Success Is Hard Until You Build Systems Like This

If you feel like you're constantly working, but you're not making the progress that you want, you do not need a new goal, you need better systems. I have started and sold multi-million dollar companies, and I'm now the CEO of

acquisition.com. And I'm not here

acquisition.com. And I'm not here because I'm smarter or more talented than you. I'm here because I have built

than you. I'm here because I have built daily failproof systems that deliver actual results in my life. Here's how I build systems that work harder than I could ever work. Many people come and they say, "I just can't get the

motivation." But what they don't realize

motivation." But what they don't realize is that most people don't have a motivation problem. They have a systems

motivation problem. They have a systems problem. You don't rise to the level of

problem. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You actually are going to

your goals. You actually are going to fall to the level of the systems you put in place. What if the secret to success

in place. What if the secret to success is literally as simple as having a checklist. And so if you're watching

checklist. And so if you're watching this video, what I want you to do is this. Write down your biggest goal. It

this. Write down your biggest goal. It

can be anything. It can be getting the body you've always wanted, paying off debt, starting your own business, building a social media following. Goals

are so limiting. Goals are usually emotionally driven. We think we have a

emotionally driven. We think we have a feeling and then we say, "I've got this goal." Whereas systems are

goal." Whereas systems are execution-driven. And so I think of it

execution-driven. And so I think of it like this. Goals are like a compass.

like this. Goals are like a compass.

Systems are the car, the plane, or the yacht that are going to get you to the destination. I think one of the best

destination. I think one of the best things that I ever did for myself was decide that I wanted to lose 85 lbs.

Because in doing the process, in going through the process of losing 85 lbs, what I realized was that it wasn't about how badly I wanted to lose 85 lbs. me

wanting to lose 85 lbs when I was 18, when I still weighed 225 lbs versus when I was 19 and I actually started losing the weight. I had no more or less

the weight. I had no more or less desire, the same amount of desire existed. A lot of people think if you

existed. A lot of people think if you want it bad enough, you'll get the goal.

And that's just not the truth. And what

I realized is that until I put systems in place every day and every week that allowed me to reach my goal of losing 85 lbs, it didn't happen. And the same

systems that I put in place on a daily and a weekly basis to help me lose that weight are the same kind of systems I put in place to build a company to hopefully be worth a billion dollars.

It's just a matter of putting things in place ahead of time. So goals, they make you feel good today because you're like you step on the scale and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm fat. I need to set a goal to lose weight." And then you feel good today like I'm going to take care

of this. versus systems which get you

of this. versus systems which get you results over time but they might not feel great today cuz what it means today if I have a system in place is that maybe I don't eat the junk food today maybe I go to the gym today instead of stay home watch a movie and so having a

good system doesn't feel good every day but you look back a year later and you're like wow I actually got the results that I wanted now that you have a goal in mind let's actually talk about the nitty-gritty like the systems that are going to get us there if you can't

describe what you're doing in a system then you don't understand it well enough to be doing it a vague system is a broken system. When somebody tells me,

broken system. When somebody tells me, "I want to lose weight." And they're like, "I'm going to go to the gym every day." What time? What gym? How are you

day." What time? What gym? How are you going to get there? What are you going to wear? What are you going to do when

to wear? What are you going to do when you arrive? What's your workout routine?

you arrive? What's your workout routine?

If you're not specific, you're not repeatable. And if it's not repeatable,

repeatable. And if it's not repeatable, it's never going to scale. So, let's use my morning routine for example, right? I

wake up in the morning and I have my coffee system, right? What exactly

happens step by step? I'm making my coffee and then what I've done is I put my vitamins right next to my coffee so that the moment I make my coffee I then am prompted to then take my vitamins and then next to my vitamins I have a green

drink. And so then when I take my

drink. And so then when I take my vitamins I remember that I have to drink my vitamins with my green drink. Now

