Ep#63 Goals #4 Success Story - Pejman triples his business

Hi everyone, my name is Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout To Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work. Hello, my friends. Dex here, and this is part two of my success story interviews with a couple of my clients. Would be good enough to front up and tell us all about their journey, their big goals, and how they have managed raise enough morale and enthusiasm and joy to go on to succeed after they'd come out of burnout. So my first revenue goal, really, the revenue goal, I was trying to achieve had been something that I had set three years earlier. So 2018 2017, 2018 times I had set this goal, those three year goals that we always set, and really I was having a hard time. I was pretty stagnated and it wasn't even that lofty of a goal, not in anywhere near where my current impossible goal is, but it was a modest 20% growth type of thing over three years goal, and I had struggled. I had struggled to really... I hadn't achieved it and was really stagnated there, and there was obviously global factors that came into it, there was COVID, there was electronics shortage, and I'm in the electronics business, so the chip shortage was obviously a big problem, but what I realised, going back at it was that it had nothing to do with any of these things that I was using as "excuses" for why I hadn't been able to achieve what I wanted to achieve, and I realised again, from coaching, first of all, when I was in burnout, it's hard to think properly, I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's a fog and now getting on the other side of it about basically a year later, more than a year later, everything seems crystal clear, whereas when you're in that burnout state, you're hating every minute of every day of working. And so you're not coming up with any good ideas, you're not coming up with any solutions, you're not showing up in any kind of way. So as I look back on it now, it's obvious that I didn't achieve any of those goals. I could have told me my old me, it was never gonna happen by the way, the way I was approaching it, the way I was thinking about it, there's a reason it was stagnated and there's a reason I wasn't hitting those goals, and it took a year to get to where I am now, but it's like I'm a completely different person because of it, and I think the thing that I learned the most from you is I didn't have tools, I didn't have the tools that I needed. I had the ideas, I knew deep down what I needed to do, I just didn't have the tools to deal with it, and really what you showed me is these tools help the model and the tools that I have everything under on my own control, and again, the simple concept of my thoughts controlling my feelings, which control my actions, which give me my result, how simple it is, but it's extremely powerful, and once that came into effect, then I was really able to, first of all, get out of the burnout scenario, but more importantly, just scale it. So that's really quite an interesting perspective on that when it was impossible for you to really have a goal or do anything about it. So in terms of your current goal, then is it the same as you had three years ago, or has it changed for you? When did it change? When did it start? As soon as I started coaching with you in October of 2021 or September, I actually doubled the size of my business. Which I was saying I wanted to do 20% in three years. In one year, I doubled it. So that was, first of all, a massively eye opening thing for me is to see what the potential is. So my current impossible goal is essentially tripling the size of my business in 24 months, so really nothing that I've ever come close to doing is what my current impossible goal is. And again, I think that's the point. The point is, what is possible changes for you when you're thinking about it properly, and when you have a coach that can help you, guide you to think about it the right way. Wow, and do you think you can put your finger on what changed for you such that you did feel able to commit to and start taking action on your goal in coaching? Well, I'd say the first thing, so I took a two month break between our sessions, if you remember. And I really quickly saw that I really enjoyed having a coach and I enjoy being pushed, and I enjoy being held accountable. And again, it's a sounding board to be able to guide through a very difficult thing which is changing the way you think. So I think that was awesome experience for me, it is because of those two months that I paused our coaching between our sessions. It was such a great thing for me to see how important it was. Because you think, Hey, I know, I know this now, I know this whole model thing, I know all of the things that I was working weekly on to do, but the reality is, is business changes every day, I change every day. And the world changes every day. And so it's necessary to continue, it's an evolutionary process that actually never ends, there is no end. It's an every day attack to that. So to answer your recent question, what changed for me was really having that practice of doing the thought work and the thought downloads on a daily basis, which further creates this loop for me that pushes me forward. I'm secretly glad you said that. So a lot of people think they can let that go. Yeah. Everybody knows, you know. Everybody knows what they're supposed to do. That's not the point, the point. Again, and obviously for coaching for me, I look at all the most successful people in the world, and I look at professional athletes, I look at these are the best athletes ever, and they have daily coaches, they have multiple coaches, not just one, they have physical coaches, mindset, coaches, all these different types of things. And part of me also said, Hey, there's clearly a reason everybody is doing this, why? Why is that? And it's because of this, it's continuing... You are changing so you're not stagnating, you always need somebody there to help guide you through those changes that you're going through, that your business is going through. So I think that's the thing people miss in coaching, they kind of think that you're gonna get to a point and then there's the end. Like, Oh, I've learned everything there is to know, but the reality is everything you learn, it's changing, it's evolving, and so that's why I think the ongoing coaching is really, for me anyway, it's a critical element of this because it continues to allow me to explore different elements of myself, which it wasn't the same six months ago, so all that coaching, not that it's not applicable, but it's different. Yeah, and I think of this journey as more of a mentoring journey really, and every successful person, every successful leader, every successful business person needs, I think a mentor at least one. So now you've taken a new phase of your coaching, now you're on this very strong, committed journey, how did you make that thing stick? What's your secret? At first, when I did this impossible goal, well, I had some panic attacks and some nervous... Not nervous, some anxiety. I think that's the point. The point of doing something impossible is to push to something that's uncomfortable, and I could definitely feel discomfort in my body, physically, I