Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Hey guys welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. Today I have a special episode for you guys. A couple of days ago I sat down with the great man, our sports physio Greg Day and we went through ABC goal setting. So ABC goal setting is Greg's preferred method of goal setting and it's something that he introduced to us when he first came to Virtus about 12 months ago. It's something that's really helped me kind of identify the things that I want to be doing and what I want to be doing but more so the why around
why we do it and why we want to do things and why we want to achieve things and what success looks like and what achievement looks like and things like that. Every time I sit down with Greg and he goes through the ABC goal setting and he reiterates it with me or we go through it with someone else there's always a light bulb moment and there's always something else that I get out of it so yeah this is pretty mind blowing stuff. It's pretty simple but it's a really good way of looking at goal setting and looking at success and achievement.
This was done for a video so this is also up on our YouTube channel, up on our Facebook so there will be a couple of points throughout the podcast where Greg will mention something that might be on the whiteboard but if you miss out on anything just jump on the YouTube channel or jump on Facebook and you'll be able to find the video. Here it is! My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences that we're having.
So this is Lockie Wallace, owner of Virtus. Hey Tim, thanks for having me. Alright we're good to go on Lockie's streams as well and obviously we're recording this and we're going to move on to the next one. The C-goal system, also known as the CBA, the goal system depending on how you… The orientation of the owner. The orientation. It's a way of adducing from individuals what it is that they want and how they're going to get that. It does assist you in the process of whether you're a clinician or a coach because inevitably you've got to take someone from where they are right now to where they need to be.
Embedded in this system is desires and making use of allies and so we're going to describe that for you and here we go. Let's do it. So there are three levels of goal. We're going to call them the ABC goal. I'm going to be true to the original version of it which came from Bob Proctor, a personal development coach. And so every goal starts off down the bottom. We have this page here where we have our A-goal down the bottom. Let's see if we can see that. Yes you guys can see that. Alright. And then we have a B-goal in the bottom.
And at the top of the page we have our C-goal. Okay so on the left hand side of the page we have the opportunity to write down what it is that you want. Okay so that's my left and on this side here I'm just going to get down onto a knee so we can describe that a bit better. What do you want there? On the opposite side of that page here we have the opportunity to say what do you already have. Now one of the examples that we use relates to a car. What sort of car do you currently have?
Hyundai iLoad, the Virtus van. Hyundai iLoad. So if we put it in there that we want a Hyundai iLoad. What do you already have? An iLoad. Okay. Lockie has just achieved an A-goal. All he needs to do to continue to achieve his A-goal is to wake up every day and turn up to work, not crash the car, put fuel in the car and just keep doing the same thing he's already doing. We tend to find an A-goal of those that you want that you already have. Another example might be that I want to earn $50,000 a year.
How much do you earn? $50,000. Okay. Don't lose your job. Wake up each morning and turn up to work. And you'll keep getting what it is that you already have. Another example would be that I want to have a happy and healthy wife. Okay. Just wake up every day and make sure that she's happy and healthy. That's an A-goal. Interestingly, most of the people you associate with every day are those who are going through the motions of already achieving A-goals. The people at work, the people in your social network. They're already achieving A-goals. So to achieve an A-goal, keep doing what you're already doing and you'll keep getting them.
The B-goal is this. You can still ask the same question. What do you want that you don't have? Remember that over here we had what it is that you've already got versus what it is that you want. On the opposite side here we have this. Know that I could write in here what are the. I'll just put in here steps required to get it. Give me an example of a car that you would like up from an I-load. Cool. Good question. A Mercedes-Benz Vito is still there but a little bit nicer. What do you want that he doesn't already have?
A Mercedes-Benz Vito van. The steps required to get it is for him to trade in the I-load, turn up at the Mercedes-Benz dealership with a deposit, sign the papers and get the key. Okay. And have the income to sustain payment repayments. The thing about a B-goal is the steps have already been outlined by somebody else before. So to get around something that you want that you don't already have, you just need to be in front of somebody who's already done that and ask them what are the steps required to get that. It doesn't require any inspiration.
