Win Bigger Faster with “The Goals Guy”, Gary Ryan Blair

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Who is Gary Ryan Blair?

Allison:  Hey, Deliberate Leaders. I am your host Allison Dunn, founder of the Deliberate Leaders podcast dedicated to helping leaders build strong, thriving businesses.  Each episode we feature inspiring interviews to help you on your leadership journey.

Today, you’re in for a real treat. I have as my guest, Gary Ryan Blair, he is known as The Goals Guy. Number one best-selling author of Everything Counts. Gary has cracked the code on what it takes to get 10 years’ worth of results in 100 days.  He accepts full responsibility for inspiring people to do insane things like climbing Mount Everest, run their first triathlon, launch their own business and say, adios to their comfort zone. Today, he will be sharing some powerful ideas for achieving your goals, inspiring excellence and creating radical results fast. Gary, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Gary:  I am so happy to be here with you. Thanks for having me and by the way, I know we spoke about this before, but I’ve always loved the name of your business, the deliberate part is just as powerful and it sends a really strong message. Congrats on choosing that.

#1 Leadership Tip

Allison:  Thank you so much. I should share here just as an upfront. I am someone who has done the 100 day challenge that we’re about to talk about in this episode a little bit and I first enrolled in the challenge in September of 2019 so I’m 500 days or 550 days in at this point. I’m super excited to share this interview and share the concepts behind the 100 Day Challenge and what that means but at first, I’m going to kick this off. Could you share your number one leadership tip for our deliberate leader listeners?

Gary:  Oh, yes, got a bunch but I’ll tell you what. I’m a big believer in terms of time. As we know, it’s an unrecoverable asset but even more importantly, the beautiful part about time is it’s democratic, meaning that each one of us has the exact same amount of time doesn’t matter who it is. That being said, let’s put a little meat on the bones, those 525,600 minutes in a year. That’s just a matter of fact. I believe that everyone should focus in on if you want to talk about being deliberate about really paying attention to how to utilize your time. Well, if you make $1 per minute, you will generate your business or put in your pocket $525,600 per year. If you want to make a million dollars, that means your time is worth $1.92. 

My advice to everybody is to take last year’s income divided into 525,600 and that will tell you exactly to the penny what your time is worth per minute.

The reason the importance of this is that once you have a number associated with it, then you start to realize. You know what?

There’s no room for procrastination, for indecision, for apathy, for anything that does not move the needle forward and that’s why I believe and having a really high, just a strong relationship with time and money, quite frankly.

Allison:  That’s awesome exercise that I bring my clients through and I think it’s very insightful. Once you have that clarity on the value of your time, it really does change how you spend it in what you think about putting into your day like what you invest in, right? Because your time is an investment. Hands down.

Gary:  Yes. Listen, we’re all playing a high stakes game on one and done so yes, it’s important. Keep in touch with it.

How Gary Became ‘The Goals Guy’

Allison:  Awesome. Can you tell us, you are ‘The Goals Guy’. You’re the world’s only goals guy. Right? How did you come up with that?

Gary:  Well, self-ordained. It was one of those things where I knew I was going to pick my lane and I needed some kind of unique identifier. The legitimate story is this Tim Allen was on TV, it was Tim the tool man some of you told we’re going to remember some or not and I thought, it was kind of cool. I reflected on it. I’m like, at the time Michael Jackson became King of pop, James Brown and you start to go through the Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul and so forth. These were titles that gave these people a presence, it helped them build their brand and I wanted something really unique so I hung my shingle, if you will, on the goals guy.

The Performance Gap

Allison:  I think it’s very appropriate, especially when it’s associated with the challenge because it’s all about setting goals. One of the things that you talk about a lot is the performance gap. I would like for you to explain what that means, and your take on that for listeners.

