Goals Versus Systems: The Silent Pursuit of Success

Could the quiet grind toward achievement overshadow the applause of public goal declarations? This episode tackles the philosophical debate of goals versus systems through the lens of James Clear's 'Atomic Habits'. Sam Lister's herculean challenge of crafting a daily video for a thousand days is the springboard to a monologue sustainability of such ambitious objectives and the importance of the underlying systems that propel us towards success.

Join me, Scott Townsend, and let's contemplate the balance between striving for lofty goals and the necessity of robust processes. Sam's journey, paired with my reflections, captures the essence of what it means to set monumental ambitions while recognizing the discrete, yet powerful, steps that must be orchestrated to reach the pinnacle. Tune in for an episode that promises to reshape not just how we view our aspirations, but also how we might achieve them through disciplined, silent perseverance.

Sam's Youtube episode  https://youtu.be/6xSvryQmlbI?si=HHzhiSu8v-hUXUnQ
CBS Sunday Morning   -  Lazy House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MgyLRii87Y&t=88s

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Executive Producer:  Ben Townsend
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, loyal fans of the Scott Townsend show, we've got something exciting to share with you. Your favorite podcast is gearing up for an amazing 2024. And we want you to be a crucial part of the action. The Scott Townsend show has always been about meaningful conversations, unique perspectives and the kind of content that keeps you coming back for more. But to keep the momentum going, we need your support, introducing our Patreon campaign, your opportunity to contribute to the creation of the show and help us take it to new heights. Your support ensures that we continue to bring you thought provoking discussions, engaging interviews and the quality content you've come to expect. By becoming a patron on Patreon forward slash Scott Townsend show, you're not just donating. You're investing in a podcast that values your input. We're offering exclusive perks like early access to episodes, behind the scenes content and the chance to influence the direction of the show. Head over to patreoncom forward slash Scott Townsend show today.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Welcome to the Scott Townsend show brought to you by Deets Oman Productions.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Scott Townsend. Welcome back to the Scott Townsend show and today's Jane Shall. I say what? Today is? Yeah, it's January 4th 2024.

Speaker 1: 1:27

And I was looking in my computer this morning and saw a post video by Sam Lister. Who was Sam Lister? Well, I had Sam on the show back almost March 11th 2021. It was my 75th episode and he and I talked about doing 90 podcasts and 90 days. It was his goal and I've often wondered what happened to him, what he's doing, and so this morning I just ran across his video on YouTube and it looks like he's doing a. He's launched a challenge to himself to produce a video every day for a thousand days, which seems pretty crazy to me. The video looks good. Production value looks good. It's a little Casey nice that ish, but yeah it's. But so what it's? It just kind of reminds me of Casey a little bit with the editing and the music at all, but it looks good and sounds good. If you want to check out what is his, I'll put a link on his YouTube channel if you want to look at it.

Speaker 1: 2:46

But there was a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Number one is this idea of producing a thousand videos in a thousand days. Man, that is a huge goal. It almost makes me break out into a sweat Thinking that someone's going to try to do a video every day for a thousand days. My first initial reaction to that is Sam, I hope you make it, but I just don't know if I don't know if you can do that, I don't know if anybody can do that. I know there have been several who have, but it's, you know, in the atomic habits, james Clear it talks about.

Speaker 1: 3:38

It's not really about the goal as much as it is about the systems and the processes that you have in place to accomplish the goal. Every football team goes out on Super Bowl. The two teams go out on the field and they want to win the game. The goal is to win, all right. Well, both teams have the same goal. What it really boils down to is winning the game. What it really boils down to is which team has the best processes, procedures, systems in place to make that happen. So I'm wondering, if I'm wondering, what systems, processes, procedures Sam has in place to, to win the game, to reach a thousand. You know what's the setup like. How easy is it going to be. It's going to be hard sometimes to do that, but anyway, systems, processes, procedures, trump, a overall goal. The second thing is, I don't know that I would tell everybody about the goal. Is that okay to do? I guess it is.

Speaker 1: 4:59

You know, just tell everybody that you're going to post a thousand videos in a thousand days, or would it be better just to do it and not tell everybody what you're doing and let your product play out, let your processes, procedures and systems play out to where, eventually, you do have a collection of a thousand videos in a thousand days? This isn't just about Sam in his video. This is about everybody setting goals big, hairy, audacious goals. I get it, it's something to challenge yourself with, but I think that it's important to have a big, hairy, audacious goal. Okay, got that, but it's even more important, like I said, what systems are going to take you to that goal and do you have the systems in place, processes to make that happen, especially on the days when it's not going to be easy and definitely not going to be fun? Is that all I wanted to say? Oh, sam said something about in his first one that history repeats itself. I would only say that it doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but history does rhyme. There's a lot of similarities. As we go through life, you see similarities from years past, of things that have gone on in history. The other thing is he's talking about building a brand, talking about starting a company with this logo t-shirt, hoodie, honey wax is the picture, the name. You know a logo, and so what I have to say about that is congratulations, good luck and I hope it works for you. I'm here for you, sam.

