Your story, your brand. Pt. 2

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty, the podcast. I'm your host, Ralph Owens, along with Terry Barry. In today's episode, we'll touch on topics such as why hard work beats talent every day, the power of knowing your numbers, Why healthy competition can produce greatness and some of the common mistakes when goal setting. Enjoy the show. What I what I also, hear in that is, you know, how and you've said this a number of times that hard work could be talent any day.

Well, when you have a smart goal like this and a program like that that you just built out, all you have to do is apply the hard work right to the program and then you'll meet your goal. But it gives you the framework, right? It gives you the framework that you need in order to put the work in so that you can meet your goals. So now I think that's that's fantastic. Yeah.

I don't think anything else has to be said about that. That was a beautiful example.

I appreciate that. Yeah. And and how I'm gonna tell you right now, it worked.

Yeah. Yeah. You got the results.

Yeah. We got the results. And and and again, right? When you write it down, and you're measuring yourself, that's the beauty. Here's the beauty of a SMART goal, you're managing yourself.

Yes, so true.

Right?

So true.

And so when someone asks you, right, it depends on how you're tracking this. Right? In this case, if I had to do it today with Liz, I would definitely have it in some form of a spreadsheet or some We got some app to do it, right? So all I gotta do is look up and see. Now I will say this, we did have a tool and we And now I was on the trip on this.

We had something called a blast and whenever she would hit, I would just say, Hey, make sure you charge a blast because I could go and look in the app to see how many cuts she had taken. And so the app wasn't as smart as it is now, but in the app today, she could go in and classify this was T work, this was cage work, this was live game work. That's how smart the app has got. But when we were doing it, it was just simply, here are your measurables, this is how many swings you took. She could actually take video and I could go back and take a look at the video to see the swings.

It captured all of that. So again, you want to track your performance because when the question comes, right, Ralph, something you said in our last episode has impacted me greatly. Know your numbers.

Oh, you

have That statement is so dynamic. It's dynamic in a lot of different ways. I can know the organization's numbers. I need to know my numbers. I need to know my competitors numbers.

Now I'm gonna broaden what that means. Sometime a competitor is the person on your team.

Yes.

Not in a negative way. I believe in healthy competition. Ralph, I believe had a great healthy competition when we worked side by side. Because we were driving each other more excellence. We're in the midst of watching the Olympics now and you see the gymnasts, man, they're driving each other to the highest levels.

They really are. You know what

I'm saying? But they're right, there's a competition inside the competition. Yes. And that competition is about helping each of us do better. I'm not gonna challenge you to try to pull you down.

I'm gonna challenge you to try to push you up. Right?

Yep. No, this is good, man. So the benefits of the SMART goals is to drive maximum performance. Yes, sir. Right?

Once you put it in once you really define it out and you, to your point, create the program around it, then it'll drive maximum performance. So what are some of those common mistakes that people make in their goal setting? I know one that comes to mind for me is lack of, specificity. But they're not specific. You know, goals are just very vague.

Yep. Right? You know, they're not clear. They don't have any actionable steps. Yep.

They lead to confusion or a lack of direction. What was us? What are some things that come to mind for you, Terry?

I would say, you know, one of the things that, you know, definitely comes to mind, is really just around, you know, sometimes people don't put a date on it. Right. And so you've really really those common mistakes. The smart goal is designed to eliminate that for you. And so in that timeline, I would say though be realistic with your timeline.

Here's what I've seen people do. They are so eager to try to people please and they create a timeline that, man, it's too aggressive. Here's the thing about goal setting, it's a framework. You do not set that goal where there is no latitude, there is no room for the unknown. Because as you go through this process, you don't know what are gonna be the hurdles.

I'll give you a prime example. One of the biggest things that I've seen derail most projects in terms of timeline is getting the South Side. All the red tape back and forth, legal, scope creep. Mhmm. Right?

Yeah. And but here's the deal.

Go here.

Yeah. But but here's what happens. You've been held to that original date.

You sure are. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

You're absolutely right. Now this is, this, this is good, man. This is good. And I know, another one, another piece that a mistake that people make in goals is, ignoring the measurement, failing to define the metrics or the indicators to track your progress.

Yes.

Right? Because, you know, we we happy and we we just, oh, I'm gonna do it all. I'm gonna change the world. But, you know, kinda going back to something you said, though, that I think is a really powerful point, I don't wanna miss it, is that there's like the in the in the example that you gave with Liz, there's enough data out there that says, if you do this, this, this, and this, your outcome will be that. Right?

So you basically are putting together a program that's going to guarantee your success if you do the work because there's been enough data before you to define what success looks like. Right? I just don't want to miss that because that is a powerful, powerful point that you make. It's not so much about just coming up with a goal and then figuring out how to measure it, But it's using previous data that's already been determined as if you do these things this many times, you will get this result. Right?

For sure. Yes.

Yeah. So I I think that's that's really, that's that's a really powerful point. But what I was just saying was ignoring measurement. Right? So if you don't define your metrics or your indicators to track your progress, how are you knowing if you're winning or if you're losing?

Right?

You you just don't know. Like like I think somebody said to us one time, it's like a coach just telling you to go out on the on the football field and say, go win, and you don't know where the goalpost is. And they just say, well, just go win. Right? You you don't you don't know how to measure what what it means to win or anything like that.

And then maybe setting too many goals to your point. Right. You get, you get excited and you just want to throw a whole bunch of stuff out there that cause you want to people please and you want to impress people. And you forget that six months down the line when life happens, the unknown happens, and you can't meet all of those goals, now you should still be held accountable to them. Right?

That's right.

Yeah. And and here's the thing. Right? On that on that, You we want to hone in on those things that are going to provide the biggest return. Right?

Here's here's what I'm going through an exercise right now. Right? And the exercise is about look, the widget turn work. Now, that's your role is fine, but I believe we're talking to a lot of leaders on this are aspiring leaders. Most organizations are taking a lot of what we call the day to day operation stuff.

Those things that are repeatable, right? That we can create a document for that we can assign to, again, because all of this is about all of this hones into one big bucket and that big bucket is human capital.

And

organizations today, especially with where we are, man, everybody is trying to cut cost and increase profit.

That's right.

Now this is not the day we're not in the days of the dot net boom. Money was flying everywhere, boy, it was coming out of shoes, noses, man, some other choice words. We had so much money, it was coming out of

our That's right.

Help me, Lord. Help me. But we're not in that day, man. We're not in that day. That day is gone.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. We hope that you not only enjoyed the content, but gained something to help you on your personal leadership journey. Feel free to reach out to us on X and Instagram under the handles Leadership Sovereignty. Until next time, stay safe, peace, and blessings.