Dave Lorenzo (00:02):
Are you ready to achieve the greatest goal possible? Are you ready to make something happen you never dreamed you could? Do you want to know the secret to making your dreams a reality? We've got all that in just a quick few minutes on this edition of the Inside BS Show. Hey, now it's Dave Lorenzo. I'm the godfather of growth. I'm here with my partner Nicola Gelormino Hey there, Nicki G. How are you today? Hi,

Nicola Gelormino (00:38):
Dave. Doing well. How

Dave Lorenzo (00:39):
Are you? I'm doing unbelievably well today and you know what season it is, Nicola. It's the season of focus. We are talking today about how you and I plow through all the distractions, all the miscellaneous bullshit, and we get things done. So if you are an entrepreneur, you're a business leader, or you're a busy professional and you've got a goal that's been on the horizon for what seems like forever buckle up because we're taking you on the rollercoaster ride, that's going to help you get more stuff done in a shorter period of time. So Nicola, you and I both have an incredible ability to really hone in on something like you are one of the most focused people I've ever met. When you're concentrating on a specific task, you just have, you put the blinders on and you just go headfirst into it. I am the kind of person that when I have a very specific goal in place, whether it comes to whether it be weight loss or whether it be a financial goal or whether it be a competitive goal in a voluntary capacity or in a business setting, I just day after day, eat, sleep, and breathe or don't sleep, just eat and breathe the achievement of that goal.

(02:04):
And I call that the season of focus. And when I get into a season of focus, there's nothing that can knock me off my game. So we're going to share with our audience today the three ways to get into a season of focus so that you can make your goals a reality. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce the three things that I do to get into this season of focus and in having conversations with you, I know you really believe in these, so there's a lot of color commentary that you're going to be able to add to this. The first thing I do to get into a season of focus is I reinforce my clarity of purpose. People who know me and people who've listened to the show, people who've heard me speak, know that I'm a huge fan of having clarity of purpose.

(02:46):
When I go to a speaking engagement, I take the stage. I'm there to convert as many people in the audience as I can from suspects into prospects, from prospects, into clients. That's my clarity of purpose for speaking engagement. When I have a specific goal in my business, I get up in the morning and I work like an animal until I get to the finish line, at least for that day. And I do something at least one thing every day, most days, many, many things to get me closer to my goal. So it's as simple as writing down your goal at the top of your to-do list in the morning. It's as simple as getting up in the morning and thinking, what am I going to do today to get me closer to this goal? Thinking about when I sit down at my desk, what can I do right now in this minute that will get me closer to the goal when I get up before I go to lunch thinking, can I make that one more phone call that will get me closer to the goal? In other words, that clarity of purpose, that goal is always in the forefront of my mind. Nicki G, what do you do to make sure that you keep your clarity of purpose, that you keep that focus, that intense focus on your goal? How do you keep it in the forefront of your mind all the time when you're in the season of focus?

Nicola Gelormino (03:52):
So I also use Dave A to-do list, and I like to prioritize what is going to be the top steps that I need to think about and accomplish for that day and the next 48 hours. Sometimes I do what I call the 48 hour deadlines. So I really put in the forefront of my mind and make sure it's right in front of me. This is what I need to accomplish to complete the overall goal that I'm working to achieve. So I like having that. It helps you achieve that higher level of focus on what you need to accomplish. And when you divvy it up into what I also referred to as sort of these bite-sized pieces to accomplish your goal, as you get through them, you start to realize this is helping you recognize that you're getting closer to where you need to be as you make small achievements going through the process.

Dave Lorenzo (04:38):
Yeah, I like the bite size achievements. I like the idea that you break it down into smaller things. What happens with me is that I will think about this the first thing in the morning and I'll think about something I can do to get closer to my goal, and then throughout the day I'm wandering around almost in a trance-like state, thinking about achieving this goal. And then before I go to bed, I'm thinking about it and I'll wake up in the middle of the night at two o'clock in the morning and because I have a home office, I will come down to my home office and bang out like two hours of work on the specific subject. And sometimes that two hours is the most productive two hours I have all day. Then I go back to sleep and I wake up and it's fresh in my mind again.

(05:20):
Now here's the thing, okay, if you talk to the average person, they're going to say, Dave, you sound like a freaking lunatic. You sound like an absolute madman who's obsessed. I haven't met a successful entrepreneur who wasn't obsessed with achieving a goal they had set for themselves. I haven't met a successful athlete who wasn't obsessed with achieving a goal they had set for themselves. I've known a lot of people throughout the course of my career who were incredibly successful, yet their personal lives were shambles because they were focused on a specific goal for so long. They forgot about their families, they forgot about their spouse, they forgot about everything else. So what we are talking about here today, especially with point number one and reinforcing your clarity of purpose and being incredibly driven to make sure that you reinforce your clarity of purpose, what we're talking about is a season of focus.

(06:18):
So in other words, a 30, 60, 90 day time period maximum where you're obsessed and you're driving as hard as you can to achieve a specific goal, and then you take a break. Maybe you go on vacation with your spouse or your significant other for a week or two. Maybe you spend a weekend away with your kids, unplugged from all the social media, unplugged from your email unplugged from the day to day of your business. The season of focus is a healthy obsession. It's not a year of focus or two years of focus or a lifetime of focus. I'll tell you that if you want to be successful while everybody else is on vacation, you got to be working towards your goal. But you can't do that 24 7, 365. You have to be able to do it just like training for a race in intervals. So go really hard for 30 days, take a break, take a week off, spend that week with your family or fishing or hunting or I don't know, crocheting, whatever it is you do to relax yourself, but you have to have that season of focus where you're obsessed with it. Would you agree with that?

