Goal Mapping: The Step-by-Step Path to Achieving What Matters with Brian Mayne

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:00.168)
Everything we do every day is driven by our subconscious. The subconscious always wants a target. If you don't set a goal, it will just automatically follow your dominant thought. When you're setting goals, it's really important that you've got a combination of words and pictures. Pictures is the universal language of the subconscious mind. The difference between

People that achieve their goals and people that don't really comes down to do they have a system that supports them in setting the goal in the most powerful way to begin with.

speaker-1 (00:38.808)
Welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Talk. name is Christian Rodwell, Memeship Director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hi, Kevin.

You are so happy you

Well, another year. Maybe that's one of the goals that you set for yourself each year, right? Try Jan.

I wouldn't say it's a goal. would say it's just something I do with my wife every year and got an extra special reason or she has anyway, because my youngest son is getting married in May as somebody else I know is not too far from the other end of this podcast camera. So two special weddings in May and as usual, people want to look their best. I said, wife's not about me, it's about them.

Well...

speaker-2 (01:28.076)
I'll just carry on drinking, thanks.

Well, well done. Congratulations. Good to set your intentions for the year ahead. And that's what our topic is today. It's a goal setting. And of course, we're early Feb now, Kevin. So many people have set goals and New Year's Eve resolutions and it perhaps is starting to wane by now. So, really pleased to invite Brian Main as our guest today. And I've known Brian for many years actually, interviewed him once previously and really good to reconnect because Brian is one of

the leading authorities on goal setting and in particular a process called goal mapping, which brings not just writing your goals down, but bringing imagery and pictures to fuse that together and make those goals even more powerful.

absolutely critical and of course within Welpall, as I'm known, is the visionary. The visionary is always about big pictures and so I couldn't endorse what Brian has to say even more. He's one of the other things to say, such a gentleman and such a scholar, but from humble beginnings and humble backgrounds. It's really important to give that context. In the subject of context, I did listen when I was hearing the interview and hearing the seagulls in the background.

important to recognize that I love the authenticity of real noises of things happening in the background. So just be aware of that before you mention it, you know, that he's on the Isle of Wight, think, isn't he?

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That's right. Yes. And the goal mapping process is one we've been sharing with our members for many years. And it was in fact, of our members, Beena Patel, who recently reached out to me and said how much she enjoyed the goal mapping process. She's actually now become a certified goal mapping coach. I thought, perfect time then to invite Brian onto the podcast to share more. So I guess now's a good moment for us to share Brian's wisdom. So let's head on over to our conversation today with Mr. Brian Main.

Brian, welcome to Wealth Talk today. How are you?

Very good, thank you. Very nice to be with you.

It's so lovely to reconnect with you. In fact, it was 2019 when we first recorded a podcast together and that was back for my Escape the Rat Race radio. So quite a bit has changed in the world since then, hasn't it?

Yeah, just a bit. Lots have changed, of course, in the way that people do their training now and coaching with more and more people working online.

speaker-1 (03:53.238)
Right. And we're obviously going to get deep into the goal mapping process today. And I've been goal mapping for many years following your process, Brian. We were chatting, you were saying it's interesting because the lockdown just kind of turned us more into a sort of digital world, even more so. But actually, you've seen some positives to that, you, when it comes to the goal mapping process?

Yeah, it was a big surprise for me to see how much more powerful it was for people to do their goal maps online, digitally, and then print them out, rather than drawing the pictures on paper. It's interesting how sometimes something very good can come out of situation that on the surface looks quite bad. I had my own lockdown imposed on me in 2018 because I

I become unwell and the doctors didn't want me to fly anymore for a year because I had some blood clots in my lung and I had to sit still. And because of that, I stopped my international speaking and workshops and I started coaching people instead online. And I realized just how much more powerful it was. And by 2019, when we did the podcast with you, I'd really built

this very powerful online platform. But the challenge was a lot of people were still very fixed in their idea of doing coaching or training in person. But then of course, 2020 COVID came and everybody needed to try going online. And I was well positioned for that because I'd already been doing it a couple of years.

