Your Journey of Scaling belongs to You
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James Marland: Welcome to the scaling therapy practice. In this episode, we cover a lot of ground about builders and builder types. And some of the main topics are going to be scaling is different for every therapist. Your personality and your phase of business impacts your builder type and don't get caught in the trap of comparison. Uh, one of my favorite quotes from this episode was don't compare your middle to somebody else's end or don't compare even don't compare your beginning to somebody else's end.
It's easy to do and it can trap us into a diff feeling defeated. So anyways, let's get started with the episode.
James Marland: Thanks for joining us for the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is James Marlin with Dr. David Hall. Hello David. How are you? I, I'm, Today we're gonna talk about goal setting. It's a very apt time of the year to talk about goal setting with the, the start of the new year coming up. Um, we're gonna go through, in this episode, I'm gonna talk about my journey of goal setting.
David's gonna share his goals, and then we'll just talk about a little bit of like, tips and, and different types of ways to set your goals. So I'll, I'll start out. Feel free to, um, question me
David Hall: as we go. I'll, I'll, I'll interrogate you in the process. Yeah. as necessary. .
James Marland: So, I would like to say that I've had goals all through my life, but I am actually new at SY a system to achieving my goals because my system, my history of doing goals was first I would let society dictate my goals.
I got, I got, I finished high school, I got married, started a family, got a job, got more education, went back for a, uh, a master's degree, realized I needed something else. So, went back for more school, like letting other people in society or letting my job kind of dictate my, my life goals. And, and they, they kept during the college years especially, I kept getting mission cards.
I don't know, I play a lot of board games. I play a lot of games and they give you missions. Go accomplish this, go do this. Yeah. You know, this is. This is your role. You know, I was getting these roll cards and, and I was just happily doing them and doing what was ex expected, but something happened after my master's degree and, and then getting a job at a company.
It was like life stopped handing me specific mission goals and I, I kind of had to come up with it myself and I think I got lost a little bit. Mm-hmm. , like, I think I just did what was expected and, and just wor, you know, worked rose, the, raised the family, but didn't have le I wanted other things outside that I wanted, you know, a business or to make more money or to travel more, those types of things.
But I didn't have a clear path to get there.
David Hall: Hmm. You know, I think for so many people and I, I worked disproportionately with people that are kind of in that world that you're describing James of, of college path and that kind of being what's set and there's so much of it that works. Like I often use the metaphor of the moving sidewalk at airports.
You don't have to be actively walking to be moved along. Yeah. Move moved along. That there's so much in the system that's designed to, to move you along. Like it's very hard to fail grades. in the current education system, , like, they will move you along pretty, pretty consistently. And I mean, it depends on the school, it depends on, but like generally that's, that feels like the case.
And you're right, there's a lot of, because, just because you, you do this and I, I, I feel like at a bit more mixed, um, some of it was, is my lack of success in worldly standards early on in life. Um, I'm very, uh, neurologically challenged in my kind of, I'm, I'm dyslexic. I'm very, uh, I have a lot of a D H D tendencies.
You know, I got, school was difficult for me for a very long time. I did fairly well, uh, in the first few years of life. And there's a family anecdote. Kindergarten was great. Part of it was I did kindergarten in the eighties and it had the kindergarten involved different things than what involves now. I learned my letters, had a really fun teacher.
Then I went to first grade and first grade. It all got super serious. And there's a family story of me getting in the car with my mom at school pickup one day, me saying very seriously, I don't think school's gonna work out . And in truth, it didn't for years that I was, I, I was very, uh, blessed in having a lot of support.
I had a lot, I had a very supportive, uh, my parents were very supportive of me. I benefited from great, um, resource. Systems in first public schools, and then even the private school setting I was in later. There are a lot of people that cared about me, but the benefit of that, and it was very anxiety provoking.
There was a lot of struggle for me in that, but I, I, I'm ultimately grateful for it for a lot of reasons. One, it taught me a pretty divergent way of approaching the world. I learned pretty early on that my view of the world was not typical, and I learned to embrace that. But the other is, is I felt standards were set for me a little bit differently.
Like mm-hmm. , I remember high fiving my parents when I got a C on something. Mm-hmm. , and that is not a lot of other people's stories, but because the bar in a lot of ways was set, set kind of low expectations. Mm-hmm. were set low and a lot of people will have this idea, low expectations are bad, but for me, there was a lot of freedom.
And, but even that being said, you know what happened with me? Part of my story is by the time I got to later adolescent, my, I, I continue to be a pretty neuro divergent person to this day, but my compensatory skills had kicked in enough by the time I was 16, 17 years old. That stuff that was not manageable for me before became manageable.
