Lessons from Peter Voogd
22 Jan 2015Peter Voogd is the author of 6 Months to 6 Figures, a book which I have not yet read but plan to do so in the future. I’ve been listening to some podcasts from Hal Elrod of The Miracle Morning, and today I’m going to summarize a couple of episodes where Peter Voogd was featured. Below is a summary of the ideas I’ve learned from both of these episodes. They overlap a bit, so I just merged my notes into one.
The links to the podcasts are here:
As we begin our discussion, the one thing that will help you the most is to ask the question: how fast can I implement this? The faster you are able to acquire these habits, the faster you’ll be able to achieve your goals. The general theme of the discussion will begin by focusing on describing a vision for what our ideal outcome is in the medium term (6-12 months).
Start by asking about your ideal outcome:
1. Simplicity
We have to simplify what really matters to us. It’s important that we constantly pare things down and ask ourselves, is what I am doing:
- getting me closer to my goal?
- getting me closer to my goal the fastest?
One-page Productivity Plan
The point is to create a one-page piece of paper that you can simply glance over at and be able to recalibrate yourself to focus on your goals. When you come home after a long day and you’re tired, you want to be able to look at that piece of paper and get excited to tackle the next thing so you can get closer to your goal. This is a tool to get you out of a rut when you are sad, depressed, sick, discouraged, tired, sleepy, frustrated, etc.
Structure
- A vision statement for the next 6-12 months
- About one paragraph long.
- Who you want to be,
- Where you want to be,
- etc.
- Five important core values
- What’s important to you?
- “Your values make you do the things that are often not easy to do. You don’t want to live life based on somebody else’s values.”
- Examples: flexibility, financial freedom, wealth, family, adventure, impact, health, influence
- Five big goals for the next 6-12 months
- The 5 things you need to accomplish
- Five most compelling reasons to hit these goals
- How your goals are in line with your values.
- This should excite you about developing the havits to achieve the goals
- By tying your goals with your values, you make achieving them to be part of who you are
- Three key behaviours you must develop
- The habits and behaviour required to accomplish the big 5 goals above
Mastery over information overload
Once you know what’s important to you (by making the one-page productivity plan), make sure that the information you are consuming is congruent to that vision. You cannot afford to spend time on things not conducive to your goal, you must minimize or even eliminate some of the things you are consuming now. Peter Voogd talked about how he stopped watching the news, any TV shows, or movies. He focused 100% on the things he knew would get him closer to his goals.
It’s better to master 3 books than read 50
It should not be a race to finish a book. If we want to see real results in our lives, we must take the time to not only fully understand the concepts being consumed, but also to master them by incorporating them into the daily habits of our lives.
An anecdote from Peter Voogd:
Even for the little things like reading a blog post. It’s not simply about having finished reading something, but you must see the ideas in the context of your own life if you want anything to change. And then afterwards, take action to change your habits.
Let your vision guide you, not your current circumstances, emotions, feelings, challenges.
It may feel good sometimes to take a break, or to enjoy that feeling you get once you’ve finished a book. But you must not stop there, there is always more work to be done until you achieve your goals.
2. Schedule Everything
Our memory sucks. This is just a plain fact. A lot of what we tell ourselves to do, we end up forgetting or procrastinating on. By the time you remember or feel like doing it, it’s already time for bed and you push it to the next day. That is why we must learn to schedule our tasks and goals.
Another short anecdote:
You can’t expect to improve if you’re not learning from your mistakes and investing them back into your future. You have to be constantly pausing and reflecting. That is why it’s important to schedule at least an hour each week for a weekly evaluation.
Everything I want to accomplish for this week must be on paper
You should write this down so that you can keep a record of your progress. This will allow you to better reflect on how you should improve yourself week after week.
Questions to ask yourself
- What did I get done?
- What went well, what didn’t go so well?
- What did I not get done?
- When did I waste time?
- When was I at my best?
- What are your weekly commitments?
- What must get done, no matter what, to solidify a successful week?
- If you look back 7 days from now, and you got these things done, it would be considered a success.
- Why is it important that you get these particular things done?
- These tasks must be intentional and strategic; they must be tied to the big 5 goals you have established.
- You need to sell yourself on why these commitments are important or else you won’t schedule and commit time to it.
- What must get done, no matter what, to solidify a successful week?
- Pareto Principle and Efficiency
- What 20-40% of your activities account for 60-80% of the results?
- In the scope of profit producing activities, this would be income.
- What are the 3 or 4 things that had to happen weekly to make sure you were moving forward? - Results must be created whether you feel like it or not.
