just had to come out. And the stories that I tell in there, and these are exactly those things is, you know, what do you do when you hit adversity? It's your mindset, right? Uh, and I've had health issues, and it's just the way you think about it. And then just today, a friend of mine, um, uh, he's coming over to a conference in the US from the UK, and I, you know, asked him if he could possibly pick up something that we can get over there we can't get here.

And, um, you know, and, and he did it and sent it, and he's going through some, some hard stuff. His, his wife is dealing with cancer, and things like that. And, and yet always a smile on the face, always a, hey, how you doing, right? And that's a choice. Those of you watching on video, I, I have these things I call a victim card. And a victim, everybody's got one, right? Woe is me, look what happened to me, right? You, you, you're there telling the chaplain, what do you mean, where am I going to be? I'm going to be here. And that's because you wore your victim card on your head, right? And, but everybody's got one. Some people just can't see it because they put it away, and it's a choice, right? Sometimes we don't have a choice, right? I got laid off, uh, in 2011. Actually, I'll go back.

I was in a job I hated. The reason I'm in my industry— I was in a job I hated. Good money, company car, paid benefits, hated going to work every day, right? And I got an opportunity which on paper made no sense, right? Straight commission, new industry, cold calling I'd never done, outside sales I'd never done. And my wife was pregnant, right? Oh, right. I shouldn't have done it, right? But yet here I am because confidence said, I know I can sell, I'll figure out the product, I'll figure the other stuff out, but I can't be here right now. And it sounds— again, the chaplain was trying to tell you to see that. I, I can't see myself here. I have to see myself somewhere else.

And then I got downsized in 2011, and I walked outside after I found out, and I called my wife and I said, listen, if I can't look in the mirror and tell that guy how to start and run a successful business, then I shouldn't be helping anybody else, right? It's, it's mindset, it's attitude. So, interesting thing with goals, uh, I've mentioned on the podcast a few times my uncle, uh, he passed at 93. He was still a life coach. Wow. At 93, wrote 7 books. He had been on Oprah when she was in Chicago twice, once as the only guest. And he once told me that you shouldn't use the word goals because they're self-limiting. Because you're setting a target and that becomes the, the cap.

And I thought back to myself as a salesperson, and, you know, when I was selling wedding advertising, I never sat down and said I want to sell X. I went out every day and sold as much as I could sell, and I, I could come home confident knowing either I sold something today or I didn't, but I tried as hard as I could. Yeah, yeah. And my top reps when I was at The Knot my top reps, I gave them a number because I had to, but they were like, okay, put it aside, and then just went about selling as much as they could. And other people aimed for that number. So, so what do you say to the type of person that's going to just go for the goal even when they're capable of more? What would be— how do you handle that?

I agree with you. I think that when we set goals, because going back again to Alan, is that our limited belief system, we set goals based upon the limited beliefs that we have about ourselves.

Yeah.

And so it's like if you, if you really want to really set these goals, like I normally sometimes just sit down and I just do a brain dump of all of the, all of the things I want to do. If I had no limitations on a goal, what would I want to do? And then I start circling which ones are accomplishable and which one is realistic. And I think that a lot of people have to like dump, just dump everything. If you had a magic wand to wave and say, if I was able to do anything in life, what would it be? And I think that that's where you start. But again, you set a goal hold based upon your, your container of your limited belief. And I think that that's the thing that prevents a lot of us from excelling way beyond what we capable of doing. It's almost like you got a governor. Your mindset, the way that the narrative that you have in your mind is a governor.

It, it only goes to 55 miles an hour. I remember listening to this, um, this podcast once, and it was this guy in Germany. He, he was from America, and he said he went to Germany and he got into a car. You know, Germany got this, this highway.

Where you can Autobahn.

Yeah, you can drive as fast as you can. I love this analogy he was saying because he said he lived here for so long, he lived with a speed limit. They said 65, 70 miles an hour. And he said he was speeding down this highway in Germany, and when he got to 70 miles an hour, he started feeling something internally shift. Everybody else was like flying back, flying by, doing 120, 130, 140, because they were accustomed. They, they had no limitation on that. In our culture, he said, everywhere when you're driving on the highway, you got 45 miles an hour. So internally, you don't internalize the speed.