Gary:  Got it. Well, here’s the biggest gap that exists in people’s lives really is the gap between what they say they’re going to do and what they actually do. Let’s get that out of the way first but here, I mean, bottom line is somebody again. Let’s say they want to generate a million dollars in revenue and they want to do that in the first quarter, second quarter of the year, it really doesn’t matter. They come up short, obviously, 675,000, or whatever the number is, is going to be a gap. It’s just the way that it goes. 

My objective more than anything else, I call it ‘closing speed’. What can you do to close that gap as quickly as possible to compress time and to accelerate that outcome.

Fundamentally, listen, there’s always going to be some kind of a gap that exists in your life in a variety of areas, health, wealth, relationship, number of clients, gross net income, and all that type stuff that’ll always exist and the beautiful part about it is, you can use the concept of closing that gap of accelerating that process, if you will. That’s really what’s baked into the 100 Day Challenge, really.

100 Day Challenge Background

Allison:  OK. Let’s talk about the 100 Day Challenge. Why did you create it? And can you just give us a little bit of background of what’s involved in a 100 day challenge, because I love the even number of 100. There’s so many challenges out there so share yours.

Gary:  You’re absolutely right. There’s a lot of challenges out there. I was probably if in all honesty, it’s probably the first because I’m going back 10, 12, 15 years at this point in time when I get when I originally came up with the idea.  OK, so I created this really, as kind of an alpha male, for myself, for my clients, the guys that I worked with, and so forth and I wanted to kind of reframe the conversation related to goals. My thinking is this.

I believe that we’ve been lied to throughout our entire lives that we have to accept, small cost of living allowances that we have to that growth happens incrementally.

Step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, same thing, red, yellow, orange, if you’re taking karate, or what have you.

I came to realize that my life really didn’t work that way that I was able to, by working smarter to create leaps, and realize that there are a series of different shortcuts. 

Just to give you an example, because sometimes people get a hair on the back of their neck goes up when you talk about shortcuts but that’s really what the 100 Day Challenge is all about.

The 100 Day Challenge is a program that literally helps you to speed things up to accelerate by utilizing shortcuts.

Examples of Shortcuts

To give a couple of examples. If you were to go to Disneyland, you have an opportunity to buy what’s called a speed pass, that allows you to jump over the line, if you will and rather than wait for maybe 3 hours, you can get on line in 15 minutes, you’re basically on line, we pay for that, for that luxury, if you will, what else do we see that? Well, you drive your car down the highway, we have toll lanes, if you will, you can pay a little bit and you’re screwed on through.

I’ve come to realize is that there are certain things that you can do in life in order to compress time. I incorporated all those into the 100 day challenge to get people to radically think differently, about how they can grow, how they can mature, how they could solve problems and do a whole host of different things. 

Gary’s Role as TV Consultant

I’ve been fortunate enough to see some people turn some really what they would consider to be impossible goals into some extraordinary success in a very short period of time. If you don’t mind, just to give you a little caveat. What helped along this way was I was very much involved in a number of programs everyone sees on TV as behind the scenes. I don’t even know if you have not already done but we’ve seen Extreme Home Makeover. Extreme Home Makeover was added more to concept, but I was a consultant on the program. The idea being is it normally takes, a small house maybe 120, 150 days to complete, a large mansion, our house that we built in Florida, it took us 2 and a half years to build that. OK, well what these guys were doing is they were building a move in ready house in 7 days. You talk about compressing time that forced people to radically rethink what’s possible.  I also worked with The Biggest Loser, and you had people that were 100, 200 pounds overweight and literally within 16 weeks, they were running marathons and losing a tremendous amount of weight.

Then the latest one I’ve been involved with is Dancing with the Stars where you can take people who’ve never danced before in their lives. Guess what, at the end of one season, which is about 100 days, you couldn’t tell the difference between the professional and the amateur who just started a few weeks before and we see this happen in military boot camp. We see this happen in a variety of different ways. I wanted to get people to understand that you need to reframe your belief about growth and what’s possible and that you could truly move mountains and achieve some significant milestones in an accelerated timeframe. It’s been proven, I know it’s possible.

