Your Vision for your Business

[00:00:05] Welcome to The Aaron LeBauer Show. This is the number one show for passionate physical therapy and healthcare entrepreneurs looking to level up their income and impact on the world. If that's you, then you're in the right place. So sit back, chill out, and let's get into the show.

[00:00:26] Hey, what's up? Welcome back to The Aaron LeBauer Show. Today, I just want to talk about creating a vision for your future and actually creating a vision board. This is a great exercise to do in person. We did this in our Platinum Mastermind about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, I think at our September retreat. And I was just thinking this morning, what do I need? What does Aaron need? I need to just get back. I'm like, I need to go look at my vision board and see what it is that I want.

[00:00:55] Because here's the thing. It's like, we can have like a goal, we can have a plan, but if we can't visualize it, we can't make it real. You know, a lot of people struggle with the negative thoughts because, I mean, I have people in my coaching program, people, my friends, family, people struggle with negative thoughts. It's because we're wired for survival. Survival of our species requires us to be vigilant and looking out for danger. But in a modern world, there's not as much danger as there used to be.

[00:01:22] You know, depending on where you go, like you need to be aware of your surroundings. But it's not the same as it used to be. And so little things will creep their way into your mind. Little things creep their way into my mind. Like what if this negative thing happens? Like I'm pretty much a half, a glass half full person. But the last few years has been more stressful and more times. And I mean, I can even tell you, like, I'm just worried about my kids some days. You know, I'm worried about, am I being a good dad?

[00:01:50] I'm very hard on myself, self-critical. You probably are too. It's probably why you're so successful. Because you've, you have a high standard for yourself. And high standards are important.

[00:02:03] And some days, you wake up and it's like, how do we get back on track? Because, you know, what you see on social media is a part of people's lives. Some people will show like the bad parts. But then everyone kind of piles on and it's like, oh, woe is you. And it's like, I'm not showing the bad parts for you to be like, woe is, woe is me, woe is Aaron.

[00:02:23] And it's like, I just want you to reflect and see like, yeah, the things are real. And I don't show a lot of that stuff because it's not a lot of fun. And I don't feel the need to do that. But what I want to do is talk about how do we redirect and focus on the future? And how do we have a reminder of all the good things that we're doing?

[00:02:45] Because even though we've got hundreds of five star reviews, the two or three upset patients who left one star reviews, those are the things that bother me. Those are the things it's like, what did we do wrong? You know, and I'll focus way on that. And I've, and we got a one star review about a week ago, no, two weeks ago. I've got a great reply. I figured out a while back.

[00:03:08] Um, and the woman actually emailed in and, uh, was like, yeah, I'll talk to you on the phone. I would chat with her and there was nothing I was going to say that was going to change a review. And she was like, I'm surprised you actually wanted to talk to me about this. I mean, I can tell you this, like our net promoter score caught it and I didn't pay attention to it right away because like, well, I'll talk to Chris about this at the next meeting. And I had 20 other things going on. I just didn't have the time to, you know, contact that patient right away when I got a,

[00:03:38] bad rating on our net promoter score email. So there's Aaron's fault in there too. And then when the review came out, it's like, look, I'm not going to let that bother us because I know that's, that's few and far between. And since that bad review, we've gotten two or maybe three other five star reviews. Um, and a one or two star review, uh, makes you look legit.

[00:04:01] So, you know, when you get them or when you get haters, you got to brush it off. But how do you refocus and just fill your brain with like the good stuff? And one, there are two ways that I do it. One is, um, I've got like a, I can't remember what it's called. It's like a fuck yeah board or a hell yeah board. Or, you know, it's like, I've got a board when I walk in a cork board when I walk into my office and it's got thank you notes and thank you emails and messages that people have written me. And it's just taped up on there and I can go look at them.

[00:04:28] I've got like a, I do have like a folder in my phone app for that. I don't, I don't get to that as much. And I've got a channel in our Slack channel with like wins and shout outs just so I can review them when I want to. But the easiest way to do it is to see the thing in front of me.