And I was able to figure out how to be successful at school and then kept doing it. And even still, there are these different expectations of, you know, I finished a, I did a lot of. . But even when I finished my doctoral degree, there was this thought of, okay, now what is it supposed to look like? And I had certain ideas, and it is, it can be kind of aimless.
And, and I think what's hard too, James, is you talk about goal setting. It can be there. Some of it is, is this the right goal? Is one question, is this goal congruent? Uh, with what I really want?
James Marland: Well, well, often I think we, we operate under forces that we don't understand. Mm-hmm. , for example, my goal, whether I would state it or not, is I, I grew up in a, in a ho.
I, I didn't wanna be poor. Okay? Mm-hmm. , like, my goal for education and doing well in school and the jobs was I didn't, I didn't want to live some of the lifestyle that I, I grew up in. Mm-hmm. like, do we get gas to so dad can go to work? Or do we buy food? You know, it was like this, this, uh, these choices that I didn't want for my family.
Like, there were four, four boys and we were hard on things. We destroyed a lot of stuff. We were hard on clothes. And my parents often didn't have a ton of money for everything. So there's like lots of secondhand stuff, lots of hand-me-downs, lots of, uh, lots of, uh, uh, Uh, I, I wanna say goulash, but goulash.
Goulash my wife makes is way different than goulash. I grew up with goulash. I grew up was like noodles and a can of tomato paste or
David Hall: something. I love goulash, but I will say I'm not from Penn James from Pennsylvania, I'm from Pennsylvania. It's a way different. My, my experience, our, our, our cultural experiences are different.
And kind of, for me, goulash has always been an exotic thing. Yeah. Uh, it, it's not a, it's not a, but I, I do know what you mean. Like, it's, it's the SpaghettiOs sort of existence.
James Marland: Yeah. And, and my parents were gr great and loving and I don't actually, uh, they, they don't get the recognition they deserve. And they, they were, uh, kind and loving and created the great environment that could help me launch as a great adult.
Nothing about that. But as my, you know, selfish teenager, I wanted shoes. You know, I wanted great basketball shoes. I wanted to look like other people. I, I got made fun of for what I wore and I didn't. That was sort of like this underlying unarticulated goal for like my twenties, you know? Mm-hmm. , get it, get your education so that you can live the life that you want.
And when you say, is that the right goal? It, I don't know. I haven't thought about it, but it
David Hall: was, well, I, I, I would, I think that is a perfectly valuable cause I do think there's this tension that we live in between, , and here's, here's where the therapist, philosopher, theologian, and me will come out. Mm-hmm.
materialism is, is insufficient by itself. That a materialist, a, a, a purely materialistic view of the world. I disagree with. And I believe it's ultimately unfulfilling to have a purely materialistic view of the world. Right. Like the self-serving. Hundred percent. Yeah. So just this idea, it's about stuff.
Yeah. At the same time, I do believe that material things affects our experience of all this, all those other things. And that there are these certain, there, there are these certain baselines that if we don't meet other things become significantly difficult and Right. And it's hard to thrive if there's, it takes a certain amount of emotional energy if you're, if you're in a place financially where you're trying to decide between bare essentials constantly.
Right. That takes an emotional energy, um, and a mental energy that is taxing and makes certain things difficult. So is not being poor a worthy goal? I would say Sure. Now I think part of it's defining what's enough, and I think there's a difference between I wanna have enough and also what I assume material things are gonna do for me.
But we assume, and, and part of the reason I wanna push into that is I assume for people listening to. That financial goals are a part of what you desire in scaling. And I will say my desires to scale historically and presently of have a financial component. I don't want it to just have a financial component and I want the finances to be tied to other sorts of things.
Like, for example, for me, certain goals I have for income have a lot to do with certain charitable things I want to be more involved in. Right. Uh, I don't, I don't have a lot of goals that are stuff driven for myself. I have some, I won't lie, like I love to travel and I love, one of my favorite things is when I've had been able to travel with more of a budget.
I've traveled on the cheap before and I've traveled with a bit of folding money in my pocket. I enjoy the second a lot more. Mm-hmm. Uh, and I don't, I don't find moral reproach for myself in that goal. , I'm not aiming person. Yeah.
James Marland: I think absolutely. Uh, I think there, there is, uh, the, the financial component, I think when it's the only thing that's when you can get skewed, but it is a necessary part of all, a lot of the other goals.
Mm-hmm. , uh, internally though, I think just figuring out what I was driven by. I was, I wasn't necessarily in my twenties and even after, you know, in my thirties, once I got my master's degree, I. . I wasn't driven by things that I had written down. I was either driven by mm-hmm , something internal, some sort of feeling inside or the expectations of other people.
