 What happens when you have a job and you don't complete your projects on time? Usually you'll get fired. At the very least you'll get written up or you'll look like an idiot in front of the rest of your team. What happens in school when you don't complete your assignments on time? Usually you get a failing grade and then you fail out of school. There are direct consequences to not being a finisher in these structured areas of life. In a job, in school, in all these things that we're used to. So when we step out and we start our own business and nobody's holding us accountable, what happens? We stop being finishers. And today we're going to talk about how to be a finisher. How to finish projects when you're just left to your own devices sitting in your house in pajama pants. It's three weeks past deadline and nobody cares about you and you can't get yourself to get the job done. So sometimes I'll talk to people and they'll say, yeah, but Christian, you like to finish things. You're a finisher. I just like to start things. And when they say this, it makes me furious because I'm not a finisher. I love to start things. I've started over 30 different businesses. Some of them have had moderate success. Some failed completely. And I think that if I went back in time in a time machine and I stayed with any of those 30 businesses, I could have made any one of those 30 work. But what was the problem? The problem was I like to start things. I didn't like to finish them. But I had to force myself to become a finisher to get the results that I wanted because here's the deal. Starting projects might be fun for you, but it doesn't do any good for the rest of humanity. You starting a project does not provide value to anybody else. It just gets you excited and pumped up. To actually provide value to people, you have to see things through to the end. And I don't just mean complete the first couple of projects in a business. I mean, finish what you started. That means you stick with it until the results are there, until you've got the job done, until you provided unique value to the marketplace that no one else has provided before you. Because you stuck with something long enough to actually get really good at it. That's what being a finisher really means. And if you're one of those people that just likes to start things, the answer is not to go find somebody who's good at finishing. The answer is not for you to come up with all the ideas and to have somebody else finish it. Because, let's be honest, if you do not have a track record, ideas are not worth anything. You starting a project, if you have no track record, is not worth anything. So you can't expect to do 5% of the work, 3% of the work, 2% of the work by starting a project, and then have somebody else finish 90 something percent of it and you be rewarded for that. It's just not the way it's going to work. Now, once you have a couple of businesses under your belt and you know how to start successful projects, you can actually plant the seeds for great success later, then you can partner with somebody who's a finisher and they can start to finish these tasks. So I'm not saying you have to be a finisher forever, but you have to be able to follow through with something long enough to start getting results. And then you're going to have the resources and the results to bring somebody else in and be that finisher for you. So if you want to get results in your business and you have like a million half-completed projects, if you're watching this, I bet you do because I think all entrepreneurs do and all people who want to be entrepreneurs do. It's just in our nature, we're starters. That's why we're entrepreneurs. We like to start shit. And so we have to develop this side of ourselves that finishes projects in order to get to the next level. So let's talk about, I think you can't even see this whiteboard behind me, but we've got eight ways to become a finisher. Number one is stakes on the line. So at the beginning of this video talked about if you have a job and you don't finish your projects, there are consequences, okay? If you are in school and you don't finish your projects, there are consequences. And so if you're in your business and you're a sole entrepreneur and there's no consequences for finishing the job today, there are long-term consequences for not finishing. But there's no apparent consequences for not finishing the job today. If you said you're going to reach out to 10 people today and you didn't do it, who's going to know? Nobody's going to know. So you have to create consequences. We talk about this all the time, but I have a weekly accountability partner and we have any amount of money on the line somewhere between $100 and $300. And if we don't finish our goals for that week, we have to pay the other person in cash at the end of that week because we didn't hit our goals. So my accountability partner just last week paid me out 3 million rupiah. I think it was 3 million. It might have even been 5 million. I think it was 5 million rupiah. So he had to go to the ATM twice. We're in Indonesia and take out all this money in the hand to me. And it was just like, it's like it's my birthday or something. But he needed to feel that pain of being punished for not finishing his goals so the next week he would finish them. So this is how we set real stakes for not finishing the goals. Number two, I have mandated deadlines. So that's kind of along the same lines is that for those goals we have Sunday at midnight. If your shit's not done, you're paying up. There's no exceptions there. So you have to set real deadlines. For whatever project you're working on, clearly outline your project and then have hard deadlines for those just like you would end of semester in school. You're going to hit that deadline, right? If you have hard deadlines at work, you're going to hit those. So you need a specific day and time that you're going to get your important projects done in your business. Number three, we have no exceptions. So a lot of people say, yes, Sunday at midnight, all of that done, but I got sick this week. So you might be able to hear right now, but I'm sick. And I'm recording this video anyways because it has to get done. So my friends said to me a