what does my coffee system allow me to do? Well, what I used to do when I was

do? Well, what I used to do when I was overweight for example is that every morning I would wake up and I would have like a muffin. I would eat like a banana nut muffin usually equating to like 500 calories. And so now instead of eating a

calories. And so now instead of eating a muffin, what I've replaced it with when I did forever, girl, like I'm talking this was 12 years ago that I replaced this is I said instead I'm going to have coffee and I'm going to have a green drink and vitamins. I'm just going to

replace it. I'm not going to get rid of

replace it. I'm not going to get rid of the fact that I eat or drink something in the morning, but I'm going to replace it with something else. Here's the

thing. By the time you're done with a coffee and a green drink, you're not exactly feing for a muffin, right? I'm

pretty full. So when I tell you that process, you probably could go do that right now, right? You could say, "I'm going to replace my muffin with a green drink and vitamins and coffee." It's not vague. I'm very specific about my

vague. I'm very specific about my process. Now, in order to make a system

process. Now, in order to make a system repeatable, we want to have really three pieces that go into it. The first is it has to have a trigger. The second is that it has to have a process. And the

third is that you have to know a way to track it. So, let me break that down to

track it. So, let me break that down to you. The trigger, if you're trying to

you. The trigger, if you're trying to lose weight, could be every time you eat, pull up My Fitness Pal. So what you do is for the first couple weeks every time you have a meal you pull up your phone and you pull up the app. Now every

time you have the app you have a process of logging your food. And maybe what make it easier is for me for example my my fitness pal is on my phone. It's on

my home screen. So I have everything categorized but then the one thing I'm trying to remember always is on my home screen by itself a freestanding app which is My Fitness Pal. So I pick it up. Oh yeah. Got to log my food. Then I

up. Oh yeah. Got to log my food. Then I

have a process. What's my process? I'm

going to log the food that I'm eating.

And then by logging my food, I'm also tracking my food. What I tell people often is you need a prompt. You need

something to grab your attention. Our

brains are meant to block out most things that happen in the day. We need

to think, how am I going to create an association or a prompt so I'm going to remember to actually do this? The reason

that you're probably not reaching your goals or haven't to this day is not because you don't want to. It's because

you don't have any triggers. You don't

have anything that's going to remind you. When I was trying to lose weight,

you. When I was trying to lose weight, another thing that I did is I had a sticky note on the fridge and I was just put my goal weight. I had it sitting up there. there. It said 135 lbs. And then

there. there. It said 135 lbs. And then

every time I went to the fridge to like subconsciously go to get ice cream or something because I didn't remember I was dieting, which happens. I know. And

you'd probably know, too. I would see the sticky note be like, "Oh Yeah, I don't want to weigh this much anymore." Now, what was that? That was a

anymore." Now, what was that? That was a system. That was a trigger right there.

system. That was a trigger right there.

And then the trigger was like, "Okay, there's a sticky note on the fridge."

The process I would follow is go get a hot cocoa. I had diet hot cocoa, Nestle,

hot cocoa. I had diet hot cocoa, Nestle, 25 calories, and I would make that instead. An easy one is that every

instead. An easy one is that every Sunday I have what I call Monday hour 1, which I choose to do on Sunday. It's on

my calendar. What that prompts me to do is to remember to prepare everything for the next week. And then every time when I start out with the Monday hour one, I ask myself how closely did I follow my

plan from last week, which is how I track. So again, we have a trigger. It's

track. So again, we have a trigger. It's

on my calendar. We have a process Monday hour 1. And we have tracking, which is

hour 1. And we have tracking, which is every week I'm auditing to see if I followed the plan from the prior. So,

what I'd ask you to do is choose an area. Maybe it's morning. You want to

area. Maybe it's morning. You want to have a system for your mornings. Maybe

it's making a sale. You need a system for making a sale. Maybe it's content production. You need a system for

production. You need a system for content production. Either way, go

content production. Either way, go through this process. And you want to define these things. What's the trigger?

When does it happen? What sets the system into motion? Then the process.