The great thing, and it is the great surprise for me, is how much more quickly people were achieving their goals using the online program. And it's really been a learning journey for me over the last five years or so now to get clear on why. Why does that happen? I've had some brilliant conversations with professors that have helped me to understand more the brain science, neurology behind goal mapping and why it works.

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and why it's been so powerful these last years, and with people doing digital Go Maps.

Absolutely. Well, you truly are an expert in this field, Brian. And I really want to dig in today as to why goals work for some people and not others and how meaningful goals really created and then the practical process, which I'm sure you can walk us through. And I should say that you're an author of multiple books, you're speaker, you've helped hundreds of thousands, if not more, clients as big as Microsoft. Even Tony Robbins flew you over to America to teach them how to process.

Yeah, yeah. So where did this all begin for you, Brian, the goal, the goal mapping and the goal setting?

It started with my own life crashed really. I'd grown up in an unusual life. I was born into a traveling funfair family. So up until I was 18, had lots of different homes each year, not a lot of school, never took any qualifications. I left school just before I was 13, had dyslexia and never learned to read and write. But my father...

had a family business operating the funfair equipment and amusements with tourist industry. And I just worked with the family business. so although I was very embarrassed about not being able to read and write and I struggled with low self-esteem and my dyslexia, I did okay for myself and the family business prospered. But then around about age 29, tourism really changed here in the UK and English people started taking their main summer holiday abroad.

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And we had a tourist business. so the business, like many tourist businesses at that time in the late 1980s, early 90s, it went out of business. And I suddenly found myself in this situation where I was not only broke, but massively in debt. My home had been repossessed and my possessions were repossessed. And I had no qualifications and I couldn't read and write properly and life was looking quite dark. And some friends, we had a generosity and

partly because I think they thought it might be good for them. They offered me a job in their sales team. I'd become a salesperson. I wasn't any good at it at all. But it was that that introduced me to development and it became life-changing. I would go as far as to say it was life-saving for me. I was feeling quite down and suicidal. Suddenly, I discovered the simple science and the power of both.

positive thinking and goal setting. Met this great life coach who helped me. He'd been employed by the sales company I joined to put on workshops. And it becomes the start of a journey that I've been on ever since of both learning, using, but also supplying personal development to people that want to achieve success. And in particular, the goal mapping program.

has reached millions of people now around the world. And it's probably that that I'm best known for, but there are actually four different mapping systems focused on different types of success. What's distinctive about all the different mapping systems like goal mapping is how it uses a combination of words and pictures to stimulate both the creative mind or so-called right brain and logical mind.

left brain, because it's by activating both sides of our brain, creative and logical mind, that we're able to both get clear on what we want to achieve, as well as make a plan of how we achieve it. I learned to read within a year of discovering person development. I took my performance figures in the sales team from the lowest to the highest.

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And lots of people wanted to know how, and so I started to make workshops. And then someone on one of those workshops recommended me to a big training company in London who had the license to teach Tony Robbins and others. And they recruited me as a trainer who could teach Tony's work, along with Stephen Covey, Brian Tracy, Jim Romsig Ziegler, Paul McKenna was all stable of speakers. And I become certified and trained up in many of their systems.

About a year later is when I created a goal mapping and I've been teaching it ever since and now there are a lot of people around the world are certified to teach goal mapping also.

And what year specifically was it when you first set up the goal mapping?

It was 1995 when I ran the very first workshop and I used it for a year before myself to test it, to try and understand it, because it came as a single flash of insight. I didn't sit down and design it. I was driving my car at midnight through the centre of London. I'd been thinking really deeply about what's the most important things to include when you set your goals, because

As you said at start of this talk today, some people are achieving their goals and some people aren't. And there are reasons why. It's not an accident. And so I'd been thinking deeply for a year about what's most important. We have set goals and I suddenly had this flash of insight come and gradually I worked out what this flash of insight was. I started using it myself and a year later started teaching.

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Yeah, so 30 years now and exist

We had a 30 year celebration last year.

Well, I hope you have Brandon on the decks for a bit of added fun. I can hear the seagulls that should say you're over in the Isle of Wight, aren't you?

I am, and I'm next to the sea and they're sat on my balcony.

That was lovely. What have been in that 30 years, some of the key goals that you've materialized for yourself then, Brian, following this process?