couple of months ago, you know how I know you're successful? Because you record ads even when you're sick. I had a cold back then. And if you look at one of my ads that has done probably $500,000 in sales, one of my video ads, you can barely understand my voice in it because I'm so sick. I was in Vietnam and for some reason when I travel halfway around the world, I tend to get a cold afterwards. So I was in Vietnam when I barely had a voice like I do today. And on my goals, I had to record a video ad for that week. And so I had to record this ad. You can barely hear my voice. And now millions of people have seen that ad. And it's not the best it could be. It could be so much better with a clean audio track on it. And I'm actually going to rerecord it as soon as I get better because I'm going to keep bringing that ad. But the point is there are no exceptions. I didn't say I'm going to wait until next week to record this just because I'm sick because if you give yourself the opportunity to get out of things one time, you will give yourself the opportunity over and over again. Someone who I followed online once said, I would rather die than not go to the gym because if I allow myself to skip the gym this one time, I'll allow myself to skip it anytime in the future. So he talked about how he'd get home from an event at two in the morning. And if he said he was going to go to the gym that day, even though he was dead tired, he would make himself go at two in the morning because then he knows he keeps his promises into himself. And when you keep your promises to yourself over and over again, no matter what, no matter if you're sick or you got too busy or unexpected projects come up, you still finish what's on the list. So with that weekly accountability, someone once asked us, what if you have unexpected projects come into the mix? And we say, it doesn't matter. You still have to finish what's on the list. So no exceptions. Stop giving yourself an out. You cannot have an out to your projects because there's always going to be things coming up. Things will always come up. Number four, we have mid-range planning. That means, yes, we need daily and weekly planning, but it has to fit into a bigger picture. So planning your business by the week is a terrible way to run your business. You're going to run around like a crazy person. You're going to log into Facebook. You're going to see some new shiny object and you're going to go chasing after it and you're never going to get anything real done because you're operating like somebody who just chases every shiny thing they see. We want to plan in quarterly increments. That's three months, periods. We want to write down everything we're going to do, the projects that are going to move the needle for those three months. Then we want to review those projects every single week and see those projects through. So just like on our weekly goals, if things come up, we still have to complete our weekly goals. Our quarterly goals are going to operate the same way because with a clear head at the beginning of the quarter, we're going to set what's important and we won't move the needle. Then when we get distracted, we have to come back to our quarterly goals and say, this is what I said I was going to do. Then we stay on that path because here's the thing, success is not going to come from that one new tactic or hack or shiny object you see on Facebook. It's going to come from consistent progress towards meaningful goals. You have to set those longer term goals and stay on the path towards those even when you get distracted. So quarterly plan and then come back to those goals every single week and then 90 days from now you can reset your goals if you actually want to chase something different, but you're not allowed to change your mind every single week about what you're chasing. Okay, that's a finished real project. Five, we have pain versus pleasure. So human beings are generally moving away from pain or towards pleasure. Now most of the population is going to spend most of their energy moving away towards pain. We have in general very strong aversion to risk and we'll do a lot more, for example, to avoid losing $100 than we will for the chance to make $100. Now entrepreneurs are maybe the exception to this is that we do chase pleasure. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this game, right? We'll work for years and years at the chance to finally make it big because we know it's all going to be worth it because we can live like 99% of people never will be able to. And so you have to associate your goals with the pain of not achieving them. What's going to happen in your life? What's going to look like if you don't achieve these goals, if you don't finish them? And what's the pleasure going to be like if you do? So I have my whiteboard over on the other side of the room right now. I was having trouble finishing a project and so I do this thing called picture it done. And I just wrote down imagine what it's going to feel like when X project is done. And I put it right in my desk so that every time I'm struggling to focus on that project and finish it I can look up at that and then I'm going to imagine I'm going to feel in my body what it feels like to have that project done. I'm going to feel the pleasure associated with that and I'm going to push through that project. Okay. Now I have to also imagine the pain of not getting it done. And so just remember that we're moving away from pain or towards pleasure to associate massive pain with not finishing your goals and massive pleasure with finishing them. Number six, how to be a finisher. I have turned into a finisher. What does this mean? Well you know when you start a workout and you're just like trudging through it in the first 10 minutes maybe you're stiff and you just woke up and it's really difficult and it's not that fun and then maybe you get your ass kicked later in the workout and it's just really hard and then you finally finish that workout. You push through, you get it done. What happens at the end? After you finish that workout after the pain's gone you kind of start to feel really good about it. You're kind of like wow I feel like I accomplished something today. My brother always says if