Graham Weaver: recommendation

Transcript context

…Yeah. For people that are listening and be like, "Okay, I'm motivated. I want to do this," other than taking your class, anything you can recommend to just do these sorts of exercises, ask yourself these questions that you've seen work? I mean, the answer is accountability. How do you keep yourself accountable to living the life you want to live? And the analogy I would use is let's say that your number one goal in life is you've got to get in better shape. You just have to. Let's say you have even medically, you're going to have real health problems if you don't do that. I would say you hire yourself a personal trainer, pay what you need to pay. Okay, maybe you don't have a ton of money, but that's where I'd spend it. That person, A, they're going to hold you accountable to showing up at a certain time, and B, they're going to show you the exercises. They're going to call you if you're not there. You're just increasing the chances of success. Plus you spend some money, you want to get your money out of it. The equivalent of that in your life is an executive coach. And I figured this out in 2009 in the dark recesses of the recession. I hired my first executive coach. And I was like, "Wow, it's a personal trainer for me for two things." Number one, make space to ask yourself the big questions in life about your career, your relationships, your health, your spirituality, your children. Whatever the big things are in your life, ask the big questions, find out what your intention is. What are you looking for in those areas? And just have, in my case, several hours a week to get clear on those things. Okay, so that's part one. And then part two is that person can hold you accountable. I have one coach that I can't even have the call with the coach unless I fill out a piece of paper or an online form that says, "Here's what my one year goals are, outcomes I want to have this year are. Here's what I did last week, based on those. Here's what I'm going to do next week toward those. And here's the outcomes I want to have for the call we're about to have." And even if I never had the call, just having to fill that out every single week is incredibly powerful and allows me to hold myself accountable. So 100%, that's what I'd recommend. Let's back up and say, okay, let's say you can't afford a coach or you're worried about that. And this is the same thing as, let's say you couldn't afford a personal trainer. I would give you the same advice, which is find a very like-minded friend of yours and sit down and do it for each other. So if you're using the workout example, okay, you're going to go on a run Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays with your friend, and they're going to meet you at 7:00 AM at this trail, or 6:00 AM at this trail. That's your accountability. And you're going to be more likely to do it. You don't want to let them down. They're going to beat you up if you don't get there. Same is true with this. This is how I started. I did this with my roommate in business school. And we would go on a walk for 30 minutes and talk about my dreams and hopes. Then we'd turn around and talk about his. with this. This is how I started. I did this with my roommate in business school. And we would go on a walk for 30 minutes and talk about my dreams and hopes. Then we'd turn around and talk about his. And it was great, because we made room for each other to have those conversations, and we also developed a great friendship. So short of having an actual executive coach, find a really-minded person that could get into this with you, and that would be another thing. But accountability is huge. I'm going to just say one more thing. I'm sorry. I'm going on a little bit long on this. There's another thing that happens that's kind of magical, which is you activate a different part of your brain when you talk. You actually activate more of your brain when you talk than when you think or write. So thinking activates the least amount of your brain. Writing is a little bit better, but talking activates a whole different region of your brain. So that's the other big benefit of not doing this just on your own, is being able to talk about it with someone.…

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