Jay Papasan:
Hey, gang. This week, my guest is my lovely wife, Wendy. And we’re gonna talk about something we’ve been doing for more than two decades, the Goal-Setting Retreat. We’ll also be previewing some of what you can expect if you come to our very last ONE Thing Summit and Goal-Setting Retreat on November 13th and 14th. And just so you don’t have to wait till the end, if you wanna go check that out, it’s at the1thing.com/summit. It’s also in the notes for this podcast. 

This week, we’re gonna cover what is a Goal-Setting Retreat, why it’s important, how to prepare for it, how to do it, and cover some of the big mistakes that people make and how to avoid them. So, it’s a pretty comprehensive deep dive in preparation for our last ever ONE Thing Summit and Goal-Setting Retreat. Enjoy this episode, folks.

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Jay Papasan:
I’m Jay Papasan. And this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results

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Jay Papasan:
Before we dive into, kind of, how to do a goal-setting retreat and why it’s important, why don’t you take us back to the origin story and tell us how it started, Wendy? 

Wendy Papasan:
Sure. So, our kids were pretty young. Our kids were 15 months apart and had been a whirlwind of diapers and bottle feeding and all that good stuff. And so, I was just at the point where I’d been out of my job for two years, and I kind of needed to start thinking forward about what was next for me outside of being a mom. 

And so, I suggested that we take a trip, we take a weekend for ourselves, and I booked a couple nights at an Airbnb in the Hill Country. And I said to Jay,  I said to you, I said, “Let’s do a goal-setting retreat. Like, let’s get together, let’s get on the same page as a couple.” And honestly, it’s been quite remarkable,  this habit we’ve had for 20-plus years. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, it started in 2006. I remember we got an overnight babysitter. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
It was one of the first times, ’cause we didn’t have any grandparents. 

Wendy Papasan:
We had no family. Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
No family in town. 

Jay Papasan:
It was just one of the reasons it started to get real. Like, we needed to get on the same page, ’cause we didn’t have much relief coming. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, our first son was eight months old when I got pregnant. So, it had been a whirlwind couple of years. Yeah. I just remember being excited for something, you know. And I had downloaded some questions that I thought would be appropriate from some – I don’t know – church website or something that I had modified for us for the weekend.

Jay Papasan:
I feel like, at least, one of them came from oprah.com. I just remember you sourced them-

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, really? 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh. 

Jay Papasan:
It was like, “Oh, I like that one.” It’s like, I think that was Oprah’s. 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, yeah. Well, probably. She’s the queen, so. 

Jay Papasan:
I remember being a little nervous, ’cause I didn’t know what we were getting into. But I also remember it also feeling like a treat because-

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, it was a treat.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
We had, like, a fireplace there. I think we got a massage. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, it was so cute. It was, like, right on a river, and I had this whole schedule planned out for us for the weekend. We had a nice dinner out. And the next morning, we kinda took it slow. And then, we started asking some questions, and then we had a nice lunch, and then we had a massage planned for the afternoon. And then, more questions and planning in the afternoon. And so, yeah. So, that’s where it all began. 

Jay Papasan:
I think you pointed out last year when we were introducing the, kind of, the goal-setting process that my first year that we did this, I didn’t set a single professional goal. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
That’s so wild. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Well, I think it’s… You know, I’ve said this before, but I think goal setting is a muscle, and it’s a muscle that can grow over time. And you and I are both pretty strategic. And I think we’ve developed that strength of strategy over the years through this goal-setting retreat and all the planning we’ve done over the years.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, this year we did… We were in New York. We planned it for a trip we were taking, and we did it in our hotel room. It’s the 21st time that we’ve done it together, and it’s evolved a lot. Like, in the beginning, it started with the questions. At some point when we were writing The ONE Thing, like, we would do the questions and we would set our goals for the next year.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, and the questions were… I think the questions were great, because that set a foundation for us as a family. You know, I think you can have your life together before you have children. And then, all of a sudden, you have children and there’s other questions that you need to ask. And then, as you’re growing and life is changing, you’re at a different age and a different stage, and so those questions evolve. 

You know. I mean, lately, it’s like, what are… You know, we’ve got aging parents now. What does that look like? Or a few years ago it was like, let’s talk about college and what does that look like, and are we on the same page as far as that goes? And it’s just one of these things where when you’re sitting around the kitchen table, and the kids have sports, and life is busy, you’re just not asking questions, thoughtful questions like that.

Jay Papasan:
You’re making space for conversations that don’t happen naturally. 

Wendy Papasan:
Right. 

Jay Papasan:
But the process has evolved. Like when people jump into our goal-setting retreat now, they see the evolution over the two decades. We built in some of the stuff from The ONE Thing. We built in, gosh, the someday letter over the last couple of years. So, there’s lots of parts that we’ll talk through, but that’s not where we started. 

And I’ll just say, if you’re thinking about doing this for yourself, or with your significant other, or even with your business partners, like, you can start where you are. And you said it, your goal-setting muscle gets stronger the more you use it. So, just practice. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. When I remember some of those very first years when I started my real estate business, so this would be, I guess I started about three years after we did goal setting, and I didn’t know how to do a business plan. I mean, we would spend the majority of the day just me trying to figure out, like, what does this look like? I have no idea. And now, of course, I do that separately inside of my business, and I bring that to the retreat. But back then, when I was trying to figure all that stuff out, we had to do it there. 

