415. GPS: A Guide to Getting Anything You Want

Chris Dixon:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. I'm Chris Dixon.

Nikki Miller:

And I'm Nikki Miller.

Chris Dixon:

Nikki, did you know that you could fit an entire business plan on one page?

Nikki Miller:

Chris, are you telling me that I don't have to have a 45-page business plan to hit my goals?

Chris Dixon:

Not only do you not need to, you shouldn't. And we think you can follow this simple and very powerful process we're going to share with you guys today to get everybody aligned in your business. Or even if you're setting a personal goal, you can break that goal down on one page to keep yourself moving in the right direction.

Nikki Miller:

We're so excited to share with you today one of our favorite productivity tools called the GPS, which stands for Goals, Priorities and Strategies. So many of you had such great feedback about our 411 episode and wanted to learn more about how to actually identify what you should be doing today in order to line up your today's to that future that you're looking for, which is really what you use the GPS for, how to inform what you should be doing today based off where you want to be in the future. And we always talk about this is how you line up your somedays with today. So I can't wait to walk you through this and to inform how you should be using this tool in order to dictate what you should be doing today and every day thereafter in order to line your dominoes up to that greater goal that you have.

Chris Dixon:

I love it and I love this conversation. If you guys like it and you want to learn more, if you have questions or you want to hear more about other topics, reach out to us anytime at podcast at The ONE Thing and we'd love to hear from you. So Nikki, let's go and learn about the GPS.

Nikki Miller:

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. I'm Nikki Miller and.

Chris Dixon:

I'm Chris Dixon.

Nikki Miller:

And we're so excited to be back. And today we have a special treat for all of you. You loved our 411 episode so much that the number one thing that we got asked on the podcast at The ONE Thing email, the questions that you all send in was to do an additional training around some other resources like the 411. So we're very excited to be bringing to you today the GPS, which is effectively a one page business tool.

This is something that we use so frequently in our organization, whether it's for businesses or for personal goals. And this is really the predecessor to the 411. In order to inform what you should be doing, you have to know where you want to go, which is really what the GPS is aptly named, just like you would have in your car in order to get to where you want to go, a GPS in order to get there. So, Chris, can you walk us through, what is this GPS? What is this thing actually do?

Chris Dixon:

Well, you said it. It's a simple but incredibly powerful one-page business plan in the context of applying this to your business or a one-page goal breakdown and it's oriented around -- the acronym GPS stands for Goal, Priorities and Strategies. And you're building a plan against a single goal. And the idea here is you're trying to break down what are the most important things that I need to accomplish to make achieving this goal possible.

And it's a way to map out what are those high ROI. We'll call them 20 percent, and we'll dig into what we mean there, 20 percent priorities and strategies that are going to give you 80 percent or more of the return on investment towards your goal. And that's what we pack into one page and it's simple. Doesn't mean it's easy, but it's a simple tool to help give you clarity personally. Or if you're building this for a team, it's a single center point, a single source of truth, if you will, for what you're focused on as a business and in a given period of time.

Nikki Miller:

And this is really a foundational tool inside our organization because one of the biggest challenges that we see is that I always tell whether it's a coach or a business leader, it's not that people don't have goals and it's not that they're lazy and it's not that they don't want to get there. More often than not, it's that they just don't know how to line up their todays with their somedays. In other words, they don't know how to work backwards from where they want to be eventually to how to work that into what should I actually be doing today.

And that's what the GPS in combination with the 411 actually does. Based off where we want to be, typically it's going to be a year from now, what should I be focusing on and where should I be putting my energy? Or if you're a business, where should my team be putting our energy and where can we get on the same page? One of my favorite Gary Keller sayings, who's the co-author of The One Thing is that if you can't get it on one page, how can you expect to be on the same page?

And that's why I love something like the GPS, because it allows us to get all on the same page with what we should be doing in a very clear and concise, focused way, and then to take that information and put it into our prioritized 411. So, Chris, how do you typically use this when you're coaching people? How do you even start on the GPS? How do you set that ultimate goal?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, if it's okay. Nikki, I wanted to circle back to something that you said before, because I think it helps set the stage for what this is and how it works across what is this system instead of just a single document? Because I think that's so important to give context. It is a document. It is one page, but it's not set it and forget it single document. There's a set of behaviors that surround it that are a system that are important. And you talked about it being like a GPS that we use like a navigation tool. And I really like this analogy.

And I think it's perfect that it works out this way, because if you think of your goals like a destination, which I do, and you're trying to get somewhere, then a GPS helps you stay on track. And if you think about what is a GPS, the navigation tool, it's this global positioning system that talks to multiple satellites that gives you real time information on the corrections that you need to make towards your course to get to where you want to go the most effective route possible.