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was in a million pounds of debt at the start of my personal development journey. It took me 10 years to pay it back. For me, that was quite a big goal. wanted my parents to keep their home and it was up for repossession because it was a guarantee towards the debt. When the family business collapsed, the whole family lost everything. Brother lost his home, my home was repossessed.

My parents' was due for very good possession and there was a lot of debt. took me a long time to clear that debt. So my parents keep that home. And then I felt very grateful. I do to this day, to the man that taught me about positive thinking and goal setting to begin with at the start of my personal development journey. he sadly died quite young. He was my coach for about five years and then

very suddenly and very unexpectedly he was gone. He had a sense of purpose about helping people. And when he died, I just saw I'm going to continue his legacy and I will help as many as I possibly can wherever they are with what I know and the tools that I've. So right from the very beginning when I started with Goal Mapping in 1995 and had the first website created.

We've always given away the core content for free so people can download the templates and the instructions to them. It doesn't have to cost them anything. Or more often these days, people are going to our web platform and they're creating their map there digitally. And my target is to reach 7 million people within my lifetime. It's already, as you mentioned just now, it's been a little more than 30 years.

And it's difficult to know, but we think we've reached about 6 million people. The Goal Mapping books have done very well, and there's been lots of magazine articles, TV appearances, radio, umpteen podcasts. But it's really the growing community of coaches and trainers and therapists that are certified in the system, that have really helped to reach a lot of people. And we have more than 1,600 coaches now around the world.

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Some of them working in business, a lot of them working in therapy, some of them wealth coaches. There's all types of coaches that will use goal mapping as their achievement part in their program. So I think they're the things that have pleased me most. And if I was to focus on one aspect of those six million, it would be the million plus students that have had goal mapping.

in state education. So we have goal mapping in primary school and secondary school and university. It's down to individual schools to choose it. So every so often there's an enlightened teacher who says, you know, we'd really like to use goal mapping in the school and helping young people learn goal mapping for me is a great passion because it really is a life skill. It's lifelong. Once you

Once you learn what's important when you set a goal, you've got that for the rest of your life. And of course, it's life wide. You can be setting goals about all the important aspects and area of life, not just one thing. And the same technique with goal mapping serves people in lots of areas. It's always a thrill to get a message from someone telling me what they've achieved with their goal map.

People have achieved amazing things.

It's very true and I can say the same for myself. I've created many goal maps and sometimes forgetting about them. We'll come on to this, I'm sure, the process really for trying to make sure you achieve the goals. Different thoughts from different people out there, as you already mentioned, many of the greats, Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn. Some people will say, write the goals down, almost put them away.

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forget about them, come back to them. And in some cases, I found that myself when I've rediscovered old maps and said, wow, I suddenly have that in my life now. It's pretty incredible. But before we get into the process, which obviously I'd love to do with you, I love the fact that obviously sharing this now with the schools, with the young people. And I should mention the key difference really with the goal mapping is not that you're just writing them down, but you're connecting that to imagery. And this is really, you know, so unique about the goal mapping process.

And why does that make, why does that increase the chance of these goals happening and being achieved?

Goal achievement is really the process of your subconscious mind, which works like your own personal autopilot, following a target that you set for it. Now, the reality is, if you study the science of how it works, the reality is,

All of us are influencing our life around us all of the time. But most people are unconscious of it. And the way in which your subconscious mind is commanded is by the thoughts that you think. So when you're thinking, it is your strongest, most often thought.

that becomes the command for your subconscious. And your subconscious in all sorts of subtle ways works like your autopilot to move you towards your goal. Maybe you've had the experience like so many people of getting in your car to drive somewhere and you briefly picture the destination in your mind, you start driving.

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your mind drifts on to thinking about other things and before you know it, you're at your destination. You don't really remember the journey that much. The scenery along the way, the traffic lights you stopped at, the turn you took, who was driving the car, where your subconscious was. And it's estimated that 90 % of everything we do every day

is driven by our subconscious. And it's really, really important that your subconscious has a clear picture of where it is you want to go in yourself, in your life, whatever you're focused on. You may have had also this experience of getting in your car to go somewhere, but you don't strongly picture the destination. You start driving.