Jay Papasan:
I think that’s a natural segue. If someone’s thinking about doing a goal-setting retreat, obviously, we’re gonna invite everybody to do it with us on November 13th and 14th. But we do a certain amount of preparation so that when we set aside that time,  we wanna always usually have at least a day and a half, maybe two days total, but a day and a half.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, two. I would say two nights is ideal at the beginning. Yeah, just because depending where you are in your relationship, there needs to be even a certain amount of trust for that to happen. You might be the person who’s dragging the other person along and it has to also just feel like fun, too. You know, I always tell people who have a “drag along” spouse, I’m like, “Sell the benefits. Two nights away,  no children, massage, dinner,” all that. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, we always warmed up with a nice dinner and just kinda talked very casually, so it didn’t feel formal ’cause that’s part of the weirdness of it. 

Wendy Papasan:
Super weird. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, that we’re actually treating it, the marriage and the relationship, like a business. 

Wendy Papasan:
Right, yeah, it’s super weird. 

Jay Papasan:
So, it’s unusual. So, if we were gonna go in and give people advice. So, if we were gonna give people just a handful of tips, if you’re planning on doing this, what is some work that is really helpful to do before you show up for the goal resetting retreat? What comes to mind for you? 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, obviously, you need to pick a date and get something on the calendar. We’ve typically done it anywhere from October, I would say has been our earliest. Well, actually, this year was the earliest. It was probably September. 

Jay Papasan:
September. 

Wendy Papasan:
Super early, and that just coincided with a trip we had. More likely it’s October or November. We’ve had it as late as January. January’s a little late. And if that’s what you can do, that’s what you can do. So, get those dates on the calendar. If you need to book family to watch your kids or a babysitter, that’s obviously the first thing. 

Jay Papasan:
‘Cause you wanna get out of your habitat. I don’t know when we realized that was important. Originally, we did it so that we would do it. Let’s go out. 

Wendy Papasan:
I mean, I just like to get out. We love to travel. And so, there are probably lots of people out there who send their kids over to grandma’s and do it at their house. But for me, especially when you have young children, like, your home is that place. And so, just getting out, booking a hotel or an Airbnb. I mean, for many years we just went on Hotel Tonight and picked the cheapest one in downtown Austin. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
And that worked great. You know? 

Jay Papasan:
Totally. 

Wendy Papasan:
That worked great for us, so yeah. And then, of course, logistics, figuring out your kids, what are the pets doing? Just remove all the excuses in advance. If you run a business, then make sure you’ve got your autoresponder on for the full weekend or get someone to cover for you, so you’re not having to pop back in and out of goal setting flow and work distractions.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah,  we’re trying to create space for people to dream that don’t normally make space for it. And if you’re at the house and you’re seeing chores that are undone, laundry that needs to be done, or if you’re getting work calls, like, that’s gonna interrupt the flow. That’s why we always just kind of… At this point, it’s now best practice. Plan to be out of your home and plan to have coverage for the kids, the pets, the work, so that you at least for these two nights, at least one full day, two nights, you can just kind of be wholly in this place where you’re kind of looking at the future. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. And then, you want to bring  any business plan. So, if you’re a business owner, bring your GPS, bring your one-page business plan, and make sure that’s done before you arrive. You know, you’ll save time. If both of you work on the business, it’s probably a good use of time to maybe work on it together. But if they’re separate, I know we’ve saved a lot of time just doing that in the past.

Jay Papasan:
So, I think kind of coming in with some thoughts about your individual goals, if you’re running a business, come in with some semblance of a plan that your partner… You can either get them on the page, like, “This is where this business is going this year. This is why.” That way, you can spend more time on the why of it than the what. Though I’ll admit there have been years where we just said like, “I’m struggling,” like those early years, and we spent a lot of time purposely building out a plan together where we really didn’t know how to do it. 

The other one would be dates. Like, a big part of the process for me is kind of looking at the calendar for the year. And so, I know we’ve done it during the event, but it’s always better when I remember to do it, or you remember to do it beforehand. Like, when are the kids’ spring breaks? When does the school year end? Are there big events like a national convention? Like in KW, we always had two huge events, and I was trying to get the dates for them. When will the mid-year event? Will it be… when will the February- 

Wendy Papasan:
So, have a list of those rolling into it, is what you’re saying? 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah.  If you have all of that, then you’re not wasting a lot of time getting online, looking up dates, and just guessing because it’s really fun. That’s one of my favorite parts, is, like, planning vacations.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, for sure. That’s the fun part. 

