Boring Wins The Game

Episode #593

Why is it important to keep hitting singles in achieving your goals?

How badly do you want to succeed in your life?

Success means consistently doing the basics daily and embracing the boredom that comes with it to get closer to your goals. Move forward and make small changes that create significant results.

In this episode, we’re discussing why excitement may be getting in the way of your success and what to do to stay focused when working towards your goals.

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Transcription

Doug Holt: Hey, guys, welcome back. Tim The Powerful Matthews, back from Dubai. How you doing, brother?

Tim Matthews: I’m doing well. Yes. Well, how about yourself?

Doug Holt: I’m doing excellent, my friend. We just got off a call with one of our mastermind groups. It’s a one-year high-end mastermind group. We call it the inner circle. We don’t talk about the inner circle much here. But I think it is perfect for the topic that we have today.

Tim Matthews: Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. I’ll let you take it away.

Doug Holt: Yeah, so guys, this is something that’s come up for me in my business in my personal life many, many times. You know how you have one of these, what I’ll call a truism, something that’s very true, and it keeps showing its face to you again and again throughout your journey in life.  Whether it be business, whether it be in my marriage, whether it be just my personal goals. And it’s the idea that we talked about, in American baseball, is the idea of hitting singles.

Everybody wants to swing for the home run, whether it’s business, whether it’s your investments. A lot of us want to be VCs, and all the successful VCs I know that have been successful have lost way more than they’ve gained, in terms of businesses. Now it’s the one business that we’re all looking for to hit. But it’s just like fitness, you know. You don’t go to the gym and just do a four-hour workout, and call yourself ripped and call yourself done. It’s all about going for the basics and doing them consistently.

So in baseball terms, Tim, we will talk about just hitting singles. If you can keep hitting singles getting on base, eventually those singles go from first base to second to third, you get bases loaded and you keep hitting them, and guys are coming in home plate, and you’re getting runs on the board. Whereas a lot of people will think about what they want to do in their life, and they’ll get up to bat and they’ll just swing for the fences. And they’ll strike out again and again and again.

And they’ll get more strikeouts and less numbers on the fence. So when you do hit a homerun, it’s a big deal. It’s fancy, everybody loves it, it’s sexy. But in life, success in business, and romance in other areas, its all about hitting singles. And that’s what we were talking about a little bit today, during that call with the guys in the inner circle.

Tim Matthews: Yeah, reminds me of what Einstein said: the most powerful force in the universe is compounded interest, things that just compound and compound and compound. And to me, that’s what I think of when I think about hitting singles. You know, when you do those basics every day, and just keep hitting it, hitting it, hitting it hitting it, over time, you end up in a very different place. But oftentimes what we have seen trip guys up is the need to create some chaos, the need to create some excitement, because I think we’re often fed this story that success, quote unquote, is exciting.

It’s sexy, it’s thrilling, it’s all these things. Yet in reality, it can be kind of boring. It can be doing the same thing over and over, figuring out what works rather, and then doing that thing over, and over, and over again. Think of Roger Federer, recently retired from tennis, one of the greatest tennis players of all time. And I was watching the speech he was giving in the final game that he played. And I’m just thinking about – here’s this guy, who has conquered pretty much everything in the world of tennis.

He’s one of the greatest that ever lived. And I think he played something like 1800 matches in his professional career. Not like over his entire life, just in the past 20 years or, just the past 20 years, when he was at the top of his game. 1800 matches. And I just thought about it for a moment and just thought, wow, just imagine that this guy, top of his game, one of the greatest of all time – what must it take for him to wake up every day for the past 20 years and just- and obviously he’s been playing tennis for a lot longer than 20 years, but for the past 20 years and just keep going single-single-single-single-single.

Even after winning his first Grand Slam, goes again: single-single-single-single-single. It’s just incredible, yet so few people reach those heights oftentimes because they can’t handle the bottom. They have to find some way to create the chaos, to chase the shiny object, and it gets them out of the rhythm that produces results and they end up sabotaging themselves. And we’ve seen this with guys all the time.

Doug Holt: Yeah, entrepreneurs, those of us that are what I call true entrepreneurs, we do this all the time. I’m certainly guilty of this. And I started more businesses, almost- not anybody that I know, because I hang out with so many other crazy entrepreneurs. But, you know, when I talk about businesses that I’ve started or run, people think I’m crazy. And I am. But it’s the idea of, once you get something working, and it’s going so well, you kind of feel like you have this bandwidth now to go jump into a new blue pool, so to speak, or a blue ocean, and try something different because you have ideas.

