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CHAPTER 1

STEP 1: SETTING GOALS

THE FIRST KEY to the Peak Performance method is setting goals. Do you remember that childhood feeling of invincibility? When we thought about the future, everything seemed possible. Our dreams were massive, and we were convinced we would not live small lives. That adrenaline of limitless possibilities coursed through my veins every time I roamed Yankee Stadium alongside my dad’s team as a kid. Being around some of the greatest baseball players of all time and watching their every move inspired me to dream of following in their footsteps. For me, it wasn’t a distant “if” because I was spending my time dreaming alongside the very role models I wanted to one day emulate. My environment fueled my dreams. My brothers and I roamed the field in our Yankee uniforms playing ball, knowing that time was all that separated us from the desires of our hearts. The percentages drastically opposed our dreams, but our childlike faith told us otherwise. The vision of playing Major League Baseball was crystal clear. We could feel the grass and infield dirt of Yankee Stadium under our cleats as the dreams grew in our hearts. Every time my father took the mound, I would watch carefully and think, “Someday, that will be me!”

My desire was birthed and fostered by my environment. My vision was based on my real-life experiences and observations. My belief in the plausibility of my dreams was founded by seeing my father live out that dream. However, I couldn’t hide in the shadow of my father forever; I had to do the work and embark on my own journey to become a Major League Baseball player. My childhood environment had set up my desire for what I hoped to accomplish, but accomplishing it was up to me.

I recognize that I was extremely fortunate to live a life where my environment shaped my goals, and I had a front-row view of the detailed reality of exactly what I was hoping to achieve. For you, this process may be reversed. Rather than your environment shaping your goals, your goals may need to shape your environment. Different seasons in life might look different. As I will talk about later in this book, my business success was a season of life where my goals that shaped my environment rather than the other way around.

As we travel through life, some of the goals and dreams we had as children fade away. That is certainly ok. I’m talking about what to do from the here and now and how to keep moving forward. I am a firm believer that when we have thoughts or desires that touch us, that make us stand up and pay attention, that those are reminders of what is possible for us. Too many times people quit before they even get started. I love the famous Zig Ziglar quote, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great!” How true is that! Some of us have lost sight of the belief that anything really is possible. Many times, people will quit as soon as moving forward starts to get difficult. Anything worth doing is going to come with challenges, especially when your dreams and goals are BIG. People who think big and do big, ultimately live BIG.

The first step is to get clarity on and solidify your goals. But before you can set goals you must create a mental picture of the desired outcome. It’s your time to be childlike again and dream without limitations. What will success look like? What will it feel like? What will your daily life be like? What will your weekly, monthly and yearly schedules look like? How will your family be impacted? How will your life be different from what it is right now? You want to craft a desire that is as detailed as possible, so you have a launching point in articulating your goals. You need to clarify what you are working towards is a life you want, and a life you can handle.

For me, that desire was clear from a very young age because of my environment. I saw my father’s life and what his schedule was. I saw the practice schedules and knew the ins and outs of game day. I saw the social life that resulted from the relationships with his teammates’ families. I knew when the off seasons were and the intensive training seasons. I had a clear vision of the life that I desired even before I knew the details of what it would take for me to get there or stay there.

Once your desire is clear, it is time to turn your mental picture into a concrete goal. The dream may be a picture of your desire, but the goal is the destination of the future. Let your goals become a must, rather than a maybe. Awaken the champion that lives inside of you. Repositioning your dreams into goals takes the picture and makes it a real destination. It’s the difference between dreaming about your next vacation by flipping through a magazine and planning the details once the plane tickets have been purchased. Even if the destination is the same one from your dreaming phase, planning with tickets in hand holds a different weight. You know you will get there no matter what. Your destination is decided. There’s still planning to do and details to work out, but the destination is established. When your goal becomes a must, you will find a way to hit that goal. We must attach ourselves to the result in order to set and achieve our goals.

As Tony Robbins says, “We live who we believe we are.” If you believe you can accomplish your goal, then you will live as someone capable of accomplishing that goal. If you think you can’t succeed, then you won’t. I promise you will prove to yourself and everyone else what you believe is possible. If you think your company is going to break records, then you will get your company to the place where it is going to break records. Believing your goals are achievable frees you to think outside the box for solutions.

By choosing a goal and not a dream, you give yourself permission to dedicate time and effort to pursuing that goal. You are willing to take risks once you have decided that what you’re reaching for is possible. You might not know the “how” but you will put in the necessary time to discover the “how.” I didn’t know exactly how I was going to play Major League Baseball and I surely didn’t sit down to figure out the percentages of me doing so. I owned my goal, and it became who I was, even before it was accomplished. I grew up knowing I was a future MLB player. In my mind, there was no way it wasn’t going to happen. You have control over your belief system. It’s yours to own. Do not give it up to smaller thinkers who tell you otherwise.