Like I remember my, my, one of my bosses, uh, I, I was managing a, a pla uh, a division in one of the hospitals and he's like, well, you're either gonna have to get a therapy degree cuz it was a therapy, you know, it was a free-standing psych hospital or you're gonna have to get like an M B A. And so I got the M B A I like education, you know, it makes it fulfilled an identity within myself.
It was something I was decent at, so it was natural to get it. Uh, but I did it mostly because I wanted to advance inside the hospital system mm-hmm. and get, get further along. By the way, that didn't work out so well because the hospital got bought by another hospital and they eliminated my division. So whatever.
Uh, but it
David Hall: is, and I guess it's this idea of having planned goals versus goals on the fly Right. Is, is part of, and there's a benefit. And, and, you know, to speak to the devil's advocate on this side of it too, I, I feel that for the most part, I've, I've existed with more plans. Mm-hmm. , some of it has been, um, I, since I've been a, working at like the, being a therapist is the only grown up job I.
Like I, the, my last job before that, you know, was as a server, uh, which is something I did in, which is, and, and I will say I that, and I do not wanna diminish that. I know plenty of people that work very hard and do good at that, but mm-hmm. , I did not set out to have a career as a server, is just what I did in college.
And so my first career job has always been in mental health, and I had a double-edged sword of benefit for that. For one, I, I found a natural enjoyment and aptitude for the work. So that was the positive. I also felt fairly savant ish when it came to a lot of other things that I wasn't very capable of.
Like, I, you, you do not want me as your plumber. You do not want me as your accountant. . You do not like I have. And so there was a sense of like, I found something I was good at and I was very well aware of all these other things I was bad at. So that helped me. Yeah. A certain course, but I've had to ha take some U-turns.
There's certain things I've tried that I thought worked would work, and they didn't. Some of it was circumstantial, some of it was, I discovered things in my temperament. Mm-hmm. , uh, for those who who have listened to, um, our episode on, or, or, or taken the quiz that we have, one of the things that I've discovered about myself through trial and error is I.
Uh, do not gravitate towards managerial sorts of things. I, I am a bit of a manager right now. I, I lead a team, but it's not my natural bent in a lot of ways. I, I enjoy what I tell people is I enjoy being a leader. Uh, but I don't, I'm not, I'm not good at managing the nitty gritty. And I, I, it took a, taking a wrong turn in my career to discover that, uh, because I got burned really bad in a startup process because I was taking, I was stepping into something that wasn't a good, uh, or wasn't the right goal.
And, and here's the, it fit within a plan. It fit within the kind of the lane I had been in. There were lots of reasons to think I could manage it, and there were aspects of the job I, I did manage well, but there were certain key ones that I wasn't successful in that mattered. And so I had to go back to the drawing board there to set, okay, here were the goals I had set for myself and I needed to change them.
I will say another thing about goals, James, that, that sometimes we, they can be really arbitrary. And here's one for me. I wanted to finish to get my doctorate before I turned 30. Mm-hmm. , and I missed it by four months. I, I, part of it was, I had a, I, I was doing my doctorate as a working therapist. I, I finished my master's degree.
I worked as a therapist for a few years before going back, uh, to school. , and I was working at the same time while doing school. And I, hypothetically, I could have finished by the time I was 29, but I needed to take some extensions to get some coursework done. And, and also in my, uh, my, my doctoral, uh, uh, project at the end of my degree mm-hmm.
and I remember being, so I thought like my birthday's in December and I initially had this plan, it would be November. And then I ended up being April. And here's the thing that was ridiculous here. If I had gotten it in my twenties, I would've had my doctorate in my twenties for all of a month. Mm-hmm.
And I, in my mind, I felt like I needed to be able to say that I needed to be able to, and it was really, uh, that's a vanity goal. Yeah. And that's one that needed to be skewered. Uh, and, and I think sometimes we, we do look around and sometimes we think like, I'm not in the right place. I need to be further along than I am.
And people will do that in age. Like I, I've done adjunct teaching in graduate school for therapy programs, and I remember several students who were, you know, this was their second career, sometimes third career. Hmm. And sometimes there was this discouragement of, and I remember I was, one time, I, I was talking to a student of mine, he was 35 and I was 35 and.
Very naturally skilled. But we were talking and there was this sense of like, you know, I feel so far behind. And he goes, I look at you and I feel so far behind. And I go, no. I go, we're in a different place. But there's certain things that you're coming into the field, like you as a new therapist is not the same, will not be the same as me as a new therapist.
Cuz I was a new therapist at 24 and you're a new therapist at 35 and you have a lot of different skill sets you're bringing to this. It's not the same.