And instead of taking the turn that you needed, you overshoot and you follow an old route that's still strong in your mind. Maybe to a place you used to work or live or take the children to school. And I hear about it all the time. Everyone's got an example of being a bit mindless, driving and suddenly they're at some place where they no longer live or no longer work. And what it shows is

that the subconscious always wants to target. And if you don't set a goal, it will just automatically follow your dominant thought. And this is why some people go into self-sabotage, because they overly focus on what they don't want. And the subconscious can't work that out. It just gives them more of what they don't want. So when we set goals, what's actually going on at a scientific level

is that we are commanding our subconscious autopilot to move us towards our targets. The subconscious mind pays much more attention to pictures than it does to words. When you go to sleep at night, it's your conscious mind that goes to sleep. Your subconscious keeps working 24 hours a day. And when your conscious mind goes to sleep, your subconscious comes to the surface

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creates dreams and everybody dreams in pictures. Sometimes there's also words and we may hear the words, but it's pictures that are dominant within our dreams. And that's because pictures is the universal language of the subconscious mind. So when you're setting goals, it's really important that you've got a combination of words and pictures. When I was first

asking all the different trainers that I was working with, like Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey, I was asking, what do you think is important to include when you're setting your goals? And different people will have different ideas, but they would also, you've got to write the goals down line after line after line after line after line, multiple times. And the reason why they recommend that multiple times of writing goals

is because your subconscious doesn't pay so much attention to words. So you have to repeat the words over many times to have an impact on your subconscious. And as the old saying from Confucius goes, a picture is worth a thousand words because imagery is the language of the subconscious. And no one was really saying back in 1994, use pictures.

None of you can pick up any goal-setting book from that era and it will tell you about them writing line after line after line. That changed when American and Russian sports psychologists started to realize the power of visualization to enhance an athlete's performance. And very quickly, that idea of affirmation, not affirmation, sorry, visualization to improve performance.

found its way into training and was the birth really of dream boards and vision boards. And so dream boards and vision boards really started around about 1999-2000, about five years after I started with goal mapping. I have a lot of people that come to me with a dream board or a vision board and they haven't achieved their goal. And most often the reason is because when I look at their dream board or vision board,

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They've got some nice pictures, but they've got no words. They've got no plan. There's no target date for achievement. It's missing a whole load of elements. It's not about words or pictures. It needs both. Words help us to be very clear and very precise about our goal. And imagery adds the visual power to impress the goal on the subconscious mind. Five years after I was

teaching goal mapping. I was invited to a Hindu ceremony at a temple in London. And I thought I had something absolutely new with goal mapping. I looked all around the world. I had people like Tony Robbins saying, this is great. And I'm thinking, I've got something new here. Go to this Hindu ceremony, sat down. I was gobsmacked. I had to watch the Brahmin priest chant a mantra, words, while drawing a yantra.

a picture. Buddhists do the same thing. They chant a mantra and they draw a mandala, sometimes on paper, sometimes colored rice, colored sand. It's words and pictures side by side. Why? And it's been going on 10,000 years. Why? Well, because it works. With their chanting, am peace, I am happy, I am love, it's still a goal. And so this combination of words and pictures is the key. And within a goal map, there is more than just the

prime principle of words and pictures, there are also the different elements that are important to think through when you're setting the goal. So it starts with what do you want, but then it's also important to identify, what's the priority? Because there may be many things you want, but we need one thing that we're going to absolutely focus on. And then why do you want it? When do you want it? What's a simple plan of how you're going to achieve it?

and who's going to be involved. So it's seven simple steps that guide the person into creating their map in words and pictures. And quite simply, the difference between people that achieve their goals and people that don't really comes down to do they have a system that supports them in setting the goal.

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in the most powerful way to begin with. Because if you don't set the goal in a powerful way, and I know many people don't even write their goals down, let alone add pictures or make sure they write in the form of affirmation. Some people say to me, I know what I want. You know, okay, knowing what you want will send a command to your subconscious. You also know what you don't want and you worry about it every so often and that sends the opposite command to your subconscious.

