In 2010, the now famous entrepreneur and Superlight rider Brad Smith, hired me to coach him. If you haven’t heard of Brad, he is the founder and CEO of braaap motorcycles, which in it’s first year turned over a million dollars when Brad was just 18. He was now 23 and had built braaap into a national enterprise and Australia’s only motorbike manufacturer. To further create the picture of what Brad is like, on two occasions he had won Young Australian Entrepreneur of the year, and on three occasions braaap had won Telstra Retail Business of the year. Brad is Australia’s Richard Branson.
I was called in because Brad wanted me as a consultant, partly for business, but really because he loved riding his motor bike and wanted to win the World Super Light Championships in Vegas, five months from now. We chatted through the details and signed off on the arrangement.
“So we are all set then? I am hired? We can begin?” I asked the moment the handshake was done.
“Yep!” He said. Pumped with excitement.
“Great. Well, first things first, I know you want to win the World Champs, but you are kidding yourself! You haven’t a hope in hell.”
His jaw hit the floor and he burst out laughing. “What?! I thought you were the motivation guy?!”
Laughing at the absolute contrast between what he was expecting from me and what I was saying, he called to his mentor Mum “Hey Mum, I just hired Dobbo to get me to Vegas and the first thing he says is, I can’t do it!”
From the other room his mum quipped back with the tone of a parent keeping their child in line “Sounds like you should listen to him.”
“You can’t win Brad, look at your diary. Look at your daily activities. That’s not the diary of someone who wins a world championship. It’s the diary of someone running a business. You are so consumed by your business, you get on your bike what, twice a week? You’re kidding yourself.”
There was no denying it. Riding only happening for Brad if there was time. It was always last on Brad’s list.
So the process began, checking every one of Brad’s daily actions, behaviors, habits and decisions to see if it matched his goal of winning a World Championship. This required some brave and very intelligent decisions. Brad had 40 staff, four stores and was manufacturing bikes in China. We couldn’t just clear his diary.
Six weeks later, after some epic changes to how his time was spent, I witnessed his life changing and casually said “I think you can win it now Brad. You’re diary matches Vegas.” He smiled and nodded.
Two weeks later, disaster strikes. Brad comes off his bike in practice and dislocates his shoulder. He called me from Tasmania to tell me what had happened and although devastated, we laughed as we found ourselves right back at square one and I joked “I don’t think you can win it anymore.”
Three weeks of intensive work on the shoulder and I am not joking and neither is he “You might still be able to get close.” We agree.
Four weeks later in Vegas, Brad, effectively a nobody in the sport with no world ranking, with a few months of quality practice, a busted up shoulder and having just taken his company global, finishes 11th at the World Championships
The following year he finishes 4th.
And now, having thought it through, we reckon we have two good years left to achieve it. If we can just resist the seduction of activities that don’t actually matter.
So what are you trying to create? What lifestyle do you want? And to achieve this, what daily activities are essential to making it happen? And if you don’t know what to do, who could you ask that does know?
These are not rhetorical questions. Clarity has power. Write a game plan. Share it with someone who has similar goals to you or who you would never want to fail in front of, and begin.
But most importantly, if there is just one thing you do, allocate time in your diary to write that plan. Whatever is in your diary becomes your life.