Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months w/ Brian Moran

There are all kinds of great ideas that they hadn't even implemented all kinds of systems programs on their shelf. And it didn't matter whether they were a solopreneur had a large company. And so I said, Look, what they really need is an execution system. Because if they just did more of what they know, they'd be more successful. It's true for everyone. If you did more of what you know, you'd be happier, you'd be healthier, you'd make a lot more money. Welcome to the action Academy podcast stand back. Well, I celebrate freedom, the show where we help you achieve financial independence with the mindset methods and actionable steps from guests who've already earned their freedom flags of freedom fly. Choose to do what you want, what you want, with who you want, when you want when you want, when you want with another episode today. Now, here's your host, Brian Luebben. What's up action Academy family, this is your host, as always, Brian Luebben, coming to you unfortunately, with the last of the California interviews, it has been 10 days over here, and it has been sensational and awesome. But I have to finally go home back to Atlanta, which is okay, because hey, that's why we do this. That's why we do this entire game and do all of these shows and do all of this investing so that we can go live a life of our designs that we want to do what we want when we want with who we want. And man what an episode ended on with the author of one of my favorite freaking business books. If you know me, if you've been friends with me on Facebook, on Instagram, I've been preaching about 12 week year for like three years now, this book is single handedly the reason that I became a top performing sales rep and I took my income from I think 90,000, about 220 to 30. So in that was in one year, it works the principles and concepts in this book work use this and use me as a case study, you can literally do it. And that's a heck of an intro for today's guest, the author of The New York Times bestselling book, 12 week year, Brian Moran. Today, we give you all the tools, tips and strategies to accomplish more in 12 weeks than most people do in 12 months, Brian has used this technique from solopreneurs, to Fortune 500 companies and each and every time the worst performance increase that he's seen as 30%. So think about what you could do in your life income, a business with even a 30% increase. And now multiply that by 10 100. These are the results that our people are getting through using this book. And this methods and implementation systems. It just works. So I will let y'all get to the episode. But before that, you want to pause right here. Go into the show description. If you scroll down two or three times two or three little finger taps, you will see the link to my new action Academy newsletter. This is a must do for all of you that are listening to the show every single Thursday, I'm going to send the top recaps that I have both on mic and Off mic with the seven and nine figure entrepreneurs along with exclusive resources that they have also going to include a free ebook on how I left corporate America and the wealth tracker and net worth tracker that I've been using for the last three months. All of that free, free, free, free free. Go and join the newsletter. It's going to be a game changer. And we're gonna have 10,000 people on that newsletter by July 6. You heard it here first now. This is my 12 week year baby. Brian Moran. Brian Moran. Welcome, sir. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Right. First off, strong name. Love. You spelled properly to write spelled properly. just laid out pure and simple. It's just the name of strong, capable men. That's what the name Brian represents. There you go. Brian, for people listening, you know that it's been a long time coming for Mr. Brian Moran here to be on the show. And I was just telling him off camera that I made this happen out of thin air. I was driving down filling out a bucket list item driving from San Francisco to San Diego. And I saw that he had an interview with me today. And I was like, oh my god, I gotta have a proper studio for Brian Moran. So I went to three different hotels I found in Hampton Inn that would let me use their conference room. And now I'm in here are about to have a fantastic conversation. Because whenever you need to make it happen, you make it happen. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. That's the can do attitude. Yes, sir. So let's kick it off and start with your background. So introduce yourself to the people about who you are what you do. Yeah, so I grew up in Michigan, very middle class, I had an opportunity. I was paying my way through college at Michigan State University. I'm a Spartan and a Spartan part of the Spartan nation out there's your listeners, but at any Rate payment with your colleagues working at UPS, which was a great opportunity. I was working the reload in the evening, part time paid really great had benefits. And they had offered me a promotion into management to supervise that operation. I was getting a degree in physiology, the strength coach, and I thought, I don't think so. But I thought about I thought, why not. It's less, it's seemed like less work, less physical work anyways, and even better pay. So I took the job. And from there, they offered me a promotion to full time which I was going to take except I wanted to move out to Michigan, I want to go to Southern California. But while I was working there, I got a chance to work for a guy that was really awesome as a coach, which nowadays is no big deal. But back then no one even talked about that that was in part of management. So I learned a ton from him, got in with PepsiCo out in California. And a couple experiences there ended up switching my degree getting a degree in business because I got kind of switched down to the whole business leadership thing, and became a real student of what's it take to perform at the highest levels? What's it take for me? What's it take for the people that I was leading? And to fast forward to today? Everything we do at my company is really designed around that? How do we help our clients get more of what they want, faster? So that's what we do. That's kind of a little bit of background. We'll get into the