And I think there's so much to carry over in how this system works because you're trying to connect all these different parties or pieces of information to keep you on track over time and you're updating it at whatever frequency is appropriate for your business or your goal to keep it relevant, to keep you moving in the shortest distance possible to the goals that you've set. And I think that's so important to call out because if you just create this once in a vacuum and you leave it and don't update it, it loses its power. And so there's this whole rhythm and set of behaviors that support it. So I just wanted to circle back to the GPS analogy because I think there's a lot of parallels there that are worth calling out.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and at the end of the day, one of the biggest challenges that we see is that someone will come to us. And in effect -- I'm going to overexaggerate this example. But in effect, they're saying I want to be more successful, which is just so broad, right? I want to be more successful or better or make more or whatever it is. And we'll say, okay, well, what does that look like for you? Well, I'm not sure. Okay. Well, where would you be when you when you get there? I'm not sure about that either.

And in the example of the GPS, it's the equivalent of saying, well, I need directions to get somewhere. And you'll say, well, where do you want to go? I'm not sure about that. Well, how quickly would you like to get there? I'm not sure about that either. Well, then I'll often say, well, then you're just already there. There's no way I can direct you. And the example I always give is that a ship with no direction doesn't really care which way the wind blows.

And so ultimately, you're absolutely right. It's about identifying what is that end goal, where do you actually want to go? And then the GPS is the directions in order for you to be able to get there, remembering that the purpose of a goal is simply to be appropriate in the moment. And so the reason that we use this is that we are really using our past to inform what is our current now. And then our present now and our future nows are determined by how we live in this moment, what is our priority at this given time?

And so the GPS as it relates to the 411 is the effectual what do I want to get to eventually or maybe this year is what we're going to use in our example today. And then based off this year, what should I be doing this month, this week, and then today, which is what we use the 411 for. So the GPS actually informs what we actually should do and then ultimately in the business, who owns that. So we identify the goal, which is the one thing. And then can you walk us through what is the P in the GPS, Chris? So how do we identify what our strategies are?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. So the G, goal, at ONE Thing. And then you have your P in the GPS which is the priorities. And I like -- I'm a pilot. I apologize. I use a ton of aviation analogies. I can't get past it. So I think of altitudes, right. If your goal is 50,000ft and that's where you want to get to, your cruising altitude, then you're really at like 30,000ft with your priorities.

And these priorities are like, what are the 20 percent things that you would need to accomplish, the kind of three to five, if you will, 20 percent priorities that you would need to accomplish to make achieving that goal possible. And these are around 30,000ft, like I said. And it helps give context to the depth and how tactical you're becoming as you move further down in altitude and what these things are. And then the S -- you have the G, the P and then the S, which would be the strategies. And I'll pass it back to you, Nikki. Do you want to talk through your interpretation of the strategies?

Nikki Miller:

So the strategies are for any one priority, you're probably going to have anywhere between five to six strategies. If it's more than that, then typically the priority is going to be too broad. And we'll definitely talk through how some of the common mistakes that we see people make when they're building out their GPS, and it's often that it is too broad. So if you've got too many strategies underneath that priority, which is the three to four ways that you're ultimately going to achieve this goal, and we'll give real time examples so that you can all use this in your own business and in your own lives and for your own goals.

And so the strategies are the, like I said, five to six strategies for any one priority that you're going to use to achieve that priority. And then in that vein, that priority is what leads to that overall goal, like I said. So if you can't come up with more than maybe three, I would say then your priority is too narrow and in fact might be a strategy. So ultimately the strategies to me are the how we're going to achieve that ultimate priority. And then the priority is what dictates how we're going to achieve that ultimate goal.

Chris Dixon:

There you go. And I'll say I have had the experience, if you're listening to this and you're saying, okay, goal, priorities, strategies and that language feels a little foreign or you're having a hard time attaching yourself to it, maybe the business or the industry you work in or the things that you've been surrounded by as you've come up and learned, speak more to like objectives and measures and you just have a little bit of different language. If you'd like to, you can think of this more as like a one, three, five or a one, four, five, something like that, where you have one goal, then you have three objectives and then you've got strategies beneath that.

So it's kind of you can attach your language to it if the framework makes sense. So I don't know if you've had that experience too, Nikki, but I know in working in consulting with some businesses that priorities and strategies were foreign to them and so we adopted their language, but the framework still works here.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, the framework really works for achieving any type of goal. And again, whether that goes back to a business goal, health goal, financial goal. We'll walk you through a tactical way to use this today so you can actually go back to your own life and implement this. And yeah, exactly. Like you said, Chris, if the language doesn't work as well for you, choose whatever language does work. But ultimately, it's about identifying where do I actually want to go, what is my end destination? In other words, I always tell people to explain to me what success looks like. How would I know if we had achieved the goal? That's how you identify what that one goal is.

And then, like I said, the priorities are the how we're going to get there. What are the things we need to focus on and then how are we actually going to achieve those things that we need to focus on? What are the main areas that we're going to focus on, the main verticals that we're going to use in order to achieve that overall goal?