Jay Papasan:
Because now you can kind of plan it around the work. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. And then you want to just name the nerves. So, if you are the person who’s bringing your spouse or your partner along, just say, “Listen, this might feel weird. This might feel uncomfortable.” I mean, I’ve had so many conversations with people where they’re like, “My partner is just not into that. They do not want to do that.” So, just help them understand what the process is going to be like because if you’re an entrepreneur, you might just be hard-charging, and your partner probably knows who you are, and they might think that that’s going to be what the weekend is all about – ton of questions, tons of interrogation, “Am I going to live up to it?” So, paint a better picture. You know, it’s like I said before, sell the benefits of what it’s going to look like. Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
I think the last thing I can think of to prep, we advocate that there’s a conversation, and it’s not always comfortable for people around money and wealth because, like, and most of the research shows that the number one reason most couples fight is money. So, if you needed to do prep work, like what is our monthly budget? What do we want it to be? If you’ve started your investing journey, like do we have a net worth sheet, and what do we want to set goals around? Again, those are things that you can end up having to do a little bit of research and planning for, so that prep work pays off, ’cause now you can sit in and sit down together and just say, “Where do we want to go? Why is that important to both of us?” And kind of get on the same page. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, I love that. And really just understanding what your intention is for it. Like what do you want to get out of it? It’ll be a question that you would probably ask at the beginning of the retreat, but you as each individual partner rolling in with that intention in your head is, it would be a great idea.

Jay Papasan:
It’s one of the reasons sometimes when we facilitate this, we’ll do an exercise where people kind of rate the different areas of their life. How’s it going with your health, with your spirituality? And I find that, a lot of times, people really wanna focus on the part of their life that’s just not doing well. If they’ve got a bad relationship that they need to work on, or health, that kind of gives them focus going into the year. It’s like, “I’m really tired of this thing holding me back. I wanna figure it out this year.” 

Let’s talk about the actual process. When I think about kind of the pivotal pieces, there’s the kind of, if you think about the way we organize The ONE Thing, purpose, um, priorities, and then kind of productivity. Like, the purpose is, like, what is the big picture that we’re after? And we used to talk about writing a purpose statement or doing your core values, and we still do. We’ve added a new piece called the Sunday letter, which is about going out at least 10 years in the future and really allowing yourself to kind of dream, like, what kind of life do I wanna be living, what kind of life do we wanna be living? And we’re putting an anchor out in the future around the things that matter most to us that is unfettered by your current position. 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, and I love that because it just allows both people to dream kind of on their own terms. And I know for you and I that’s just been really valuable to understand even what a dream might look like 10 years in the future. And I know for some, that’s so hard, and I can’t emphasize it enough, which is this idea that goal-setting is a muscle. You start out with a little baby sense of it. And then, the more you do it, the stronger you get over time. 

And so I know for me, we set some goals way back when, and a part of me was like, “There’s just no way. There’s no way it’s gonna happen.” And now, I really understand that a lot of them won’t happen, but a lot of them will, you know? And so, to have that 10-year perspective on your partner is honestly so powerful. You know, it’s helped us make decisions together that I may personally not have been into, you know? But because I knew some of these things were on your bucket list-

Jay Papasan:
Well, that was the ranch. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, that was the ranch. 

Jay Papasan:
We told that story ’cause, like, it made no sense for us as investors to wanna go buy a big piece of property with animals on it that we wanted to feed. 

Wendy Papasan:
We bought a zoo. Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. We bought a zoo, but then you kind of saw it on my annual five-year goal plan- for, like, three years before it kind of crystallized, and we got an unexpected partner, and it suddenly made sense. 

Wendy Papasan:
Right, yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
So, seeing it again and again, but there’s been a dozen of those ideas that eventually- 

Wendy Papasan:
Never materialized.

Jay Papasan:
… you’re like, “This is not gonna happen,” right? 

Wendy Papasan:
Never materialized. 

Jay Papasan:
And we’ll just cross it off.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and what’s interesting is on this last goal-setting retreat, one of our goals is to sell the ranch. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
So, what was important to us 12 years ago is not important to us anymore now that our kids are grown, and they don’t really go out there with us. They go out there with their friends and do nefarious things out there that I don’t wanna know about. And so, yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
Somehow, the buggy got broken again. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
How did that happen? 

Wendy Papasan:
I know. How did it happen? So yeah, so there’s just an age and stage for everything. And I think, too, even as you age, sometimes it’s easy just to let things kind of keep running and not really question it, right, or make a change around it. And so, things just come full circle, like the ranch. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. I think you’re hitting on something that I’ve been talking about a lot this year on the podcast, is kind of like there are times- 

Wendy Papasan:
I’ll make a list and- 

Jay Papasan:
…that you’re adding and times that you’re subtracting. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
Like this year, one of our a-has when we were setting goals is that we were both kind of subtracting a lot of things.

Wendy Papasan:
So true. Yeah, so true. 

Jay Papasan:
And we weren’t quite sure what we were making space for, but that was your observation is, like, I think I’m realizing, like, we’re making space for the next thing. We don’t know what it is yet. But because you do it every year, and you get to look at your past year’s goals and what you’re doing this year, like, you can start to see a pattern when you start to do this for a little while.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah. It’s really cool. 

Jay Papasan:
That was really powerful. One of the steps that I just go confess, we always make available to the attendees and for people who are doing it is the thought-provoking questions where we started. I haven’t done those since several years. 

Wendy Papasan:
It’s true. We probably need to do them again.

Jay Papasan:
I know. Just calling myself out. And I think the reason- 

Wendy Papasan:
Why don’t we just do that, and that can be a podcast. 