book, obviously, because this is my bread and butter. This is the book that I recommend. It's this and The One Thing by Gary Keller that I recommend, always to everybody that's starting out whether they're starting out, or they're intermediate to advanced level, I always recommend it. I'm curious about the origination of the concept. Can you walk us backwards through originating the ideas and the concepts behind the 12? Week year? Yeah, so So when we started out, and I say we, Michael and I, we were working with our clients. And initially, when I constituted the company, I kind of thought the value, we're going to bring two top performers and leaders was really around new ideas and fresh approaches. And as I began to do that, I realized that they all had great ideas. They're all kinds of great ideas, that they hadn't even implemented all kinds of systems, programs on their shelf. And it didn't matter whether they were a solopreneur had a large company. And so I quickly kind of pivoted and said, Look what they really need, whether they want it or not what they need as an execution system. Because if they just did more what they know they'd be more successful. It's true for everyone, if you did more of which you'd be happier, you'd be healthier, you'd make a lot more money. And so that's when we started with focus on what's it take to execute at a high level, and began to work with what are the fundamentals of that, and really kind of figured out the disciplines and principles that drive execution drive high performance. And we were operating with those in the context of an annual environment like everybody does, right? We had our clients, set annual goals, build annual plans, broken quarterly, monthly and weekly. But really kind of felt like we weren't getting what they were capable, we're getting great results. But now what they're capable of in one of our clients was in the cycling at the time, and came to me and said, Hey, familiar with this concept called periodization. And I remember it from college bodybuilding days. So Michael, I took a look at that, it had some applicability. And that's really where the 12 week year was created, what we realized was that an annual cycle, Tolman cycle was just too long of timeframe that it was easy to put things off, especially for the first 910 months of the year. And then people kind of cram at the end, which is not a good way to work, right? It's very stressful, and you sacrifice a lot of things. One of the things you sacrifice all this capacity that was left on the table earlier in the year. And so that's where the 12 week year was born. And from reading the book, our clients operate in the context of every 12 weeks as the year and there are four of those in the year that's annualized. There's just this 12 week here, followed by the next, and so on. And so we apply the set of disciplines and principles within that context, which drives more consistent action and higher results. Yeah, and this was when you were originating, this was before the systems and processes game was sexy, right? Because now it's it's openly talked about, but back then I don't think anybody was talking about it, right? No, and they still most of them still don't realize the one system they lacked is an execution system. And that's true for individuals. It's true for most companies, even we work with multibillion dollar companies, they don't have an execution system, which runs all the rest of them, right? It optimizes everything else. So they spent all time effort and energy on selling systems and marketing systems and HR and servicing and all of that, and they missed the one system that drives everything. And a perfect example of this that's applicable to everyone. If you think back to college, and I don't remember if you had this in the book you may have, but when you think back to college years, and you think back to that assignment that was due at the end of the class, and everyone you knew that the assignment was coming, you knew was coming. You knew when it was due, you knew the amount of work that you needed to put every single week to be able to get it done. What did we all do? Even the high performers we all waited to the last week or the last day to cry You know, the entire assignment. And the rest of the time we spent stressing about it. Right? Right. Right. That's right with that sense of foreboding, right. And so that's why I love that's why I love the operating system that you have because it brings things front of mind, you're not looking off at the coast, you're not looking off in the distance is right in front of your face. So was there a glass shattering moment where you realized what you went from the conceptualization of this to actualization, where you're like, Hey, Michael, I like this idea, this whole concept that we've got going on, let's put this thing to the test and see if it works. Yeah, so we had been working with the concepts, the disciplines and principles, and, and again, very effective with it. But what the 12 week year concept added was almost like an accelerant. Right? It's like gasoline on a fire, it just went boom. Because the focus narrowed from 12 months to 12 weeks, which meant there was a sense of urgency, a healthy urgency that just doesn't exist in a 12 month cycle until the very end, and then it stressed out urgency, so you could see it immediately. The more people embrace the 12 weeks as a year, the greater that sense of urgency is and so the more consistent they are with their actions. And so it was evident out of the gate as we applied it for ourselves. So how that book got written was we were going to a conference as a vendor. And we were thinking about, what kind of stuff are we going to give away. And we've been thinking about writing a book, and I just said, Mike, let's just read a short format book, let's leave out all the fluff. And we wrote a book called periodization, 12 weeks to break through, went down to Kinko's and self published, printed 100 copies, went to the conference, sold them for 10 bucks. And from that sold a couple 100,000 copies of that book. We wrote that thing in 12 weeks, and it literally changed changed our life. It was just documenting what we had done. So we knew the concept worked, because we had tested it with clients tested it in our own business. Did you add did you actually write this thing in 