And before we get into the actual tactical example, Chris, I want to define the strategies that we use, because this came back as such a big question. And I love that everyone listened to the 411 episode and is actually using it, but I wanted to find some of the sort of strategies that we have in our toolbox that we walk people through in the future we'll have episodes on. But ultimately, the reason we wanted to come back to this is because we jumped in the 411 to sort of the second step in helping people to achieve what they want to achieve. Whatever it is, I always call it the magic of getting anything that you want.

The 411 is really the second step. The GPS is the first. The GPS is the thing that you start with that informs what you should be doing today and what it is that you're trying to achieve. And then you move to the 411. So if you don't know what we're talking about, go back and listen to episode 411, aptly named and aptly accounted for what we were talking about there. And then we prioritize our actions using that focusing question that if you've read The One Thing, you've heard a million times, which is what is the one thing that I can do such that by doing it makes everything else easier or unnecessary?

And then after that, the next step is to time block what matters most. And then you stay on track through accountability, which usually looks a lot like getting to a coach. And that's really the format that we use in order to get people to where they want to go. But again, none of that matters until we've decided what our destination is, until we've decided what success looks like, which is really what the GPS is about. Anything you want to say, Chris, before we actually dive into a real tactical example here?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, I think you're going into the kind of relationship between the GPS and the 411 is one of the biggest questions or I guess areas of clarification that people ask or need. And it's like, how do these two things work together? And I think it's important to understand if you're using a 411 and you're interested in the GPS, you're trying to understand these two tools. The GPS is really oriented around the goal and what it's going to take to achieve it. This is like you're building this plan against this one-page plan against all the components of achieving that goal, and you're mapping that out in your mind. And it's not really oriented against the timeline other than the time you want to achieve that goal.

And if you're saying your GPS is for the end of 2024, then everything's going to build against that. And you're saying that's when you want that done by. That's that measure of success. When you get over to the 411, then that's kind of the work back plan. Then you're saying from there, like what are these monthly and weekly targets I need to hit to be on track? And so you're using the GPS to draw to your 411. You're pulling from the GPS to your 411 to break it down into more of a work back plan from that point. So hopefully that helps for context.

Nikki Miller:

I love that. Well, going back to our actual GPS example, I always explain this as this is the destination that you want to arrive at. The GPS informs where you actually want to arrive, what turns you're going to be taking on the way there. The 411 is actually making the drive or walking or however you're going to choose to get there. That's the actual action that you take.

And to me, this is the difference between I always encourage people not to mistake motion for action. Motion if you have a health goal is maybe researching the best gym or researching the best eating plan or researching the best exercise plan or finding the best trainer, all important things. But we can't mistake that for the action that we actually take, which is usually in the 411. And the action in this example is going for the walk, lifting the weights, eating that right plan. So ultimately this informs what you're going to do. The 411 holds you accountable to actually getting there.

Chris Dixon:

Well said. What do you say we go from theory to application and give an example so people can figure out what we're talking about here?

Nikki Miller:

Okay. What about let's choose an example of maybe buying your first investment property. Let's build a GPS around buying your first investment property. That's a common goal that we hear with people that we're coaching in the organization or people that want to build wealth, they might have a plan to buy that first investment property. So let's make that our one goal in the GPS.

Chris Dixon:

I like it. So you're on a journey to build some wealth, you want to own an asset, you're looking to get your first investment property. I like it. Where we go first here is it seems like you're directionally already there and some people may be struggling to get that goal, in which case we would zoom out, do some future visioning. Let's imagine that you've got this wealth total net worth target ten years in the future and we've worked your way back to this year is getting an investment property.

So where we would go is say let's see if we can go from vague to perhaps more vivid or too specific on what success looks like and see if we can go a little bit tighter on what your goal is. So is it just owning any rental property or are there some specific terms or conditions for which you want from that? Is there a certain value or can you be more specific about what success looks like for your goal?

Nikki Miller:

Well, I guess we wouldn't just want to own an investment property. We would want that investment property to help us reach our financial goals. So maybe that looks like making a certain amount of money on the investment property.

Chris Dixon:

Okay. Is it that you're looking for a certain amount of cash out per month, or are you looking for it to appreciate? Is there a certain value of the total home that you're looking for?

Nikki Miller:

Let's say I want to buy my first investment property and I want it to cash flow at least $500 a month.

Chris Dixon:

I love that, so much more specific, right. Buy my first investment property. Okay. It's better than save money for sure. But now you're saying buy my first investment property that produces $500 a month in cash. So that is going to help narrow down the specifics on the type of property you're looking for, et cetera. So that's great. Much more specific. So we've got a more specific goal. Now we want to go to what are the three to four, maximum five priorities that you would need to accomplish to achieve that goal? And what could those be?

Nikki Miller:

Really, really quickly, Chris, I just want to point out what you just did for me, which is something we have to so often do with our coaching clients, which is really get specific on what it is that we're trying to achieve. What does success actually look like? And the example I always give here, I'll never forget there was a young woman I was coaching. Her parents sent her to me and they said, she's just an incredible artist and our goal is to get her into the best art school. And they sent her to me and said, will you coach her? And I said, well, I don't know how to tell you this, but I can't draw anything or paint anything. And I don't know that I'm the best person to coach her because I know nothing about art. And they said, well, we trust you. Give it a shot.