you get your workout done for the day you've won the day. So afterwards you get this real sense of satisfaction. Now here's what we have to do with our projects if we want to be a finisher is that you need to just finish the first project and what's going to happen when you finish it. You're going to get a real hit. You're going to get endorphins from finishing that project. Just like you do from finishing a workout or finishing a race it's going to feel good after the fact. So a lot of times when I'm not being productive it's because I'm in the habit of not finishing projects and if I push myself to finish one all of a sudden it feels really good to finish it and I'm like wow I'm really glad I pushed through and I got that done and then the next time when I think about finishing a project I remember those endorphins I got from finishing the last one and all of a sudden I have that pleasure associated with it. So really this is the habit you're cultivating and the more you do it the easier it will be. Success builds success. The more you finish things the easier it's going to be to finish the next project because you have these endorphins that you get from finishing. So it feels really good to finish projects. I know you have to push through and it's hard to get there but once you do it's going to feel great. Number seven I have detachment from outcome. Business is a roller coaster and there are so many factors outside of our control that determine the results. So sometimes I'll have a terrible month in business and look at it and figure out talk to everyone else in the industry figure out it's just seasonality like maybe a lot of people are on vacation this month. So you really have to focus on the process and not the outcome in your business. So you shouldn't look at your results and say should I keep doing this process that I'm doing right now. You can look at them over long term over a quarterly basis but week to week, day to day do not look at your results and make determinations about what projects you're going to work on based on your results. You have to look at the process you put in place at the beginning of that quarter say I'm going to work this plan no matter what independent of the results and most of the time the results you get from projects you complete are going to come months or years down the line and so if you're looking to see if you're getting the results you want to decide if you're going to continue to finish a project you're doomed and I did this for years like I would say I'm not getting the results that I want so I'm going to stop doing this but one day I decided you know what I'm going to do the work no matter what the results are. If I have bad results today I'm going to continue to do the work if I have good results today I'm going to continue to do the work it doesn't matter what the results are good or bad I'm just going to stay on that path and that really made all the difference detachment from outcome you just put your focus on what you can control and let the outcome take care of itself it's a byproduct making money is a byproduct of creating value for other people so your focus should always be on value creation for other people not on how much money you're making or the results you're getting now you still have to evaluate those but do it on a longer term basis like a quarterly basis and then number eight last one how to be a finisher and have Yoda yourself across the finish line so these are all related but here's the deal Yoda said do or do not do there is no try so when I ask a friend or a business colleague hey did you do this thing are you going to do this thing and they say I'm going to try I say okay so you're not going to do it or I say did you do this thing they said oh I tried but and they say okay so you're just going to allow yourself to fail because if you allow yourself to be bogged down by meaningless excuses you'll never get where you want to go in life you have to get it done no matter what whatever it takes that should be your model whatever it takes get it done doesn't matter what the excuses are do or do not do there is no trying okay it's not a thing that's just saying you didn't get it done so that's it how to be a finisher if you want success in life it's not about starting projects it's about finishing them consistently the more projects you can finish the more success you're going to have so starting projects is not really valuable to anyone if you become a finisher eventually you can hire somebody or bring somebody in your business to really handle that part of your personality that doesn't want to finish things so you don't have to do this forever but you have to cultivate the habit of being a finisher and that's how you actually ship things to the market that are valuable to other people if you're just a starter right now chances are you're just thinking of yourself you're not thinking of other people and again money is a byproduct of creating value for other people so number one create stakes number two mandated deadlines number three no exceptions no excuses number four mid-range planning that means plan on a quarterly basis instead of just doing whatever you feel like on a week-to-week basis number five pain versus pleasure associate massive pain with not finishing your goals massive pleasure with finishing them six turn into a finisher you're going to get that chemical hit when you finish things the more you do it the easier it's going to get just like the more you work out and finish your workouts the easier it is to show up the next day number seven detachment from the outcome that means you do the work no matter what you stop looking at the results on a minute to minute hour to hour day to day week-to-week basis and you look at them over a longer time period and you just when you go to work every day you say I said I was going to do this so I'm going to do it stop worrying about results and then number eight go to yourself across the finish line do or do not do there is no try get rid of the excuses finish your projects and you're going to crush it let me know in the comments what you thought of this don't forget to subscribe to the channel like share with a friend if you like this and I'll see you on the next video