Mike Mirarchi 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Berar and I'm your host, and here we are, episode 7. We're at the first of the year, and the first of the year everybody talks about setting goals, so I felt like it would be appropriate for us to talk about setting goals today. About this time every year, everybody sets all of their goals. They join their gyms, they buy new gym equipment, they do all kinds of stuff because they're all excited to achieve their goals. And what happens two months later? Goals are abandoned, gym equipment is sitting, used and you've been to the gym once or twice. So let's talk about why. Why does that happen? Why do we set these goals? They just, most of them, just never happen.

Mike Mirarchi 1:08

Let's talk about the reasons why goals aren't achieved. First of all, you need to change your habits. So if your goal is to lose weight, then you need to change your habits so that you can lose weight. But there's a lot more behind it than that, because your motivation to achieve their goals probably aren't strong enough. Depending on what happens Now, if you have a significant health scare, that may be enough to get you motivated to change your habits right, but the key is to have something strong enough inside of you that will allow you to achieve your goals. Another thing is, sometimes we set goals and the timing's not right. If the timing's not right, you might be ahead of yourself and you're setting these goals and you haven't achieved it, and then you give up on it. Well, that's the worst thing, because if you have a goal and you maybe haven't achieved it this time or this year, maybe it's for the next year. Sometimes your goals are too lofty, sometimes you're setting goals that maybe aren't achievable or aren't attainable.

Mike Mirarchi 2:11

I'm for setting big goals. Everybody's different, because if it's too much too soon, then what happens is you give up on it because it seems like it's too much to achieve. And so one of the things is, as you're going towards your goal, you might have a large goal. That's a big goal, but you have to take small steps towards that goal to get there. And then the biggest thing I think with goals is what are the factors that are getting you to achieve, set your goals? Because there's a lot of external factors that shape the way you put your goals in.

Mike Mirarchi 2:45

The question that I have is whose goal is it anyway? Is it your goal or is it influenced by somebody else, because we have a lot of influences from the outside that shape our goals Family members, friends and peers and society. You know society says well, to be successful you have to have all this stuff. You got to have 10 houses. Be successful, you have to have all this stuff. You got to have 10 houses and three cars and Rolexes and all this stuff. Well, is that really success? Or is that success that's shaped by the outside world? Maybe, if that's your world and that's what you really want, that's one thing, but in many cases, society has shaped what outside goals or what goals should be and what success is, and they've shaped what it is to be successful and what a successful goal looks like. That's all shaped more by outside influences than internally.

Mike Mirarchi 3:36

Family has a huge effect on goals. And father was a doctor and your grandfather was a doctor and your great-grandfather was a doctor. You're expected to be a doctor. Well, is that your goal, or is that your family's goal? You might be an artist and you might want to just paint or sculpt, but you have peer pressure from the family to become a doctor, and so you become a doctor and have you achieved your goal? No, you've achieved their goal, doctor, and have you achieved your goal? No, you've achieved their goal. A lot of times that happens where goals are set and are influenced by peers, family and friends in society. So really, when you're setting goals, you have to make sure they're your goals, because if they're your goals and they're aligned with your purpose, then you're going to be a lot more likely to achieve those goals.

Mike Mirarchi 4:22

So one of the things that we did when we were parents that I felt like we did pretty well is we would allow our children to pick their activities, whatever they wanted to do. If they wanted to play soccer or gym or whatever gymnastics or whatever it was, we would allow them to do that. The rule is, or was once they picked that activity, they had to finish, and then the next year, if they didn't want to do it, that's okay. If they did great. And I think in that way what happens is, if you allow your children to naturally pick the activities that they want to participate in and you don't influence it from the outside, then they naturally will move towards their purpose and towards the things that really drive them and what they really like. If you really want to find out what your kid likes. You just allow them to pick their goals and you don't try to influence it too much from the outside. As long as it's good and healthy and wholesome, you just let them do it. As long as it's good and healthy and wholesome, you just let them do it.

Mike Mirarchi 5:25

Let's talk about goal setting. One of the things that I've said is goal setting is not an event. It's an ongoing process. Right now, first of the year, it's the time to set goals for the year, so it's kind of like this big event. Well, unfortunately, when you have events like this, it's a lot harder to achieve these goals that you're setting. Sometimes it's great just to set goals as you go. If you get attracted towards something and you say, oh, I think I want to start a business, then you go okay, my goal is to start a business. Then what are the smaller goals within that larger goal in order to get you from point A to point B? So it's an ongoing process setting goals because you might achieve a goal, and then you set another small goal and another small goal as you go. The purpose in setting goals is really to find your purpose in life and what is your purpose? Why were you created on this earth. That's really what this is all about, and so your goals really need to be aligned with your purpose.