And so I met with her, and I said, well, you're going to have to educate me. I have no idea what it takes to get into art school. And I said, so walk me through what you would have to do. And she said, well, really, I just need to draw more. I have to produce a certain portfolio to be able to give to the college in order for them to review so that I could potentially get in. And I said, okay, well just draw a quick stick figure. And she did. And it was, of course, even better than something I could draw. And I said, congratulations, you've hit your goal. And she sort of looked at me sideways and I said, well, if your goal is just to draw more and you draw one stick figure, congratulations, you've achieved it.

And ultimately, we do this so often with someone who says, well, my goal is to make more money. And I'll hand him a penny, I'll say congratulations, you've made more. So we want to get really tactical and specific about what it is that we're trying to achieve. We want to be able to measure it, and we want to articulate what success actually looks like.

So I love that you not only asked me what do I want to do, but also what does success look like? And then ultimately, it's got to be time bound. And in this example, almost always, the GPS is going to be about a year goal. You can, of course, make it further out if you want to. But at the end of the day, typically we're looking at a year. And so when we're building this out in this example, the goal would be at the end of the year, within the next 12 months, to buy this investment property that produces $500 a month in cash flow.

And then we're going to identify what are the priorities in order for us to get there. So in other words, what do we need to be doing on the way to that goal? So I might start with a priority and you and I can work through this together, Chris. I might start with a priority. Well, if I'm new to this and I don't know what I'm going to buy, I might need to make a decision on the type of property that I want to buy.

Is it going to be multifamily? Is it going to be single family? Am I, to your point, am I buying it for cash flow? Am I buying it for appreciation? Do I know where I'm going to buy it? These are some of the things I would need to make a decision on. So I think that that would really come back to I might need to do a little bit of research. I might need to learn a little bit about real estate investing if I don't know it already.

Chris Dixon:

Which I've got a feeling you do, but we'll continue to pretend like this is new territory. So priority number one that you came up with was would you call that determining the criteria that you're looking for, for this investment property?

Nikki Miller:

Much better articulated than I had it. And yes, I would determine the criteria for identifying my investment property.

Chris Dixon:

Perfect. Okay. What else? So that that seems like a big domino to knock down. What else do you think you'll need to accomplish in order to achieve the goal?

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think after I've accomplished that, I might need to know roughly how much money I need to have in order to be able to achieve that. So that should inform how much money I need to have, and then that may inform how much money I need to make or save.

Chris Dixon:

So for you then, is it knowing how much or is it actually the priority of producing the cash?

Nikki Miller:

Well, if my goal is to achieve it, it would likely be the priority of producing the cash. Right.

Chris Dixon:

All right. There we go. Okay. So we need to know the criteria. We need to actually go and then save the money, let's say for example for your downpayment. And what would be the next priority?

Nikki Miller:

Well, then I might -- I would usually encourage before we actually get to the 411, and start taking the action on this, I would want to outline what those actions look like outside of just the priorities. So right now, we're still in motion a bit because none of these are actionable items towards actually achieving the investment property. So then I would say once we've identified the criteria and once we have the money, maybe the next step is I'm going to find a real estate agent in that place or within that product type that I'm going to go after.

Chris Dixon:

Okay. So determine your criteria.

Nikki Miller:

In other words, who can help me?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, there you go. Determine your criteria. Then you've got a priority to produce the cash for downpayment. And third is to identify the real estate agent. That's going to be your asset to help you find the right home. So those would be potentially your three priorities to achieve your goal.

Nikki Miller:

Am I missing any? Coach me through it.

Chris Dixon:

I think for this application, let's go with that. So where we would go to next is all things do not matter equally, correct? So now we need to figure out, what priority do these priorities live in and which one is most important? So if you could only do one of these priorities, which one has the highest value for you?

Nikki Miller:

Well, in the event that I don't have the money to be able to purchase the property, nothing else matters. So I would probably put that at priority number one. Would you agree?

Chris Dixon:

Sure. Yeah. Number one, produce the cash. Okay. What about number two?

Nikki Miller:

Number two, I would say determine criteria because I can't figure out the next step. I can't find my agent or start looking until I've determined what it is that I'm looking for.

Chris Dixon:

Okay. And then there you go. The number three falls in line. So, Nikki, just to take a quick time out here, we've got a goal now. We've got three priorities. We're making some really solid progress on building your GPS. Why is it so important to have priority of your priorities? Why even spend the time or invest the time to make sure you have them in order of priority?

Nikki Miller:

Because so often, Chris, we make time for what matters least in the hopes that eventually will make time for what matters most. And while the priorities may all matter, they don't matter equally. And to your point, they don't matter in that order. So again, even going through the thinking that I just gave, well, ultimately none of this matters if I don't actually have the money to be able to purchase the property, finding the best criteria and the best agent and knowing everything about that market won't matter if I haven't identified how much I need to save and then save that amount of money because I can't actually take action on it.