To live world class, you must fully commit to the Peak Performance method, giving you the ability to overcome great disappointment and continue moving forward towards your goals. No one ever said it was going to be easy to create greatness. Our minds are filled with self-doubt and cluttered with negative thinking. Every time a negative thought comes to your mind, stop yourself and replace it with a positive. I can’t tell you how many times I had to do this over my major league career. Imagine the thoughts of facing Cal Ripken Jr, Barry Bonds, Derek Jeter, and other major league greats. I had to have a mindset of “I can do this.” You must have that same mindset to reach your peak performance. Let’s continue to move our thinking and mindset away from “I can’t” and into “I can” and climb the mountain of success together.

Setting a goal is just the beginning step of the Peak Performance method. Being around a positive environment is important, but remember that nothing happens until we get into action. A goal without action is nothing more than a fantasy. Talk is cheap; it’s all about doing. As Yoda would say, “There is not try, there is only do.” To live to your greatest potential, it takes everything you have. But don’t you want it with everything you have? Use that! The bottom line is that you will have to work like your life depends on it. Let’s face it; the life you want does depend on it. I can tell you that there were many days that I didn’t feel like going to practice.

This method is not about what you want to do. It’s about what you must do to hit your goals and live out your dreams. During my Major League career, my mantra was very simple, “I am the first one to the ballpark and the last one to leave.” With few exceptions, my actions aligned with this declaration. I might not have the most talent, but I was going to outwork my competition. Whenever I took the mound, I always had the mindset that I deserved to win because I knew I had outworked the guy I was facing at the plate. That work ethic and mindset gave me my edge to success. Another person or company may have more talent or a better product, but nothing wins like hard work and a focused game plan.

In his book, The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle, Jim Rohn gives the following example:

“A tree does not grow to half its potential size and then say, I guess that will do. A tree will drive its roots as deep as possible. It will soak up as much nourishment as it can, stretch as high and as wide as nature will allow, and then look down as if to remind us of how much each of us could become if we would only do all that we can. Why is it that human beings, surely the most intelligent life form on earth, do not strive to achieve their maximum potential? Why is that we allow ourselves to stop halfway? Why are we not constantly striving to become all that we can be? The reason is simple. We have been given the freedom of choice. In most cases choices is a gift. But when it comes to doing all that we can with our abilities and our opportunities, choice can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. All too often we choose to do far less than we could do. We would rather relax under the shade of the growing tree than to emulate its struggle for greatness.”

But not you and not now! Make the commitment to work harder than you have ever worked, dream bigger than you have ever dreamed, and live bigger than you have ever lived. Remember that everything is possible; the impossible is just something that hasn’t been done yet. Think about some of the things that we now take for granted that were developed or achieved by big thinkers. Take Roger Bannister, he was the first man to break the four-minute mile in 1954. What was once deemed “impossible” became standard once he achieved that time. Henry Ford created the first affordable automobile in 1910; the famous Ford Model T. Imagine what life would be like for you right now without the automobile. The Wright brothers invented the airplane. It blows my mind how air travel can take you from Los Angeles to New York City in about five hours and people fly every day without thinking of the once “impossible” dream of air flight. Can you imagine how many people told the Wright brothers that they were crazy and that they would never be able to accomplish their dream of air travel? There are miracles all around us of people just like us who have achieved extraordinary dreams because they turned that dream into a goal and decided that it was possible.

One of my all-time favorite stories is about Michael Jordan when he didn’t make his varsity basketball team as a high school sophomore and had to play on the junior varsity team. It’s hard to believe that there were 10 players who made the varsity team over Michael. I’m sure glad that he didn’t give up on his dream because of a minor setback. What would the NBA be like today without the career of arguably the greatest player who has ever lived? Michael set the standard on how to measure greatness in basketball.

What setback in your life is holding you back? What would you consider your junior varsity season? I had many setbacks that threatened to derail my dream of playing Major League Baseball. One of my mentors once told me, “to have success you must plan your work and then work your plan.” Working my plan when setbacks arise helps me not feel stuck. The next step is to make your plan and write your goals down on paper. Writing your goals begins to give them life. It has been proven that people who write down their goals have a much higher chance of success than the people who don’t. I have lived by this philosophy my entire life.

Action Plan

Write out up to 3 of your top goals in each of the 8 main categories of life.

Top Goals

Now go through your goals and pick 3 to 5 that will make the biggest impact in your life by achieving them this year.

Congratulations, you have taken the first step to achieving Peak Performance and Living World Class!