1212? wrote, who wrote it in 12 weeks? Yeah, I got by design because we had that's when the conference happened to be it happened to be three months out. And we're like, okay, here we go. Yeah, occasionally, you'll see those on eBay for sale. Still. I love it, before we get into an actual breakdown for those, because the audience is probably split in half or half of them are very familiar with the book and the other half are not familiar with the book, and they understand the concepts that we're saying, but we can dive in. But before we do that, just submit what you're about to say and submit the value. Do you have any data that you can remember off the top of your head, about companies that you've taken or individuals that have also used this to where you're like, here, they were at point A implemented? Here's the point B. Yeah, it's, it varies from a decent improvement to crazy improvement. So the average salesperson, which is great to use, because you can really measure the impact, right? The average salesperson has a 15 to 30% bump in their first 12 weeks, we have 1000s and 1000s that have 100 200 304% increases, right? We have the billion dollar brokerage, double their app count in six months. Think about the impact of that. So so if you apply it, it has an impact, we've not had anyone apply it and not get better. The amount of the impact depends on where you're at, and what you built in your plan and how much you stretched on your goals? And to what degree are you executing on it? But you know, we've got tons of data that shows it works. Are you guys listening yet? Are you guys listening yet? Would you like to increase your productivity by by 30% 300%? Because it's possible. I'll tell you how I did it. And then we'll get into we'll get into the actual concepts here. But for people listening, when I was a sales professional, I had a quota, let's call it $15,000, weekly recurring revenue. And that was the yearly quota. So the level that you perform at it's all based off of the level of questions that you're asking, right? So instead of asking, How do I get 15,000 in a year, then you can be added? Once you change that question. That's not that huge of a question. Maybe that would get you in the top 30% of the company. But if you bring it down, how do I get 15,012 weeks? That's a big question. And what your system allowed for me to do is take the emotion out of it, right? Because now it's not an emotional. It's not an emotional process. Now it's okay, here's the 12 week goal. And then it's broken down into three mini goals that I'm actually taking action on and tracking and making my tick marks on to get that 80% hit every single week. There's no emotional reaction. I'm just doing my process and lo and behold, what did I do? I hit it in 12 weeks, and then the rest and then became the number. I think I was the number nine and guy out of 5000 And then 79, fortune 500 sales organization, it works. It worked for me. So there you go, you can add that to the back of your book. Yeah, yeah. But that's it's simple. It's not complicated. But it's not easy either, right. But one of those you have to recognize is you don't control the outcomes. The goals are always the outcome, what I control are the actions. And so that's what the system is designed to do is help you focus on the actions and take those actions more consistently. And the results come online. It's not complicated, perfect. So people listening that are not familiar with the book are now familiar with the concept of 12 week, year to where you're taking your big, hairy, audacious goals. And instead of annualizing them, and then chopping them up into that annual goal, then breaking it down into monthly, quarterly, weekly goals. You're taking that annual goal, and you're putting it into a 12 week frame. And you're saying literally, hey, how do I accomplish this in 12 weeks? So they know that to that extent, about the 12 week year, can you talk about the others, the other concepts and methods in the book that you use to implement for this? Yeah, before I do there, let me just comment on that. Because it isn't always about taking the annual goal and setting that as a 12 week goal. Right? That may be too big a stretch, that may not be possible, but it's really looking at the 12 weeks as the year because the big thing is the 12 week here, if it's anything is a mindset shift. It's a thinking shift. It's getting out of that annual environment, because people say what's the difference between that and quarterly planning quarterly goal setting? Well, quarter is part of a whole, it's 1/4 of a hole, the 12 week year is the hole. So whatever I set for my goal, whether it's what I used to do annually, or it's a portion of that will be determined every 12 weeks. But once I set that I'm locked in. And when I realized that I don't control the outcomes, it does give me more freedom to stretch in terms of my goals. But I don't want your listeners thinking I just automatically take the annual goal and make it a 12 week goal. We have people that would be limiting. Right? Sure you have others that's too much of a stretch. So it really depends on your situation. Over time, though what'll happen is you'll basically tweak your goals more on 12, your trends, then you will on any annualized number. Got it? Do you have any advice? Any, to add some extra color to that? Do you have any advice about the process of goal setting when it comes to setting your actual 12? Week? 12 week goal? Yeah, one is it needs to be tied to a longer term vision. So we talk about the five disciplines of this what we do the first starts with vision, because that's your why. And so what do you want your life to look like three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. And what does great look like not good, but great, God willing, you're gonna be here. And then we aligned the 12 week goals with that. So that is is a big piece of determining what that 12 week goal should be. The other thing would be, often because people have been annualized, they're gonna have to take that annual goal as one data point. And the tendency more than setting that as the entire 12 week goal is divided by four, which is really limiting. So what it is a data point, right, and then looking at what's the best 12 weeks I've ever had, what would be a great 12 week, year in and of itself, what