9: From Journaling to Action: Steps to Create Lasting Success

When you're putting pen to paper and when your brain is actually searching for that response, that answer to that question, it is so amazing what comes out of you. Once you can define success, the game changes. Now, can you block out your distractions? Effectively, it might not come out in the first five minutes, but if you can write down what is your vision of success? Put the top ten, and I challenge you with ten, because the first three, you're gonna write money, you're gonna write time, you're gonna write freedom. I get that. But what's the next seven look like?

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be in the shoes of some of the most successful entrepreneurs out there today, look no further. Each episode, your host, Joe Simon, takes short walks with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the game today. These inspiring leaders have successfully crossed the coveted seven figure mark in their businesses. And these candid, insightful conversations will inspire you to look at your business and your life from a new perspective and get it to the next level. So put on your walking shoes and let's skyrocket that success together.

Hey, guys. This is Joe Simon. Welcome to the next episode of the Millionaire Mile. And in this episode, what I want to tackle is success. Now, most people would argue what success really is. And what do successful people do? Let's start with the basics. Let's define success. What does it really mean to you for everyone? It's a little bit different. For me, success has been if I am financially free, if my family is taken care of, if I enjoy time with friends on the weekends or trips and having fun, that's a success. Running a business and taking care of your employees and your employees having a great time and having an amazing culture in your business and your practice, that's a success. So do you have a clear vision of what this life is for you? I did a great journaling, thinking time slash project some time back. I can't tell you where I got these questions from. I believe it was the book of questions. There's actually a book out there called the Book of Questions, which is comical at times. But I always said the mentor of mine once told me, if you have the right questions, you will find the right answers.

And again, the education behind it was you to sat down and do pen to paper. And if you have a question that's in front of you and you just start writing, even if you can't think of anything else, you just keep putting a dot on the page, your brain will start expanding and start thinking of opportunities and capabilities, and it'll look to see what else is out there. It is probably the most powerful exercise I could share with you today. The power of just sitting pen to paper. You can call it journaling, you can call it thinking time, you can just call it the mastery of oneself. Because what you're doing is when you're putting pen to paper and when your brain is actually searching for that response, that answer to that question, it is so amazing what comes out of you now. Look, it might not come out in the first five minutes. I've probably sat for about 20, 30 minutes. I'm just jotting stuff down. And when I get to that sweet spot, about 25 minutes, that's when the gold nuggets come out. But if you can write down what is your vision of success, and look, you can list it up, put the top ten. And I challenge you with ten, because the first three, what are you going to write? You're going to write money, you're going to write time. You're going to write freedom. I get that. But what's the next seven look like? And really sit down and write, because, look, everyone's seven is going to be different.

Like I told you, mine was financial freedom. Mine is hanging out with my friends and having a great time and traveling the world and spending time with my wife and kids and all those things. That's what success looks like for me. Or even building an amazing culture in my businesses, or even building new businesses and uplifting other employees and partners to the next level in life. That's what I believe success is on my part. Right? That's my vision. But here's the next thing. Do you have the right people in your corner? And I've said this before in my different episodes of my podcast. To run a self managed company, as I was trained to do, as I was mentored to do, and I studied and learned how to run a self managed company. You need the right people in your corner. You need a solid integrator. If you're the visionary, you need that integrator, because you can come up with a thousand ideas. You can come up with amazing, amazing ideas. But if you do not have the integrator to put it in place, or you don't have the action taker to take action on those projects, or somebody goes, my entire staff is in their twenties, but it keeps me young, I gotta tell you. It keeps me young because I love hanging out with these guys.

And they're like, their response back is a thumbs up or 100 or whatever. It is. And I'm like, you know what? They're getting it done. I don't believe in the Millennial B's about all these guys. At least, you know, way I got some kick ass millennials that works for me, and they're running it. They are changing the game. And here I am, giving them the guidance, giving them mentorship, showing them, hey, this was my life when I was in my twenties. I was nowhere near as dedicated as you guys were. I was nowhere near this level. And look where you're at right now. Look at the process. You can leapfrog with just a little bit of guidance, a little bit of mentorship, and that is huge. It's huge, I tell you. So the right people in your corner, right? But are you mastering the time? Are you mastering your time? Are you mastering not only your time, but your employees time? Or are you building out a structure to follow throughout your day? Now, this is the key, guys. I'm sharing something that most people do not do. I'm going to tell you, you played any sport when you were younger or if you played in college, what did they do? They structured your time for you in your day? Okay, let's take another step. Joe. Hey, I didn't play sports. I really have a poor structure to my day because I'm just always putting out fires. I'm not stopped putting out fires. There's a fire there. I got to run into the office dealing with this issue. I got another employee fighting with another employee. I got to deal with HR. I got to go and deal with payroll, I got to deal with the landlord.