And a lot of people are taking two steps forward, setting a goal, but they don't have the right system to support them. And so they take two steps back and they don't really make progress and sort of go round in circles. If you've got the right process to support you, if you are making a plan and you're given enough time, then I've seen people achieve absolutely astounding things.

And this process, as you've already mentioned, is available completely for free for anyone to log into Goalmapping.com and put together their own Goalmap. And it's a fantastic process. Would you mind just quickly walking us through what those seven steps are,

Yeah, so the first step, dream, is about using your right creative brain. And in the platform, you'll find lots of guided visualizations that are there to help the user get a picture of what success looks like for them in their life generally, or in specific areas, like building their wealth or increasing their health. And then to make a simple list,

of the different things that are important when the person's thinking through their best life in the future or success in a life area. And the second step is to use logical mind, left brain, to work out what's the main thing, what's the priority. Now, there may be many things and you may want all of the different things, but logically, there will always be one thing.

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that is the prime thing to achieve because it gives you some type of advantage in achieving the other things. And then to map it out in words and pictures. So we're most often recommending people have five goals in their goal map. A center goal right in the very middle, and then two more at either side. And these can all be from different areas of life or all focused on just one area of life, one...

specific achievement, building wealth, for instance. And then step four, why. And this is a really key thing that a lot of goal-setting systems miss. The difference between someone staying in the game and dropping out when they set a goal is going to come down to how strong their why is. The stronger the why, and it wants to be an emotional why,

for the love of my family or for some sense of purpose or for my own life freedom, live a freedom lifestyle. So it's strong emotion that creates daily motivation. And we get people to identify three strong reasons why they want to achieve their goals and also to create three powerful pictures.

And they can upload personal pictures, family photos, everybody that uses the online platform, even at the free level, they have their own private image folder where they can upload pictures as well as using our preloaded stock images. And then step five, when. What is the target date for achieving the main goal? And further down on the goal map, a start date.

And by giving a start date and a target date, it creates a timeline. Some goals are short-term goals. A lot of people this time of year are doing one-month goal maps to support them in a diet they're taking, a cleanse that they're on, a dry January or something. And other goal maps, particularly those focused around building financial freedom, will be much longer-term maps.

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It may be many years in some cases, but certainly they will often be more than a year. So you have a timeline, a start date and a target date, and that timeline is a framework to hang step six, which is how. What are the major things you need to do step by step to move along your timeline towards the achievement of the main goal? Again, they're always stated in words written as affirmation.

pictures to create the visualization. And then the final step, number seven, who? Who's going to help? Who's going to be involved? And sometimes it would just be you, as said, in the goal. And when it's you, you state your ways of being that are going to help you. Like on my map, I've got one of my maps right here in front of me. I am focused. So it's me that

is the most important person taking the action, but it's about me being focused. So you state your ways of being, qualities of character that help you to take the actions in a powerful way to move along your path towards the achievement of your goals.

very simple, very clear maps. They're not cluttered. we talked about, should you look at the map every day? Also, the time of day is important as well as to when your brain is in the right state. Can you perhaps talk about that, Brian? Yeah.

I've been recommending since the beginning, 30 years ago, that people look at their map every day and first thing in the morning because first thing in the morning your brain is in alpha rhythm. There are four very distinct brain states, alpha, theta, delta, beta. When you are in deep asleep, your brain slows right down.

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into deep sleep, sphata and delta. And when you're wide awake, you're in beta consciousness. But there's a state in between the two known as alpha rhythm. And it's a very specific brain state. And the connection when you're in alpha rhythm to your subconscious mind is 100 times greater than it is at midday when your brain is wide awake. So the goal mapping ritual

is to look at your map once a day, ideally within the first hour after waking, because your brain stays in alpha rhythm for up to an hour. So if you look at your map, some people will put it next to the bathroom mirror or on the refrigerator door. And as you're cleaning your teeth or you're going about your morning routine, if you would just take a moment to look at your goal map,

And as you look at the pictures, say the words, it reminds, it re-impresses the goal onto your subconscious. And although I've been recommending this for many years, it's only in recent years that I've had conversations with professors of neurology that have helped me to understand how

fundamentally important this process is. When you set a goal, you're joining brain cells together. But they don't stick at first, they break apart again. And to make the goal stick, you need to review the goal and remind yourself, reestablish the brain cell connection and do that once a day for 30 days.