Jay Papasan:
There we go. 

Wendy Papasan:
You know, just reveal our answers. 

Jay Papasan:
There we go. I like it because we really worked with a team to think about whether you’re an individual, a couple, or a team, what are all the things that might come up at different stages of life. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Well, and it’s great because one of the things I love is having friends who are in a different stage of life than me, because they’re always bringing me awareness about what’s gonna come next for us and our family. And so, this is kind of… This helps you with that. It’s like a leg up. It’s like, “Okay, well, your kids are 10. They’re gonna be going off to college in eight years. Have you started saving? What does that look like?” Or private school, or  have you started saving for your kids’ car, if you’re gonna get them a car for their 16th birthday? You know, all of those things are on there.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. It’s like one of the big ahas we had, I don’t know, maybe three years ago. When your kids turn 18, like, you have to get their permission to talk to their doctors. 

Wendy Papasan:
I mean, the cost of the summit alone, just by the questions, worth it. 

Jay Papasan:
But we’ll just commit here publicly, we will go back and do those, because it helps you identify areas that we’re not talking about, that we… Oh, gosh, we do need to think about a will or a trust or whatever that is. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah. Wealth protection versus- 

Jay Papasan:
And it just wasn’t on our radar. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. To get back to how we run it, and I guess we got a little distracted there. So, really, like we said before, you’re gonna mix fun with work. And so, you want to have a night out. A massage would be great. You know, I think we had some of that first year maybe come to us, I can’t remember. 

Jay Papasan:
Because we were in a cabin. 

Wendy Papasan:
We were in a cabin, yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
They came to us. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Just spending some quiet time, having a cup of coffee in the morning. And that kind of rest and honestly, trust, that’s building trust, makes everything else a lot easier.

Jay Papasan:
I always like us, like we talked about it before, the dinner the night before. This year, you didn’t want to. You wanted to save it for the end. But a lot of times, because we love to travel so much, that is where we kind of talk like, “Oh, let’s talk about our bucket list.” So, like, starting with fun and ending with fun does make some of the hard work a little easier.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Yeah. You make me sound like the bad guy. 

Jay Papasan:
The smart one. I make you sound like the smart one, ’cause I think in our notes here, there’s the dawdler, and I think that would be me. 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, the dawdler. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, the dawdler. 

Wendy Papasan:
The dawdler. Yeah, that’s true. 

Jay Papasan:
Oh, I wanna finish reading the paper, or oh- 

Wendy Papasan:
This is the instigator, but I think it’s more like the activator.

Jay Papasan:
Activator. Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Let’s get it done. 

Jay Papasan:
We know who’s who in this family. I’ll own my part.  Like, especially when we had the young kids, the idea of being able to just sit there and drink a cup of coffee without someone vomiting on your lap or whatever is like, yes. 

Wendy Papasan:
It’s the best.

Jay Papasan:
A little bit more on just the process. From there, we usually go to five-year and one-year goals and kind of break them down. Like based on our someday, what are our five-year goals? And I’ll say this, we’ve got those pretty dialed in. Like, we’ve gotten really good at setting five-year goals and kind of figuring out how to hit them. I don’t think we were very good in the beginning, but we got better at it. 

Wendy Papasan:
And what I love is like sometimes there’s just a… you know,  there’s phases in life. And I think for us we’ve had several hard years with some deaths and a lot of stuff going on personally and professionally. And this last year, we’ve been able to focus more on ourself. So, it was fun to roll into this retreat and be like, “Wow, we really hit all of our health goals for, like, the first time in quite a few years.” So, that felt really good.

Jay Papasan:
It’s fun to check off some things and go, “Wow, okay, we actually made it.” If you didn’t do it beforehand, your GPS or business plan, you can kind of now refine it. We, usually, if you’re a fan of this podcast, you’ve heard of the 411. Based on those goals, you can kind of build your 411. And honestly, we do the goals. I don’t usually build the 411 till we’re close to the new year. 

Wendy Papasan:
No, we don’t. We don’t. And I just would encourage everyone to think bigger about-

Jay Papasan:
Everything.

Wendy Papasan:
About everything. Yeah, I know, especially, I can remember way back when, when we set a net worth goal of becoming a net worth millionaire, and in my mind I was like, “That’s not gonna happen. That’s ridiculous.” You know, at the time, I think our net worth was a couple thousand dollars. I  just honestly didn’t think it was possible. And at the same time I said, “You know what? Let’s give it a shot. Let’s try.”  And then, the next year, seeing how much we’ve grown, I was able to think a little bit bigger and think a little bit bigger and think a little bit bigger. And then, all of a sudden. you look up and not only have you become a net worth millionaire, you’ve 10X’d that goal over time.

And so, if you’re not at the place where you’re thinking really big ’cause I just never was. You know, I think some of that was just growing up kinda lower middle class and not really having a lot of examples in my life. And so, yeah, it just takes some time to think bigger. And just trust the process, you know. Just know that next year you’ll think bigger than this year, and whatever that looks like for you is whatever it looks like for you. 