Even though the car that you have in America is 160 miles on the dashboard, most people never took it there because they're afraid if they accelerate to 160 miles an hour, the car is going to decelerate. It's going to blow up. That's the limit. That's what I'm saying. The belief, that's what we have. So he said when he got in his car and he started driving, and the guy who was from Germany saw him doing 80, he was like, yo, I'm doing good. It was like, you're still getting past that. This has no limitation.

And he started speaking about the internal adjustment he had to make when he got to 100 miles an hour, 105, 110, 120. And once he was able to break that limitation, he said now he found himself driving at 145 miles an hour and there was no fear. And, and he used that to us when it comes to goals. Many of us, we can set the goals. Mike Tyson says it best, everyone has a plan until you get hit in the mouth, right? And that's called life. Same thing here with us. Most, most of us who are in America, we have narratives that we have told ourselves that limits us. So I always say dump everything out and then with no limitations, what you create.

And then from there you circle now the reality. Can I do these things? And every day you go out and you seek to accomplish these things that you set for yourself. Imagine if we live with no limitations, Alan. Imagine, imagine that what we are really able to accomplish in business. We could excel way further than we are in business. But again, We have to focus on our mindset. And I close with this one. You mentioned gratitude.

Again, part of mindset and goal setting is having a left— what I call your, your deposit bank of gratitude. Be grateful and have that gratitude box full every day, because when you get hit in the mouth with business, you can always pull from that thing again. And from there, you start doing all you can do within your ability, and you begin to reach these goals. But you have to, again, focus on that mindset and remove the limitations from your life.

Yeah. What's the— you always see it on a piece of wood or a rock. What would you try if you knew you couldn't fail?

What could it be?

Yeah, right. And, you know, we have to be realistic, right? I'm never going to be in the NBA. Not at 5'5". I'm never going to be in the NBA. I'm not Spud Webb. I'm not Spud Webb, right?

But there was somebody that did it, though.

But somebody who did it, right? Exactly. Exactly.

Several people. Nate, Nate, a guy named Nate made it as well, right? Right.

But then there's other things, you know, I— people who have read my books or have heard me speak or whatever, you know, I started taekwondo at 39. Not at 9, not at 19, at 39, right? Never thought I'd do it. I did it because my kids were doing it, thought it'd be fun, right? And on the wall behind me, over on the side here, I have my first degree black belt and my second degree black belt. What? Crazy, right? In 2013, I started learning Spanish, and I've presented now in 5 countries, right? I'm learning French now for 5 years. I'm not presenting it. I presented in French once, but I'm going to France finally this summer, taking a cruise, and I want to be able to get off the boat and speak. And I very often post my milestones on my Duolingo French. And I always say this isn't about— this isn't to brag.

This is to say that, you know, if you want to do anything in life, you have to be consistent. You have to show up every day. And some days you show up a lot and some days you show up a little, but you showed up every day. And there were days where I do 1 lesson just to keep my streak. And then days where I'll do 10, 15 lessons because I have the time, right? I'm on a plane or I can do something like that. And that's what it is, is what's the consistency? If you really want to do something, you have to be consistent doing it. So, you know, the chaplain sat you down reading and the first day it was hard, right?

Right.

But then it gets easier and it gets easier and it gets easier. And the thing is, I actually like when it's hard, right? Adam Grant wrote a book about that, Hidden Potential, and how being okay with being uncomfortable is when you're growing, right? Because otherwise you're staying under that cap.

I see that, you know, and I go back again to the chaplain. I think that when the chaplain helped me make that small shift of seeing something and creating a pathway. I look at like I was sentenced to life in prison, that I was not supposed to be in this conversation with you. According to numbers, I was supposed to die in prison. But because of that goal, because the chaplain helped me again see that my mind, as James Allen says, that your mind is like a garden, what you plant, it will grow. And then from there, giving you a vision for what your life could be. For a long time, I didn't have an idea what my life was going to look like. But when it's because of those conversations with this prison chaplain, I started seeing myself different.