Things are getting a little boring, they’re a little complacent. Yeah, you’ve conquered the marketing, you have your sales dialed in your operations and fulfillment are good. So you put a little gasoline on that fire and you move on to something new. However, that distraction takes your eye off the ball, instead of doubling down on what is working currently. Now we also see guys do this, or usually, actually, we see this more with women in men’s relationships, where things start to get a little boring, complacent, and the women typically, they’ll create some chaos or some issues in the relationship to keep it fresh, to keep it new.

Us guys, you’re wearing the same clothes you wore last week, and the week before, and the week before and the week before, she’s seen it, it’s nothing sexy or new, you have the same routines, you go to the gym the same time you do the same morning routine, you get up at the same time, you go to bed. Maybe you spice it up because you switch the TV show you watch, but other than that, it becomes completely predictable. So your wife has to shake it up, and in shaking it up, she’s gonna cause some drama, because at least drama is exciting. It’s better than it was.

And so when we teach the guys in the program, when they go into the activation method, which is our flagship program, we teach them to be the CFO, the chief fun officer in their marriage and in their relationship at home. That way, they’re constantly keeping things fresh. And when you keep things fresh in the marriage, just like in business, she has no need to cause drama. And in your business, you want to keep hitting those singles, those things that get you the results that you want. And it may get boring. But, what you want to make sure you do is not cause the drama.

Now in this call we had with the guys in the inner circle, there’s one guy there in particular who was talking about it, and he said, I realized that my routines are routines. They can be boring because their routines, But those routines, get me to success, Those routines, get me to my goals. Those routines, get me to my dreams. And he was recognizing and calling himself out in this conversation, basically reiterating, hey, look, I need to stick to these, I need to be held accountable to these routines. Because I know when I do these things, I’m going to get the result that I want.

Tim Matthews: Yeah, it’s spot on. And it’s great awareness for this guy to be able to learn this lesson, especially considering the level that he’s at, because this guy has been able to get to an incredible level, even despite the fact that he has had a part in the past, of creating chaos. And like you said, he’s created chaos so that things break down, and he can swoop in again, and he can fix it. And he can get the praise, and the accolades, and the significance. But then, once it’s all stable, all of that goes away. And then, again, he takes it off the ball, creates that chaos again, so he can get the validation again.

But the power of been able to recognize this, and to recognize that you’re in this pattern, if you’re in it, and what you then need to do to be able to shift it, is huge, because for this guy, knowing the level is already performs at, both in his business, and his marriage, with his health – I mean, this guy is a rockstar. Even though he hasn’t stuck to his routines to the level he knows that he could, and the level that he wants to.

And it reminds me of Keystone Habits. We speak about this often. One of the easiest ways to hit singles is to get your Alpha Rise And Shine in place and to get some of those key routines in place. But then also in business, for example, and I guess the other territories too, to be fair, this is what we do in the activation method with the men – is to identify what the Keystone Habits are. What are the one or two key things you can do that make everything else easier or unnecessary, and you focus on hitting singles with those things. It’s that tiny hinge that swings the huge door, and really gives you the result you’re looking for, gives you leverage.

Doug Holt: And with our guys, we use something called a chart of intentional living. And we don’t talk about it that often. Transparently, we’ve been revising it over the past couple years, going through a revision. And the guys will use this to track their Keystone Habits and where they are in the five territories. So, again, for the guys who are newer to the show, the five territories for a powerful man are your health, wealth, relationships, business, and then also the one that most of us miss, self.

Where are you in the area of self, and that’s taking care of yourself, and things that most of us neglect or put on the backburner. But a lot of times those Keystone Habits, for us as men, as businessmen, we kind of know what it is in business. You kind of know what those key things you need to do to move the needle in your business. Maybe you do in your health, but most men don’t know where it is in self and relationships.  

Where those Keystone things are going to allow you to bring your wife in. To go from being a DEER, which is an acronym for defend, excuse, explain, react to being a WOLF – Wise, open, loving and fierce. Where are those key things that you get to do as a man that are going to allow you to attract your wife, rather than repelling her?