Fires all day jobs. But what if I told you you can consolidate those fires? You're basically saying, hey, listen, these are the times I handle these fires. These are the times I handled my emails, which basically triggers all the fires. So if we look at it from this point of view, if we look at it from scheduling, how you handle the fires in your life, scheduling the times. Now, look, there are things that pop up that you have no choice. On a bright, beautiful blue sky Tuesday afternoon, life happens, right? Comes out of left field, punches you in the face. I get it. Right? May even knock you down. But I know if you're listening to this podcast, you're going to figure out a way to get back up. You're going to stand back up, and you're going to say, is that it? Is that all you got? Let's go. But now, if I tell you, if you can schedule your day and start small, guys, break it up into three chunks, break it up from 06:00 a.m. to 1212 to six, six to midnight. Break it up into three chunks and then say, okay, my first chunk of the day or the first 3 hours of my day, I'm going to do some thinking time. Or maybe you don't even have that much. You're like, hey, Joe, I only have 30 minutes.

Cool, 30 minutes thinking time. Write down the question. Pen to paper, work on that next 30 minutes. Go get a workout. Move your body a little bit. Right? Go for a jog, do some weights, whatever it may be. It could be as simple as, hey, I got dropped. The kids off at school. Drop the kids off at school. Listen to an audiobook while you're in the car. Do not tell me you do not have the time. What I just broke down to you was three times in the day that you can chop up your day. We can break it down to 15 minutes intervals in the hour, every 15 minutes. What are you doing? There's so many which ways to do this. I personally like checking my email twice a day, once in the morning block and once in the afternoon block. I try to answer as much as possible phone calls. I try to knock out phone calls while I'm in the car where I have to get back to people. I know a lot of people schedule zooms and they love Zoom calls, right? And I always say, hey, listen, can we do a phone call? Because I'm mobile. I got it. Mobile. I have no problem doing a Zoom call. I have no problem doing Microsoft Teams.

Hey, you might not have an image or a video of me, but you'll have my audio. You'll have my full, undivided attention because I am with you, I'm present with you at this time. But that's also a success for me because when I get home at the end of the day, did I knock out my top three things a day? Great. Did I in my day of my big three of the six to 12, 12 to six, six to twelve again, was I productive in those things? And look, I'm not even reaching for the stars. I just say to myself, can I get knock out the most important thing? Did I give this person a call back? Did I have this Zoom meeting? Did I learn something new listening to an audiobook? Did I get to speak to a friend? Did I get to play with my kids? That is what success is for me. And I'm trying to share this with you guys because it is beyond important. Because once you can define success, the game changes. Now, we talked about blocking your time. But now can you block out your distractions effectively? This is pretty big if you can block out your distractions effectively. Now look, I'll be straight with you guys. I have a challenge with social media because I have to create content for social media. So I'm always looking at what content is up already and saying, okay, or just keeping up with some of the stuff. My kids are watching. So I'm watching what they're watching. But what happens with that? Guys, I losing 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there, an hour there because I'm unwinding. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. We're going to die with scrolling, guys. Yes, you can add little apps on your phone that will stop you from scrolling. Or I would like to challenge you as I am challenging myself. And if you accept this challenge, I want you to tag me.