And what I would say with goals too, Allen, is what I learned is the power of what I call the guardrails of your ears and your eyes and what you say to other people. And what I mean by that is that it was important for me to put in, like, you know, those horses when they're racing, they— Blinders. Blinders. It was very important that when I set out a goal, say, man, I'm not going to die in prison, I'm going to one day be free in prison, I had to put on the blinders to stay focused on what the vision was. And then to put blinders on or ear mugs or something in my ears not to hear the negative talk that people were telling me I was not capable of doing, right? Because people say, oh, you're not going to ever get out of prison. Look at me. I look at another guy and He's been in prison for 30 years and, and looking, he's like, oh my God, they did it to me. I was just like you, young man.

And I look at me now. So I had to like fight through my own self-narrative thinking, negative thinking. I had to put on the blinders and lock in. So how does that relate to you, to the audience, letting them know that even in your most darkest places that you can accomplish something that may appear to be not possible, right? I was in a dark tunnel. Like I said, it was a very dark tunnel. But when the chaplain taught me the power of the mind shift, and then put on the blinders, lock on a vision, find something that will give you life, that even when they say it's not possible, like entrepreneurship, you want ownership, you want to be able to make impact with your family, you want to travel, except you want to help those that you serve. That is, that is reachable. But you got to put the blinders on to that.

When you get punched in the mouth metaphorically, you still going because your anchor, that why and why you started that business, is going to keep you afloat when everything else is going crazy., but it starts there again, you know what I'm saying? So that's what I really want to just let people know is that no matter where you come from, I'm just speaking from my lived experience as someone who sat in that system and I could easily stay. I could have been in that system right now, but I've been blessed, what, been home, what, 12 years? And because I got out with the goal in mind and still consistently working on that goal. And one of my— another, I always got to give credit to mentors because mentors are those guardrails to keep you focused on the goal. My mentor told me, they said, when you get out of prison, going back into that victim card, he says, easy for you when you walk out of prison to see yourself as a victim. He said, as important as you pursuing the goal, it's important that you see yourself as a victor versus a victim. And sometimes, he said, you have to remind yourself. He said, go get you a nice suit when you get some money, dress up, put on something nice, and go to a coffee shop and read over your goals of what you want to accomplish. Because he said, that's going to remind you who you are, and it's going to shift the mindset again that you're not a victim.

Because when someone sees you dress up nice, they're not going to see all of the problems they're going to see, you know. So he said, before you feel success, sometimes you got to dress for the success. And that's what I said, all of it's still about the mind shift that you have to put the work in first, right?

And it's also trying to see it, you know, see that goal.

Um, you know, I realized about myself that we need money, right? Like, we have to put a roof over our head and food on the table. But money is not my goal. And I, and I see people who money is the goal, and I always, you know, I'm very clear now that you can't have it all. Like, like, there's people that have more. There will always be people that have more. We'll talk about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, and then they do stupid things with their money, but that's a whole nother story. Um, actually, I actually say that to my wife all the time. I see people doing stupid stuff and I say, I never want to have I have so much money that I do stupid stuff.

You know, if you have, you have money like that, you could be helping so much, and yet you still have, you still have a lot. And again, we need money. But I was on a podcast as a guest, and that's the, the host asked me, why do you do what you do? And my uncle used to use the word joy, and it never really sank in for me. I don't know why. It was almost like friction for me. And on this podcast, I said because it brings you value and it brings me joy. And I felt it and I owned it. I realized what that meant is if you're benefiting from what I do, then you're winning and I'm winning.

But if you're not benefiting, you lose and I lose, right? And if I'm not having fun doing what I'm doing, then you lose because you're not getting the best of me, right? If I'm not enjoying it. So I became really clear on that. And what I do in my life when I think about opportunities is, okay, first of all, how will this benefit my audience, my clients? Then will it also benefit me? And some of the things I do, I get affiliate, you know, commissions from, and some of them I don't. But it always starts with the benefit to you. And so let's, so let's talk about setting goals, right? So you get your mindset, you're like, okay, I, I'm getting clear on what I want to do. I want to be realistic about what that is. You know, I can't go from 0 to 100 today. All right.