could feel it any time I thought about that goal. So through that process, what I've done is I've broken it down and I've come up with doing intentional thought downloads and thought creation to be able to really put the intentional thought that I want, not the thought that my mind immediately brings into that. So really, I spent every day thinking about the goal and finding ways to fall in love with that goal and looking at the goal from different lenses and coming up with different ways that it's beautiful, that it's amazing that it's... And really identifying why I wanted to do that goal, and I think that those were the two things for me that really helped get me past the anxiety and the initial being scared of a fear that came out of it, was really falling in love with it and really figuring out why do I wanna do this? And if that why is strong enough, it starts to overwhelm every other thought that comes into you. So I still have doubt thoughts that creep up, but they just get squashed immediately, and that's interesting, that really over a two month process of starting where I... Every time I thought about it, I would get scared and I would get anxious, and I would start to panic, to now, where it's even if a minor doubt pops in 30 seconds later it's crushed by, again, going back to that why. And it's being overwhelmed by all of those other thoughts that I've generated over the last two months. So in terms of your goal then, I know it's a long and a range and you've taken it in stages, but what results have you achieved so far? So I think the initial result for me is I feel like it's possible, and I think that's, again, going from impossible to feeling and knowing that it's possible is the first result for me, but the other beauty of it is when you start thinking about things like this and I think I brought this up to you, is my mind immediately would go to how. How are you gonna do this? There is no blueprint for this, you've never done this before, and it was again, going through the whys and again showing myself how I've done things that are similar to this in the past, and again showing my mind that I have done things that could allow me to achieve this goal, but now I'm actually getting myself to randomly come up with hows when I wasn't even sitting down to try to do it, and that is so interesting where you always think like you gotta sit in the room and start white boarding and coming up with options and really forcing it. But the way it's happened for me has been so organic that it's, I'm in the shower or I'm driving to work, or I'm talking to somebody and something pops into my mind that's related to my goal, and I'm writing it down, and really I'm putting a framework now around how I'm going to achieve something, which literally two months ago I thought was impossible, now I'm putting a framework around how I'm going to do it, and it's not forced, it's just coming through natural discussions and natural thought processes of the day, and I guess a lot easier than I expected it to be. Yeah, when you're not so bogged down in the negative stuff. I wonder then what the early version of you who could see you and what you're doing now would say about all that. I'd probably be unrecognisable to some extent. The early version of me would have called me crazy and went into a little bit of a panic attack, and went back doing the old stuff that I was doing, I guess. Like I said, I mean, think about this process a year ago is unfathomable, it's just a completely different stratosphere of goal and completely different stratosphere of how I'm approaching it. I wouldn't recognise it. And what would you say to somebody who is right now at the start of that journey, they're experiencing burnout they're exhausted and despairing and all of that? I guess what I would say is, it is so much better than you could ever imagine on the other side of that. And when you're in it, it's hard to imagine anything different than what you're currently doing, but coming out from it, it's I love it now. Again, when I started coaching with you, if you remember, the first couple of words I told you was, I hated coming into the office, I hated it a lot. I hated my customers to some extent, and I just didn't like anything, and obviously that permeates your whole life. So if you're not happy at your job, then your personal relationships also suffer. So now looking back at it is like I could have never have imagined the vast power that I could possess in myself, and I get to do things that I love, and I'm super invigorated again, and I've put together a goal that I'm telling everybody about, which people always... They're looking at me like, You're crazy. And it doesn't faze me, I feel so strongly about it, and I'm so motivated to do it that, again, whoever is trying to get into this, it's absolutely the best thing I've ever done, to be honest with you, in terms of... As it relates to my business, because again, I'm just in a completely different place of love and joy. Congratulations. You really have run with the ball. But I mean, this is not atypical of this work and the people who do this program, so I'm glad to hear you speaking about it to support other people. And I don't wanna take too much of your time, so we'll probably finish in a minute, but what I'd love to do is open it up to you and say to you, is there anything else you would like to share or talk about here in terms of your work? Yeah, and I think the key element of things, of people getting into this is being open to coaching, and I think being open to coaching is a critical part of it, you have to be ready to do this work and you have to be ready for change because if you don't do it, you're wasting your time. You're wasting everybody's time. And I think that I was ready for it, and I had gone through some challenges that I was tired of, and I was really ready to make a change and I was open to these different ideas,'cause it is a different way of approaching your whole life, you've never been approached... You've never approached your life the way Dex, you taught me how to do it. So it requires some level of openness, of trust, of understanding. And I think that's the first thing I would tell people, are you really ready to do this? Because if you are on the other side of it is the best thing you'll ever see, I'm telling you. I was a pretty successful person and I doubled the size of my business in one year, and I'm trying to triple it by the end of next year, these are massive results. We're talking just incredible transformation, and if you want... And by the way, I'm having fun doing it, and if you want basically that, this is the way to do it, but you gotta be ready for it, and you gotta be open to trying different things and to experimenting and putting in the work. It requires work and it requires effort, and it requires a daily practice that to achieve what you wanna achieve. So good. I'm so happy for you Pejman, all of the things that you've done until now, that I'm delighted that you were able to join me for this. Thank you so much. All right. Bye. If you're in burnout and ready to recover, come and join my Burnout To Leadership program. You can book in to talk with me at burnout.dexrandall.com. Just tell me what's bugging and let's make a plan to fix it.