Other categories of B-goals include a house. Okay, so if you're renting and you want a house, it's really not an inspirational goal. It doesn't mean that it's not important, it doesn't emotionally connect you but it doesn't require any sudden bursts of inspiration about how to achieve it. You just have to approach somebody who already has bought a house or who does it often and ask them what are the steps that are required to do it. For example, first you should have some kind of deposit, you should have some ability to make repayments and then you
just circle a house in the newspaper or on realestate.com.au and go and find it and put the application in and pay the deposit and pick the keys up and you have a house. Okay, let's go for another one. I want to be married with two kids. That's what you want that you don't already have. The steps required to get it is to find somebody to mate with and sign the papers on the marriage document after you've had the wedding. This actually doesn't require a great deal of inspiration. There's a lot of great things that go
with that and there's a lot of things that could go wrong of course and it doesn't automatically guarantee you'll have two kids but I think you can see what I'm getting at here is it's not unknown as to how to acquire this. It's ticking a box and finding out what are the steps to do that. Here's where it gets a little bit interesting is the people that you, when you decide that you want to take yourself from what it is that you already have to something you don't already have, you get a little bit excited
about it so you start telling other people I'm going to get a Mercedes Benz Vito and of all your friends that had an eye load, let's say you hung out with people where everyone had an eye load and you said it could be a thing. Maybe there's a special social network group of eye load owners. As soon as you say to those people you know I'm going to upgrade to a Vito, typically what they start to do is they say that's cool wouldn't it be awesome to have a Vito and then the next thing you do is you say hey I went down to the dealership the other day and I drove a Vito and they go did you really?
And I'm actually picking it up next week. Those people that are in the same category of doing the things that you do and that have the things that you have, that have an attachment to you because of that, they stand to lose by you going above that level to the next level and there is a tendency to sap your energy in trying to achieve that and sometimes we would call that a sabotage and sometimes it's passive aggressive, sometimes it's deliberate, intentional or unintentional but that individual may decide unconsciously or subconsciously that if you go and
get a Vito are they less of a person because they don't have a Vito and you're going to go and hang out with people who've got Vito's now and you know we're worse off because of that and let's take that same car scenario and put it into say alright let's say you're in retail sales and you make 50,000 a year and you say to your buddies that you work with and go for a beer with after work, I think I want to make 60 grand next year. First up they say hey that's awesome yeah let's do 60 grand and then you just go to somebody and say how do I make an extra 10 grand this year?
Alright well there's 46 working weeks if you get your six weeks leave or four weeks that means 46 weeks you've got to make into 10,000 you've got to make a little over 220 bucks a week extra, okay? 215 maybe, not sure about the maths. How do you make $215 a week extra from your commission? Well maybe you've got to sell an extra $2,000 worth of refrigeration products or air commissioning or something. Whatever it is yeah. Whatever it is. Now that means getting in front of a certain number of extra people, space, to get more leads,
to get more conversions to sales or selling a slightly higher product which means diverting most of your time from this area of the store to that area of the store. But I just gave you, by the way I don't work in air conditioning or refrigeration. But you can see what I'm getting at is that the steps required to make an extra $215 a week to get from 50 to 60 is all there. And those people who already make 50 grand are keen, that's a really good idea, wouldn't it be cool if you had an extra 10 grand and then suddenly when you say hey I'm on track for that 10 grand and they go really?
I'm not happy because you've got more disposable income, I must have been not as good and that doesn't make me feel good about myself. And then there's this thing like oh you won't be able to sustain that or you must be doing something that's unethical and there's this little sabotage event. And so typically what happens is that there's that saying that says that you are the average of the five people you most associate with. And whether that's true or not, conceptually you can see how that might have been described. And so to get from an
A goal to a B goal you typically need to get around some people who've already achieved that and ask them if they can tell you what those steps are. And if they're nice people what they'll do is they'll reach down from their B level and give you a hand up. And it's kind of worth being around people who will give you a hand up. Because they feel good about themselves for doing that as well. Unfortunately those family and friends and those social networks that you count amongst your close associations, they have the tendency to be subconsciously not super keen for you to take those steps forward.