But I can go from 0 to 1 today and maybe even 0 to 5 today if I'm lucky. Right. So how, how should somebody set those goals? How far out, uh, how fixed, changeable should they be? I go back to Steve Covey when he says think with the end in mind, right? In the 7th Habit of Highly Effective People, he said think about the end in mind. I always tell, for me, I set the big goal. I set the 5-year goal. I set the 10-year goal. I set the 20-year goal. And the further I get out, the more I have to make the adjustment. But that 5-year goal, that 3-year goal, that's my big goal. And I know what I want to do.

So I start breaking it down into small pieces and it says, how do, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I create small practical steps to reaching the goal. And anything that I do, I make sure there's always an alignment with how I utilize my time to reach the goal. So we can set the goals, but we got to make sure that there's always an alignment. And as I mentioned to you, guardrails, when you set that goal, you need things to guard your time. Your energy, your yeses need to be yes when in alignment with that. So that's how I do it. I set it in small increments and I move day by day.

I set a couple of things that I want to do, not overwhelm myself, one bite at a time to get me closer to that goal. And again, being— having that level of discernment to know what's not a good yes. Like sometimes we can say yes and that yes could completely, completely pull us off of the long-term goal. So when you're not clear about what it is that you want to do, and that's where we go back into clarity, that once you set the goal, Gain clarity on it, on, on what it is that you need to do every day to get to the goal. And again, put the blinders on because sometimes you, depending on how big your goal is, you may not be that sociable person for a long time. And it's okay, you know, depending upon the goal. And that's what I have to do. I have to— what I do now, and again, what I utilize, I utilize some of these skills from when I was incarcerated, is like I had to put the blinders on.

I had to block out all of the naysayers when they told me it was not possible. I had to block it out. And I use that same method today. So I would just say get clarity on the goal, set the big goal in mind. How would you, as Steve Covey said, how would you want to be remembered when you die? Like what's going to be said about you in between that dash? And from there you start building from that, from that point on, you start stepping backwards and you start creating small steps towards that goal. And again, mindset is going to be important because a lot of us, our old habits surface back up as we're moving towards the goal. So move, move within small numbers. I'm reading a book now called The 12-Week Year.

I love this book because it shows you that some of us, when we set goals, is on an annual thing. We look for 12 months and sometimes in 12 months we can drop the ball and say, oh, I got 8 more months to make up for it. But if you set up in small blocks every 12 weeks, you're creating an accomplishable goal to get to that big goal that you have for yourself.

12-Week Year. Yeah. So in, in that presentation, that book, Your Attitude for Success, I tell a story. Some of you might have heard this listening called Don't Paint the House. And, uh, the short version is a friend of mine that bought a house. She had gotten divorced and, um, they— she had to sell the house. And then she bought a house. It was her and her daughter, and it was just such a great thing for her.

But every time I spoke to her, she's complaining that the house needs to get painted and she doesn't have the time. And one day I told her, said, don't paint the house. And she's like, but it needs painting. I said, yeah, right, but you don't have the time. She goes, yeah, I know. I said, so this weekend, why don't you paint one wall in one room? Right? And then she told me why she couldn't do that, because she didn't have a ladder and the ceilings were high, and she needed to patch and plaster, but she didn't have any plaster or a putty knife, and she didn't have any drop cloths and shit, right? So if she really wanted to paint the house, she would have had the little paint chips up on the wall. What color do I want? And she'd have the drop cloths ready, and she'd have the rollers ready and the paint ready, but she didn't have any of that. So the thought of, I can't do it, as opposed to— I said, yeah, but you know what you can do right now is Go buy a brush.

One thing at a time.