Jay Papasan:
I think there is some magic to throwing out a big goal, because the way we set it up, you, like, you have a five year goal of… Let’s say we had a 10-year goal of being a millionaire. Based on that, where do we want to be in five years? The Goal Setting to the Now process. By the fact that you’re actually amateurishly, ignorantly, without any actual expertise backing it down to, well, what do we actually have to do? When we set that millionaire goal, we had no clue. 

Wendy Papasan:
No clue. 

Jay Papasan:
But we were like, “I think we need to save about $1,500 a month.” And we just kinda did that. 

Wendy Papasan:
We did that. 

Jay Papasan:
And then, that started to add up. It wasn’t the right number, but it was close enough. And then you adjust along the way. But it gets you to a closer action to might actually get you there than just dreaming about it. 

Wendy Papasan:
Sure, yeah. Pick a goal, take action, course correct. Pick a goal, take action, course correct. 

Jay Papasan:
Course correct. Course correct. Course correct. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
What happens when you disagree? How do we get past that? Does that happen? I mean, I feel like we’ve gotten really good at deciding together.

Wendy Papasan:
We never disagree. We never disagree. 

Jay Papasan:
Yes, we do.

Wendy Papasan:
Well, I think we both got goals on there. And I would say, usually, one of us takes ownership over the goal, right? I think you have to kind of have a leader for the goal that can implement things over time. 

Jay Papasan:
That’s how you make it stick for sure. Okay. I think that, I think- 

Wendy Papasan:
You’re just talking about what to put on there.

Jay Papasan:
I’m trying to think of when we’ve disagreed and how… ‘Cause there’s people who are gonna do this based on this podcast for the first time. They might be worried about, “Well, what if we don’t agree on where we’re going?” 

Wendy Papasan:
I think sometimes that you just put stuff on there, and maybe know it doesn’t know it’s not gonna happen, you know?

Jay Papasan:
Like the ranch? 

Wendy Papasan:
Like the ranch, or like I can feel like for me over the years I’ve wanted to do things to the ranch, you know? At one point I was like, “Oh, let’s, let’s plant some apple trees on there,” or whatever. And then, you just sort of realize, like, well, if you don’t take ownership over it and make that happen and figure out how to pay for it, it’s not gonna happen. And so, then it was never a priority enough for me to really make it happen. 

Jay Papasan:
Well, that’s actually kind of maybe the gift of it ’cause you’re not setting a goal for the next 12 months if you’re setting, like, a five-year or someday goal. What’s the cost of saying, “Sure, let’s try”? Because the worst thing that’s gonna happen is you’ll both look up a year later and go, “Did we really wanna do that?” 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, even I look at that, you know, we did that very extensive vacation planning based on essentially five-year chunks. 

Jay Papasan:
So, yeah, we read- 

Wendy Papasan:
So, like from 55 to 60.

Jay Papasan:
… Die With Zero. 

Wendy Papasan:
Die With Zero- 

Jay Papasan:
Great book.

Wendy Papasan:
By Bill Parkins. Yeah, super good.

Jay Papasan:
And he kinda talked about your go-go years. Go-go years. Your slow-go years. Slow go. Your no-go years. And because we’re in our 50s, we’re like, “Oh, crap,” like, we don’t wanna look up and be in our slow-go or no-go years and still have places we really wanna go.

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. So, we created a very detailed sort of spreadsheet for all the places we wanted to go, and we slot it into all these different years. And it was on our goals to go to Japan in the next five years. We had it slated for, like, two years from now, and then you got a call from a friend of yours. 

Jay Papasan:
Todd. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, from Todd. Shout out to Todd. And asking you to go to Japan. And so, it’s like, “Okay, well, that’s not gonna happen.” And obviously, we’re not gonna be like, “No, we’re going in three years.” Like, you took advantage of it. So, I think that happens a lot. And yet the intention was to go to Japan in the next five years and we did. You know, we did. 

Jay Papasan:
And because you have some clarity about where you might be going down the road, like the fact that I keep talking about going to Antarctica, I’ve now got two friends- … who are like, “When are you gonna go ’cause maybe we’ll go, too.” And sometimes, that makes it easier, like, to say yes. Like, “Oh, we’ll all do a cruise together,” or, “We’ll all do it together.” I mean, that made it a lot easier for me to go to Japan going with someone who’d gone many times.

Wendy Papasan:
For sure, yeah, yeah.

——————————————

Jay Papasan:
How do we make it stick? I think you touched on this earlier. I think at the end of the process, we’ve done a pretty good job of either knowing or clearly declaring, like, who’s gonna run with this thing. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, I think it’s like work. When we do our work, um, sort of business plan, different team members take ownership over different pieces of the business and their job is executing that or, at least. overseeing it to make sure it happens. And it’s kind of the same thing in your personal life. And you can’t show up at your goal-setting retreat next year,  a whole year later, and not have, like, checked in on it with each other. So, there has to be some ongoing accountability, just like you would in your business. 

You know, we have a monthly leadership meeting, we have a weekly team meeting. Those are the things that help us stay on track and then course correct if we need to. So, you have to do that at home as well. 

Jay Papasan:
I think a lot of couples don’t do the regular weekly meetings until they have kids and have to juggle, like, pickups and drop-offs. And suddenly, like, the weekly calendar, it can’t be too cohabitating. They actually have to plan because there’s this dependent. 

