 About seven years ago, I made a deep mindset shift that has made my business better and better ever since, and my life as well. The shift was to stop focusing so much on goals, but instead to focus on the systems that lead to those goals, and even more, the purpose underlying the systems. So let me explain to you, and I'll explain with a story, actually, a true story, that I read about in a book called The Practicing Mind, a wonderful book, The Practicing Mind by Thomas Stirner. And in that book is a story about an archery team, archers, people who shoot bows and arrows. And this was the archery team in the Olympics, okay, so very elite people. And one team, this is the coach who noticed this, one team was very focused on hitting the bull's eye, the center of the target, the thing that, you know, you get better points if you hit right into the middle of the target as an archer. So one team was so focused on it that it was like they, that's all they could, that their entire energy was poured into visualizing the bull's eye and making sure they get the highest score possible. So that's team number one. Team number two, interestingly, was not focused on the bull's eye or the score, they were much more focused on the technique of drawing the bow and letting go of the shot. That's what their entire energy was focused on. How can I make that technique more effective? How can I do more of what I was trained? And how can I make it more graceful or whatever it is that archers do? And here's what's interesting. The second team kept beating the first team. The second team that focused on the process of drawing the bow and letting go and hitting the shot kept beating the first team that was so focused on the score and the bull's eye. And the second team also seemed like they were much happier. Their minds seemed calmer, less complicated, more, and they were detached from the results. They were just saying, hey, did you do a good job of, okay, practice again, you know, keep doing it. So the coach for the first team learned a lot from that observation and started coaching the first team differently. So what about you and me? How do we approach each day, each week, each month? Are you focused on the score or are you focused on the process of drawing the bow and letting go of the shot? That's the change that I had seven years ago that has made me much happier in my business. I'm no longer focused on getting a certain number of followers or making a certain amount of money, but I'm focused on every day, am I showing up to the system that I know will naturally lead me to doing better in my business, but I'm focused on the system. So here are some examples, okay, some examples for you. Two simple examples. One is the goal might be to write a book. That might be your goal. Write a book. And it's fun to think about. It's inspiring. It might get you to start taking action, but then do you have the system designed underneath the goal that leads you naturally? What is the daily system? To write a book? What does that mean? Well, what about writing one page a day? Writing one page a day, even if you take vacations and you only write five days a week, you still have more than 200 pages by the end of a year. One page of 200 pages is more pages than any of my books. And then you could take the next six months to edit two pages a day. So it's like have a simple, very doable system underneath each of your goals and focus just on that system every single day. Now let me take it to the deeper level. So we talked about goal, the goal, yes, it's okay to have a goal. It's fun to think about. It helps you to know how to design the system so that you can get to the goal. Okay, fine. The daily system is what we focus on, but there's a deeper level here underneath the system and the steps that we take is the deeper purpose for each step. So let me explain. Let's say I'm writing one page today and I'm facing a blank screen, which is scary. I don't know what to write. What if I fail? What if what I write doesn't match what I wrote yesterday? What if what I write isn't understandable? People don't like it. You know, all these internal, inner critic questions start coming up or maybe external critics, right? Maybe you showed your draft to somebody and they don't like it. The deeper purpose underlying the system to me, and I wonder about you, to me, the deeper purpose is character growth and skills development. And that's really what brings me to work every day. I'm not coming to work really. I'm not really coming to work to write that page or to make that contact or to, you know, do bookkeeping or whatever it is I'm doing today. I'm not really doing that. Yes, I'm doing that. It looks like I'm doing that, but underneath it, instead of writing that page, I'm really practicing courage. I'm really practicing what this authentic expression mean. I'm really practicing how do I connect more compassionately to the reader? And those are truly worth, that's a truly worthwhile goal, isn't it? Oh, I wrote a book. Okay, great. Wonderful. But I became more courageous. I learned how to express my authentic self. I learned how to connect more compassionately to another human being. Isn't that the more worthwhile goal? Of course it is. Because when we die, none of this matters. And it doesn't even, not even when we die. Like every year, as we develop our skills and our character, life will naturally become easier and our business will naturally become more successful. That is the so-called secret. That's the true secret, okay? I think to success is vision, yes, for fun, for inspiration, for some direction, systems, very doable steps. Every day we focus on that, but really the deeper purpose is why we show up to work and we really say, well, this hour what I'm practicing is courage. And then, of course, how do you get courage? Well, I hope you have some source of faith that reminds you that no matter what happens, you're going to be okay. That everything will somehow mysteriously turn out beautifully for you. Reach back into that source of your faith so that you can practice courage today. Practice authentic expression today. Practice patience today. Practice joy today. So I hope this is helpful. I'm George Kao, Authentic Business Coach. I love talking about business and how we can do it from a much more authentic place. So I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for joining me, everybody. I really appreciate it. And I'll see you in the next video. Take care.