One thing at a time, right? And you got to break it down because everything we do in life is a bunch of little steps. And some of them happen quickly, some of them happen over a long time. But, you know, to say, I want to, you know, I want to do $100,000 in business, I want to do $1 million in business, how are you going to get there? And then why? And I think it's also a why, right? I had a client of mine that was trying to double their sales. And when I asked why, he said, well, I'll look like a bigger player in my market. And I said, and that's important, why? And then I said something to him. I actually just saw it on the slide. I'm working on a presentation for next week. I said, I want to feed your family, not your ego.

That's right. True.

Yeah. I said, so why is this important? You know, just because you want to be— is that important to you? Like, I don't care. I don't care. I want people to talk about what I do for them. I don't need celebrity. I don't need, you know, that, that kind of stuff. But yet some people do. And I think it's important to look in the mirror and ask yourself, so why is that important? Why do I care what other people think?

Yeah, I think about— again, I shout out so much. I'm so grateful where I stand today. I stand on the shoulders of so many great men who mentored me, right? And another one, uh, this guy named Chaplain Potoka. He was a prison chaplain. In my last few years of my incarceration, I saw this man did all he could. He didn't worry about wealth. He worried about the souls of the people that he served. He was that compassionate that he would go beyond the limits to make sure that the people are good.

He always did tell me, he said, Lester, remember the law of reciprocity, that whatever you have, you give, and when you don't have, it will come back to you. He said, always live your life like that. So when I remember again, creating, going back again to goal setting, When I, when I start writing on a goal, I create a mission statement for my goals. Like, what is the mission for this particular goal that I have for myself? And one of them, like, for, for his business, I want to make more profit. I want to create new partnerships, new relationships for more impact. The more money I make is about not for me to get all of these material things because I know one day I will die. But I'm thinking about the impact that I want to make in the world. Like when I think about people who are incarcerated, who are returning home from incarceration, don't have a place to stay, don't have employment opportunities.

These challenges. Or I think about how valuable a book was, that a book, one book, Think as a Man, think, has changed my life. I want to be able to send 1,000 books in every year inside of the prison. I've written, for me, I've written 5 books, right? I want to send 1,000 books into different prisons every year. So the more profit I make, of course I want to take care of my family, but I want to make a greater impact into the world. I want to create a space where young people who are exposed to violence and community create a safe space where they can come and decompress and relearn the power of self-regulation. So that's my goal. So when I say make more profit, I need new partnerships, new opportunities for more impact.

The more profit we make is about the impact. So going back again to the, to the, the end in mind, how would you be remembered? Being by a celebrity or someone speaking about you, or you thinking about the, the body of work that you have impacted lives, you have transformed lives with maybe one book, as those prison chaplains transform my life. So going back again to that personal mission statement, every time I write a goal for 12 weeks, 6 months, or 3 months, I'm always tied writing in a personal mission statement to keep me anchored. And no matter when I get hit in the mouth with business, that I'm not going to drift off course because I have a personal mission statement that keeps me focused.

Yeah, the blinders are important. I was having a conversation earlier today with someone that I'm advising And he keeps getting into mission creep, right? It's like the, the shiny object over here, shiny object over there. And I said, that's nice to have. Mm-hmm. It, it's not must-have, right? I said, right now, I told him the same thing. I actually told him that. I said, you need to put blinders on. So you need to focus on the must-haves, cuz the must-have is the core of your product.

And people are gonna buy your product if it's the best one in the core, right? Not because it has all these other things. And they're not gonna not buy it cuz it doesn't have these things. If this thing is so good and does what it it does what it's going to do. I think of a friend of mine, Bill, who's an MC for weddings, and he's the best at what he does. He doesn't do DJing and mixing and all that. He's got a DJ that does all that stuff. And yet there are DJs that do all that and do it really well. But he— this is what he does, that this is his thing.

So again, let's bring it on back. It's okay to set goals. Yeah, you want to set realistic goals. I think you should think about the why, not just the what. This is what you're talking about. I want more profit because I'll be able to help more people, right? And again, you got a family, right? You want to help your daughter, right? You want to help your family. Absolutely. That, that's part of that.