James Marland: So let's talk about, uh, I have a system, I'm gonna talk about my system, my goal. I didn't hear about your system. System, yeah. A as I said, uh, I, I'm kind of new to it because for many years, up until my forties, I kind of like did what was internal, like living by goals that were internal and what other people were expecting of me.
And at some point, you know, I'm tired of living somebody else's dream. I wanna live my own dream. So this book, this book dropped in my lap. Uh, it's Tero on a Mission by, uh, Donald Miller. I don't know if you've heard of it, but
David Hall: Donald, I don't know that book, but I know, uh, uh yeah,
James Marland: it's similar to like story brand but for your own life.
So let me just explain it. Um, this is the system that I use and it was. , it talks about who, what do you see yourself as? And that you are the hero of your own story. So it takes the literative, like you get to write your own story, you get to write it one day at a time. And he uses a lot of the illustration there that your choices are what moves the story forward.
And I, I really gravitated towards that because I did not, I wasn't, I, I was letting other people move my story for me. I wasn't making my own choices, my own goals to move my own story forward. And of, as I said, life had stopped giving me mission cards. And so I, I'd been living in this, you know, I, I've achieved some great things, but I was kind of like stuck, like doldrums, you know, there's no wind blowing, you're just sort of out there surviving.
So I felt really just in survival mode as far as goals. I'm gonna work for somebody else until I die. You know? Not super, not super exciting, but it is a, it is if that's your goal, but that wasn't my goal. Like, I wanna build something and achieve something and I, I just was stuck. So, uh, the heat, uh, Don Miller took you through this process where, uh, , I might get the steps wrong, but you write a eulogy, you write your own eulogy, like you write out, and this other people do this, the, the, uh, high A seven, seven something of highly effective people.
Covey does it. Seven Habits. Seven Habits. I don't know why Anyways, seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey does it and some
David Hall: other people do. We'll have all this in the show notes too, if you're looking for these books. Yeah, they'll be in the show notes. Yeah.
James Marland: I'll put, I'll put links there. And, uh, um, Mike Mccolo did it in his, uh, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, like he talks about writing a eulogy.
And so I wrote, I wrote a eulogy and it, it was like, what, what do you want people to say about you? What do you want your family to say about you? What do you want your coworkers to say about you? What do you want your community to say about you? And you kind of write it into something that's you, you're, you're supposed to cry at the end, basically.
You're supposed to be like, this is, this is what people said about me because of how I lived my life. It's aspirational and it's, it's sort of like a work of fiction. Like I, I, I put in there things like, I give 20% of my money to charity and my wife and I fund like orphans and widows and I've written books and I have like this hundred or a thousand episode podcast and I've started all these groups and stuff.
Like, it's aspirational, but it also talks about. You know, I loved my wife and my kids, and I spent time with my family and I took care of myself. And I, uh, you know, I, I was known as somebody who loved God and loved like volunteering. Like I talk about all those things and when I read it, um, it's, it's emotional.
It's like a north star centering, uh, thing for me. And I read it probably five times a week. Uh, I read it like daily. It's the first thing I do when I go to work. I take two minutes to read through my eulogy to orient myself. Now, something I added to this, because I think I, I needed this. I, I add at the end affirmations.
Like, I am worthy. I am a hard worker. I have grit. I fall down and I get back up. And I, and I, this list keeps growing. You know, I, I'm worthy of, of a break, you know, I can take breaks. I am not a victim. All these things that are aspirational, and I phrase them in the I am not that I will, because I'm telling myself, this is, this is who you are.
Mm-hmm. And, um, it just really helps reaffirm my identity of what I wrote above of what I'm, I'm going for. So I do that daily to, to orient myself. And then the next stage of that was write. , write out your movie script. Basically he said it in some sort of literary thing, but write out what you are going to be one year from now.
Write out what you're going to be five years from now, and write out what you're going to be 10 years from now. And, and then there's, there's different questions in there. You know, where do you spend your time? What's your career look like? What's your physical, what's your spiritual, what are things you've stopped doing?
You know, all those things. And, and, uh, you read those not as often as your eulogy. I forget the, I read 'em like weekly. So I read those weekly. And then here we get to the goal part. So now I have my eulogy and I have my life story, my, my vision statements, I guess. And now I, I make goals for myself. Um, and I write them on a daily, well, I added a monthly thing because I'm doing the business.
Uh, but I'm, I write out monthly and quarterly goals, and then that filters. I, I hang them, I physically hang them on the wall. And I, before I come down and sit next to my computer, I read my quarterly goals, my, my monthly goals. And then I write, I have a daily journal where I write down what are the two things, only two things.