Some scientists say 10 days, but I think working like a lunar cycle, calendar month, 30 days is a much more certain period of time. As you form those new brain cell connections, they also create new empowering beliefs that send a constant command to your subconscious about you achieving your goal. It only takes a moment.

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to look at your map and say the words. And the reason my map is here is because it sits next to my notepad here. I didn't have it out because we were going to have a call. It's just always out. And it means that I'm keeping my goals in my consciousness. That means that they are staying as a target for my subconscious to aim for.

And a little bit like that car analogy, I don't need to be thinking about it all the time for my subconscious still to be moving me towards at whatever goals I've impressed upon it. Yeah.

neuroplasticity you mentioned. I've heard you say the phrase brain cells that fire together, wire together.

together yes good it's something that it is

is just going back to the sleep, is there some magical stuff that happens as well when the subconscious is working? as you say, you know, at night, that's really coming to the forefront. You know, is the importance of sleep also something people should consider here?

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Yeah, I think so. I just don't function well if I've not had enough sleep. I can keep it up for a little while, but I don't function so well. And sleep's got a restorative process to it and helps us to be at our best in our waking state. And obviously through that, to do our best and achieve our best results. I look at my maps most often first thing in the morning.

But I've also got a map up on my bedroom wall. And so sometimes I'm looking at it just before I sleep. coaching one person who has this really important goal they're working on, and they've sent their goal map to a printer, has had it printed out big like a poster. And they've got it fixed to the ceiling of their bedroom because you go into alpha rhythm twice a day.

when you wake up and it lasts for as much as an hour, but you also slip into alpha rhythm as you're going to sleep. And if you're looking at your map or thinking about your goal map as you're going to sleep, that has a huge impact in pressing upon your subconscious mind. There are a bunch of important points when you're writing the goals.

that are worth considering. They're summed up really in the science of how you write as affirmation. So an affirmation is always written personal, positive, and present tense. So I, I have, I earn, I own. You say it like it's a reality now. You say it like it's you. But it's really important to also say what you want and not what you don't want.

And this is where a lot of people make mistakes in their goal setting. It's one of the main reasons why some people don't achieve their goals is because they're writing a negative goal. I don't want more debt. Well, the subconscious part of your mind can't process the abstract of the don't. You watch a very young child where their subconscious is at the surface, a toddler, you tell them don't touch and they touch.

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because their subconscious is still in operation and can't work out the don't. In adult life, if someone says don't touch, you know it means keep your hand away. But your subconscious is still working in the same language pattern. So when we set our goals, it's really important that we're saying them and writing them in a way that the subconscious understands.

The subconscious doesn't understand time, but it doesn't understand abstract. So if you say, want to, all you will achieve is wanting. You must say it like it's the reality now, I have or I own or I am. But this present and positive tense is key. This is a time of year a lot of people will set health and wellbeing goals. Classic mistake I see all the time because people send me their goal maps and say, will you give me some feedback?

is they will say what they don't want. So I lose 15 kilo. They're saying what they don't want. You think it's a positive saying, I lose, but the subconscious can't process it. You've got to say what you want. So my health goal is I feel fantastic and free at 88 kg. So 88 kg is good weight for me. We just had Christmas, I'm free kg over that.

I'm not writing I want to lose. It's a negative. Say what you want. Say what you want to be. Likewise, say how much money you want in savings or what represents wealth for you. The mortgage is paid off. I'm mortgage free. Whatever wording sums up the positive of what you're looking to achieve and say it like you've done it. When people visualize, they don't visualize that it's in the future. If they do, that doesn't work.

you visualize it like you're living it now, getting all the feelings of it now, because that's what impresses the target on the subconscious. And your subconscious is programmed to be in agreement with your conscious mind. So if you're saying, can and I have, I know your subconscious will work on that. But if you're saying, I can't and I don't, then your subconscious processes that. And if you believe in the law of attraction, then it's working the same way there at

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universal consciousness as it does at a subconscious level. It's the same fundamental principles of saying what you want, saying like it's a reality and I in the sentence or we if you're doing the goal map together with another person.