[00:04:47] So one of the things I created, and you've probably heard this, a vision board. I've created this a few years ago for me. Um, and we did it again in our mastermind about a year and a half ago and I've updated it. And there's a couple strategies in here. Number one, like use something visual. I probably need to, I probably, one of the things I should do is take it and print it out. I've got it on, uh, I use Google keep. I'm sure there's apps for this. Um,

[00:05:12] Owen Johnson and Jen, they have theirs as their computer background. And so I'll talk about how to do this in a second. Um, but let me just say that one of the things in, uh, in creating, in creating, uh, results and success for yourself is to visualize yourself doing this.

[00:05:32] And when I race bicycles, like, I don't know if you guys know much about bicycle racing. It's kind of like, it's similar to baseball in that like a great batting average is like you hit 30% of the time, like 30% of the time. I think it's 3% of time you're getting on base and that's like world class bicycle racing. I mean, if you, if you win one race a year, you're doing really good at the top pro level, like one race a year can make some of these guys.

[00:06:02] It depends on which race it is too. Like one tour to France stage. Holy cow. Like you didn't win the tour to France. Um, so Eddie Merckx was the winningest bicycle racer of all time. Uh, he's the, he's won the most stages of the tour to France, but now tied with Mark Cavendish. He, but Eddie Merckx has won everything. Mark Cavendish is just a sprinter. Eddie Merckx won the whole tour. He won like 34 stages. He's won all these monuments.

[00:06:28] And if you look at his stats, you'll see that he didn't even win half the time. I think there's some years he won a little over 50% of the races he entered and he entered all kinds of races. And today these guys are specialists. I don't have a good analogy for it, but that's pretty impossible. And you're the best. Just imagine being the best at what you do. And most of the time you lose.

[00:06:51] I mean, I can't remember what the stat is on Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan won most of the time, but he also missed like 200 game winning shots. And so you have to be willing to fail to win. Right. And if you're in the right mindset and you're successful, you probably already know that to some degree, but maybe you're not playing big enough. Maybe you're playing small. Maybe you're still playing. Maybe you're winning, but you're playing safe.

[00:07:19] Maybe you're not laying it all on the line. You haven't yet burnt the ships. You haven't yet gone big. So the only way to win big is to go big. And to go big, we need to know why and what. So the why is one thing. Why do I want to go big? I mean, that can change. It's changed for me. It's, you know, as it over the last years, my why is a little bit different, but it's changing and becoming more.

[00:07:46] It got really fuzzy because prior to getting divorced, my why was like when the kids go to college, my, uh, my wife and I, or my ex-wife and I, we would be able to travel wherever we wanted to go and go live somewhere for months at a time and do yoga and whatever. Whatever work. Um, now that's still part of it, but who has changed and doing it by myself doesn't seem as fun, but it could be. And I'm starting to learn that and I'm starting to see that.

[00:08:14] And what else do I want? So I'm learning that. And so I was updating my vision board. What do I want? So let's talk about how to create a vision board. And if you're listening to this, one of the things you can do right now is just open up your notes app, open up Google keep. I like Google keep. Um, you can open up some other thing. I mean, it doesn't really matter, but open up something on your phone. So, and just put vision board on it. And right now the first thing you're going to do is you're going to just type out like, what are the top three places?

[00:08:44] What are the top three destinations in the world on your bucket list? Right? What are the top three destinations in the world on your bucket list? You know, for me, number one is the blue lagoon in Iceland. Number two, I want a vacation in the Bahamas. I've taken a lot of vacations lately, but like this Bahamas vacation has eluded me.

[00:09:04] It was something that I wanted to do for my honeymoon. And then we were actually planning, uh, two years ago, but, uh, that was planning that didn't happen because, um, I, we got a divorce, but it was like a smoke screen. But I was like, Oh, we're finally gonna get this Bahamas vacation. So the Bahamas has eluded me. Bahamas vacation with a beautiful woman. Right? Like that's one of mine.

[00:09:25] And then, um, but really it's not just Bahamas is more, it's not Bahamas for me. It's like, I got Bora Bora, Seychelles, Maldives. These are places like across the world. They're going to take, you know, a couple of days to get to heli skiing, heli skiing with my friends, Eric and Will and even Craig, Craig who lives in Australia and Craig needs to come heli skiing with us one time.

[00:09:51] So, um, that's on there. So then what I'm going to do is, so sorry, I got three destinations right now put on there. Like, is there a home? Like, do you have the home that you want? A dream home? Like if, if you don't own a home yet, just like I own a home, like put what's, put what that home looks like. Okay. You're just going to put just a description, you know, three bedroom home in this city or in this neighborhood. Right. A lot of people want homes.