things do I have working in my favor? What headwinds Am I facing? So it's really about really analyzing where you're at, and stretching on what you think you're capable of. And to some degree, the degree of stretch at the goal is predicated on am I willing to do the heavy lifting? Am I willing to do the actions that it takes to hit that goal and do them consistently? Because that's the key to it? And I know, that's one of the key concepts. But can you hit on the actions part? Because if I remember correctly, you said to focus on specifically, two to three? Yeah, we would say the critical few, Brian. So what that means is the least number of actions to hit the goal? It might be three, it might be 13, it might be 23. I don't know, right? It's the the marketplace is going to, to some degree to determine what actions it takes to accomplish the goal. And so your job is just figure out what that is. And if you have some experience, then you use that. If not, then you're going to have to guess at it right a little bit, and then go out and fail faster and dial it in that way. But it's all it's about the critical few meaning. I don't put everything I can think of in the plan. I'm going to sort through it and say, Boy, if there was only one thing I could do from an action standpoint, what would have the biggest impact? That's my first tack. If there's only one more thing, and I'm gonna go through that process until I figure like, I've got enough of the right actions to accomplish the goal. And wherever that ends up is where it ends up. And then so that's like the Pareto Principle, right? It's like the 20% that you have 80% of the result. What are the high payoff activities, right, so not, I'm not getting all caught up in all the busy work and all the low level activities and really focused on the high payoff activities that are really going to drive the accomplishment of what I'm after. An example of this for and I liked that you said that and I wanted to hit on that because I've done And I've also failed at 12 week years because of because I put too much. Yeah, I put, it wasn't that it wasn't that the goal was too big it was that there were too many goals. That was it. There's too many. So it was like I had a weight loss one, I was trying to learn Portuguese. And I was trying to be like the barber, our book is in Portuguese. So just so you know, so that, you can get that and read it in Portuguese. There we go with the BAM. There we go. That's a common mistake, right? Partly because you're used to planning annually and 12 months seems like a long time that you can have a ton of goals. But the truth of the matter is, whether you're planning, annualized, you're planning 12 week year, we all have limited capacity, we have limited time, we have limited energy, limited intellect. And that's not a slam, it's just the reality. And so every time we take on one more thing, it reduces the probability of his being great at any of it pretty significantly. So just like at the tactic level, at the goal level is where it first starts, is let's focus in, let's pick one, maybe two goals for the 12 week year, what are the two most important things that if you really nail them, this 12 weeks would be business life changing for you now let's do that the next 12 weeks, then the next 12 weeks, and very quickly, that becomes life changing. So let's continue to hit let's continue to hit on the goals here. So we can really drive this point home because Yeah, as soon as I did that, then out, that's when I was able to take off and my wife took all the rest of that off. And I was like, okay, cool my 12 week years, just this output as a sales professional. This is what my focus is right now. And now it's with the podcast. So now my 12 week years all around the podcast and grown the show and grow in this. So I've got metrics. And then one of my metrics was the amount of cold calls per day. And then the amount of door knocks per day, the amount of false tactics in your plan as well, right? What are the tactics in my plan? So those are the tactics to hit my one goal. And then once I put all of my eggs into that basket, then that's when I started seeing traction, I started seeing progress. So can you speak on? Can we keep hitting on about maybe some mistakes, some other common mistakes that you see with people that are creating their 12 week plan in general, like maybe some common mistakes, and then we can get into the tactics and your strategies around that? Yeah, one is, the first one is what you mentioned, they put too much in it, because they used to planning annually. Another is we don't get really clear on the outcome. Right? It's kind of so getting really specific, where if we can't quantify, we have to qualify what's different 12 weeks from today? How will I know it? Because if you can't define there, you can't build a plan. So really getting clear on what do I want different 12 weeks from today, either quantify it, if it's sales or building revenue for your business or something like that's easy to quantify if it's improving a relationship or something like that, that may be a little more difficult. And then another piece is making sure that at the tactic level we spell out we get very granular. In other words, we get down to discrete actions. Things like conduct a conduct a workshop, conduct a seminar, conduct a podcast is way too broad. There's a series of steps that lead up to conducting a successful workshop or podcast, what are those, I mean, we got to get very granular, which most people aren't used to planning that way they're used to planning conceptually. And the problem with conceptual planning is twofold. One, you can't execute concepts. And two, because you can't execute and because they're broad, you don't know what worked and what didn't work. So we get tactical, your plan leaves a breadcrumb trail, you're going to know specifically what got done, what didn't get done, what worked, what didn't work. And honestly, Brian, that's how our clients dial it in. That's how our clients feel accomplished more in 12 weeks, the most in 12 months, it's not about doing more, it's not about taking everything you do in 12 months and trying to cram it into 12 weeks, it's about being more consistent with the things that really move the needle, dollar productive activities. Can you give an example even if it's made up about