Tim Matthews: I’ve never considered that, you know, because we’re just so used to being in the conversation with the guys about hitting singles. We’re lucky enough that the guys that we work with, given the support that they have, and the system we give them, they get it in place really quickly. They run with it. But I think you hit the nail on the head. I think for self and relationships, I think the listeners could potentially struggle.

Thinking back to where I was years ago, I think I definitely struggled with that. I definitely struggled with this entire concept. Quite frankly, I wasn’t hitting singles. I definitely chased the shiny object. I definitely loved the excitement. I remember getting into bed one night after working yet again, another day of 18 hours, and just sitting there, laying there with a smile on my face, feeling so accomplished and so proud of myself, because I crushed it again.

Yet I was failing to consider how effective I was versus how busy and in demand I felt. And again, looking back, yeah, the idea not only of hitting singles, but what would the single be within the territory of self and the territory of relationship? I didn’t even know it. So I’m curious, what are the key things in self and relationships that help you get those singles?

Doug Holt: Yeah, so for me, Tim, the Keystone Habits we give the guys in the activation method is the ‘live like a king’ system. So, it’s a whole system that covers your Keystone Habits for yourself and for your relationships. So, for men that have been through the activation method or are currently in it, that’s what I want you guys to double down on. That’s exactly what the ‘live like a king’ system is. Now again, for listeners who are newer to the show, what we teach at The Powerful Man is, when you’re coming in, and say your marriage isn’t as awesome as you would like it to be.

Some of you guys are going through divorce proceedings, some of you guys have an okay marriage, but you want it to be better. So we got guys listening to this that are on all extremes. But in the area of marriage, we have a program called the activation method which gets a guy activated. We teach something called the triad of connection, which is three key things. Now the first one is going to be the Clean Slate method.

We’ve done podcasts and all these, it’s all free information we give away. Second one – hidden motives technique. And the third one is the ‘live like a king’ system. Now, the Clean Slate method, what that does is wipe the slate clean, it allows you and your wife and your partner to start from scratch, get rid of the past, stop bringing up that old crap, starting anew. Hidden motives Technique lets you bring back the good feelings and emotions back into the relationship rather than always focusing on the crap.

And the ‘live like a king system’, once you have your marriage at an optimal level, that allows you to keep it there. So those are your Keystone Habits. Obviously, as guys go through the programs, some guys continue on with us and they go into one of our mastermind programs that we have, either the brotherhood, the accelerator, or the inner circle, which is what we were talking about earlier. Now, their Keystone Habits change.

So their marriages are doing great. They’re doing really well. Some guys are trying to switch things up in the bedroom, they’re accelerating the passion, or the connection. Or maybe they’re trying to get more connection, and they want their wife to be more vibrant. So we change those Keystone Habits every quarter for these guys. First of all – what is your goal? Where do you want to get to? You have to know where you want to get to in order to devise a plan.

So we do a visioning process, it’s very unique to The Powerful Man. Then, once we know where you need to get to, we look at the most efficient way of getting there. So think of your Keystone Habits, guys, as kind of your Pareto principle. 20% of your inputs give you 80% of your outputs. So said another way, what are those couple things that you can do that gonna give you the lion’s share of the results you want? Those get to become your Keystone Habits.

Like, if I do this, whatever this is, regularly and consistently, then the most predictable outcome will be this other thing I want. So, an example. Let’s say I want to drop 10 pounds. Say I want to drop some weight. I know, there’s two Keystone Habits. One is, I can prep all my meals ahead of time. So, that prevents me from cheating, my calories are all measured, etc. Two, I can break a sweat every day.

If I do those two things, I’m pretty positive that I will drop the weight. I just know that if I do those two things, it’s going to happen. Of course, yes, there’s things that could happen. I could cheat on my diet. But let’s just say those two things. I don’t have to worry about what kind of workout I’m doing. I don’t have to worry about ‘oh, shoot, do I need B vitamins and how much? Should I be taking creatine?’ That’s all BS, guys. That’s the details.

What are the 20% of the things? In this case, I’m just using fitness because it’s an easy one that all of us guys understand. If I do these two Keystone Habits daily, I will get the results that I want. Now, what we want to do is look at this, where’s this in your business? You know, some of you guys are looking for a take home of a million dollars. You want to take it home to your family. And you should. I’m all for it. You’re looking at making 80 to 100k a month.