And sometimes I don't even get to the two things. But what are the two things that I can do today that will advance me towards my story? Um, . It's been very, it keeps me on track cuz otherwise I'm just gonna be working and working and like answering email and not accomplishing anything. Mm-hmm. And this is my system, but I feel really good about it because I can flip back like I've accomplished stuff, like mm-hmm.
I, I'm accomplishing my story and that is how I've been working on setting goals.
David Hall: Thanks for sharing all that. James. I've not been familiar with that book or that system, and that's neat. The, and in some ways it feels, it feels like the, a big thing to, to do, to kind of take on because there, even though it's inspiring, there's also this constant mirror you're having to face of like, am I living into this?
And I imagine for some people that they have to take a few drafts at it, that the first draft may not be the draft that sticks because there may be some ideas, like, is this really what I want? Or is this just what I feel I'm supposed to say? And well,
James Marland: I feel there's freedom in, in revision, you know? Yeah.
I mean, I, I've almost been a whole year through it, so I'm looking forward to rewriting, you know, my next, my next version.
David Hall: I, since you brought up a book, I wanna bring up one that's been very, it, it has not led it, it didn't lead me to a specific system, but it's probably the most inspirational business book for me.
Business slash. that I've, that I've read from. And it's funny, I, I read it for the first time in 2015, which was the year leading up to when I begun a, a new startup process. And there's a lot of building in the year since. But it's, um, business Secrets of the Traps Monk by August Tark, um, who's a delightful gentleman.
He, he's actually corresponded with me some when I, I, I reached out to connect with him on LinkedIn and he was kind to have a conversation with me. And, and it's a mixture of kind of a memoir of, of the writer specifically who his background was. He had worked in the tech field, he had been in part of m MTV in the startup phases of that in the early eighties, and then worked in, uh, different software industries and, um, uh, had been in different businesses and kind of talked about that.
But it also, it parallels his experience as a regular retreatant to the Traps monastery of MENA in Monks Corner, South Carolina, which is just outside of Charleston. And he began to regularly stay there on these retreats, starting the late nineties and became friends with a lot of the, the monastic brothers there.
And he was intrigued because part of the, the, the Trappist tradition in, um, Catholicism is that these communities have to be self-support. . So they all run businesses. And so the, the cover of the book is a monk in a habit holding a bunch of mushrooms because that's how the Abbey makes its living. They, they have a mushroom farm and in different parts of the book, in their history, they, they had a, they had chickens and they sold eggs.
Uh, I dunno if you call that an egg agri or what you call that. But that was their life. And so he was intrigued because basically here's this community of mostly older men who are not working more than four hours a day, cuz the rest of their time is dedicated to the rhythms of prayer and other sorts of things.
So they're only doing about four hours of work a day and they're running a successful business. And his question, he basically kind of asked the question like what are their rhythms of how they, they do things? And there are lots of just great sorts of things from the book. For me, one of the biggest takeaways, there are a few.
One of it was, it is kind of be focused on a mission that's past the, the immediate goal. You, an immediate goal could be, I want to make this level of income, which is a worthy short-term goal, but you have to have something past it. And he talks about in the book of aiming past the target, like you would in archery that what does that money represent to you?
What does those financial benchmarks represent to you? And James as you talk about this idea of like charitable giving. Yeah, absolutely. Support makes sense. Like you, they have to have those things. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but. But the other thing that was one of my biggest takeaways from the book is I was introduced to this concept that I had not understood before of, um, this idea of, of cultivating indifference.
And we take the word indifference to be a negative word, and we oftentimes thinking indifference means to not care. But in the true sense of that word, the opposite of indifference isn't caring. The opposite of indifference is identifying with and how to distinguish yourself independent from what you accomplish.
And that if you cultivate, because part of he highlights in this book, there was a moment where do some different, like community and social pressures. The monks were running a successful business raising chickens and selling eggs, and they had to abandon that business. And the leaders of the community said, well, we feel this is what we need to do.
And as, as a business person and advisor, the author is, is telling him Don't do this. Like, don't abandon this. Cuz it was, it wasn't an absolute reason why they had to do it. And he basically said, what are y'all gonna do? And the abbot of the monastery said, we'll figure it out. We're trap, we'll figure it out.
And it was this idea of that they weren't so tied to what they did. And so there are ways that I think it's, it's a freedom and success when you aren't identified with what you do and. . Uh, I rarely describe myself as a therapist. I rarely say I am a therapist. I don't like that phrasing. What I will say is I work as a therapist.