[00:10:18] We had four or five of our mastermind members buy their dream home in the last few years or buy their first time, buy their first home. I mean, Kyle bought one in Hawaii. Um, Nick got one in New Jersey. He moved out of his parents' basement to buy a home. Jess Jenny bought one in, uh, New York. Buying a home is a big deal. You got to have $50,000 to put down minimum for depending on where you live.

[00:10:44] A lot of people have to put down 80 to $120,000 down. I, a year, two years ago, I'd put down $80,000 to buy a second home for my ex. $80,000 in cash to buy a $380,000 house. I went, I had it, I wasn't planning on it. That's what I was going to use it for, but you want to have some cash. You got to get the, you know, for the right home.

[00:11:08] Um, yeah. So think about that. Okay. What's the home. Okay. Are you, do you have like, uh, is there a vacation? I'm not talking about con ed court, like vacation kind of did that. Um, is there a certain like activity that you want or things that you want for me? Like it's a 1960s Porsche 911, probably a nine 12. I'm actually more of a smaller engine kind of guy. I like scooters. Um, what motorcycle is it?

[00:11:34] You know, do you want like a, an Airstream or is there a vehicle that you dream of? Like Owen is a Lamborghini. So when Owen gets his Lamborghini and I get my Porsche, like we're going to meet up somewhere in the middle of the country and, and, and test drive them together or fly out to each other's, uh, house and like go for rides.

[00:11:53] I mean, that's kind of a deal that I think we've made. Um, what does you want? Do you have like a man garage? Like for me, and there's like this, I've got a picture of my man garage, like with the leather couch, with the motorcycle and the Porsche. And so write down these things. It's like, how do you want your family to be? What do you want your family to look like? We want your career to look like. And this isn't just about business goals. It's like, how do you want your life to feel?

[00:12:20] So maybe there's not a thing. Maybe it's more of a feeling and maybe write down what is the feeling that you want to have? And I can tell you this as an entrepreneur is going to be really hard to feel a hundred percent of the time. Like you're always winning because you're not, I really, I really don't think that. I mean, the seasons I've been winning have been great and the seasons that I feel like I haven't been winning, I'm still doing great. It just didn't feel like I'm winning as much as I should.

[00:12:49] But even when I'm winning, there's days where I don't feel like I am because I'm not satisfied with my results. And that's just kind of the life. I'm looking at some of the other things that are online. And so a house in Boulder, Colorado, like I want a house. I want to, I mean, I want a place to stay where I can go skiing all the time in the winter.

[00:13:12] And I saw, I went out to visit my brother in Denver a few years ago. It was pre-pandemic. And we went to Boulder. We went to like a street fair. And this was in the summer. We were on a hike. And we were just checking out some of the real estate and we found this like dope house on the cliff. And it was like $600,000. And I was like, what's wrong with this house? Like, why is it so cheap? Because it was beautiful.

[00:13:33] And compared to the houses in the Oakland Hills that look just like it that I was used to, those houses were 1.2 or 1.8 million minimum needing work. And we went and checked it out and we got this dope brochure. And I was like, yeah, the only weird thing is there was two bedrooms upstairs. It was a two bed, it was listed as a three or four bedroom house, but the third or fourth bedroom was downstairs and it didn't have a bathroom. You had to go outside the house to, it was kind of like a granny unit, but it didn't have a bathroom.

[00:14:03] So that person has to go outside and upstairs to use the bathroom and shower. Totally fine. Could be made into an office. It was dope. I was like, oh, I could afford this. It'd be a stretch, but I could do it. And why would I buy a second home in Boulder right now? I mean, had I really, really stretched to do it, I think that home is worth probably twice now than it was. But, you know, hindsight's 20-20. So just brainstorm, brain dump out your things.

[00:14:31] And there's not enough time now. You're going to go add to this later. But that's the idea is to brain dump these things. Okay, then the next piece is brain dump all the things. Like, what do you want? Is there like a, you know, like a bicycle? Like a few years ago I hit a goal and it was like, hey, when I hit my business goals, I'm going to go buy myself a new gravel bike. And I did. You know, that was more of a short, I knew I could get that. It was more of a short term goal.