I want you to message me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever you find me. Because you can find me at doctor Joe Simon on any of those platforms. Find me and say, joe, I accept your challenge on social media and you're finding me on social media to tag me on this. I get the irony in this. But listen to this. What if we hold each other accountable? And what if it's like going cold turkey, like smoking? What if we say, okay, we can't stop it all together, but what if we just hold each other accountable? What if we just say, hey, listen, I'm going to be honest with you. I did 30 minutes today. I'm going to be honest with you. I did 4 hours today. I'm going to be honest. So look, I'll be the first one to respond back to you and be like, hey, I get it. You did 4 hours. Try to be better tomorrow. Let's try to go for 3 hours tomorrow. Well, let's try to do 2 hours tomorrow. And look, I know some of you could do cold turkey. I know some of you right now. But you know what, Jon? I'm going to delete this app off my phone. I don't need it. I don't need this. There's no reason for me to have this app. There's no reason for me to be on TikTok for 4 hours straight. Completely get it. But does that impede your success? And I wholeheartedly tell you right now, the answer is yes. Because if you're not creating content and you're just consuming content, you are making money for somebody else. If the algorithm understands what you're watching, algorithm is going to sell you. It's going to sell you all day.

So you're being sold to constantly. If you're not being sold to, they're studying. Why don't we just flip the script? Why don't we study them? Why don't we sell to them? Why don't you spend that hour or 30 minutes or 20 minutes, when you need to unwind, say, okay, let me find a different way to unwind. It could be exercise. It could be going for a walk. We used to watch tv back in the day, right? We'd sit down, like, let me click the tv on. Everyone's like, oh, the tv was bad. Of course I'll play video games, whatever it is. Read a book, anything. But now we're saying social media. That's why I don't criticize people on social media, because, look, when I was growing up, my parents like, oh, you watch too much tv or you read too many comic books. I'll give you a storage for my youth, guys. And you might find this funny. When I was a kid, my friends and I would ride our bicycles, our bmx bikes, all the neighborhood, we'd do tricks and stuff like that. And one day, my friend's mom was outside. She. Guys, guys, you're just wasting your time. When and where is anyone gonna pay you for riding a bicycle? You guys are constantly doing these stupid tricks. You're jumping ramps, you're doing all these things.

No one's going to pay you for riding a bicycle. This is way before X games, guys. This is way before anything. When X games started taking off, I remember talking to my buddy, I'm like, oh, my God, this could have been us, because we used to do this day in, day out, 6 hours a day. We just riding bikes. It was wild, guys. So that's what I want to tell you. So that's why I never criticize people, because look what's happening with social media now. We don't know what's going to happen in the future. Will there be something for the next generation to say, hey, I was trading for something. But consuming and not creating is two different. But that's the distractions that we're trying to avoid. What all the distractions do you have in your life? Right. The role of personal growth is what achieving success is all about. Now, you can listen to audible and listen to hundreds of personal success books. I love personal growth. I have hundreds and hundreds of books on personal growth. You can look at my audible account. I will share a screenshot with this podcast of just my audible. If you ever want a list of books, please message me dm me, let me know. I'd be happy to share business books, personal growth books, investing books, finance books, marketing books, sales books.

I consume so much of that. I consume a ton of that. What I love to do, and my personal superpower is I love consuming that stuff, deciphering it, breaking it down to small little chunks of actionable items, and then I give it out to my mastermind group. I give it out to my people that I work with solely, right? Because when I'm in the room with them and they're like, hey, I have this issue. I can say, you know what? I read this book a few years ago. I read this book six months ago. These are the main takeaways. Let's implement these strategies right away. I don't need them to read the book. But I can tell you right now, the one or two strategies we pull from that book that we take action on immediately gives success to my clients, my marketing clients, my business partners, my management clients, to my mastermind group just by sitting with them and saying, guys, got an idea for you. What if we did this instead? And what if we just take action on this right now? Huge difference, guys. It's a huge difference. So recap, you got personal growth, you got distractions, mastering your time. Do you have the right people in your corner and do you have a clear vision? Work backwards. All those things I just said, just work back. Do one thing at a time. Write those things down in your morning time and try to see like, hey, is this something that I can do to change my day starting today? And guys, I'm with you on this journey. Feel free to tag me. Take a picture of the screen that you're listening to, the podcast, tag me, message me. Let me know how I can help you on your journey to gain success. Thanks for listening and can't wait to talk to you in person and see you next time.

Thanks for listening. We hope these walks with successful millionaires have inspired you to take the next step in your entrepreneurial journey. No two stories are the same and it's inspiring to learn from those that have walked the path before. To read full show notes for each episode, which includes guest contact information and ways to connect with Joe, visit themillionairemile.com.