Hmm. Because for, it may feel like just semantics to people, but for me it's, it's a, I'm constantly trying to message to myself, even in my choice of wording that I'm not my job. Mm-hmm. . And for me, that facilitated a certain amount of freedom. It, it was one of the things that allowed me to walk away from a startup that wasn't working because I was not, the measure of me as a person was not the success or failure of that thing.
That was an important thing for me personally, but it also gave me the ability to move on to a different goal. Can I, can
James Marland: I, uh, I'm gonna share about one of the saddest movie moments I ever saw. Okay. That I don't, uh, it was, it was called, it was a movie called The Game. Mm-hmm. , I, I, I think I saw it in the nineties.
David Hall: Michael
James Marland: Douglas. No, that's different. Okay. I think it was called The Game. Anyways, it was about a football team. Okay. And there was a, there was a, there was a, a, a boy who was the best player on the team. And part of the story was him going through the football season and getting recruiters and, you know, his identity was the football player.
And he's like, mom, I'm gonna buy you the house and I'm gonna get the car. . And you know, one of the, I don't know if it was college, like his last college game or before the championship, he broke his leg in a place where he could never play football again. Mm-hmm. . And I just remember being a young kid, thinking about sports and whatever, seeing this, this boy in the hospital room with this whole identity mm-hmm.
taken away from him. I don't know how the movie resolved it, but I remember feeling distressed about this . Mm. This boy, like, what's he gonna do now? I don't know if they ever resolved it. Mm. And, and that is, as you were saying, you had this business venture that if your identity was the business adventure, how could you'd be lying in the hospital room Ruined mm-hmm.
going, how can I move forward with my dreams? Mm-hmm. . So there is this, this, uh, protection or just like, not identifying too closely? You know, I am not a, a therapist, I work as a therapist. Mm-hmm. , my identity is bigger, better grander than just a, a private practice owner. Just a group practice
David Hall: owner. Yeah. It, it's the, the way I describe it is I have a career.
and a career. Ideally, a good career is a manifestation of your vocation, which I consider vocation this larger sort of thing, like I would describe my career looks like I have jobs as a therapist, as a teacher, as a business owner. Those are aspects of my career. My vocation as I understand it, is I'm, I'm in the space of helping people relationally and engage in transformative experiences so they can grow in their emotional, relational space.
That's how I would describe my vocation. How I do it is through these other things, but my career is smaller or my job is smaller than my vocation. And even that my vocation is not who I am. My vocation, I think, ideally, is a manifestation of my personhood, but it is not the same thing as my personhood. My personhood is something ideally that should be much more robust.
And but, and if you lose a career or even if you lose a vocation, there may be grief in that. Right. And this isn't like a, you know, you might be very sad. Like, and I, I think and talk about the football player analogy, that is a cause to be very sad. Oh yeah. But for it not to change your personhood, to be able to have an anchor in your personhood, that's different.
But going back to your exercise, Jane, uh, with the, the eulogy writing, I think that sort of exercise challenges us to move past. , you know, the descriptors. Because oftentimes we can get caught in, you know, this person was an excellent executive. Are they the most successful practice in, you know, southeastern Pennsylvania?
But that isn't gonna be the typical things that most people wanna put on their eulogy, right? That they want. They wanna, but that oftentimes can be our goals that we're living out. Like I'm trying to, and so it's, it's, and it's not, those aren't steps, but it's how do we move kind of past them? So, and they do
James Marland: say you put, put the money goal on there, you know, put the, absolutely put the, put the, like, I wanna, I wanna lead a, a group practice of 30 people or whatever, whatever a big goal is there.
Like, put that down there
David Hall: because that's, unless you really wanna lead a group practice of 30 people, I would not recommend trying to lead a group practice of 30 people. . You gotta be sure that's, you gotta be sure about that. It's the, but, but let's, let's get into some of the nitty gritty in that, James. So what are, so in your goals right now?
Yeah. As, as your, as you're, as you're, you know, what, what are some things that, that you would describe as your goals right now that you would wanna share in our conversation? Right, sure. So,
James Marland: um,
David Hall: some of my, so where, whenever you're listening to this, ideally it's, this is, we're somewhere close to the new year in 2023, either right before or right after, depending when this episode comes out.
So, so
James Marland: I haven't necessarily thought about, oh, what are my goals for the year? But I've thought about, um, business goals and some personal goals. So the, the business goals, I'm at the beginning stage of just growing this coaching consulting business for course creation. And so I. . I'm trying to build a, a mailing list, I guess, you know, I'm trying to build, I'm trying to find people who are interested in what I'm interested in.