Nicola Gelormino (07:28):
You're crazy. Am I just waking up? 2:00 AM may be crazy to some of us, including me, but my approach to that is I know exactly what I'm going to set out to do on my task list. I'll write it down the night before so it doesn't wake me up at 2:00 AM or I'll write it down first thing in the morning, so I accomplish that. But taking a step back and touching on the season of focus, what we're talking about is making a particular goal that you want to accomplish during the season of focus where there is a finite time period associated with this. So you gave the example of 30, 60, or 90 days. You have to have an end date to this. So we are not by any means suggesting go about this all year round and have no work-life balance. That's not it at all.

(08:06):
This is about using intensity of focus to be able to accomplish a particular goal, to make sure you get it done, to help you improve the efficiency of getting it done and to keep you on track. And this can be part of a broader goal. So it's really about you. It's about what do I want to accomplish and how much time do I need to accomplish the whole goal or a portion of the goal that's going to get me there so that I make sure I do this? Oftentimes, we're getting through our workday, we're doing our daily tasks that we're accomplishing, and we're not going back to those overarching goals that we really want to set out to accomplish every year. So our season of focus is a way to help you get there. It's the periods of intensity. They're going to help you stay on track and help you accomplish those goals that you've been trying to get done.

Dave Lorenzo (08:47):
Alright, so point number two in season of focus is celebrating small wins. And this goes along with your bite-size, chunks of work that you do. You and I doing the pre-show today, we're talking about the small wins that we're celebrating in the current business that we have the 30th article that went up on the website, which is incredible since the website's only been up for less than 90 days, that we have 30 really good articles. The 13th person, we signed up yesterday to be a part of the Exit Success lab. This business didn't exist 90 days ago, and we've got 13 people who were now serving in our capacity as the leaders of the Exit Success lab. These are milestones that you and I are celebrating because that celebration is fuel. It's like dumping gas into the engine to keep us moving forward. So celebrating small wins is incredibly important to keeping your focus. What do you think about that, Nicki G?

Nicola Gelormino (09:46):
Yes, it absolutely is. It allows you to see that you're making progress that helps your mental state when you're going through the period for the season of four, the season of focus, you can see and look back and say, you know what? I've already accomplished X, Y, and Z, and now I'm on my way. It doesn't matter how small it is. The point here is progress and progress helps you continue to move forward. It helps you realize that you're on your way to achieving that goal and it motivates you to keep getting there.

Dave Lorenzo (10:11):
Point number three is there is an end to the season of focus. So if you're making sacrifices, if you are putting off taking that vacation you promised your spouse, you were going to take, or you're putting off spending the money on getting the new living room furniture because you're investing everything you have into your business and you're in your season of focus, there's an end to the time when you're going to make these sacrifices. You see a finish line. Now, that finish line could be, I'm going to achieve my goal in June of 2024, and when I achieve that goal, that's my finish line. Or the finish line could be, I'm going to do this as hard as I can until November 18th, and then on November 18th I'm going to stop and take a break for two weeks and then come back in a different way and focus on a different thing. Having a defined end point and having a specific end to when you're going to make the sacrifices that you're making during your season of focus is another thing that will help you get through this time period. What do you think, Nicola?

Nicola Gelormino (11:18):
I think you're right, Dave. You have to have a firm start and end date because if you don't, you're going to allow yourself to adjust that timeframe, and that's not what we're talking about here. The reason that we're telling you to impose an end date is so that there is in your mind, a finish line to this period of time. It's going to be difficult and trying to keep pushing yourself through this each day, but by knowing mentally that you have that end date, you can get yourself to keep moving forward to the finish line. I deal with this a lot in my law practice where we have in that space, we have deadlines that are set by the court or that we agree to with the other side that become part of a court order, and we know that it has to end by that date.

(12:01):
And I will tell you from a mental standpoint, when we're working through 12, 13, 14 hour days, I am able to focus on the fact that I know there's an end in sight. Same thing with you're a runner and you have a marathon. Maybe your goal is out there is to run a marathon this year. There's an end date, and you know when that's going to happen, and that gives you a period of time. Prepare for it, put yourself through that period and just know it's going to be over, and then give yourself that needed break after you accomplish that goal. I mean, these are big goals, and you need a way to step away from that. Give yourself some time off, enjoy time with your family and be able to come back down from that before you start your next season of focus.

Dave Lorenzo (12:41):
There you go. Great job, Nicki g. I love it. So folks, the season of focus is all about you maintaining your clarity of purpose and driving toward your end goal. Your goal could be 30, 60, or 90 days out. It could be three years, five years out, and you've broken it down into smaller chunks. There's nobody who's been successful, who hasn't had at least one short season of focus. We've given you three tips so that you can employ this in your business. Today, we're going to have more of this, more mindset, more strategy, more business skills that you need, and we're here every day with this stuff. The name of the show is The Inside BSS Show. I'm Dave Lorenzo. I'm the godfather of growth, and my partner in all of this, the most patient person I know is

Nicola Gelormino (13:33):
Nicki G.

Dave Lorenzo (13:34):
We'll see you back here again tomorrow, folks. Thanks for joining us.

(13:38):
Goodbye, Nicki. G.