You want to leave them a legacy. That's all great. But you don't need— again, some people listening, maybe they do— I don't need 5 cars. I'm actually glad I don't have a 3-car garage because I would have a 3rd car. But it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a million-dollar car. It would be Classic. You know that, you know, that first car that I had that got away? Yeah.

Come back. 1984 Monte Carlo SS. Oh, my father gave me— I want that car back so bad. And that's going to be the next car I get.

Did you have the swivel seat?

No, no, I didn't.

My brother-in-law had a Monte Carlo and the seats swiveled 90 degrees so you could get in and out of the car. Okay. I was just saying 1984. There you go. Mine was a 1973 BMW 2002. Had 160,000 miles on it, but that was my baby. That was my baby. I like that.

So again, but again, you know, goals, it's the why, it's not the what. You know, why would that be? If I, if I had the space, it's, it's nostalgia, right? That, that's what it is. Um, but then you also— it's funny, I get to a point where the things I wanted when I was younger that I couldn't afford, that I can afford now, I don't want, right? Because now that they're attainable, maybe they're just not as desirable because they're attainable. But you want to set goals. Again, you need business goals. It's great to have that. You need to be realistic. The other thing I was telling this guy earlier today, you know, as your company grows, you also need to, as the owner, let go.

You know, you need to let other people do things. And that's hard. It's hard to do that and understand they may not do it as well as you, or they might do it better than you. What they might do. But goals are important. Long-term goals are important. They have to be changeable. Your 90-day goal maybe isn't changeable, right? Or maybe you're— certainly your 30-day goal is not changeable because you need to be able to work towards that.

But your 6-month and your 12-month have to be somewhat flexible because life gets in the way. And, uh, you know, you can talk— you can focus on the problem or you can focus on the solution. Agreed. That's what it is. And just remember, when's the best time to plant a tree?

Now, man, I get it.

I know the best time to plant the tree is 20 years ago. Yeah, it's— yeah, the second best time to plant the tree is today.

Yeah. Now I get it in right now. But, you know, I would just continue, Alan, is like I said, the conversation around goals. I truly believe, like, if you have a person who's listening, someone who's listening, rather, you have— if you don't have a personal mission statement for your life, for your family, and for your business, before you even jump out and start talking about goals, you need to go back to personal mission statement, because again, those are, those are the— that will be your compass that will keep you in line with where it is you have to go. And with these personal mission statements, you have— you place them in places where it always keeps you anchored on to the goal. When the sale doesn't go bad, do you just fold? No. My personal mission statement keeps me afloat. It's the anchor.

And a lot— I see so many business owners, they focus so much on creating the business plan, but then the business plan does not tie into the personal mission statement. It has to be— you have to like— and even your family, like me and my wife and my daughter, me, well, me and my wife, we sit down and we set quarterly personal mission statements as it relates to the goal that we will read it. We have it places throughout the house or save it for a phone screen saver so that you can see it. So that now when you're working every day, you're working on that goal, you're reminded of the why. Like, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing, right? So that, that keeps you afloat. And then again, your definition of success. If you're a person of family and you're looking at— if you want to solve a lot of the problems, social problems in our society, you said, if I make $1 million, $2 million, what do I want to do with all of this money? Do I want to help the homeless population? Do I want to help my church? All of that should be tied into your personal mission statement. And then from there, you'll start finding your why becomes a little easier.

So when you're in that valley of challenges and obstacles of business, the roller coaster of business, that stuff keeps you anchored and say, I, I have a greater reason to wake up every morning and don't fold in my business plan because I have something I'm working towards.

Yeah, yeah, again, you have clarity. That's what it is, you have clarity. Oh, I'm looking at the clock here, Lester. We could talk about this forever. Thank you so much, my friend, for, for coming on. Thanks everybody listening. Um, the show notes will have your social handles, your website, how to get a hold of you. I'm sure they'll find your books there and all.

So Thanks for listening, everybody. Lester, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

Appreciate you, Alan. Love you, man. I appreciate your friendship, man. Love you too.

Bye.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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