Whether they know it or not, and if I cop flak for this, it's a concept, it's a theory, it's not an individual circumstance, but they might stand to lose if you advance. And that's because they love you, they don't want you to leave. There's a lot of those things there. This is where it gets cool, the C goal. It doesn't make any sense that the highest level should be a C and not an A. So flip that if it suits you better. CBA. This is how it was originally described by Bob Proctor. So the last
one here is, what do you want, I'm paraphrasing here, we know that that's the first part of the question, that both is scary and exciting at the same time. Let's keep going with this house scenario or the cast scenario. You know what, I'm never going to do that because they are material and the material world doesn't exist up in the C goal area. The reason it's something that you want would be scary and exciting is because wouldn't it be scary if you got what you want? It's got to be that big that it would scare the pants out of you that you were able to achieve it.
That would demonstrate how much power you have acquired and you choose how you take that. I'm using the word power meaning your ability to acquire, to change, to influence, to build, to develop, to create. It's a positive connotation is what I mean here. And at the knife edge of scary and exciting is exciting and scary because just at the same time that it would be scary for some people, it's also highly exciting that you could achieve and create and develop and acquire and build. This is not very easy for people to work out but I want to let you in on a little secret here.
The ability to get that want happens to be somewhere where you actually only see two steps on the pathway to achieve it. Just like if we're driving, we live in Melbourne, so if we're driving from Melbourne to Perth and we set off around 8pm at night and this time of year it's going to be dark around 8pm, so the headlights go on. But the headlights only reveal 200 metres down the road and as you drive into that light it's revealing the next area. So the two steps process is to say this is what I really want, it would be scary and exciting at the same time and as I take that first step the next one is revealed beyond that.
And I'll give you an example from my own case. When I first went through this process it was a matter of wouldn't it be scary and exciting if I was in a circumstance where my business allowed me to separate myself today and not turn up to work and I could separate myself today and not turn up to work, my customers would continue to be serviced, my staff continued to be looked after and provide that service and I said to my wife hey let's go and sail on a yacht in Croatia for the next week and she was able to in the same circumstance be able to do that.
Wouldn't it be scary and exciting if you had acquired and created a circumstance where that was possible? Now that's just one example because literally going sailing on a yacht in Croatia is really a big goal. It's just get on a plane and land in Croatia and pay the money for acquiring a yacht. But it was the concept of being in a circumstance where I helped people in a service industry that was so well done that if I was not present people continued to be helped. That was the scary and exciting thing. And the rub off
was that if you actually acquire those scary and exciting things you pick up B goals along the way and you're never married to them because if they come and go it doesn't really matter because your positive energy and your service to the world is compassed on your C goal. And there was a circumstance where somebody was upset about their work environment and they came to me and said I was just down about this I feel like this is my ceiling this is where I'm going to stop. And so I typed in that person's job title
into the local search engines and I didn't restrict it to any country because that person thought they were restricted to that government department in that city. And up came a list of jobs available looking to hire with that same title all over the world. And it was a matter of wouldn't that be scary and exciting if I could do actually what I like doing anywhere or in many more places. And the thing was well how do you go about doing that? You say well I don't work in that industry so I don't know the steps required to get that.
But I know that if you want to the two steps that are required to do that is for you to first of all see that it's possible and secondly put an application in. And when you see that it's possible you realise the second step is to put an application in. And if you get an interview that reveals the next step, turn up at the interview. The interesting thing was that all of a sudden the vision changed and the vision was well rather than just do that job I would like to go to that next level. And I'm not sure how to do that.
Tap away on Google and you reveal a university degree that allows you to upskill from that to that in the same country. Oh that's quite expensive isn't it? Sign up, long email, tick it off, figure out how to pay for it later, it's doable. And that person went from that degree to the next degree. And I said I'm going to reign this a little bit because it's still just a be-go. What is it about what you do that makes you want to keep doing it that makes you feel warm and fuzzy? And it was a matter of this reason.