[00:14:58] It wasn't like a big thing, but, you know, right now the latest thing that made it on there is a Rolex watch. The Rolex Submariner. So what I did was, and this is what you do, is if you, oh, there's a, there's a, I'll tell you some other things that are on there. But there's Rolex. And we're at the shopping center where the jewelry store is with the Rolex, that sells Rolexes. And I went in and I put one on my wrist. And so what you do is you go try it on and I took a picture of it on my wrist on the vision board.

[00:15:27] Because number one, it's you want a picture. So as you brain dump your things after the show or last you listen, or you can pause it, but just wait till we're done. Then you're going to go and search the internet and find the pictures. And you're going to, you're going to screenshot the pictures and put them in to the Google Keep document or the Word document or whatever. So you have a picture of these things. But as much as you can, you need to put yourself in the place.

[00:15:53] So if you want a Ferrari, you need to go sit in a Ferrari and get someone to take a picture of you in the Ferrari. If you want a Rolex, you go put a Rolex on your wrist and you see what it feels like. And you take a picture of it. And here's the thing with the Rolexes. I don't even know that I want a Rolex. It's a little bit, I like, I wear like an old formula tag formula one. It's about 30 years old. I have a Omega, I think it's an Omega Constellation that I got when I graduated PT school.

[00:16:23] And it's smaller. The new watches are thicker and bigger. Like I think I have like a 40 millimeter, 41 millimeter watch. And these are like 50 millimeter ones. But this thing was dope. It was heavy. It felt amazing. But the thing for me with the Rolex right now is it's not that I necessarily want it. I want to be able to have the extra $12,000 and say, you know what? I don't even want the Rolex. I want something else. But I just like, that's my latest thing.

[00:16:52] It's like, I know I want to go to the Blue Lagoon and I want to go to like the Seychelles and Maldives. Like that's going to happen because that's an experience. Do I really need or want a Rolex? No. But I want to be able to say, you know what? I'm helping so many people and generating enough money that it doesn't matter whether I get one or not. I can buy one if I want. And that's kind of my next like short-term goal is to be able to have that extra $100,000

[00:17:18] in the bank in my, I think it's like $120,000 in my like personal like emergency fund, which means that's not all the money I have. I have money in other places. That personal emergency fund where I could take 12 of that, go buy a Rolex and still have 108,000 left. And I can then choose to say, you know what? That's not what I want. But I need to get back to that level because in the last few years when getting divorced

[00:17:45] and separated, that cash reserve went almost to zero. Remember, that's the one that I had to spend. And I took $70,000 out of to buy this house and another $20,000 to furnish it. But you know, my kids live there 50% of the time. So that was important to me. And that's what that was there for. And as I build that back, you know, this is the next goal. Okay. Okay. And that's on my vision board. So like Owen has a friend, uh, with a couple Lamborghinis and he went and sat in it.

[00:18:15] I don't know if Owen got to drive it probably, but it's like, you want a Porsche? Like I've got a friend, uh, who has one of these old Porsche 912s and I've seen it, but I didn't sit in it. And I need to call him up and be like, Hey, can I come like go ride and you know, can we go drive it? You know, and just be in it because then that puts that energy into your being and that puts you in that place and you can go, Oh, I know what that feels like.

[00:18:40] It's like, if you've never flown first class, fly first class, you know, you know what it feels like. And once you fly first class, you're not going to want to fly coach again. Trust me on that. And maybe that goes on your vision board. I mean, to be able to say, Hey, look, I fly first class. You know, and if you're like, God, I couldn't spend a thousand 1200 bucks to fly first class, take your points. And next time you buy a free ticket or, you know, get a, get a ticket and then use your

[00:19:08] points to upgrade to first class and see what it feels like to have these like millionaire experiences, put yourself in that position so that it becomes real and you no longer tolerate, you know, less than that. Right. And that's part of it is to say, Hey, you know, creating a vision board of something you can see, you can read, you can feel, and that's, what's going to make it come true. Well, there's all that hard work that you have to do as well.

[00:19:34] But if you have a vision and we can be like, this is real, then I can become that. And if I'm focused on all the negative things, well, then I'm going to end up speaking that negativity into existence. So we have to be focused on the good stuff. So here's, let me just tell you what's on my vision board because this is helpful for me. There's the, there's the Rolex, right? This Rolex Submariner. It's the date one, not the non-date one. I don't know.