Speaker 1: 7:07

A lot of people think that building you build a brand. You really don't build your brand. You build a company and the customer determines what your brand is Based on how you answer the phone, the quality of the product, ease of purchase, shipping, if they like, the visuals. The customer is going to determine what your brand is. All of us who start a business work in a business. We are, all you know, in charge of and need to be aware of the fact that we influence a customer's perception of our business. But it's the customer that determines with word of mouth, with referrals, with their conversation around the water cooler, what their experience was like in dealing with your company, your business. So a lot of people think that you know a logo the golden arches. That's what McDonald's stands for. No, it's whatever you determine McDonald's stands for and collectively they've done a really good job.

Speaker 1: 8:20

With a certain niche, everybody pretty much has the same kind of concept, idea, expectations of what a McDonald's restaurant's going to be like. And then you take something, something like Buckeys in Texas, where everybody that you talk to about Buckeys, if they've been to a Buckeys, they love Buckeys. You talk about someone who's done it right. You're going to hear about the clean bathrooms. You're going to hear about all the gas pumps. You're going to hear about the good food, the excellent customer service, the many locations along the highway. It's become a tourist destination and so they they do it right to the, to the, to that extent to where people have to say something about going to Bucky's, even if you know you're on the highway and you want to go. You have to go to the bathroom and, like my wife, she would rather go to Bucky's anywhere else because the bathrooms are so squeaky clean, which that's that's. That's a huge marketing tool in and of itself. So, yeah, it's, it's what you do and how you execute. And then you hope that the customer gets it. Oh, they'll get it all right. If it's a good experience, bad experience or somewhere in between, they'll get it and overall the word of mouth will be whatever that is. So you build process systems, processes, procedures in place to help, to help make sure that the customer has whatever kind of experience you want.

Speaker 1: 10:15

You know, I heard about this restaurant, lazy Horse, in Nagoya, nagoya. It's a. It's a restaurant that's very rude to its customers, but that's their plan. They, they. It's on CBS Sunday morning. I'll post the link in the show notes, you can see it. Anyway, that's their plan. They want to piss everybody off and actually, in doing so, the customers come back time and time again to be dissed by the wait, wait staff, to be served hellishly, and people, people love it. But that was a.

Speaker 1: 10:56

What is it? Lazy horse, lazy House, lazy horse, the Lazy House restaurant, that's their MO, that's their niche, and so they do everything to be ugly to you, which is so funny, and people are eating it up, but it's because that's the way it's supposed to be and I guess they do it very well. So just depends on what you want your company to look like, sound like, smell, like the experience, the purchase, the product, as long as you know. And so, sam, what kind of experience do you want your customers to have? What is it? Mediocre? I mean, that's fine. And then do you want to piss everybody off, have a rude experience? That's working for Lazy Horse House, lazy House, or where is it on the spectrum of customer service Brand recognition.

Speaker 1: 11:57

So anyway, those are my thoughts, sam, I hope you make it to a thousand. I wouldn't get hung up on the thousand, I would just get all hung up on the next day, the next one. You know Jerry Seinfeld. He writes jokes every day. He has a calendar on the wall and he puts an X through the day and he boils it down to this. He says just don't break the chain, just keep making the X's day to day. And pretty soon, when you look at your tomorrows. And so if Sam does this and he has tomorrow to look forward to and then he takes care of today, eventually his tomorrows will add up to a thousand videos in a thousand days. And personally I want to cheer him on. I hope it works and we'll see.

Speaker 1: 12:50

I want to be watching Sam and be posting on this podcast All of you guys out there listening. I'll, like I said, I'll put Sam's YouTube channel and the show notes below. Kind of an odd episode, I know, but I thought it would be kind of fun to follow along and see how how he does and challenge him and We'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm not gonna commit to a thousand podcasts about anything. We'll just take care today and Tomorrow. We'll take care of itself anyway. Hope you have a great day. This is Scott Townsend. Thanks for listening to the Scott Townsend show. Have a great day. Everything's gonna be all right.

Speaker 2: 14:01

The Scott Townsend show is a Ditzoman production. For more episodes, visit the Scott Townsend show YouTube channel, listen on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is Scott Townsend show.