So again, all of these things matter. They just don't matter equally, and they don't matter in that same order. So we have to identify what needs to happen first. Again, in our language, what is that leading domino that we need to push down? Because if we try to push down the fourth domino in, we're still not going to get the progression that we want. So we have to start at the beginning. What's the thing I need to achieve first before I can start executing these other strategies?

And ultimately, the way I always teach this is if we covered up two of these priorities and you just executed the first, would it get you closer to your goal? And so if I ask myself that question when I'm looking at this goal, then I can say absolutely. If I just was able to save that downpayment, whatever it may be, then it would inform where it is that or it would inform where it is that I need to go next and would also give me the capability to do so.

Chris Dixon:

Very good. Very good. So why don't we give -- since we've done -- now, we've got a goal. And for 2024, buying an investment property that's going to net $500 in cash flow every month, that's specific. Now, we know that you've got three priorities that will get you there. So we feel that they have the sufficiency to get you to your goal. So that is to produce the cash for the downpayment, to determine the criteria, terms, et cetera, of the property that you want, and to find a real estate agent that will support you.

What we would typically do is then go to these priorities and apply the same rigor around being specific that we did to the goal. So how would you know you're successful and making the time there. But maybe it's good that we go to and give some examples on what strategies could look like and look at goal number one, which was to produce the cash necessary for a downpayment. Should we make an assumption on how much that is and what specifically that goal is and go from there?

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, let's make this easy round number. So let's say that the property I want to buy is $400,000 and we need 20 percent down, so I need to save $80,000.

Chris Dixon:

All right. So 200 square foot condo in Austin. Got it.

Nikki Miller:

Exactly. Well, here in California, we're not doing much better.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. No, you guys are leading the way. So got it. So you said how much, $80,000?

Nikki Miller:

So I need to save $80,000 for my downpayment. And maybe, obviously, as an agent, I would be doing all those actually wanting to achieve this goal a disservice if I didn't also mention we should save a little bit of extra for closing costs, inspections, et cetera. So maybe in total, I need to save $95,000.

Chris Dixon:

All right, $95,000. We got it. So let's give some demonstration of what strategies could be so that someone gets the full flow here. What would be some strategies that we would identify in order to save that $95,000?

Nikki Miller:

So at risk of getting too broad in the strategies, we want to think about -- so often this is -- our goals all connect. And what I mean by that is if you have a goal to save a certain amount of money, you might point yourself back to, well then, I'm just going to point myself back to my business goal or my income goal or my job goal or whatever that may be. So at risk of just making your first strategy, see previous GPS for business, we want to think about what this actually looks like on the way to this particular goal. So maybe in this example, it's if I could save X amount this month, it would get me to my $95,000 a month. Is that what you typically see when someone's building out a goal like this, Chris?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think that's 100 percent accurate.

Nikki Miller:

So then once I identify how much I'm going to save on a monthly basis, then to me, I'm always going to, me, I'm always going to ask, well, how are we going to do that? What do we have to do in order to execute that strategy? So maybe that looks like I am going to increase my job income or increase my business income by doing this. Or maybe that looks like I'm going to liquidate this asset in order to be able to get there. What would you make as a strategy here, Chris?

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. I think you're on the right track for sure, that if your goal is to produce $95,000 in cash, you're probably going to have -- if there are, like you said, liquidating assets, if there's a savings strategy, do you need to save a certain amount of your W-2 income in the next period of time? Is there habit perhaps you need to form? Is there something that you need to do that's a little bit more tactical? Maybe you're cutting your way to prosperity, so you have to budget a little bit more and you have to set a goal around spending less money on fine dining or whatever that might be. But it's just thinking through, is it coming from the top? Are you cutting in the middle? Like think through all the different things you'd have to do to make achieving that possible. And it could just be three things and that's totally fine.

Nikki Miller:

And ultimately what I think is so important here, Chris, is I always explain to people this. There are multiple strategies because there's not one way for us to achieve this overall priority. Priority identifies the most important things in order to get us to the goal. But we can almost never get there by doing only this one thing. So it may look like I need to make a little bit more money and I'm going to budget and I'm going to save. It might be I'm going to liquidate asset here and I'm going to make more money and I'm going to save. And that's why there are multiple strategies in any of these given categories, because very rarely are we able to achieve that ultimate priority by just doing one basic thing.

Chris Dixon:

Got it. And so we've gone from we've got a goal, what we wanted to show you guys was to to take a goal and break it apart into priorities like these going from 50,000ft to 30,000ft. Those three -- and Nikki identified three priorities in priority order that would get her to her goal. Then we zoomed in on priority number one and started looking at strategies. And then you can just replicate that for each of the priorities. And we did this in five, seven minutes.