And then I said why? Why is that really important? Because this. I need to put this in context. There was somebody who was involved in water management at government level. What do you want to do? I'd rather be a hydrogeologist. Why? Because I really like being outdoors and being involved in geology. I'm fascinated by it. Why? Because it's really important for our environment. So what is it about hydrogeology? Well it's about the protection of our aquifers and water sources. Why is that important? Why do you want to pursue that? Because it's really important that we don't pollute it and that we keep people in stores of fresh water.
Why is that important? Because then people are healthier. Well what's the benefit of more people being healthy? Well then there was a better place. There you go. That's the why. That's the why. That's the thing. Wouldn't it be scary if what you did helped the world be a better place? And wouldn't it be exciting at the same time? Absolutely. Which means how you go about doing that doesn't actually matter too much. If your original goal is you wanted to do hydrogeology but it turned out to be something subtly different but you continued to make the world a better place, then you're not married to being a hydrogeologist.
You're married to whatever you do makes people leave your space better. And you can scale that up and scale it down and still make the world a better place. And if you can do that, wouldn't that be scary and exciting? And those two steps would be revealing. Now here's the kicker on this. Those two steps never run out. You never get to a point where in a C goal level where the steps are finished. Because if it was, you'd be at a B goal. So if you feel like the C goal is defined and you meet those steps and you think I've done it now, it was only a B goal.
It's just that you didn't get in front of somebody who showed you the steps. You had to figure it out yourself. But you totally ended it. When you chase C goals, remember that if you continue to ask yourself why, you will eventually arrive at a point where you say it would be scary and exciting if I could make the world a better place through the thing that I'm doing. When you do that, along the way you end up acquiring an R load to a veto. And you end up acquiring a house. And if that's your desire at a B goal level, you end up acquiring a partner.
And if you're lucky enough, you may end up acquiring a couple of kids. And you get a house with a picket fence. But here's one of the things that I often say to people. What is it you want? I want a house. I want to be married. I want a couple of kids. Okay. What if I'm a genie? I'll give that to you right now. And they go, what do you mean? Don't worry about the reality of it. Let's say you wake up tomorrow. You are married with your dream person. You have a house. It's got a picket fence if that's what you desire.
Did you want a Labrador? Sure. Labrador. And you've got a couple of kids. What next? Because I just fulfilled your life dream. I want to live happily ever after. Okay. Done. That's sorted. Anything else? Sure. Well, I have to pay my mortgage, so I guess I've got to go to work. Sorted. What if I pay your mortgage? Really? Okay. I'll need living expenses. How much do you need? 100 grand a year. Done. Sorted. I'll give you 20 extra years in case you want a little buffer and you spend over a little bit more. Now what? I'm going on a holiday.
So you need holiday expenses. Okay. Sorted. You'd like to buy a golf course. Okay. I'll buy you a golf course. And a pony? Sure. You can see what I'm getting at. If I give you all these things, these big goals, you will eventually run out of ideas. If you don't run out of ideas, I'll keep giving you and stocking you up. And you will eventually stop and you'll say, "I'm going on a holiday for the rest of my life." Okay. That's fine. I'll pay for it. I'll guarantee you this is what will happen. You'll wake up one day and you'll be a little bit bored of mojitos and pina coladas on a beach.
You probably won't feel like playing golf today. You might even take a break. And you'll get to a circumstance where you may feel like you want to get outside of your mansion because it's a bit boring in here because you're so, so well off that there's actually no one that you can associate with and you're missing the social interaction. And then you wander out of your own compound and you go for a walk down to the local village and you sit down and you have a cup of coffee and you watch the world go by. And you see the struggles that people are having.
Somebody's having some difficulty with a walking stick and you figure that it's too short. And so you go down to the local chemist and you buy them a longer walking stick and you give it to them. And you don't do it because you want to feel good. You think, "Because I can change this person. I can make that person's life better." And then you figure out that there's a nursing home just down the corner where there's a lot of people that need new walking sticks. And you just wander down there and say, "Hey, can I help in some way?"
I can actually help you. I can do some stuff. And I'm not doing it because I want anything returned. I've done everything I need to do. I'm bored by it. You guys look like you could do us some help and I can change that. And that's just one example. But inevitably what ends up happening if you've got everything that you wanted is that you arrive at a point where it's actually less meaningful to you and you feel like you've lost the excitement of it. And the excitement comes from helping somebody to be better on an individual scale or a slightly larger scale or a grander scale.