this entire process in general, so maybe come up with fictitious, okay, so here to be an example of what a 12 week goal, a good 12 week goal would be? Here's an example of what the tactics could be for that accomplishment, or that goal that would fit really well within the framework can be a very tight, achievable process to follow. So there's some examples in our book I'm gonna give you we have a FREE Getting Started course to there'll be more samples there, perfect. But if you go to Toby here.com, Ford slash getting started, and just drop in your name and email, you'll get three different emails from me. But a great example would be just, let's say I had a sales goal of 120,000 or 120 million really doesn't matter. But let's say I'm an individual sales rep and I got a sales goal of 120,000 for the next 12 weeks. That's my goal. It's an outcome. It's very measurable, right? I know where there is, if I hit 119, I didn't make it. Right. So some tactics might be to develop a list of centers of influence 12 Different set have an influence another tactic might be to meet with one center of influence each week to get three referrals. Another one might be to block out time each day to make calls. Another one might be to schedule 10 appointments per week another might be to conduct eight appointments per week, right? You get the feel for that. I'm just giving you it's real general. But you can see how that flows together. And again, what I'm looking for are the critical few tactics. One tactic might be to ask for a referral three times a day. Very specific action, I'm going to know each week whether I've done that or not. And I'm going to know whether or not it's producing. So it those the plan itself is very granular. Right, so that we know the magnitude of the work. We know what matters most. And we know whether or not it worked. That leaves a breadcrumb trail, as I said, where a conceptual plan would be podcast, right run podcast, it would be get referrals, it would be going appointments, right? That's that's just to show that you can execute that stuff. I love it. And if I'm remembering correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that there was a part of the book where it was talking about hitting 80% of those tactics. Yeah, so from an execution standpoint, what we found is that, if you're around 80%, or higher, week in and week out, in most cases, you're gonna hit the goal, which I think is really encouraging, because none of us are perfect. And what it says you don't have to be perfect. In fact, we have people that execute a 50% hit the goal, it's just the probability of it is so much lower. We've got the just tons and tons of data on the correlation between 80 plus percent and hitting the goal, either individually or collectively as a team. Yeah, and I love that because yeah, it does humanize it. And it helps whenever you do make mistakes by for me even to put the context back. No, Jim. So if you were to do a 12 week year for the gym, it'd be oh, I want to lose, maybe we'll call it 12 pounds, 12 pounds, 12 weeks. And then if you were to not hit maybe your goals, five gym sessions per week, if you were to hit four gym sessions, you can't you wouldn't have to beat yourself up, because you're still hitting your mark. But I love that little bit of human wiggle room there. Like that's, that's perfect, because because you don't need to be perfect. To be great. You're not going to be perfect. But just to clarify, one thing we would talk about the goal is the outcome. Would you talk about his weekly goals, we would call tactics, the actions or tactics. And the reason that's important, Brian is because oftentimes people will set up an action as a goal. You mentioned weight loss, we'll see people set a goal of working out four times a week. The problem with that as a goal, it's not a goal, it's an action. And it needs to be tied to something more aspirational, like losing 12 pounds, right? Why do I want to work out? Let's that's the goal. The answer to the why is to lose 12 pounds. The why is to 10% body fat, the why is the lower blood pressure, whatever that may be. That's the goal. That's the outcome. The working out is part of the tactical plan. Yep. Yep. That would be part of the tactics where you're like one of the tactics would be going to the gym five times a week, right? That'd be one of the tactics that's always talked about with the four. Yep. Okay, perfect. So do you notice? Is there any difference that you've seen with people because now you've run so many 1000s of people through this? Is there any different differentiators between ones that that either like really get it, or they don't, or ones that you see that are skyrocketing with this program versus ones that are just they're doing all right, but they're not really killing it? Is it just a matter of commitment? Or what do you say? Yeah, it ties to commitment, right? It's really though, the willingness to do the heavy lifting to do the actions because sometimes I think people think the 12 week year is going to be this magic system. By just by, it's like buying the NordicTrack, I'm going to lose weight. No, you got to get on the damn thing, right? You got to, whether it's the peloton or whatever. And it's the same thing with the 12 week gear, the 12 week gear is going to create the structures for you. And it's going to do everything it can to help you but you've got to be willing to do the action. And the number one reason people struggle with the 12 week gear is because they're not willing to take the action and the 12 week gear makes them forces them to look at it every and so they either step up or they drop out. But there's a number of them that drop out because they're just not willing to do what it takes. And so we would say that's okay. But then you have to go adjust your vision and settle for less than life. Because if you continue to think you're going to live this life, but you're not willing to do this. You're delusional because anything worthwhile in life takes effort. And if you said this is the effort it takes to create these goals and live this life but I'll do it later. Come on, man, Let's confront that. Let's either decide you're willing to pay the price and do the work or you're not and if you're not, let's quit kidding yourself that you're going to have the kind of lifestyle you want. Yeah, and