This kind of thing can take you with a team multiple days sometimes. If it's just you and yourself and your goal is relatively simple, then you could probably do it in an hour or maybe two, just the mental mapping. But it's important that you really take the time and do the digging to get the clarity you need and not rush through it. And we just wanted to give you an example that you could relate to of what these different, this acronym stands for the Goal, Priorities and Strategies.

Nikki Miller:

And ultimately, the challenge will be for all of you listening to this and then taking it in order to be able to implement it in your own goal setting journey or in your own journey, in your business life, whatever you're using it for is to take the information that you have and challenge yourself to get very specific and then put it in the right order. The biggest challenge that we see in people building out these goals and then putting it into a 411, which we'll get to in a second, is that they don't make it specific enough.

Again, I go back to my example of I want to draw more or make more. More is never a specific. It's got to be a measurable goal that you can identify and almost always going to be time bound in this case, in the example of a GPS going to be usually about a year and you can shorten it if you need to. You just tighten up those priorities and strategies.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. Yeah. And keep in mind, the purpose of doing this is to get clarity on what it's going to take to achieve your goal. And so many people will, especially if you don't have the accountability of a team that's depending on you to provide this clarity, the tendency is to just toss the goal up and start working at it and not do the heavy lifting on the front end to break it apart.

And that's why this process is so valuable. You sit down and do the mind mapping to say, okay, what are all the kind of nuts and bolts of what it's going to take to hit this goal? And then you're simplifying those into the 20 percent priorities that are going to get you there and asking yourself, all right, look at them holistically. Just these and the three that Nikki identified, do these have the sufficiency to get me to my goal? If the answer is yes, all right, you're on track. If no, get back to the drawing board, figure out what you got to do differently. And until you feel good about that, then zoom into the strategies, do the same work. And it's an investment of clarity. And so that you've gotten yourself a comprehensive view on what it's going to take to achieve it. Then you can start road mapping your way to it.

Nikki Miller:

Right. And I go back to the example I gave earlier, Chris, is the biggest challenge we see is not that people don't have goals or don't know how to set goals, it's that they don't know how to line up their somedays with today. They don't know what to do today in order to be able to get there. And the purpose of goal setting is simply to inform what you should be doing today. A purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in this moment. How do I need to behave today? Whereas if I line up enough today is it's going to get me to my ultimate tomorrow, that future that I'm looking for.

And so that's all this is. So then we wanted to walk you through how you take this and how it informs the 411. So Chris, if you're coaching, you are coaching me on this. So if you were coaching me on this as your coachee, and I said, this is my goal, how would I take all this information I've provided in the example, we can just use the first priority, which was save 20 percent down. How would I take this into my 411 in order to dictate what I should be doing today?

Chris Dixon:

So if you look at your GPS as your North Star, you're kind of single source of truth on all of the nuts and bolts, as we said, to achieve your goal. Then you're looking at the 411 and pulling over these critical milestones. So if there is a specific place you need to get to, here's an example. Right now, we're mid-August, and this will come out in a couple of weeks, so it will be great time you're listening to at the beginning of September, you could ask yourself, what's the single most important thing I need to accomplish by the end of September to be on track to achieve my goal for the year?

And you're referencing your GPS to identify what that specific milestone is going to be. And it could be for you that your priority number one was a certain amount of cash, that you needed $95 grand that you needed to save. So it could be for the month of September. I need to go build my budget and I need to establish what my savings and budget is going to be for the remainder of this year and through 2024 to hit that goal. And I need to do that work. And that's my goal for the end of September, to have that done. Then you go into the week and say, okay, well what's the single most important thing I need to accomplish this week to be on track for my budget? It's like, you know what, I need to time block two hours next week to sit down, not multitask and do the heavy lifting and figure out what the specifics of that are. And that's how I would translate these two things. Nikki, what are your thoughts?

Nikki Miller:

So perfectly, said Chris. And where I would use this is you identify those bigger goals, those milestone items that you need to achieve, and then you also take what needs to be happening on a yearly basis in order for me to reach this overarching goal for -- or excuse me, on a weekly basis or a daily basis in order for me to reach this overarching goal for the year. So what that could also look like is, okay, going back to priority one, which is I'm going to save $95,000 for my downpayment. Well, that would translate to, forgive if my math is not exactly right, but roughly $8,000 a month or so. So I need to save $8,000 a month.

So if in the month of September, for example, I didn't save my $8000, maybe I saved six. Well, then ultimately next month, if you listen to our 411 episode, you would know that your goal is no longer I need to save $8000. It's now this month, I need to save $10,000. And so you use these action items in order to inform what needs to be happening today and then how to adjust moving forward.

Again, the GPS is the example I gave earlier if you take the motion, the idea of researching and informing what I should be doing in order to get to this overall goal. And then you take it into actual action. And where you use this, if you're running a business wherein you have multiple people who may be involved in these priorities, is you break apart who is responsible for what underneath each of these priorities.