I'm interested in building courses. I'm interested in passive income, so who are the people that I can create quick wins for? So one of my goals is just to get a hundred people on a mailing list. You know, that's, uh, a number that I think is a achievable, it's a little bit of a stretch starting from zero, you know, like you, but it's, it's something that I have to do.
So that guides some of my behaviors because I'm sending out blogs and newsletters and videos and doing a podcast. Uh, I'm getting a podcast. Guests like those, that goal of getting my name out there influences some of the other behaviors that I'm doing. I also have a student, you know, a student goal, like, uh, it starts small.
My next course, I, I probably want 10 students or something like that. Mm-hmm. , like something that, uh, I started out with four for the pilot group. Can I double it or double it in a little more? And then the next time I release it, you know, I wanna double it. So I have a year end student goal of like, uh, it's on the wall, it's like 50 or a hundred, but that gives me a certain amount of mm-hmm.
revenue. That also influences the revenue goal too, you know? Sure. What. You can you a hundred. So a thousand students at a thousand dollars is a million dollars, right? So mm-hmm. , if I wanna make $50,000, I need 220. I don't know. Math, uh, , math. You doing your podcast
David Hall: is Yeah. Struggle. It's, it's the, well, yeah.
And, and part of it, I think the financial goals and, and the, to connect the means to your financial goals with the financial goals is important because if it's just about, you know, okay, trying to get this much money, then you're, you could, you know, plan any number of nefarious sorts of things, right? Uh, that maybe efficient ways to get that money.
Uh, but for it to be kind of tied to how does this, you know, related to kind of impact. Because one of the things we, we really kind of highlight in this podcast, it's about scaling is about increasing impact and income, and the two are ideally tied. Um, that as you're making in more impact, ideally it'd be great is your income increases.
Well, that,
James Marland: that definitely correlates to what I'm trying to do. Like I'm trying to give value and then, um, it's, it's Graham Cochran's. Yeah. Graham Cochran's model. You give, um, you give something away for free, like a blog or a podcast or lead magnet. You give them value. Eventually they buy something from you.
So you give them the value of the mm-hmm. , the product. in the product, you over-deliver. Like you promised something, but you like give, give your best, give more. So you've given them value at one point. And then at the end of the circle you receive, you know, the revenue and referrals and all the things mm-hmm.
but then your circle grows, like now that you've received value, you're able to have a bigger impact. Mm-hmm. , when once you've received it and you, you run that flywheel kite mm-hmm. type and push, push the lever of giving value at every place, you receive some value, then you give more. So that's the whole value business model that I'm trying to push.
I'm gonna try to give val people value at every, every, every touchpoint. And then, uh, that allows me to, to grow. It's mm-hmm. .
David Hall: Yeah. That's the model. If I could sum it up, then, um, this is one of my therapy sorts of techniques of basically as you're, as you're talking James, of, of that the, that it sounds like that if the measure of success is this idea of wanting to, to, to have as the successful ignition process of creating relationship, delivering value in those relationships and deepening.
The, the bonds, uh, uh, in the business between those people that you provide value to, and this idea of this expanding kind of mass mm-hmm. of, but that all those things are connected, that this idea of its, its relationship, its value, um, and value both ways that they value the time mm-hmm. . And so it is able to increase what income looks like for you, and that they feel they're getting well delivered well in that process.
And so it's this kind of, it's kind of this growing bio system is what, uh, I'm, I'm hearing. And I think that's a good, that's good in a lot of ways. I, I think sometimes people will think about money in kind of tra uh, uh, extraction sorts of things that other people have money that you want. How do I get them to give it to me?
James Marland: It's the like, but that's not my style. Yeah. Like, I'm not a salesman type person. I wanna, I wanna serve people, not sell to them like I want them. Yes. And I, I just want them to be like, wow, this, this has so much value. How do I pay you ? You know, that's, that's my preferred way of
David Hall: doing things, and that's very good and healthy sort of way.
And, and that's why, you know, a lot of, I, you know, you mentioned Grab Cochrane, uh, podcaster book writer, um, his, his book in 2022, he came out with a book, how to Get Paid For What, you know, uh, which is a great one, great book. Uh, big fan of Pat Fly. and Pat is always talking about from the Smart Passive Income podcast and several books, but Pat's always talking about to serve well, at a certain point you have to sell that people need to invest to really get the service.
And I, I experience this all the time cuz I put out I agree with that. Yeah. I put out a certain amount of free content all the time, but it's much easy to be a very kind of unengaged tourist for something that's free versus when someone pays me for something, there's a level of engagement. I know for myself that when I've paid for something, particularly when I've made the decision to make the investment of money into something that I'm gonna pay attention to it differently.