[00:20:03] It's, it's not even the fanciest Rolex. It's not the 80,000, $60,000 Rolex. Um, a sub-zero refrigerator. When I remodel my kitchen or buy a new home, vacation home, dude, a sub-zero refrigerator is a 10 or 12,000 or even $15,000 fridge, but they last 30 years. Everyone I know who has a sub-zero fridge, like my parents, friends who have them, my dad used to have one. That thing lasted 40 years that that sub-zero fridge was in my dad's house before we moved

[00:20:32] in when I was 14. And he had that, that fridge finally got to a point, uh, in 2019 where he couldn't get it fixed because it was 40 years old. A sub-zero fridge is going in my, my home. Okay. There's heli skiing on here, um, with Eric, Will and, uh, Craig. Um, maybe I'll get Tyson to come, you know, there's a private beach, um, like, like house

[00:21:01] four bed, four bath with a pool and a hot tub. What else do I got? I've got, um, you know, pictures of like what, like a living room I want to look like with all the comfortable couches. I've got my, uh, the Airstream. Like, dude, I'd love to have an Airstream. Love to have an Airstream outfitted. Like one of these old silver Airstreams. It's okay. The, I've got a picture from Instagram. Um, this guy's showing like Bora Bora getaway, these huts on top of the blue water and the

[00:21:30] stairs that walk right down into the water or inside there's glass. It shows the water. There's the blue lagoon in Iceland. Um, where is this, uh, Exotica resort and spa in the Maldives? Oh my God. This is, I'm just looking at the picture. I'm like, I'm going here for a week, you know? And then there's the infinity pool. I mean, I think that's also Maldives. There's this one is Alpen Panorama Hotel Hubertus. I don't know where this is. I think it's in Europe, but it's this elevated, uh, hot tub.

[00:21:59] That's an infinity hot tub over the cliff side, looking out over the Alps. I mean, holy, holy shit. That's dope. Um, and then I've got the picture of this house in Boulder on here and I've actually got the, uh, paper version of this house in Boulder. So that's why I'm like, I need to build a little cork wall that lives here and put it together. Um, Nas Daly, uh, I don't know if you guys followed him for, he used to do these one minute videos from around the world. He posts his incredible ones. I got a picture of one of his.

[00:22:28] Um, and then there's the Porsche with the, with the rack on top with the original paint, the leather couch in the garage for the Porsche and the motorcycle, the triumph motorcycle and all the cool stuff on the wall. Those are the things that are, those are the pictures that are on there. Um, I've got pictures of the suits, um, that I've bought. I mean, I've, you know, here's what I want. So what I want you to do is make a list of all the things that you want in your life.

[00:22:55] And these aren't material things just to be material. These are material things to, to signify all the people you've helped in the world and all the hard work you've done. Um, because if you're doing the hard work, you need to reward yourself. So reward yourself. Um, but shoot big reward yourself now with some things like a new $2,000 bike. Um, maybe a trip to go skiing, but, uh, reward yourself in the future with that heli skiing trip where you go, you go out for a week and you, you do heli skiing three or four days.

[00:23:25] Like you can't do it every day because of the weather, but you do it for three or four days, or maybe you'd go cat skiing three days and heli skiing one day, you know, like, and you do it with your bros from around the world, you know? And so you've got your list and then I want you to spend, you know, a half hour to an hour searching through the internet, screenshotting the pictures and, um, and putting them into this document and then go to foreign cars, Italia, or go to the dealership or go look,

[00:23:53] go find a real estate agent and go look at some of these massive houses or go to an open house for one of these houses that is your dream house and go sit on the couch and have your friend take a picture of you sitting there and put that on your vision board. Okay. That's it for today. That's your job is to go put this together and then maybe do this, make a little carousel on Instagram and tag me in it with your vision board. Do that.

[00:24:22] Like, and let me know like where you're going and where we're going together because I think that would be dope. So put it together and then yeah, like put up a little carousel of some sort or make a little reel with a bunch of the pictures. Tag me, you know, right in your vision board and, uh, I'll share it and I get to see a little bit more about what you're doing and you'll inspire the people around you. I'll see you on the next episode. Peace out.

[00:24:58] Hey, what's up? It's Aaron. If you've got the latest from me, follow me over on Instagram at Aaron LeBauer. Thanks again. And I'll see you next time.