April-2018 Goal Setting

I wanted to write down some goals I’m setting for myself for the next 3 months so that I am more focused on what I need to do to achieve them. Sticking with the theme from The One Thing I’m not setting more than one goal for each “area” of my life, but I will be talking about a few “areas” of my life each of which has a different goal.

Health

Related to my health, my one thing is to complete the Insanity workout series by Beach Body before I turn 40. Given that today is April 2 and I turn 40 on July 3, that does not give me much time. According to WebMd, this is one of the most challenging fitness programs on the market. It takes 60 days to complete, so that means that I need to start it no later than May 3. Since I am not in top shape right now, I need to spend the next 30 days or so preparing my body for the program. I have TRX bands and workouts that I have been doing on and off for the last few months, so I will need to commit to more “on” days than not between now and May 3. Consistent with Extreme Ownership, I will not let anything get in my way of achieving this goal. Historically I have started the program and then allowed “something” to stop me from completing it (e.g., an illness, work, whatever). Not this time! This starts with today as I am writing this at 12:30am ¹ and need to start waking up tomorrow at 5:15am so that I can get my first consistent TRX workout in.

Family

I have not been doing a great job focusing on my family the last few months. I am around, but oftentimes on my phone checking work emails or reading something on my phone that I believe will help me with something I am working on / doing. This leads me to be irritable when I get interrupted (by the kids or the wifey) and distances me from everyone. I want to be closer to my family and develop better relationships with them, so generically my goal is to improve my relationships with my kids and my wife. The “one thing” goal I’ve set for myself is to not look at my phone when I’m around my family. Obviously I may need to step away to take a call or I may need to be on my phone because I am working (e.g., working from home), but when I’m with my family - I’m with my family.

Work

I need to figure out how to hit our EBITDA goals for 2018. We didn’t hit our goal in 2017 and we’re missing our goal so far in 2018. If we cannot get on track, it will make it difficult to achieve longer term financial success with the firm and will make operating more difficult given our leverage. So my “one thing” is to hit our Q2 budgeted EBITDA goal. I will need to work with the team to figure out why we didn’t hit in Q1 and what that means for Q2 and beyond. In reading through Principles, I need to think of “the machine”. Specifically, thinking about the design versus the implementation. Regardless of where the problems are, they are my fault (again, Extreme Ownership), but obviously the changes will be quite a bit different depending on the answer to that question.

Note that this is may be the wrong goal and I may need to reevaluate over the next week or two as I think about this more. I do not want to sacrifice the greater goal (e.g., growth in the filings business) for short-term gains (i.e., the Q2 goal). That being said, we need to start achieving our short-term goals or I run the risk of not getting the opportunity to even attempt the longer-term goal so it seems like the right approach for now.