What exactly happens step by step as specific as possible. Don't leave

anything out. And then tracking. How are

you actually going to know that what you wanted to happen happened? That's really

what tracking is. And here's the thing.

You can systemize anything from content creation to running meetings to losing weight to building a relationship by just defining these three components. If

you really want to test this, right, is that what do you do every time you see your spouse in the morning? I have

trained myself that the moment that I see my spouse first time during the day, I immediately smile and I run towards him like a little kid at Christmas. Why

have I done that? Because it's a trigger. I see my spouse, which then

trigger. I see my spouse, which then creates a process. run and smile towards him which then creates I don't want to tell you how I track it but it just tells you that we have a great relationship right and it leads to having a closer relationship with that

person and so the reality is you can use this to apply to any area of your life the next thing we want to do when we put a system in place we understand the trigger we've got the three-part process is we want to eliminate emotional resistance because if you're always

trying to like push through this resistance then the problem isn't you it's your system so think about it like this if you're trying to lose weight and somebody makes all of your meals ahead of time and all you have to do is just

show up to the table and they bring the food to you and maybe they even feed the food to you, right? You just have to eat the food that's in front of your face.

Doesn't that seem a lot more scalable?

Doesn't it seem like it takes out this level of emotional component from the dieting? It makes you feel like, wow, if

dieting? It makes you feel like, wow, if that actually occurred, things would feel easier now. Why would they feel easier? Because it's removed friction

easier? Because it's removed friction from the process. Now, why is that? Why

does that feel better when we think about that? like, wow, if somebody

about that? like, wow, if somebody actually like made every single meal for me and then just brought it to me, I it would be way easier to adhere to my dieting. That is because you spend more

dieting. That is because you spend more time executing and following through and less time thinking. And so, what I would say is that you want to think about every friction point that you hit at every point during the day. Maybe it's

what you eat, maybe it's how you speak to people, maybe it's how you show up for your company. What it is, it's decision fatigue that is accumulating, right? Maybe it's a workout. It's like

right? Maybe it's a workout. It's like

I've got to decide what time I go to the gym, what I do at the gym, what I wear for the gym, if I work out with a friend, if I don't, do I eat before? Do

I eat after? It's like, oh my gosh, you have to ask yourself, what would make the system automatic and take away all the decision-m? Do I need to lay out my

the decision-m? Do I need to lay out my clothes the night before? Put a calendar invite for when I go to the gym. Make

sure I have a workout built in every single day. Sign up for an app that

single day. Sign up for an app that gives me a workout every day. Do I need to buy my food every weekend, cook it all on Sunday, prep my meals for every single meal I have for the week? Do I

need to build out a 30-day content calendar and then batch record on one day? What do you need to do to take the

day? What do you need to do to take the decision-m out? Most people fail because

decision-m out? Most people fail because they have too much emotional resistance through the process that they've created because they don't make enough decisions ahead of time. I'll give you a little secret is that in my company I have

something called writing memos right so we have like a memo built culture which like if you have an idea you have something you want to roll out I want you to write a memo about it now why do I ask people to write a memo about it being forced to write a memo you have to

make all the decisions that go with it and so often what happens is then people come to me and then they either already have the decision made or they decide it's not worth doing at all. Now why is that because they've made all the decisions ahead of time. If you make all

the decisions ahead of time then it takes all the emotional resistance out of your day-to-day. And the more times every day that you're confronted with decisions and you have to use mental energy to do something, the more likely

you are to fail to adhere to a new habit, a new system. So here's the thing. The more that you can

thing. The more that you can consistently run the system that you've put together, the more that you build trust with yourself and the less that you feel like you have to be in a certain emotional state in order to achieve something. And so your job is to

achieve something. And so your job is to ask yourself, what would make this automatic? What would make this easy?

automatic? What would make this easy?

And then you keep repeating it until you're bored out of mind because boring is what's going to get you the result.