It's been fascinating speaking with you, Brian. Just before we wrap things up, this is Wealth Talk. Many of our listeners will have specific financial goals. And I know within the online training, you have a financial freedom success center as well. So are there any kind of nuances, different steps when setting financial goals specifically?

think it's really important to give a number. I see a lot of people, they do a financial goal map and they will say something like, I'm financially free or I'm abundant or I'm prosperous. And it's not specific enough command for the subconscious. If you don't have a number, you can't make a plan. So if you visualize the life you want to live, and then after the visualization,

you use your left brain to do some calculation of what that's likely to cost. So if I want to live this freedom life, what's that going to cost? Is it passive? So if it's like 100,000 a year, is that passive, 100,000 a year? Or do I want to keep working active? Now from there, you can set that as a goal and you can make a plan. And obviously different people...

have different strategies for accumulating the wealth. But the first step is to get clear on what do you want? What's the number that represents the life you're looking to live? And then from there, to create the plan. The same seven steps of goal mapping apply to all the different life areas. But there are, as you say, nuances.

speaker-0 (42:46.958)
within those seven steps, depending on the type of goal you want to set. One more thing I would say with a financial goal map is I very often see the people using it for financial reasons. They will have two maps. They will have one that is long term about their financial freedom, and they will have another that is short term, a couple of years maybe, sometimes less, about clearing off

expensive debt, debt or payments that can be cleared off or pumping money into clear a mortgage, that type of thing. Sometimes they have a short term map about increasing their investments. Or sometimes people, if they're investing in property, will do a map just about that one project with their investment. A map contains all that key information, a goal map on the one page. It's why a lot of organizations like it.

And it just helps you to get clear. And the online system makes it quick and simple to do. And also, of course, easy to then share and communicate your goals to other people that may be involved in some way.

So for our members, of course, all of our information regarding today's conversation, Goal Mapping is inside the WealthBuilders Academy portal. But for those who are not connected, Brian, tell us a little bit more about what people can learn and get access to inside of GoalMapping.com.

There's a life balance checker, which is really key for helping people to see which areas of their life would most benefit from goal setting. And we've got master classes, we've got deep dive workshops, and we've got empowerment tools that people can use to help them find their passion or path in life. And then action planner and to-do lists, because some goal maps

speaker-0 (44:48.386)
financial goal map is typical of this, need that extra detail and information of the different things you're going to do to achieve the goal. And so very often when I'm working with people and they've got a financial goal map, once we've done the main map, we'll then go on to create a rolling 90 day action plan that helps them see

clearly and makes step-by-step process of achieving the goal much easier because of breaking it down. Information on all of these things is in the Financial Freedom Center. And we also, for people that are at the premium level, create one-to-one coaching pages so they can share their maps there and get confidential coaching feedback on their maps.

to help make them as powerful as possible and to achieve their goals as quickly as possible.

Brian, it's been brilliant speaking with you today. Thanks so much for taking the time out and sharing all of your wonderful experience and knowledge with us.

to be with you, Christian.

speaker-1 (45:59.886)
So pretty clear message there, think, Kevin, isn't it? If you want to achieve things in life, you've got to get crystal clear on what that is and you've got to put some metrics, when do you want that to be achieved by and write it down. And even more powerful is apply the imagery and the pictures to that because your brain works then both sides working together.

It's interesting. was talking to somebody earlier on today, not having thought about this podcast, but she was saying she'd been doing something and she was writing goals in the present, in the positive. And I said, you've done goal mapping, haven't you? And she said, yes, I have. So it's coming real to me that many people, including of course, in our academy program, goal mapping is an integral part of

what we share and what we teach. And it's good that some of our own students have gone on to want to share this more formally with others as part of Brian's, how many did he say? 1600 coaches or implementers. It's wow, isn't it really that he's had such a powerful impact. And as I said earlier on for such humble beginnings. So, you know, I applaud Brian for his commitment of 30 years and not just to help others, but to help children as well. want to.

make a note about that one. think that's a very important thing. He's doing things from the goodness of his heart, not from the goodness of his bank.