- What 20-40% of your activities account for 60-80% of the results?
- What are your non-negotiables?
- What habits or commitments MUST you do?
- This is not about what makes a successful week or not, it’s about what you’re going to do no matter what, even if your week is a failure.
- Examples:
- Waking up early
- Working out X days a week
- Who do I need to reach out to this week?
- Who should you reach out to that can help you get to your goals quicker?
- Examples:
- Someone who can elevate your thinking
- Someone who can improve your results
- Someone who you can become partners with
- etc.
3. Seize Each Day
Sometimes it’s tempting to set a goal far into the future and think about how wonderful it will be when you get there. But this doesn’t work, you need to focus on the small things because it’s the small steps that ultimately climb mountains. If you take care of your days, your weeks will take care of themselves. If you take care of your weeks, then your months will take care of themselves, etc.
Just to reiterate:
You don’t set out to build a wall, you try to lay a brick as perfectly as a brick can be layed.
In the same way, when we wake up every morning, all we have to tell ourselves is that: Today, I’m going to make this a productive and successful day. Peter recommends that we use the first hour of our day to make ourselves strong (emotionally, mentally, intellectually). That means waking up with an intention to live a good day.
Stay Intentional
What Peter suggests is that when we get up from bed, we should ask ourselves:
What are the three things I have to do today to ensure I win the day? What is it that I need to have done, so that when I go to sleep tonight, I can say I had a productive day?
In doing so, you should also imagine yourself getting ready for bed that night, reviewing what you did today. Once you do that, you can snap out of your imagination back to the present time (the morning) and do those things that’ll allow you to claim the day.
As you do this, make sure to minimize distractions and interruptions. Ask yourself at the beginning and end of each day, “What is distracting me the most?” Create a plan to take care of these distractions and interruptions, or else they will bleed into your productivity.
Unshakable Mindset
You have to have a genuine, confident belief that you could do anything you put your mind to. There is a delusional aspect to all successful people, and it’s necessary if you really want to push yourself. You really have to live your dream and be able to get excited about reaching for your goals.
You have to sell yourself on the idea that if you do X then you will achieve Y
You should also be resourceful, and don’t always whine about what you don’t have. You cannot think: “Oh, if I get funding then I can finally start my company” or “If only I won the lottery, then I’ll be able to work on myself.” Find ways to maximize whatever resources you have.
4. Support Structure / Circle of Influence
This is the one element that Peter attributes most of his success to. It is also the hardest to do, because it requires talking to other people. However, most people underestimate the tremendous amount of influence that your environment has on you.
Create a make it or break it list. Who are your five growth friends and your five “maintenance” friends? You may have to limit time spent with the five maintenance friends, because the opportunity cost of not hanging out with your growth friends will set you back significantly.
Here’s what Peter did to change his circle of influence:
- He made clear about what kind of company to keep by making a list of:
- People who held him to a higher standard and was continually pushing him
- People who were letting him off the hook
- He took action:
- He avoided people who were getting “okay” results
- He reached out to the top 5 people in his company
- He asked intelligent questions and was eager to learn
- He was fearless in reaching out to people
Just to reiterate: It makes a HUGE difference to hang around smart people. They can show you how to avoid certain mistakes, plant ideas into your head, and generally be helpful to you and your goals.
5. Your Purpose
Peter describes how he turned down a multi-six-figure salary because he wanted to do something different.
He stresses the importance of being clear about what you really want out of your life.
My interpretation of this is that we must relentlessly avoid being “comfortable” like the plague if there really is something more that we want to achieve. And we must also relentlessly make clearer and clearer our vision for ourselves. It has to be something you’re so sure of, that you would turn down a multi-six-figure salary for. If it isn’t, then ask yourself how committed you are to building the life you want.
6. Increase Your Confidence
Most people often start off with a lot of excitement and then fluctuate until they fall flat. Those who do what they “feel like” don’t do much. You must start by defining what kind of results you want and then work backwards from there. What habits do I need to incorporate to get the results I want?
You must also be vigilant in examining yourself. You have to consciously and continually interrupt bad thought patterns. During the time Peter was growing, he never listened to the news and only listened to the kind of successful people that he wanted to become. Everything you do must be “congruent to your goals”. As long as you have a mindset of continual growth and learning, you will eventually reach your goals.
Beware of a lack of momentum, because that is when people usually stall.
Conclusion
This was a lot of content, but it’s all pretty useful. One thing I should stress is that you should really take the time to internalize these ideas. It’s easy to have read them and say “Oh cool, yeah I should be more like that,” but it’s another thing to really take action and incorporate some of these things into your habits.