Wendy Papasan:
Sure. 

Jay Papasan:
But it’s a great thing to do. So, like, we’ve built a habit where we do our weekly 411s. People who listen to the podcast have heard me. Like, Sunday mornings around 10:00, you’re probably gonna find one or both of us on the couch doing our 411, looking at our annual, monthly, and weekly goals, and those are coming from this process. I know we did one about a quarter of the year in. We did a little bit while we were in Japan. 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, and I think in very busy seasons, we’ve actually taken a second retreat.  You know, we’ve done that where everything’s felt very overwhelming and we just need to get out of town or just take a night out and  really check in with everything. And I think it’s so hard when you don’t have little kids to remember what that’s like. So, those of you out there listening who have young children, it’s a lot. It’s just a lot. It’s very difficult. And our lives look really different now than they did back then. And so, you’re really just doing the best that you can with what you’ve got right now, because it’s a very busy season.

Jay Papasan:
Well, I can remember back then, we were like, “We need to save up to get a new car because this car is not gonna handle multiple kids, and we had tuition, we had…” I mean, thankfully we didn’t have braces, which is kind of weird. 

Wendy Papasan:
I know. We have very nice teeth.

Jay Papasan:
But, like, that is also part of it. Like, oh, we’ve got to start a 529 for our kids’ college fund. It was, in some ways, just as complex when we were younger, but just so different. 

Wendy Papasan:
So different. Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
It’s so different. 

Wendy Papasan:
So different. So different. 

Jay Papasan:
What do you think are some of the big mistakes that people make that if we maybe pointed them out, they could avoid? 

Wendy Papasan:
I think one of the mistakes is, like you said, not checking in, right? So, getting all the way to next year. And I, for sure, know that there have been things on that list where we put them on that list, and we do not look at them for a whole year. I have no doubt that’s happened. 

Jay Papasan:
How do you check in with our bigger five-year goals? Do they all make it to your 411? Is that where they live? Or do you- 

Wendy Papasan:
They live on the 411, a lot of them. Yeah, a lot of them live on the 411. And my 411 has changed and adapted because obviously, when we started, I wasn’t using a 411. 

Jay Papasan:
No. 

Wendy Papasan:
You know? And I was a- 

Jay Papasan:
We had a little Word document with our goals on it

Wendy Papasan:
I was a stay-at-home mom. You know what I mean? I wasn’t, like, looking over my goals every week. And so, yeah, I mean, whatever that looks like quarterly. One of the things we have done, I think very well is we did do that weekly date night. And that gave us space every week. Not that we talked about our goals every week, which we would be lying if we did, said we did. But what that did was if there was something that came up, it gave us an opportunity to do that. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. I know that we both… We started maybe eight or nine years ago, like creating like Google Slides that we would put. Yeah. And that was be when we’re working together. 

Wendy Papasan:
You did that. I thought that was great. 

Jay Papasan:
And then we have it… and I just carry it around in my notebook now. So, it’s like somebody’s watching this on YouTube-

Wendy Papasan:
I love that. 

Jay Papasan:
… you know, I have our five-year goals, our one-year goals. I have some of the other things that we do.

Wendy Papasan:
I know, you’re so good. You carry around your 411 too. I don’t.

Jay Papasan:
I-

Wendy Papasan:
You should write a book on this, Jay. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah, I should write a book about it. I even carry my someday letter. 

Wendy Papasan:
I love it. 

Jay Papasan:
I just like… I know I won’t look at it. It’ll be somewhere on my computer and except when I’m updating it, this gives me a chance when I get to my desk if I want to write down notes. It’s my bookmark. 

Wendy Papasan:
I mean, I log in. I have my 411 open on my computer, and I click into it every day usually. 

Jay Papasan:
So that’s your… Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
I know some people that just have it as a tab that’s always open. 

Wendy Papasan:
Always open. 

Jay Papasan:
And so, they check it between. 

Wendy Papasan:
And then, I update that every week, and I’ve got all of my big goals at the top there. Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
However you do it-

Wendy Papasan:
Personal and professional.

Jay Papasan:
… the point is you’re gonna check in together, and you’re gonna find reasons to kind of take your goals for a date over the course of the weeks and months between. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Well, you asked about some mistakes, and I would say that one of the big mistakes is only setting business or financial goals. You know, life is about health. It’s about relationships. It’s about community service. It’s about hobbies. So, what are those other things that make life worth living that you want to talk about and make sure that you’re on the same page with?

Jay Papasan:
We set health goals. We set… Oh, gosh. Yeah, we have a lot of categories. On the relationships, a lot of times, we’ll have a category for each of our kids. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, we’ll do each of our kids.

Jay Papasan:
For our parents. 

Wendy Papasan:
Our parents. 

Jay Papasan:
Your sister. 

Wendy Papasan:
Mm-hmm, my sister. 

Jay Papasan:
And we’ll be like, “Do we need to have really specific goals or thoughts around this individual in our life?” And we also even do that with some of our business partners. Like, who are the people that really matter in our business life? Do we need to plan on taking them to dinner or whatever? 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Yeah, I love that, and I think even as your kids age, you have hopes and prayers and desires for your children, and that could look like, “I hope they find a loving relationship someday,” you know? So, it’s not like we’re actively working on it. You know, I’m not on Tinder for my children or anything like that, but- 

Jay Papasan:
You ask our oldest a lot, “Have you been on a date lately?” So. 