You probably wouldn't want to drive your car if you haven't taken it in for maintenance in like a year, right? So

why would you want to build a system without checking in to make sure it still works if you don't measure the efficiency of your system? You can't

improve that system. So once you have it and you've identified what's the trigger, what's the process, how am I going to track it, and can I scale it?

Which means that you've removed all the friction. You've taken away all the

friction. You've taken away all the thinking. Now it's how do I analyze and

thinking. Now it's how do I analyze and improve any system? A really great example of this is when I run meetings.

Every single time I run a meeting, I ask myself after what worked, what didn't work, and then whatever didn't work, I tweak and I do that one thing better. So

that the next meeting is just like a tiny bit better than the last meeting.

And that's probably why most of the meetings I run don't completely suck is because I look at them like a system.

And this is the thing. Most people build systems once, but then they never optimize them and they leave them alone.

You don't measure them. And if you don't measure them, you can't improve them. So

what you want to do is essentially run like a systems audit. Did I run the system? Did the system work? What didn't

system? Did the system work? What didn't

work? And then you can refine each piece of the system one piece at a time. And

that's how you build what I would call an anti-fragile system because they get better the more they're used.

Anti-fragile means that even if a piece of it breaks, you make it even better than it was before. So the system's always improving even when it has a hiccup. The endgame of having systems is

hiccup. The endgame of having systems is not efficiency, it's having freedom.

Because when you have systems in your life that don't involve your mental brain power to think about every day and they can essentially run without you, meaning like they run without you thinking, then that's when you start to actually grow and see results in your

life. And the goal isn't to work harder.

life. And the goal isn't to work harder.

It's to build machines and build systems that work for you. There was a Harvard business study that found that businesses that regularly automate and optimize their processes are actually 50% more likely to outperform their

competitors. So automating a system, not

competitors. So automating a system, not just building a system, makes it more effective and reliable and it can actually give you a really competitive edge. So like imagine that you're trying

edge. So like imagine that you're trying to increase your savings. So you set up an automated transfer from your paycheck to your savings account every month or every two weeks. That itself is a system. But what if you never audit it?

system. But what if you never audit it?

What if your income changes? your

expenses increased. Without tracking and tweaking and looking at the system, your system becomes outdated. And so, the power of the system lies not just in creating them, but constantly refining

them to match your reality. If I did the same workout today that I started doing 12 years ago when I was 225 lbs, it probably wouldn't work that well. I have

to upgrade my workout system. So, once

you get a system in place, your job really becomes oversight and quality assurance, not output of running the system. And the same goes for anything

system. And the same goes for anything that you do in a business. At some

point, you stop being the machine and you start building the machines. And at

the end of all of this, I think that we don't want to rely on motivation. We

don't want to rely on grit. We don't

want to rely on how we feel every day when we wake up. We want to build infrastructure. High performers don't

infrastructure. High performers don't push harder. They actually just build

push harder. They actually just build smarter systems. Everything in my life runs on a system. And that's why it works, right? I have a system for

works, right? I have a system for working out. I have a system for eating.

working out. I have a system for eating.

I have a system for running my company.

I have a system for hiring, for my marriage, right? My systems allow me not

marriage, right? My systems allow me not to think about things. And now I will say this, anytime I have a new goal, I have to think of a new system, but I'm very prudent in terms of how many things

that I actually add. Most of the time I just keep repeating the ones that I have worked and I repackage them with new goals or I upgrade them and I audit them. And so this means the more that

them. And so this means the more that you consistently execute, the more selfrust you build and the less you're going to rely on motivation. I don't

rely on motivation to eat well, to work out, to run my company, to run my marriage, like none of it. I just rely on systems I have in place. And so I really want you to think that through.

The more consistently that you can run the system that you've put together, the more trust you build with yourself and the less that you feel like you have to be in some certain emotional state in order to execute something. That's just

a fallacy. You're never going to be in the right emotional state. It's just

unrealistic. If this video helped you reframe your thinking, you can go ahead and subscribe to my channel and check out my next