In this example, this is you doing everything. You are responsible for all of this, but maybe you're making this for your business or for your family or for your team, whatever that looks like. And then you can take the overall strategies within the priorities and deliver those strategies to your team to inform their 411. And that's where I think this gets so powerful that you all see how you are involved in the overall plan in order to get to that greater goal.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, that's 100 percent. And it adds layers of complexity that you have to work through. And that's the responsibility of certain managers or participants to kind of connect these dots. But if the GPS is the one-page business plan for the organization, the 20 percent things that we're going to focus on as a team, for example, to achieve the goal for the year for the business, then you can distribute those responsibilities across your team and then everybody attaches to it.

So you've got five team members all tracking at that document and then you have ownership on it, like who's got which piece of what? And you have to just do the work to make sure it all connects together. You can have multiple 411s running off of one GPS and you just have to have the kind of 100,000-foot view across all of them to make sure it all rolls up.

Nikki Miller:

And I think what's so important about that, Chris, especially when you do start using this in a team environment, is that ultimately this is a living, breathing document. We don't set the GPS at the beginning of the year and then forget about it, and set the 411 and then forget about it. You're constantly coming back to these. And when we talked about the 411 episode, we got so much feedback from those of you who emailed or messaged us on Instagram. And we love hearing from you, by the way, because so many of you said we didn't realize how often we should be looking at our 411.

And the GPS is really the same way. We want to make sure that we're still on track in order to get to that greater goal. We want to make sure that we're still tracking with where we want to go. And so the GPS isn't the plan, and then you set it and forget it and then only look at your 411. Ultimately, you should really be looking at both. You're not changing your GPS every single month. That would be strange. The goal shouldn't be changing all that consistently, but perhaps you've gotten further than your priorities may have dictated six months through the year as opposed to the whole year that you planned for, and you may need to reorient after six months or so or maybe a quarter. Or maybe the market has changed and so, you need to add reorient a priority or reorient a team member who's responsible for one of the strategies within the priorities. So this absolutely can change.

And that's one of the common mistakes that we see. People get really stuck on their GPS that it should remain strictly the same throughout the year. And sometimes it does in fact shift and does have to change. Again, not every single week or every single month. That would be strange. And yet this is still a living, breathing document where you may need to make changes on the way to that greater goal. What are some of the challenges you see people face when they're building this out, Chris, or implementing it is really where we typically see the challenges?

Chris Dixon:

One of the biggest ones you just nailed is not revisiting the GPS and then having the discussion with yourself or as a team around what's changed, shifted, evolved, like where are we, on track or off track for each one of these? Based on that, what do we need to do differently in the upcoming month to get back on track? That's so powerful in creating this kind of rigor and routine around a monthly review of. And to your point, you don't want to just change everything all the time because then you're just going to be chasing in circles. It's very shortsighted. But you do need to at least revisit the plan and adjust your monthly activities and goals that are going to either catch back up if you're off track or continue to play with the lead, if you're on track or ahead. And that's really important.

I'd say also that people, when doing this process, will sometimes lose the thread on its core purpose and try to fall. And they either, not intentionally, but I think unintentionally fall into like intellectual rabbit holes of trying to create all this connectivity across everything that everyone's doing all the time. And the beauty is in the simplicity, right? It's intended to be a simple tool that gives you clarity and you got to just understand it for what it is and not try it, because there's no one size fits.

You're not going to have one thing that works for everybody all the time, that connects perfectly with perfect symmetry. And that's just not realistic. It's about creating a true North for yourself or anyone that's attached to it, so they know what they're marching towards. And I think that's something we see more often, especially someone new to it is they try to use really complex language, or they try to find additional tools that add complexity to make it all kind of work together. And it's like you got to kind of let some of that go and just understand that it's intended to be simple, to give direction so people have a calibrated compass.

Nikki Miller:

I think that's so important, Chris. And we do see that all the time that people make it over complicated or make it far too big. I think that's another challenge that we see often, too. Again, typically the GPS I usually tell people is about 12 months. It's time bound within a year. Of course you can make a bigger one. And yet that will also mean more priorities and more strategies. But ultimately, it's usually in about a year. And when we make it too complicated or we make it too big, it just makes it unachievable.

So, for example, in the example we use today, if you said, well, it would be impossible for me to execute that strategy within one year, well then make it smaller or make it more simple. In this example, maybe it's this year, I'm going to save $40,000, or this year I'm going to save $10,000 in order to get to that future goal. So we often see people make this so, so difficult to achieve that it would be impossible within the time that they've set it. And so you have to make sure it's achievable, specific and achievable and simple. To your point, Chris, we have to make it clear so that it actually can be followed.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, absolutely. And keep in mind, not everything that everyone is doing in the business is going to be represented. Or even for yourself, every activity that you're doing is going to be represented on the GPS. It's designed not to be everything, right? It's designed to be the 20 percent. You're saying, hey, here's the goal for the year. This is what we want to get to. Now, let's figure out the 20 percent, separate that from everything else.