Wendy Papasan:
Okay. Well, a little bit. 

Jay Papasan:
Gentle nudge. 

Wendy Papasan:
A little bit. Yeah, but I think that intention’s important, you know? And so, as parents, I don’t believe that ever goes away, so. 

Jay Papasan:
Another one, I think we’re pretty good about this not being our problem, or at least not anymore, is where one person kinda dominates the discussion. And I’ve seen that a lot over the years when we facilitated it. You talked about the drag-along partner. There’s, like the natural goal-setter and the person who wants to keep all of their options open, and this is just uncomfortable. 

Wendy Papasan:
Or the people who don’t feel like they really care that much. They’ve always relied on their spouse to kind of do the thinking and the visioning, and they’re happy just to go along with whatever that person said. And they still do have hopes and dreams. It’s just they’ve never maybe articulated them in the way that would make their relationship better.

Jay Papasan:
So, maybe the person who’s maybe less loud about their dreams and goals, making intentional space for them to be heard, so that they don’t feel left behind or dragged along.

Wendy Papasan:
Well, and just understanding, too, that everybody has different processing speeds, too. Like, if you’re an entrepreneur, there’s a good chance that you’re a very speedy processor. You’re probably loud. You probably talk fast. You’re probably used to getting your own way. And so, just shutting the heck up and allowing your partner to have their say is honestly probably one of the more powerful things you can do.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. Ask questions, and actually listen to the answers. 

Wendy Papasan:
What? 

Jay Papasan:
We’ve talked about this a lot. People are afraid that they’re gonna be going in separate directions, and I think this point that you just hit, if you’re an entrepreneur and your spouse isn’t, you’re used to kind of the pace, and the push, and the late nights, and if you’re not actively communicating how that serves the family, it is a recipe for a disaster in your relationship. And they’re just not just being dragged along, it’s like you put them in the trunk of your car and started driving really fast down a windy road. They don’t know where they’re going or why. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, so scary. 

Jay Papasan:
So, like, it’s really great to get on the same page and slow down.

Wendy Papasan:
And sometimes, people have been doing that for years with their partner.

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. 

Jay Papasan:
And this gives space for that without it being like a, “Oh, and now I get to tell you how I feel about it.” It’s a chance to fix it. Treating it as a one and done. It’s one of the ones that was written down here. I do think because we’ve experienced it, and you’ve said it now three times, if you do this year after year, you just get better at it. The first one is actually hard. 

Wendy Papasan:
It’s hard. No, I remember it being so hard, and answering all those questions was really hard. 

Jay Papasan:
And uncomfortable. 

Wendy Papasan:
And doing a lot of the thinking about things you’ve never thought about before whatsoever. And so, I just think as entrepreneurs, you know, we just don’t have enough white space. We never do. And this gives you at least one or two days of white space to just really think, and plan, and dream. And it’s so valuable. It’s so valuable. 

Jay Papasan:
Unscripted question. What is a goal-setting retreat that really stands out to you? What’s one that you really remember and appreciate? 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, gosh. Well, there’s the one we did in Napa that was really fun. 

Jay Papasan:
I was thinking that too. 

Wendy Papasan:
Where we got nothing done, and we drank wine the whole time. 

Jay Papasan:
It was so great. And that’s where we were driving around. This is the best part. We rented a car on Turo. 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, gosh. 

Jay Papasan:
And we’re gonna go to wine country, where, you know, you might have a glass of wine and have to get behind the wheel. And it was a Canadian car and it was all in kilometers per hour. And I’m, like, freaking out, and it’s like- 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, mine broke.

Jay Papasan:
… the speed limit is 35 miles an hour. How many kilometers per hour is that? 

Wendy Papasan:
It was bad. It was really bad. It was really fun. We bought a lot of wine. We had to get an extra big wine fridge.

Jay Papasan:
It’s true. 

Wendy Papasan:
Because of all our wine- 

Jay Papasan:
I can remember- 

Wendy Papasan:
… that we bought 

Jay Papasan:
… kind of embarrassed. They were shipped to our lobby here at work. 

Wendy Papasan:
Oh, yeah. It was like- 

Jay Papasan:
And I can remember looking- 

Wendy Papasan:
… case after case after case.

Jay Papasan:
… at the receptionist, and she’s like, “What is this?” “More wine.” 

Wendy Papasan:
More wine. Yeah. More wine. 

Jay Papasan:
And I had to get a dolly and take it out to the car. But that was so much fun. 

Wendy Papasan:
So fun. 

Jay Papasan:
And I mean that was also, like, maybe as a highlight because I don’t think we had a lot of bad stuff we were dealing with in that moment. So, we got to kind of celebrate successes and dream. And it was the first time we’d ever gone to wine country. We had a blast. 

Wendy Papasan:
Well, and I remember some of the ones, I think we actually did ’em here at KWRI, where we had your whiteboard. Do you remember doing that a couple times? 