Okay, cool. What are the couple things that you know, if you do them consistently, will bring you the result? Is it setting aside two hours a day to make phone calls, sales calls? Is it developing your leadership team? What are those things? You want to write those things down. Now, maybe it’s not a million. Maybe you’re not there. Maybe you just like, ‘Doug, I just want to be able to take home 300k.’

Cool. Where are you now? Where do you want to get to? So use that 300k. And what are two things, if you did them consistently every day, would most likely get you to that result? If it’s sales that’s the issue, either be on sales calls, or be on top of your sales team. Then you’re looking at what other constraints you have within marketing. Do you have the lead flow you need? Are they qualified leads, etc? What’s your pipeline looking like?

These are things that you want to look at, and figure out the two things that are the two levers that you could pull. Now, the same with your relationships. You know, I don’t know what your relationship is currently, but where is it that you could do it? Maybe it’s listening to this podcast every day. Every day, I’m going to feed my brain with, you know, positive information that’s going to move me closer to my goal in my marriage.

Maybe it’s joining the activation method. You join, you say, every day I’m going to show up inside the activation method. I’m going to post, I’m going to read, I’m gonna work with my coaches, and I’m going to work on a relationship. You get to decide what you’re going to do, and how bad you want it. Because Talk is cheap. Talk is cheap. We’ve all set new year’s resolutions. I know everybody hates to admit that they set them. But you all do.

You might call them quarterly goals, or yearly goals for your company, or you’re just thinking about as you’re lying in bed as the New Year approaches. But guys, the new year, the first Monday of the new year is known as divorce day. You can Google it. We’ve done a couple podcasts on this. It is known as divorce day by family lawyers, solicitors, basically divorce attorneys. And it is where the majority of divorces are filed. It’s the first Monday of the year.

As we record this, we’re a month away, guys. Like, this is legit. And we hear it all the time. And I’m just telling you, it’s your wake up call. Guys always say ‘I didn’t see this coming’. Well, I was reading this statistic just two days ago. We always talk about 70% of divorces are initiated by a woman. We know that. Did you know that there was a study done that that number jumps to 90% If the woman has a college education or greater? 90% of divorces?

So the men that we typically work with, and the men that listen to the show, most of them are married to a college or greater educated woman. 90%. And it was done, the study- I can cite the study. If anybody’s interested go to the free Facebook group. If you ask me a question I’ll throw a link to the study. I was  literally reading it this week. And it blew my mind, because that’s such a high statistic. 90%.

So, what are those Keystone Habits that prevent you from going down that trail? That stop you from doing that? If you’re drinking too much at night? Okay, cool. What are the things you could do that, you know, if you do it consistently, would stop? maybe it’s going to the gym in the evening? It’s hard to get drunk at the gym. Maybe it’s doing something for your fitness or wellness in the evening.

Maybe it’s, you know, going to church, going to synagogue, whatever it may be for you in the evenings instead of being in places where alcohol is present. Figure out what it is for you, and what those Keystone Habits are. And they don’t have to be sexy. They almost always aren’t sexy. There is sexiness in the result. But to get to that result, oftentimes you have to go through the valley of boring. And the valley of boring is dry. You got to really focus on the end goal to get there.

Tim Matthews: You said so much gold. I wrote that down, the valley of boring. I love that. Yeah, and other way, if you’re listening to this, and maybe you are one of the guys in the inner circle or the Brotherhood, and you’re familiar with what duck sharing, and you’re struggling to come up with a keystone habits, another way of looking at it is to look at what you struggle with the most. So we’ll use fitness.

For example, let’s say that you do keep skipping on your diet, yet you know that you would like to eat better, and it would be helpful if you did. What part of the day do you tend to skip on your meals? Is it lunchtime? Is it evening? What is it? Maybe you’ve heard Doug talk on previous podcasts about willpower, and how as the day goes by your willpower diminishes, and you can make good promises. 6am Doug is different to 6pm Doug.

So maybe it’s the 6pm version of you. Maybe it’s then when you tend to find it harder to stick to your diet, and maybe you’re snacking. So, your keystone habit at that point may be prepping your meals on Sunday and a Wednesday evening at 4pm. Because it’s your lunches you tend to find it harder, because you skip your lunch, because you’re busy with work or whatever you may be busy with. You skip lunch, and then all of a sudden it’s 5pm, and you’re starving.

