Finding Your True Passion
Hi! My name is Coach Jimmy and today we are talking about chasing your dreams. We’re talking about that entrepreneurial spirit inside you that…what is it that you want to do with your life? Is it the fact that you are trying to write an eBook? Are you creating a podcast? Are you building a home business? Are you…I don’t know what it is. Are you starting a Youtube channel? Are you writing the next great screenplay? Are you going to you know revolutionize the musical theater world or make the best movie in the world or I don’t know what it is, but you have this dream that you are chasing after right now and I know all about it.
Before I got into business almost nine years ago, I found myself giving up on my dreams. I wanted to be a performer and I continued to bloody my face and really quit and I looked up and the next thing I knew I was a 3 time college dropout, all three times a theater major, a musical theater major. I moved back home with my parents in my early 20s and I happened to be 100 pounds overweight, and I just quit. I just stop chasing my dreams.
And so right now you have a dream and something you’re chasing after, but I have a question for you today. Are you chasing the wrong dream?
What I mean by that is, a buddy of mine PJ McClure if you are not following PJ Google PJ, look him up, he is my mindset coach. He is amazing and we’ve been working together for I believe maybe five years now and a quote that he continues to bring up to me is, “Jimmy, the only thing worse than chasing a goal and not getting it, is chasing a goal, achieving it, and realizing it is the wrong goal.” I am going to say that one more time.
“The only thing worse than setting a goal, chasing it and not hitting it, is reaching it, and realizing it was the wrong goal.”
What do I mean by that? I mean that…like a lot of times in my business…so I help put teams together. I coach people on how to build online businesses and build teams online and in our world, there is a lot of recognition that goes along with it. There is ranks you can hit and certain bonuses and statuses that you can go after and I see a lot of these people really busting their tail going after certain labels or titles or anything and, not that there is anything wrong with that, I want to make sure that there is nothing wrong with being motivated by recognition at all. But what I tell a lot of the people that I work with and mentor is, “Okay, tell me what your goal is with this business. What is your ‘why’ and what is the dream?”
So if they say something along the lines of, “Well, I am trying to get out of massive debt,” or “I will like to leave my full time job,” or “I want to retire my spouse who busts their tail so much for you know XYZ,” And so we sit down and realize they are chasing after some of these titles is actually working against maybe the financial goal that they have.
Is your goal really your goal?
Another one that I find a lot of times is right now I think for the first time ever in the history of the world, being an entrepreneur has become really sexy. This “hustle mode” thing and like I said if you followed me, you know I am all about hard work, I am all about hustle and grinding stuff, but you have seen them all the time, these accounts on Instagram.
It’s about the watches and the Mercedes and “I am on a yacht,” and there is a lot of fluff to it, but we don’t know what that individual (A), we don’t even know if that’s true or if they are just pulling pictures so it could just be bullshit, but a lot of times like we look at people and they have some level of fame to them, or “internet famous”, they’re an Instagram model, they’re “YouTube famous”, they’re Periscope famous, and we just think, “Oh my gosh, I want to be them some day,” but we have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes with them.
They’re Instagram famous and they’re still working like five jobs because they’re not making any money because they’re not open to learning how to monetize their audience.
Even in my own industry, there are people that are home business famous within certain circles and we are like, “Oh, I wish I was them. I wish I had that many followers. I wish I could make videos like they do. I wish I had that car,” or whatever, but we don’t realize you know, how is their marriage? Do their kids know who they are? Do they spend time with their family? Are they…dude I see this all the time on Instagram. They are Instagram famous and they’re still working like five jobs because they’re not making any money, because they are not open to learning how to monetize their audience.
To be able to serve those people and make some extra income because they don’t want to sell out, but so they have like you know 300,000 followers or viewers, but they are also complaining about the 3 jobs and how they’re exhausted and eventually they are just going to burn out from that as well.
Find your ‘why’
So think about your dream. What is that thing you are chasing? Then you really got to ask yourself, why am I chasing that? Or another question that I like to ask a lot is, you know let’s say that somebody comes to me wanting to lose weight and I will say, “So, what’s your goal?”
“I want to lose 10 pounds,” or “I want to lose 20 pounds.” Well I never stop there. I say “Great. That’s good that you have a specific number, tell me how your life is different 20 lbs. from now. What can you do 20 lbs from now that you feel like you can’t do now?”
I ask you the same thing about a business goal or the venture that you’re chasing after as well. “Great. When you do that how does your life look? What’s different about it?”
For me, I would rather work the other way around, I would rather sit down with somebody and say, “Tell me your ideal day. Literally. From the time I wake up to when I go to sleep, share with me your ideal day.”
In fact, one of my mentors, Chalene Johnson, and hopefully you are following Chalene, she literally had me do that. “Okay, an ideal regular day, what would it look like?” And for me it was like, “Okay, well I still think I’d wake up really early and I’d get up and I would work out and then I would have some time to content create,” like it’s funny because what I really laid out for her is most of my days. “Then I’d have the break in the middle of the day to chill with the family and then maybe do some work in the afternoon or create a system or work with high motivated doer entrepreneurs.”
I laid up this day and she’s like, “Okay. Once you know what the day looks like, lets reverse engineer that and let’s make sure that the goals, the things you are chasing after, are leading you to this perfect day.” Because the other thing I see are these people that say, “Oh, okay. I want this life for freedom,” but they build a business that they will forever have handcuffs on.