Jay Papasan:
That was when I was at KWU maybe. 

Wendy Papasan:
I think it was way back when, and you just helped me so much with my business planning because I just didn’t know how to do it. You know, I think you just spent hours with me, helping me figure all that out and what to do and where to go and all of that. And you’re so good with the whiteboard. So, I remember a lot of those sessions at the beginning where you had that big whiteboard out there, and that was so helpful to me.

Jay Papasan:
Well, I mean, that speaks to the environment. You know, like, we usually do it with our laptops or where we can cast a laptop and both see it. But I remember there’s times we’ve brought flip charts with us just so we had space to kind of… Like, I mean, and again, if it was a business retreat, we would have a whiteboard and flip charts because that’s what you do in a business is like, “Hey, let’s, let’s go brainstorm. What does this look like?” So, the more you treat it kind of formally, as awkward as that would be and think about those kind of things, the better it’ll be. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Super helpful. 

Jay Papasan:
So, as a lot of people listening know, like, we are kind of changing the nature of The ONE Thing business, where addition by subtraction and really reducing it to things I think that fulfill the mission, that I really love doing, and also just kind of putting it in that place like we just talked about earlier, where we’re making space for whatever’s coming next. 

Wendy Papasan:
Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Jay Papasan:
So, on November 13th and 14th, if someone has never done this, why should they come?

Wendy Papasan:
Well, it’s two half-days, virtual, just to kind of set the stage. You and I will be leading it. Uh, we promise to be engaging, entertaining, funny. And we’ve got a few other professionals that’ll be joining us. And I would say just come with an open heart. Actually, honestly, one of the best goal-setting retreats that I remember is the year I went by myself. I didn’t join you guys. It was during COVID, and you guys had to fly out to Seattle. I remember we had that-

Jay Papasan:
We did the whole thing virtually.

Wendy Papasan:
… studio space in Seattle. And I was just laying on the couch and thinking and dreaming. I had so many ahas because I wasn’t participating in the event. And so, I would say definitely, you know, get out of your house if you can, spend the night somewhere. It’s two half-days, so you can do a half-day of fun. And then, in the afternoon,  you’ve got your virtual event with us. What is it, like three hours a day, four hours a day? 

Jay Papasan:
It’s about four hours. 

Wendy Papasan:
Four hours a day. 

Jay Papasan:
It’s Friday and Saturday. So, you’d have to, at worst, take a half-day on the Friday, and get to wherever you’re going. Do the virtual part. Then, you have the evening meal that you can do, the whole morning to do more of the work. Jump back in. 

Wendy Papasan:
Do more work. 

Jay Papasan:
And then, you have another night before you head back home. I’ve crafted, and I’m gonna run by you maybe this afternoon, last year I created, like, a 35-38-page workbook for people, knowing it’s virtual and they’re not, we’re not gonna do all of the exercises live, you’ll have everything you need to do everything we’ve talked about. 

Wendy Papasan:
And we’re definitely gonna make it engaging, so there’s gonna be sessions where people can connect with other like-minded people. I mean, to be honest, I love going to the goal-setting session because you get to connect with like-minded people who wanna have intention around their life, have big goals, they’re dreamers. And honestly, not everybody’s like that, you know? So many of the people we surround ourselves with are kinda doing the same old thing. And so, this gets you in connection with just really amazing like-minded people from around the world is who shows up. 

Jay Papasan:
Oh, it’s always a worldwide audience. Maybe we’ll break the record. I’ve never had more than four continents. Maybe we’ll get to five. 

Wendy Papasan:
Okay, great. 

Jay Papasan:
But I love that, ’cause you get to connect with people. I’ve had people. Last year, we had people that did not know each other attending from Spain that now connect in Spain and set goals together. So, you never know who you’ll meet. 

So, again, we’re gonna do it on November 13th and 14th, folks. My challenge to you after listening to this podcast, is whether you’re doing it alone, you’re doing it with your spouse, or you’re doing it with your, your business partners, your team, my challenge to you is go to your calendar and pick your dates. I hope you’ll pick November 13th and 14th. But go ahead, first step is set aside the dates, so that you can plan to get out of your environment and get some space to dream big about the future, and do it in a way that really makes it more likely it’s gonna happen. 

I hope that you’ll take that challenge, you’ll put it on your calendar. You will go and commit to doing your own goal-setting retreat, and start dreaming of a better life for you and your family. 

Wendy Papasan:
It’s a great deal. I mean, a couple hundred dollars, I mean, what’s the ROI on that?  It’s an unbelievable bargain. 

Jay Papasan:
That is one of the benefits of being able to do it virtually.

Wendy Papasan:
And it’s the last one, folks. It’s the last one. You know, we’re not gonna be doing this in this iteration really ever again, so hopefully you can join us. Bring your friends, bring your team, bring your partner, bring your spouse, bring other business owners that you know, other people that could use this, which is literally everyone. I mean, it’s guaranteed to make your life better. 

Jay Papasan:
Yeah. Go to the1thing.com/summit, and that’s where you can find everything you need to know about attending. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. We hope to see you then. 

Jay Papasan:
Thanks, Wendy. Thanks for creating this. 

Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Thanks, Jay. 

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