that's what makes it worthwhile. Is the work if it just came to you for free, it wouldn't be worth it. Wow. Exactly, yeah, but that's the stumbling block for everyone. And the biggest bugaboo for everyone accomplishing what they're capable of is that internally, we're wired for comfort. That's what we seek we seek comfort we seek, look at the highest paid professionals, they're entertainers or athletes. Why is that because we can just sit on our butt and watch that. Right? It takes no effort to engage with that. And so we are wired for comfort, if you're going to be great in any area of your life, you're going to have to sacrifice that comfort, you're going to have to get out there and do the things that it takes to be great. And I love that you're tying it all back into vision, and you start and end with vision. That's the differentiator, because a lot of people, especially in business, they get so lost in the dollars and cents, and they forget about the actual why behind it. Right? Yeah, or the vision is just for the business. Well, business is part of life. So so if I get my business to this level, what does that allow me to do in my personal life? What does that enable for me, because that's the true why everything from my self esteem, my self image, my confidence, to what the financial success can do for me, and what I can do, in terms of generosity, in terms of my family, in terms of multiple generations are whatever, whatever is meaningful to you. But making sure you're connected to that, because that's part of what gives me the motivation on a weekly basis to do that heavy lifting to take the action. I love that. And that kind of goes along with my wife. So it's like, every day I wake up, and I asked myself, what would the eight figure version of me do? And that's kind of my framework that I use to set my goals and set the tactics as well. Because I almost personify this separate version of myself, which it is me. But for me, this is just how it works is I'm like, anytime that I'm on my phone, and maybe I'm getting caught up in social media. I said, Hey, what the eight figure version of you be scrolling through Tik Tok for going on our two now? No, hell no, no, that guy's and I can almost see that version of me standing there with his arms crossed, just give me the bird for me the bird like, it's not gonna get the ball down the field. And so I'll literally say, Hey, Brian, stop it. And I'll get back to what I got to get done. Because it all goes back to the 20%. And I love that you said, the sitting there and feeling the pain of, hey, maybe because I'm not hitting these goals every single time. I'm now aware that this ideal in my head that I think I'm about to do. I need to adjust that if I'm not willing to put the work in because it's impossible. It's not going to happen. And then confronting that reality. Yeah, that is huge. So for you right now, what are some things that you're implementing currently? And you're on your personal 12? Week here? What's next for you? Yeah, we're, we wrote a new book came out the end of December called uncommon accountability. Really, because you know, there's two chapters in the 12, week, year on accountability. And we've worked with that concept for a couple decades. Now. We have a very, very different view. And it's really powerful. So people wanted more, we had more to say. So that came out. So we're launching accountability groups, because as you were saying, right, that, even if I'm connected my vision, I'm still going to be more effective if there's some sort of peer support involved. And so accountability groups are really powerful. If you understand what accountability truly is, if you're looking for someone to hold you accountable, I would say that's a that's a codependent relationship. That's not healthy. But if you're looking to be accountable, and you're looking for people to support, that's what we're that's what we're doing now with the accountability groups. Say more on that. What do you mean by that? Well, so our view of accountability, most people experienced accountability is consequences. That's how it's applied in life. Right? You listen to the news any day of the week, and you hear someone talk about someone who's done something wrong, and they're going to hold them accountable, which means what we're going to punish them. And so that's how people experience accountability. And yet intuitively, I think people know that to be successful, you got to be accountable. So there's this big disconnect. And so in the 12, week, year, we talked about accountability, not as consequences, but as ownership based on freewill choice. And so how you think about accountability affects everything in your life, from your health, your relationships, your income, your fulfillment. And so just helping people really understand accountability for what it is and what it isn't. Ultimately, I think it's the most empowering concept. You have to live the life you want to live. And so, so that new books called uncommon accountability. And so our big thing right now is we're all in on these accountability groups because of the impact they can have. I love that you say that because I just did an interview with one of one of my friends that I'm in business with and he said, we were talking about the concept of partnerships. And he said, and we were talking about advice on finding good partnerships. And one of my questions to him was okay, cool. What do you do to find partnerships? Like what do you do to find good partnerships, good relationships? He said, You're asking the wrong question. I said, Okay, what questions should I be asking? And he said, the question you should be asking is, how do I be such a good partner myself, that the other quality partners are attracted to me? So I feel like that's exactly what you're saying here. Where if you're looking for people to hold you accountable, instead of asking you because instead of seeking that codependence, you're seeking How do I become the Accountable person that maybe helps hold other people accountable, and then all of a sudden, is a reciprocal relationship? Is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah, the only kind of accountability, there is self accountability, and you can have people support you in that. But if you're looking for someone to hold you accountable, you're trying to