Mike Mirarchi 6:23

Talked about success. What is success? Success is defined not by what we acquire, but by what we get back. Again, society is saying, if you can achieve this, or you can get a house, or you can, that's success. Well, success is more by what we give than what we achieve or what we acquire. Ultimately, when you've lived your life and you've passed, what are you going to be remembered for? How many houses that you bought, how many cars that you owned, how much money you've been able to accumulate, or how many people have you helped along the way? How much of an impact did you have to make society better? That is really success, in my opinion. And if you look at the most successful people in the world, it's really those who have given back and who have made society better. Those are the most successful people.

Mike Mirarchi 7:16

You cannot grow inside of your comfort zone. Success is always achieved outside of your comfort zone. How do you expand your comfort zone? The best way that I've learned how to do this develop just small things, like you want to try a new food or you're out at a restaurant, you're looking at something like bone marrow or whatever, and you try something exotic, something different, something that is really not within your comfort zone. And then all of a sudden, you try and you go, oh, that was pretty good. And then you slowly expand your comfort zone, and I do that by bucket list. So you all have a bucket list. These are the things that I want to do in my life. I want to achieve these things, and bucket list things are not big things, they're small things, but bucket lists are designed to expand your comfort zone. If it's traveling to a destination, if it's trying a different food, if it's going to a place, if it's hiking or if it's to go fishing at a certain place. Those are the things. Those bucket list things are going to be what expands your comfort zone, because anytime you try to do one of those, it is going to take you out of your comfort zone to get it done.

Mike Mirarchi 8:28

What's your dream? What are the things that you dream about achieving and what drives you as a person? Why were you put on this earth? What is your purpose to be here? Those are really the things. If you could figure those out, and that's really the big treasure hunt that we're all on. We're trying to understand why we were put here and what we're supposed to achieve during this small period of time that we're here. If you start focusing on that is why am I here, what's my purpose and then look at the things that you really like and if you think back as a child, what are the things that you gravitated towards Then those are the areas where you're going to really find success.

Mike Mirarchi 9:09

In my case, I remember when I was a little kid I made this book out of. I drew pictures, like it was a car book, because I really enjoyed cars. I really like cars and I still do to this day. So I made a car book and I said sometimes I'm going to write a book. Well, I didn't know that in 2016, that I would write a book called Sales Wisdom from a toilet paper salesman. No idea, my education didn't point towards that. Not much of anything pointed towards the fact that I was going to write a book, and then I ended up doing it anyway. Now, that's a goal that took 40 years or more in order to be achieved, but it was a goal I set as a child and that was a purpose goal. That was a purpose driven goal, not just a goal to lose weight or go to the gym. So purpose driven goals are way more powerful.

Mike Mirarchi 9:58

So what is your mission and purpose? And your mission and purpose is what defines your life direction. In my case, mission and purpose is what defines your life direction. In my case, I want to do everything I can to help people in my life and help the businesses that I work for to be more successful. That is all of my employees, that is my family, that is our customers, that is the company that I work for RJ Schinner All of those. My goal is to help all of those be successful.

Mike Mirarchi 10:26

Once you set your mission and purpose, then what happens is guides every decision that you're going to make. Once you set a goal, once you set a mission and purpose, once you think that you're ready to go towards your purpose and you think that you found it, be prepared and be open to directional changes, because sometimes you'll start down a path and you'll be taken in a completely different direction. That can be good and it also could be a distraction. Many times that's a good thing, because what ends up happening is You're not sure what your purpose is. You start heading towards a direction and then all of a sudden you're directed to your purpose, to be open to the possibility that your path may change.

Mike Mirarchi 11:08

And then sometimes one of the probably one of the biggest frustrating, most frustrating things in setting goal is you've set this goal, you've got this dream and vision of where you want to go, but the timing wasn't quite right. Dream and vision of where you want to go, but the timing wasn't quite right. Sometimes some of us are visionaries and you kind of see ahead really far and in my case I tend to be a person who sees things ahead and I'm able to kind of see directionally what's going to happen in certain areas. And unfortunately or fortunately, that's good, but unfortunately sometimes you're way ahead of things. And then if you are and you set that goal and you go towards it, you're in front of it you're a little too soon before the goal can be achieved, maybe even for your time. Maybe haven't learned enough in order to achieve that goal. So sometimes, if you're too soon, what you need to do is step back and use that as a learning experience to prepare you to get to that goal at some point. Just because you don't achieve a goal right away doesn't mean it's not a good goal and it doesn't mean that it's not a place that you should be.

Mike Mirarchi 12:10

The key to all of this is action. Take small steps towards your large goals, and one of the things that holds us back from our goals is procrastination. Goals, and one of the things that holds us back from our goals is procrastination. The biggest method that I've learned on how to deal with procrastination is the five-minute rule. If you can just say to yourself I'm going to do that task for five minutes and after five minutes, if I don't want to do it, fine, I'll quit. If you can do that, what happens is you get into it for five minutes and now you're sucked in and you'll get it done. It's been one of the best methods that I've used to avoid procrastination is the five-minute rule. That's all I've got for today. If it's valuable, if what you find in this content is valuable, like and subscribe to the podcast Until next time. Who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? We sell toilet paper. That's what we do. Thanks a lot and have a great day.