So you run upstairs and you grab some of the kids’ food they’re eating their dinner. But if you would have had your meal prepped- or maybe someone preps it for you. Maybe find a meal prep service. But regardless, if you have that lunchtime meal, then what you find is you don’t feel the urge to run and grab a snack at 5pm. Because when you grab that snack, you then want more of it. And before you know it, you’ve eaten the entire thing. Instead of a snack, it becomes a meal.

So, yeah, look at where you struggle, what you struggle with the most, and then just take some time to reflect upon that. And just determine, what might the keystone habit be here? Now, obviously, if you are in the movement, actively engaged in the workplace, then by all means either take your ideas to one of your coaches, because all you great men have assigned coaches, or post in there, tag me or Doug, bring it to us whatever you may like to do.

But just get the insight, get the feedback, because at the end of the day, we can’t see our own blind spots. If you’re not in the movement, then you could always go over to the Facebook group, drop it in there. Either myself or one of the guys in the team will be able to comment on that. Or maybe even some of the men in the community. There are some amazing men in there. But either way, if you’re listening to this, and you’re resonating with it, don’t stay on the fence.

Don’t allow this podcast to finish and think, oh yeah, that was a good idea, and then let the next one begin to play. If this is resonating with you, then take some action. The valley of boring can be a boring place to be, but it’s also a very abundant place to be as well. The valley of boring is very underestimated, but not many people live there. It’s not very well populated. Yet the abundance that comes from that place is incredible.

Doug Holt:        I agree. You know, I’m gonna give you guys some homework as well. And Tim, I’m gonna throw us out there and give us some homework. And so guys, here’s what I’m gonna ask you to do. Grab a piece of paper. If you’re at the gym working out, or driving, just tag this podcast to remind you to come back. Maybe pull over. I think your life is worth it, so to speak, because this is going to be valuable to you guys.

Grab a piece of paper, and down the left-hand side I want you to skip a line. So, every other line you’re going to write one of these words. So, it’s gonna be the five territories: self, health, wealth, relationships, business. I’ll say it again: self health, wealth, relationships and business. Now, next to that, put a dash and write out what is the outcome you want between now and the end of the year – If you’re listening to this in the future, just give yourself 30 days – that you would love to achieve.

Now, once you’ve written that out, what I want you to do is determine one, maybe two, keystone habits that if you did that thing consistently, would most likely lead you to the result that you want. Once you’ve done this, once you’ve written this down, I’m gonna encourage you to head over to our free Facebook group, and one of our coaches or advisors will respond to you if you post your Keystone Habits.

So you’re gonna post your goals and all five territories and your keystone habit, and you’ll get some direct coaching from us. No charge, we want to help you guys out. But this is the way you’re going to do it. We have a free Facebook group, we’re giving all this information for free in the podcast, we want you guys to achieve results. Of course, you want to compress time and get faster results, you know, inquire about the activation method, which is the eight week program that takes a man from where he is today, and activates them.

You get reactivated during this program, and that is the fastest way to success. Just honestly is. We’re gonna give you as much as we can in these podcasts, also in our free community, and all the other channels. We’re all over the internet, trying to help men. This is a movement of men just like you. But what are those Keystone Habits? And as Tim said, Take friggin action. Take action. I want to come over there and shake you, because I want you to take action.

Just take action on whatever it is. Even if you pick one – maybe it’s the relationships. What can you do now to take massive action in that direction? Maybe it’s your business? What can you do now to take massive action? And guess what? If you’re in the Facebook community, you’re in the Facebook community with 3000 other businessmen. So if you have a business problem, throw it out there.

We talk a lot about relationships, but we’re also business coaches. And so are the other people that are in the group. Or maybe it’s health. We have so many guys who are fitness experts, international fitness experts. World champions are in that group, they can help you as well. So take advantage of your resources. And as we always say, be resourceful, rather than just making excuses. Tim, I love the podcast. I love what you’re sharing here with everybody today, and I’m glad we got you back from Dubai. It’s great to have you back in the saddle.

Tim Matthews: It’s great to be here.

Doug Holt: As we always say, in the moment of insight, take massive action. We’ll see you next time.