Who is the 100 Day Challenge Designed For?

Allison:  One of the things that you tout is that you can basically compress time by, achieving in 100 days, what most people take 10 years to achieve. One of the things that I most appreciate about the 100 day challenge is that it is delivered daily in a way that is incredibly inspirational. In addition to that, it has me gut check on the actions I’ve taken, or not taken on a daily basis and so it’s like a, a 1, 2, that kind of keeps you in sync. It’s there on Saturday, and it’s there on Sunday, day after day for 100 days, and then I am an alumni so I just reset that every 100 days. I am really passionate about the program overall and to be able to say that,  I’ve done it repeatedly, but I also bought it for my son who is a young adult, early in his career so I don’t know who you created it for, but who is the right person that should consider enrolling in 100 day challenge?

Gary:  Good question. I did not know that you bought it for your son so that’s great. We have another conversation on that. OK, I created it for really, for anybody who wanted to make change in their life, however, and this is the big however, it helps tremendously. If you already bring to the table, a certain set of skills. Let me set this up this way, my primary client that I work with now, I’m a consultant with the Department of Defense where I work with Special Forces.

The question that I constantly ask and I get I focused on, it is truly the thing that I think about every day, how do you help the best get better? How do you help people who are already disciplined, already focused, already, committed, already mission focus, and so forth? How do you help them get better? It’s not a whole host of things, large things, its small things, it’s looking for opportunities to, that they haven’t considered before, and so forth.

The person that’s going to benefit the most from the 100 a challenge is somebody who already has the skills of a mature, responsible adult, you’re focused you’re discipline, you know, what needs to be done, you just want to take your performance to another level, and you’re looking for some additional insights, some mental doors to be opened. I promise you, as you’re well aware that comes in spades. 

Allison:  Fantastic. For listeners who might be interested in learning a little bit more, I am going to include a link directly to it right here in the show notes. Is there a deadline? What type of rhythm do you run this on, Gary? Just so that, people keep this in mind.

Marketing Themes of Launching Each 100 Day Challenge

Gary:  When I first started the program, the history of USP before I started it, I launched it on September 22 and for anybody who has a business, I think anybody will appreciate this. I wanted to do something unique. One, I wanted to have my own unique identifier with a goals guy, I wanted to have something that was really different. I love the annual marketing calendar and for anybody who markets and I’m quite confident, that’s who your audience is.

There are certain evergreen events that are going to happen every single year. It starts off with New Years, then it progresses into Groundhog’s Day, you got Valentine’s Day, Martin Luther King Day and, and so forth. It runs the gamut and they’re predictable dates in the calendar.  What I wanted to do is I wanted to have a unique predictable date in the calendar that I could own so September 22 was the launch date. Why? Well outside of a leap year. It happens every year. It begins the last 100 Day countdown of the year and the messaging on that was all about finishing strong. I ran it that way for the first few years and then we expanded the window and decided to do 4 launches as you know. Beginning of January, beginning of April for the second quarter, beginning of July 3 and obviously the last being that last 100 days September 22. It’s been a winning strategy, it’s really worked out well.

Finish Strong

Allison:  Yes, awesome. Well you caught me on that you finish the year strong platform originally on the first time.

Gary:  The great part about it though if you’re going to mark it, themes are great.

One thing I learned about marketing is that you want to speak to the conversation that’s taking place in the customers mind.

In my case, I get a lot of free publicity. What I mean by that is, at the beginning of the year, January, when everyone’s already talking about New Year planning, New Year’s resolutions, what have you. Going into April 1, there’s not a board room or a sales manager, anybody who’s not having a conversation about the second quarter. How did we do in the first, what corrective actions need to take same thing going on July 1st, and a 3rd, and so forth. I literally tap into the conversation that’s already taking place, and give them an opportunity to take whatever is on your agenda, your specific goals, and let’s use this timeframe and maximize that. It’s been a winner, it’s been a win, win.