Making the world a better place. And so if you consider that I'm going to give you a house and a couple of kids and a wife or so and that's exactly where you want to be and you don't really even think about that, just know that when you get that, eventually it will resonate with you about what I said. That isn't all that scary and exciting. It's emotionally awesome to be connected to somebody in such a way and to have a nice place to live. But you will acquire these things along the way to getting something which is both scary and exciting at the same time.
Now, there's AD&C goals with the want on this side and the haves or the steps required to get it on the other side. There's another little hidden gem in here is that if you're in a service industry like we are, we're dealing with the provision of service for people who have a desire. And I think people really should have an unlimited desire and it's our ability to shape that desire that makes us valuable. So all the wants over this side are shaped desires. So what do you want that you don't have? Well the steps required to get it means that we've got to desire that shape so we can define it for you.
What is it that you want? Well that's a desire. What is it that you want that's scary and exciting? It's a desire and we want to shape that if we're going to be in the service industry. How you actually get that is related to allies, having people around you. You didn't get a job that paid you 50 grand a year or you didn't acquire the Hyundai iLow without turning up to someone who was now an ally of you helped you to get it. And those two steps need to be revealed by somebody. So it's very
important that you have allies that can take you, first of all support you when you wake up each day to keep turning over your A-gods. There can be some type of guidance that can give you a hand up from B to A to see those steps and to be around you when you say I think there's a couple of steps I really want to do and I'm not sure what's after that. Those allies should say hey I reckon I know what that step might be afterwards but you know what good for you and go after it because I'm doing some similar stuff and wouldn't it be cool.
I think those allies need to give you the energy to say yes it's okay to take that step. So if you're in a service industry be an ally. If you're in a service industry help somebody's desires to be shaped and see if you can understand where that person is directing themselves. Recognise that it takes a fair bit of energy because there's a lot of inertia in the world and if you get a little bit sat chasing the C-goal and the B-goal it's okay to exist every single day on the A-goal level and just recognise that there are other levels and other people have acquired them and others are supporting you above that.
So that's the A, B and C goals in a nutshell. Was there anything out of that that resonates that needs... Well I think people understanding that they don't have to always be chasing these two is probably one of the barriers to happiness and I think when we constantly drive to succeed or acquire we attack these over and over again and eventually end up worn out on the couch and be asleep for three days and I've definitely been guilty of that before. What advice would you have to people who struggle to stay in their A-goals and enjoy having their A-goals?
I think if you're somebody who struggles to stay in your A-goals and you are getting around people who've already achieved, they've shown you the steps, you should ask those people how can I stay grounded whilst I still chase these lofty goals. They will probably say it's okay to coexist rather than create and coexisting typically revolves around things like stop, breathe, face the sun. When you see shadows it's probably because you've got the sun to your back, turn to face the sun you'll see the light. That's advice that was provided to me in the past and it's great advice.
The stop, breathe, face the sun requires you to turn. The turn requires movement. Movement is healthy for your brain, it's healthy for your body. Breathing allows you to reset, biomechanically, biochemically be better off. And facing the sun allows you to look towards that which provides you energy. That actually might be I'm travelling a lot, I need to go home and see my family. When I get home and see my family that's the sun line. That's the time where I stop and breathe and reset and recalibrate. So I think for those people who struggle to stay grounded at that A level, you get around your allies who say dude you need to come to a yoga class with me.
Let's go and hang out at the beach this afternoon and just phones down at the dinner table when you go out with buddies, switch off. That balance is different for everybody but you can't have it as zero otherwise you burn into the red and then you struggle to take those. My dad said to me it's okay to coexist. Meaning it's okay to not necessarily be chasing and acquiring all the time. Sometimes you need to just chill and say I'm going to spend a couple of years actually just turning up to work. For a couple of reasons, maybe you have to acquire a deposit and that's going to take a bit of time.