Your goal should empower you
I see this with my Dad and my Stepmom to an extent, and no offense to any real estate agents out there, I think real estate’s a great business, but I have seen in a lot of agents that the bigger their business gets, the more a slave to it they are instead of creating freedom. In my situation, I build up leaders, I empower them, I set them free, and allow them to execute with or without me anymore and our income grows because of that.
So really, I look to empower others and allow my business to, what they call, move away from me. So a lot of the people, a lot of my leaders that are on this Scope right now watching live, can tell you that my job is not to work with them where they need me. My job is to empower them and let them go.
I always think about the movie Mary Poppins and I am going to totally butcher the quote, but she says something along the line of, “I am going to be here when you need me and don’t want me and later I am going to leave when you want me, but no longer need me,” and it’s something along those lines and I feel the same way with the people that I mentor.
You don’t need permission to go chase your goal. You don’t need somebody else to pat you one the head and say, “Yes, it’s a good idea.”
I want to be around initially. They are not necessary going to like me very much and I am going to get up in their business and I am probably going to poke a lot of buttons and stuff but then, once they are like, “Oh, I really like the way I feel after I get off a call with Jimmy.” Eventually there is probably going to be a day that’s like, “You don’t need me anymore and fly birdie fly and go and trust that.” For me there was a season in my life where I felt like I needed to run every idea by a mentor before I pulled the trigger on it, before I tested anything, before I tried anything. I needed to take it somebody else and go, “Oh, I am thinking about this, do you think it’s a good idea?” and I needed validation from somebody else before going on.
I think as my growth as a leader the last few years, I no longer ask somebody’s permission. You don’t need permission to go chase your goal, you don’t…I think coaching is great. I think mentoring is great, but you don’t need permission. You don’t need somebody else to pat you one the head and say, “Yes, it’s a good idea.”
The people I work with I would much rather them implement and come back to me with their results or what they’ve done and then allow me to tweak or look at it then let’s just talk in ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’.
Does your dream get you where you want to go?
So really think about that, what is that dream that you say you are chasing right now and is it going to long term get you where you want go? Is there an exit strategy? Is it going to allow you to live that perfect day? If that perfect day is working you know ten hours a day be it in and out of meetings, hustling all day then yes.
I can’t tell you what your perfect day is and I can’t judge yours. I can’t say, “Oh, you should want something where you can sit around in the middle of the afternoon and make money and not hustle as hard.” Where if that’s really what you enjoy and there is no burnout in it because that’s just what you enjoy, then I can’t judge you. I can’t judge that.
I have been on both sides of that. There are times…I’ve talked with my wife about this. That as much as I love working at home and I love hanging out with my family, if I go too long without getting back into my hustle and my grind, I get antsy. I get angry because I know I am designed to do this.
So I feel like I am not fulfilling my purpose if I am not teaching you, if I am not investing in you, if I am not creating something to serve and help you get to the next step. I will never be that dude that just puts it all on auto-pilot and…sorry. I am never going to be that dude that puts that all on auto-pilot and just sits back and lets checks roll in.
I don’t think there will ever be a part of my life that I am not working in some way and what that definition of ‘work’ is. I mean there are things I do that I really enjoy that don’t feel like work. This being one of them. I feel like we all have a purpose that are something greater to do with our lives until the day we die. I mean we’re still around.
Make sure you’re pulling in the right direction
So really, really take the time today to adjust where you are hustling, where you are putting all your energy, and know…you need to know, “Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I was told this was my next step? Am I doing this just so somebody will tell me good job?” And again like I said, recognition isn’t a bad piece as long as the recognition compliments whatever the actual substance is because you can’t pay your bills with recognition. You can’t pay your bills with a pat on the ass or somebody stroking your hair and telling you you’re pretty, as much as we all love that.
I’ve had many times in my career where…perfect example. I got my Insanity poster back here. I became Q-list famous for being in this DVD series, but this didn’t pay me jack and this didn’t build my business and the business I have has literally honestly has nothing to do with the fact that I am in that DVD. Most of the people, you that follow me right now, have no clue that I am even in that thing. You just think, “Wow, he is really obsessive about INSANITY. He has a poster behind him.”
You know I have been…I have gotten the accolades, I have gotten the titles, and I have gotten semi-internet you know following famous or whatever, but a lot of those things didn’t increase my income, they didn’t allow me to bring my wife home from her job when I thought we should have, and it didn’t get me out of debt. That was hustling in other ways.
There are certain people I know like, “Oh, if I was just in a video everything is going to change in my life.” No, it’s not. You’re going to get paid for your day of work and you are going to go on. There are a ton of people that I know that are in that DVD that didn’t follow me into my business and they are still struggling financially 6 years later. They didn’t use that as a tool to create something of their own.
So I just share that because I had made that mistake in the past and you really need to adjust…or maybe you do need to adjust, maybe you don’t. You just really need to reflect and look at what are you chasing and why.
That’s what I need to know from you today in the comments. I need to know what is it? What’s the dream and why? This is what I am pursuing and why. That way…then it’s easier to stick with it on good days and bad days because you know what the end results are going to be. You know what it is you are chasing after and it’s not just a title or just a recognition or “I want to be famous” or don’t be the famous for the sake of being famous people you know.
So that’s what I have got. I am going to stick around for a little bit, ask you some questions after this on the live Scope. As far as my friends on YouTube, thank you for watching this, do me a favor would you like this video and share it with somebody that needs to hear it today and I’d love to see in the comments what you are doing to chase your dreams. My name is Coach Jimmy until next time, take care.