Yeah, he set himself a lofty goal, which was to reach 7 million, the number seven, very special in the wealth builders world. And yeah, he's well on his way to doing that and over a million children across state schools now benefiting from the goal mapping process. Amazing. We always say start with why, don't we Kevin? And it's really important to get clear on why you want something. And in our case, we ask our members, why do you want to be financially independent?

speaker-0 (47:35.658)
It's a good question.

speaker-1 (47:48.898)
You know, we get different answers and you have to sometimes dig around, don't you, to really get to the core. And it's that emotion. And sometimes we see some tears, don't we, when we actually do touch on that reason why. And of course you've got a very powerful why, which you've shared many times on the podcast.

I've shared my reason why and anybody who's new to the podcast could go back to the very beginning of episode one or two and I'll share that again there. But I think it's hugely powerful to have a strong reason why. And I know some people struggle, I know you struggled with your reason why initially. You just have to keep going to find it. But once you've discovered it, then the more powerful it is, the more likely it is you'll

Stick to your plans when well, things, know, life gets in the way, COVID gets in the way, as we heard when, you know, Brian first was doing this with you. So I think very, very, very important to have a very strong connection to you.

Yeah. And the gold map expands on that and asks the question of when and who will support you and the what. And that ties in very much with the wealth plan that we also create. So it's all very cohesive and joined up, but it's probably worth just sharing, Kevin, isn't it? We hear the magical 10K a month when we ask people, how much do you need or you want to be financially independent? And often that figure does get a little bit just plucked out of the air. So when it comes to actually working out your financial independence figure, probably worth just sharing.

we teach in the academy is think of your perfect year. If money was no object, how would you spend 2026? How many holidays would you have? Where would you go? What class would you travel? What car would you be driving? All of these things that you want and then start to put some prices against that. You actually go and have a look online and research and say, how much would that lifestyle cost? And then divide that by 12. And that roughly gives you your monthly recurring income amount. So that's how much you'd need to cover that perfect lifestyle.

speaker-2 (49:48.28)
Yeah, and for most people, they come up with their own numbers. We don't suggest the numbers, but I think the 10 seems to just be a magic number for so many of our members. It's scary how many people come up with that number on their own to become financially independent. It doesn't really matter specifically what the number is when you start. It gives you a destination to move towards.

that changes over time, tax positions change, and so on. So we're not trying to get hugely accurate to the penny, but just that approximation gives you a sense of how big the gap is between where you are now. And most people who start life have got zero recurring income, no recurring income at all. So moving north towards getting some is a positive thing, having an objective, that's why we said the intermediate objective, don't we, of security.

you could pay your bills, it could give you the freedom not to have to work full-time in a job. You could dedicate some time towards more time towards building your wealth. I think it's worked out for us and how we've tried to help our students do it, Chris. I think it becomes also very important at the opposite end. We know there are five levels of wealth. We've talked about that before on another podcast. as I spend more of my time dealing with those who are

have achieved independence or they're definitely planning the legacy, the importance of knowing not just what the recurring income you want, but what recurring income do you have. So if you've got a recurring income that's predictable, dependable, and provable, then you can use any excess to get from income, which is completely inheritance tax-free because inheritance tax is a tax on capital, not a tax on income. So the little known.

use of recurring income as a method by which you can leave much stronger, better legacy is something we teach in the family wealth fortress, which is for those people who've already achieved some significant success in their career, in their business, or in property. anybody's interested in that. You already know you're looking for something that's joined up, you're looking for something holistic, and where you've already achieved success. You don't need to be worried about

speaker-2 (52:12.278)
secured your independence before you achieved it. So where do you go from there? But all roads lead to the same conversation as how much do you need in recurring income? Because that gives you wealth, gives you certainty, and allows you to...

legacy as well. Well said. So whatever stage of the wealth building journey you need a plan, you need some clear goals. And we hope today's episode was insightful and informative. Head to GoalMapping.com and you can create your own goal map absolutely for free. I guarantee you will enjoy the process and hope all of your dreams come true as a result of that. All right then, that's it for another episode of Wealth Talk. Kevin, you and I will be back.

That's Mr. Disney.

speaker-1 (52:55.924)
same time, same place in two weeks.

weeks yeah look forward to then until then see ya

We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the WealthBuilders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.