Interestingly there's a concept called there's a gestation period for everyone's goal and that you can maybe predict how long it's going to take for you to achieve that B goal or how long it's going to take to achieve that next step. So for me to get to Croatia to sail on a boat I thought I probably should be in the vicinity of Europe so that I can get there quickly. How am I going to get into the vicinity of Europe and be working? Well I know that the UK would permit me to work there if I had a highly skilled migrant visa.
So I need to tick that off. But how do I do that? Well actually the criteria that I'm not meeting to get that visa is a minimum level of income and a master's degree. So I moved from Melbourne to Darwin where the income was higher and I enrolled in a master's course back in Victoria that meant I could do it from a distance and be present for less time than if I had to stay there full time for a course. So that's two steps in the minimum level of income and acquire the master's degree. What was revealed after that was the acquisition of the visa and the step that was taken to move there forward.
So there's a gestation period and it was always going to take two years to get that master's period and then what happens after that is the next thing. But I had to exist in my A level until that was acquired. How often would you suggest people sit down and kind of set their A, B and C goals or is it something that they're constantly ticking off or working on and tweaking? I don't know that you could say how long you should. There's a lot of data that says that when you set a habit you should do it constantly for 30 days and once you've done it constantly for 30 days it is significantly more likely to happen.
And so the use of affirmations where you say I'm going to acquire this goal, I'm going to take these steps, those affirmations might need to be reaffirmed every day and those are some guidelines that are of those people being highly successful. So if you can't get around somebody who can show you those steps, the reading of books that show you that. We use that word success a couple of times. There's a couple of different variations that I've heard being defined. The best one I've heard was that success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. Okay, worthy ideal is a C goal.
It's worthy to make the world a better place and the progressive realisation of that is take a step, take another step. I've also heard it said that achievement and success are not quite the same. Achievement is what we previously talked about, the acquisition of steps, but success is the external validation of your achievement. So should we be chasing achievement? We should be chasing achievement rather than success. It shouldn't matter, the result and the acquisition of making the world a better place shouldn't matter whether others recognise it or not. That others recognise it might actually pour a little bit of sunlight on you to recharge it, but that shouldn't be the goal is to receive that external validation.
And that's where you get into dysfunctional pathways of seeking recognition irrespective of whether it's a worthy ideal or not. So how long, how often should you revisit it? It's a personal thing. I think if you don't revisit it very often, you tend to stay down there and that's not wrong. It's just that if you're looking to achieve something a little quicker, you may need to keep revisiting it until you find out what those steps are. And for people identifying their seagull, is it just why and continually asking that question? Yeah, I think you've got to get around someone who pokes you and says, tell me, okay, I want to be a doctor.
Why? Because doctors earn a lot of money. It's not the best answer, but I understand that. All right, let's say I give you all the money. Why do you want to be a doctor? Because I want to help people. Why do you want to help people? Because helping people means that there's more people happy. Why is that beneficial? You can see where I'm going with this. And so not everyone actually knows what their seagull is, and it's not easy to actually define, but you need to sit down and you don't need to do whatever you want.
You're an adult. But it takes a little bit of time. Typically it ends up as being some variation of a theme that makes the world a better place. And how that manifests, rarely is it exactly how you planned it originally. But because it doesn't matter how it looks, as long as it makes the world a better place, you could keep evolving. It's easy to come back to over and over again. That's why career changes are fine. That's why lifestyle changes are fine. That's why location changes are fine. As long as you're still making the world a better place.
Good. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you very much. Well, that's ABC goals or CBA goals. And thanks for joining in. Thanks for sharing. Look, we could probably get you a little template on that, but you know what you do is get a word document and write A, B and C and write the answer. And you're good to go. Good to go. Attaboy. Cheers everyone. Thanks for listening guys. I hope you've got your pen and paper full of ideas and full of goals. If you haven't, this is available in video form on Facebook and on our YouTube channel.
If you enjoyed it or if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email and give us some feedback or ask the questions. If we get some good feedback, get some positive feedback, we will definitely do a few more of these bonus podcasts. If you would like to share or subscribe, that'd be amazing. And then we can start getting a few more people listening to the podcast. Have a great day. Bye. [Music]