transfer the burden of perform off of you on to somebody else. And then it goes back out of your internal locus of control. And now you're shifting the blame back out into mindset, right? If, and typically, if there's an error you're struggling in, whether it's business or relationship, there's a lack of ownership there, right, you're waiting for someone or something to change, when you take ownership of it, it changes doesn't guarantee, you're going to make happen, what you want to happen. But it guarantees you're going to bring everything you can to make in that outcome happen. That's all you can do in life. And then you're still following your, your own actions, you're still following your controllables, you're still following your process. And you're focusing on your lead measures, not your lag measures. I love that you said that too. And then also, I want to circle back on this about the actual tracking of the tactics. So we have our goals set, we have our habits, we have our tactics that were ticking off. I was literally ticking them off every single day. Is there any specific ways that you see that give an extra edge when you're tracking your tactics? No. So couple things here, we track the results. Lead and legs, we score the execution. So the easiest way to do it is we have software available called the cheap, it's really inexpensive 250 bucks a year. But it puts you put your plan in there creates a weekly plan creates a scorecard, you'll go in and check off what got done, it'll calculate a score between zero 100%. So so how you track your results doesn't matter, just track. Right, the lead and lag indicators. But the missing piece for most people is that scoring of the execution. And that's the most powerful indicator you have. Because we control the actions, not the outcomes, that if you want to predict the future look, do your daily actions. And that's why the toolbar here is focused on that. So So whether you do it on a spreadsheet, or you use our software, it's really about scoring your execution, tracking your results in in those two sets of numbers, everything's told there. Because there's only four scenarios you can have in those in at any point in time. And so you'll know where the breakdown is, you'll know if it's in your plan, or you'll know if it's in your execution. By the way, most of the time, it's the execution. But it's important that you know which it is because most people when they're not hitting the goal, change the plan yet because it's easier, and because they don't have a way to pinpoint the breakdown. So with the 12 week gear, if you're scoring your execution and you're tracking the outcomes, you'll know. So as long as you're hitting that 80% Every single week, you could look at that scorecard on Sunday and say okay, what kind of week did I have? I had a 40% week, then you can't bitch about the result. Right. All right. Very right. The breakdown isn't you got a bad plan. Where's the breakdown? It's I'm not doing enough of what's in the plan. Yep. Right. What's it going to take for me this week? Don't worry about the next 67 Just this week to work the plan. What am I choosing to do that's not in the plan, sit on social media for two hours? Why am I choosing that over? What's in the plan? What's it going to take for me to do what's in the plan this week? We button next week. And then you can we get better. And then all of a sudden now improvement is even more measurable. Because now you can look and you can keep metrics about every single week and say, okay, cool here in the beginning, I was having 60 70% weeks, but now I've improved and now I'm having 8090 95% weeks. And now that's improvement. And then that's the game that we can control. And then that's a win that we can control through our lead measures. Right? Yeah, that and you've got confidence that the results are going to come online. Right. So oftentimes people start down a path and three or four weeks in, the result hasn't happened so they bail. Well, results are always lag. So this way, I know if I'm at least scoring well with my execution. I can I know that at some point. The results are coming online. It may be longer than what I thought because there may be more gestation between the action and the outcome. But I can do have confidence that look I am on track But I don't have to veer right now because the results aren't showing. I know from my execution scores, that each week I'm slaying it, whether, again, whether I've sold the thing that I could be in sales haven't made a sale yet. Yeah, no. Great. Why? Because I'm taking the actions. And if I take enough of the right actions, the sales calm. Yeah, I was about to say that what happens, Brian, then all of a sudden, it's that last week of the quarter, and then that massive account pops out of nowhere. It's always the one to that you're not even actively working. It's you're putting in, I call it sales karma. You're putting all your work in. And then you're talking to these 40. Other accounts. And all of a sudden, that one account that you followed up with a quarter ago that said they were ready to go, awesome, they pop off great, because you're constantly filling the pipeline with more you're not, you're right, you're not dead. It's like circling the bases versus hitting the Grand Slam, right? Just Just a lot of singles and doubles and get on base and keep it moving. And that stuff piles up to the point where it's like compound interest rate a couple days, a couple of weeks that no big deal, but day after day, week, after week after week. 12 short weeks can make a big difference. Now you multiply that over number 12. We gears and that's where it gets crazy fun. Talk about the 13th week. Yeah, so we work in a lot of big corporations. So they are annualized to some degree, we're never going to get away from that. That's what the public accounting companies want and things such as public public companies. Yeah, but but we got to get out of that mindset of the annual environment. So if you look at your look at it on an annual basis, there's four extra weeks, and that's the 13th week. So the 13th week is a flex week. It's the week where we stop the world assess the last 12 weeks, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what can we learn from that. And then we lock and load for the next 12. It's also the week where we celebrate. That's