When I say the 20 percent for context, 80-20 rule, what is the high ROI 20 percent of all your activities that would deliver 80 percent of your results and apply that where it's appropriate to you. But the idea is we're separating those things and keeping line of sight on them. When fires pop up and things happen and everything's crazy, like you can still have that stuff isolated by itself. Well, everything else and all the other activity is happening and the GPS won't capture everything. It's not intended to capture everything. So you're going to have a lot of other work that's happening simultaneously. And that's important to know too.

Nikki Miller:

One hundred percent. The example I always give is the GPS is designed to give your overall destination and the rough directions on the way to get there. It's not going to inform every single stop sign, every single turn, every single red light that you're going to hit. So ultimately, give yourself the flexibility to have the general direction and a specific enough strategy underneath each of those priorities to be able to achieve them. But don't get stuck in such minute details that it makes it impossible to achieve.

So let's walk everyone through really quick, Chris, one more time goal setting to the now. So all of you asked how to inform the 411 which is really this, the GPS. We start with the GPS. We start with the direction that we want to go. What is our end destination? What does success look like? Where are we trying to achieve? And then we bring it to the 411, which dictates what I'm going to be doing today. So the GPS informs what I'm going to put on my 411 which is really my action item.

And then we take that 411. And then we use it on a day-to-day basis in order to inform our overall priorities. So in other words, how am I going to prioritize my day to achieve what I need to achieve on the way to that greater goal, we ask our self the focusing question, which again is what's the one thing I could do such that by doing it makes everything else easier or unnecessary? And then we time block for the most important things.

In other words, we make time for what matters most, and then we make time for the things that matter least. And then we ensure that we stay accountable on that journey, which is part of the 411, but also is ultimately getting a coach. What's the one thing you would leave everyone with, Chris, in using this GPS and using this as an overall strategy in order to hit their goal? What's the one thing you would leave everyone with in terms of how to use this at the highest level and how to achieve with it?

Chris Dixon:

I'd say first, don't go after trying to achieve big goals without doing this work and getting the clarity you need to have a simple directional document that everyone, including if it's just yourself, can attach to that you revisit over time. And if you have the ability to do it, don't go after this by yourself. You want a second set of eyes. You want some accountability in the process.

So if you're a solopreneur or if you're working on a personal goal, like trying to run a marathon, highly suggest you do this process, too, because it's going to give you so much extra clarity and help you stay on track. It's incredible. Consider bringing somebody else into your world. Think about bringing us. We are experts in doing this, so we think, and we'd love to be a part of doing that with you. So don't skip out on this part of the process. Get a one-page plan in place. We believe in this framework, the GPS, and hopefully we can be part of that with you.

Nikki Miller:

I love that, Chris. I think what you just said is so important and I think often where so many people get discouraged on their way to their goals is that they miss this most important part, that they don't take the time to actually create a plan. So they might feel like they're off track. And so often we succeed so slowly. We feel like we're failing because we have nothing that shows us that what we're doing every single day adds up to this greater goal. And so I love that you said that.

It is so important to find accountability, to find someone to support you along the way, just to be encouraged and to know that you're still headed in the right direction. So we hope this was helpful. We love the questions that you've been asking. Remember that at least once a month, we're trying to do answer your questions, live coach you through things if we have the opportunity.

So if you have questions that you want answered, if you want to learn more about these productivity tools or you want us to deep dive into something, send your questions into podcast at theonething.com. That's the, number onething.com. Or join us, as Chris said, join us for a free coaching session or come to our goal setting retreat at the end of the year. It's going to be in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Fairmont. It's going to be an absolutely incredible experience in November.

And we can't wait to walk the hundreds of people that attend that event with us through really setting themselves up for success that following year. And so many people bring their significant others, which is an incredible experience to which, Chris, I think your point not just about having a coach around accountability, I know what you also mean is having someone to support you along the way there too. So we hope you'll join us for that or for a free coaching session or for a foundations workshop where we really walk you through how to do this.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely, Nikki. Good luck. If you have a GPS built and you haven't included your partner in that process, I think you might have torpedoes in the water already.

Nikki Miller:

Yes. Make sure that you get your team, which is your team at home or your team around you at work on board with whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. Because ultimately, together we can all achieve more. Thank you for sending this question and we hope this helps. And we can't wait to hear from all of you who are building out your own GPSs. We look forward to your feedback and to how you're using this in your own business and in your own life. And we will look forward to the next round of questions. And thanks for listening here today with us. And we'll see you next time.

Chris Dixon:

Bye, everybody.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to the One Thing podcast. If you're a bold risk taker who wants to dream big and achieve a higher level of success in your life or business, visit theonething.com. There, you'll find information on one-on-one coaching, our exclusive community membership program, and customized workshops that will help you get your team or organization aligned and rowing in the same direction. That's T-H-E, the number one.com to start living the life you've always dreamed of today. Be sure to follow the show, to stay up to date on weekly episodes, guest interviews and more. Plus, we would love to hear from you. Send us a voice note by going to speakpipe.com/theonething or email us at podcast@theonething.com. We'll see you next week.