Now, our goals with the things we offer in this podcast particularly is that anything that, that you comes across that does involve a financial transaction from anybody that's engaged ultimately, that it's not just paying for something is that, that it's an investment that, that pays dividends for you.
And it's one of the things that for me, like as I teach and coach people how to do CE events is one of the things I do, my goal in that is that they're able to make money more efficiently based on what I teach them than they would on their own. They're, cuz I, I say there's nothing I teach people about how to do CCEs or how to do retreats or how to do, uh, the things I teach people to do.
There's nothing I teach people that they could not figure out on their own for. . However, what I do teach people is how to do it efficiently. How to avoid a lot of wrong turns. Right? Because you can't be protected. You don't necessarily know which information is the, is the information you need to follow.
I followed in the historically some information that I had reason to believe was accurate and experience taught me it was not. And that's something I share with people, that I want to save people time and money. That me learning the things I've learned about how to put on CE events was really expensive.
it took me a lot of time and it took me a lot of money that wasn't necessarily well invested. And so my goal in teaching people is whatever money they spend with me is fractional to what it would cost them to do it on their own. Right. So I don't, I don't feel bad about charging for something in that because my goal is that they reach an outcome that is, is a, uh, that has a dividend for them in that
James Marland: Yeah.
The benefit, you're giving 'em a benefit. The benefit is the shortcut or the path to make it less painful, less expensive and easier. Mm-hmm. , uh, once you do this and you, you took the, uh, expensive hard path. Yes. And you are giving them the cheaper, more delightful. I'm,
David Hall: I'm a firm believer that there are only two teachers, and this could be, this could be a, the quote that we, I end up with if, if you like it enough, James.
I believe there are only two teachers. Okay. They're both. One is your pain. Yeah. And the other is somebody else's. Yeah. I think it's the only two things to teach. Like you can either listen to somebody else who's gone through something or they account whether you read something, you watch a take a course, you see a video and they tell you about, you know, or, and they may, they may be telling you the story of somebody else's pain or something like that, but somebody hurt at some point to learn that lesson.
That's so it can either be you or somebody else. It is, I always prefer when it's somebody else in, mo in when I can. Um, that's
James Marland: great. Uh, I'm envisioning, uh, a book series just like, you know, like the Dummies series. Mm-hmm. , you know, dummies for whatever. Dummies for whatever. It's like mo, pain for Parenting, pain
David Hall: for Business.
The Lessons of Pain. Yeah, it is because Pain Teaches Pain Will, it will lead us to focus in on what's wrong, what's not working, how do we get, how do I resolve this?
Let's, let's, let's make it two part. So, um, let's you wrap up on your story, James.
James Marland: So it looks like we're gonna make this a two-parter, cuz I wanna give David his time to talk about his system and goals and also get into the tips and strategies of goal setting.
So we're gonna wrap up right here. And, uh, David, is there one thing you want people to remember? Uh, from this episode? Write it
David Hall: down. I think that's one of the things. Write it down. Awesome. Write it down like for you as you talked about in your process, James. Yeah. Like, I'd loved you. Check out the, the links and the show notes for the different books we talked about.
Um, I'm, I'm probably gonna be checking out the Donald Donald Miller book that, uh, James was, you're on a mission and, but I, I think that and, and whether, whatever system it is, write it down and make sure you see it. And I think that's the big thing too, if, if write it down and put it in front of you consistently.
Yeah, it's
James Marland: really helped me. Um, great. Uh, I think, I mean there were a lot of things here. One thing for me, um, oh, it's hard for me to choose, but I think I, I, I, identity is a big thing and so make your identity beyond just your job. Mm-hmm. you are not your job. You're something greater or grander or bigger than that.
And, um, , you, uh, for me, I know my, my identity was wrapped up as being a manager at that hospital or as wrapped up in some oth some other things. And then when somebody else decided that that's not what you are, it sort of caused a little mini crisis for me. And so if I would've learned my identity is something else, um, it would've helped me.
Uh, uh, we, I, I go to this, um, this program on Monday night. It's called Regen. It's for the church. It's a 12 step program. I'm a leader in it. And every night, every time we say I have a new life in Christ and people are like, oh, I don't like saying I have this, you know, it's like a rote phrase, what does it even do?
But it's telling you you can have a different life. Mm-hmm. And I think we need to have that for our business. Like, I am not just my job. I am something bigger, better grander than that. And I want people to remember that.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. That's so good. Uh, alright. All right.
James Marland: So, tha thanks everybody for listening to the episode.
We'll see you next time. Yeah.
James Marland: The scaling therapy practice is a proud part of the psych craft network. This network of podcasts provides both self-help and business building resources to create an impact in the world and change people's lives check them [email protected]