huge. Had a great 12 week here, I might take the whole week off. If we haven't had a great 12 week here. I might take a day to celebrate. But it's always an opportunity to celebrate, if not outcomes, and success is certainly progress. And that matters. Because that creates energy. It creates focus, it creates culture, it's really important. And people forget people. And that's another that's a whole other thing is people celebrate the lag measures. And people have these ideas that the only way that they win is with the lag with the end result. But for me, I started shifting my celebrations on the 13th week to hey, I hit 80% every single week and I have a 12 week year why I didn't even hit my goal. And but I had ad over and over again. And then that week that 13 week 13th week I hit me because I was still celebrated. I was like And for me, it could be anything from a trip. Traveling. I love traveling to buying, buying something that I really want. That's expensive. So for me it was buying a new set of golf clubs. I was like, okay, cool. I want to get this set of golf clubs. That's gonna be my celebration for hitting. If I hit 80% every single week and my tactics that I know that I can buy those golf clubs. If not, I'm not getting them. Yeah, I did that only mine was a Bentley. Bentley of golf clubs, man, my Pebble Beach hat on. I just left Pebble Beach. I was up there. I was up there yesterday. I stayed there. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I loved it. But I'm curious. As we were, as we finish this up as we wrap this up. I have a lot of authors on here. And they talk about the absolute pain in the tail it is to release a book and do all the press and PR and marketing for it because that's the grind. Curious about what your execution strategy was your What was your 12 week year for releasing the 12 week year? I'm curious to see what your tactics were to now with the New York Times best seller seller? Yeah. So we had a lot of we had a lot of experience with that book before we wrote it because we had done the self published version. So we had quite a following. And so when that one launched, I mean, we had clients like all state but 12,000 of them mass mutual bought 60, right. We had clients that just bought a bunch of them, and continue to buy them. It's that books a bit of an anomaly, Brian and that every year it sells more than it did the prior year. And really, and we're, what nine years into it. It's in 15 languages now. And so our promotion with that primarily is word of mouth and podcasts. Hey, action Academy is gonna help you with the 10th year strong baby girl. Yeah, and those Brazilians Manos Brazilians are eating it up down with the Portuguese. Yeah, there you go. I love it. I love it. Man. This has been an absolute pleasure and it's been awesome. hearing it from you and hearing your perspectives. One final question that I have well first plug the new book again. Where can people find it and then also plug the software that you're discussing? Yeah. Uncommon accountabilities the new book you can get it at any Amazon Barnes and Nobles favorite bookstore, uncommon accountability.com as the site was the oh the achieve Software is on 12 week your.com. Got it, just go to Resources and look for that software. Yeah, and if we can help in any way, take a look at these accountability groups, they're powerful. We've been testing them. And we think we've got a really great product there. That is making a difference for the people that are enrolled. I love that. And we do that we do that in our mastermind go abundance, we have groups of six accountability partner, we meet with weekly and then we have all of our goals that were kind of operating 12 week, years down, we check them off, and we hold each other to it to where we would literally be like, Hey, you are really dropped the ball here. What are you doing? What's going on? Yeah. And then you have to look him in the eyes and say, Hey, like, I was lazy this week. Your version of me wasn't talking. That guy was passed out drunk. The last question I have for you is the same that I asked and all these episodes now, which is it's fun for me. Always ask What is one thing about you that you're very proud of in your life or your business that most people don't know about you? I don't if you don't know me, if you know me, well, you know this, but I'm proud of being being an awesome father. I have two girls, being a dad is probably the biggest blessing I have in my life. And, and that's a life of tremendous blessing. So I love that. My goal and my wife's goal has always been to be the number one influence on our girls. And so that means spending a lot of time spend in quantity time as well as quality time. And so we're big on family identity. I love who my girls are, and very proud of who they are. And yeah, I think I'm a great dad. I love it, brother. I love it. So 12 gear.com is where people find you. Yep, and uncommon. accountability.com 12 week gear.com and uncommon accountability.com. I love it. And then you also had your and then 12 week gear, you could go on and get the examples and resources. Yeah, true.com forward slash Getting started is where you can get some samples on on the 12 week gear. Perfect. And then also on our end, we're going to include all of this, and we're gonna shoot this out in our email list to all of you as well. So join both Brian's email list here, because we both are stand up, guys. But they're both great guys. Great names, bold names, strong names. And so you want to be on our email list. We send good ones. So I will include all this in the show description. And you will get that everyone in your inbox to all these links to 12 week here on Thursday. So, Brian, greatly appreciate you my friend. Thank you for coming on. And it's been a pleasure. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Thank you, sir. You've been listening to the action Academy podcast helping you to choose what you want with who you want. When you want you've been given the gift of freedom. Don't turn your back on that. We hope you've enjoyed the show. And we hope you've gotten some practical and useful information make sure to like rate and review the show. We'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hook up with us on social media. Remember financial independence is freedom. Flags of freedom fly