Gary’s Latest Project

Allison:  Well, thank you so much. It’s been incredibly impactful for me in keeping it on the forefront of everything that I’m working with, with my clients, too. I appreciate that, Gary. What are you working on these days? Inquiring minds want to know.

Gary:  I’m actually working on a youth program, I want to build the largest community of self-reliant young men and women. It’s driven by one question, what are the 3 things that every young man and woman needs to master by the time they’re 18 years of age, and that goes from financial management, self-reliance, and a whole host of things. I’m excited about it, it’s going to fall under the brand name “Got Goals“. I happen to own that trademark. It’ll be the guy goals challenge. I’m pretty excited about it. We’ll be launching it pretty soon.

Actionable Item to Get Results

Allison:  Awesome. I’m excited to see what that looks like. We’re coming to the end of our interview, but I definitely want to ask you, can you leave one actionable idea that we can use immediately to get results from?

Start Fast, Finish Strong

Gary:  OK. The theme of the program, as you know, is start fast, finish strong. To connect that with a book that I wrote, Everything Counts, as you had mentioned, on the cover of the book, there’s an exclamation mark and I don’t know if we’ve had this conversation.

I love this approach to life because not only am I talking about how do you achieve your goals. I’m talking about how do you win with honor, how do you win in the spirit of excellence. To me, you’ve got that has to be at the forefront.

That being said, I want you to look at grammar period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark and a period essentially is about how 80% of the world’s sentences and conversations go about on a day to day basis. Nothing spectacular. They don’t draw your attention. It’s just an average, data type thing, then you have the question mark. The question mark, essentially, if you go back the Latin derivative, it was the interrogation mark, it was bold. I don’t know where or how it was changed but it’s called initially the interrogation Mark, why were you late? Why didn’t you show up on time? Why didn’t you clean the bathroom, whatever it was. 

Allison:   That’s hilarious.

The Explanation Point

Gary:  Exactly, I’ve always felt that the last thing anyone ever wants to have after their name, or their company, or anything, it’s a question, you don’t want to leave a question mark and people climb about your character, that leaves us with the exclamation mark, which is just a small percentage of sentences but in this case, it’s life in general.

To me, the exclamation mark is a symbol of excellence and my thinking is, how do you put an exclamation mark at the beginning and the end, bookmark every single activity, and you have to look at it this way.

That when you think about finishing strong, that this is not just the end of the year. The fact is, our conversation right now is going to come to an end but you have every task, every email, every text message, every conversation, every meeting, every day, week, quarter month, or a year is going to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Therefore, you want to start it fast. You want to set some kind of a pace, you put an exclamation mark stake in the ground, then how do you end it?

Example of the Explanation Point

The best example I can give you and I think everybody loved this. Think about Kramer from Seinfeld. When Seinfeld at the beginning, they were on air for about 10, 11 years. The first 5 years he focused in on his entrance into the room. He always had some crazy, thing that he had done and everyone looked forward to it. It can’t do with Michael Richard, came to a point in time never listen to an interview. It’s like, I need to give this character a little bit more depth and then he focused in on his exit. The second half of really the entire show. He essentially did that he focused on how do you exit with an exclamation if you will, with a little pizzazz. The thing I would say to everybody is, how do you live your life with a series of exclamation marks? And how do you put to use them as symbols of excellence estates on the ground as mile markers as opportunities to send a message, whoever it is you happen to be working with and that’s a great way with which to be able to look at it, really it.

Allison:  I love that exclamation point so that’s the actual item that listeners can take today and hopefully, I will see you inside of the 100 Day Challenge also, Gary, thank you so much for your time today. It’s so great to catch up with you and hear your voice and be part of this conversation.

Gary:  I am one of your biggest fan. Thanks for having me on. I love what you’re doing. I’m glad to be part of it so again, thanks for having me.

Allison:  Thank you.