All right, figuring it out. Good. All right, let me get to those. Let's see here. Perfect.
All right. What's up, everybody? Hope y'all are doing good.
Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It's 2025. And man, I'm super excited about, let's see here. I'm super excited about today and our time together.
And. I word for the year. I saw a lot of thrives in 2025s. I saw a lot of thrives in 2025s, but...
We do thrive every single week, every Wednesday. But anyway, man, super excited to have this opportunity to connect with you guys really quick. So basically, let me just kind of set some expectation about what I'm getting ready to talk about.
And hopefully it's an incredible value. I wanted to do this on the first day of the new year, frankly, because I was doing some goal setting. for myself a couple of days ago and I just literally got this epiphany that hey I'm getting ready to experiment with something that is new and I don't want to wait until an entire year to see if it works before I kind of share it with you and so I'm going to talk you kind of through a plan to win in 2025. So I'm going to um I'm going to be very, very transparent. When I get to this particular plan, this goal guide strategy that I created, when I get to this and I start explaining this to you, I want you to know that this is something I am experimenting with and I'm inviting you, if you choose to, take the journey with me because I'm taking a completely different approach.
to my goal setting this year. All right. So let's kind of get right to it, everybody.
I'm going to. share this with you. If you are on and you're part of our community, Daniel's Den, it's a group of faith-based high achievers who are committed to exercising dominion in the public sector for the common good.
We help as many people as possible experience quantum leaps so they can go from overwhelmed and under-optimized to overflowing in peace and productivity and purpose and in profit. So I'm going to be jumping on with you in about 20 minutes or so, and I'll do a Q&A session on Zoom for those of you that are in Den. in community to answer whatever questions you have about this. But one of the things I'm going to do is lay this foundation with this. What I want everybody to understand is that God is a planner.
Somebody put that in the chat for me, please. God is a planner. Even when we look at the creation narrative, the creation of the world, so whether you see that as literal six days or metaphorical over a period of time, what you need to know is that isn't random, it isn't haphazard, it isn't coincidental. God's a planner.
And so he didn't just rest on the seventh day reactively. He rested on the seventh day proactively. Watch this. If God wasn't a planner, prophecy wouldn't be a reality, right?
Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, God put it on the hearts of men to foretell where he would be born and even how he would be born. Isaiah said, a version shall conceive. What is that?
That's a plan. It wasn't, Jesus wasn't randomly born in Bethlehem. It was a plan because God is a planner. And so therefore, those of us who are made in God's image and God's likeness, we also need to be planners as well.
Now, here's the thing about the difference between our plans and God's plans. Okay. This is important.
God's plans are perfect. Our plans are not. Just because our plans aren't perfect, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have plans.
It just means you should be willing to surrender them when God changes them. See, some people can assume incorrectly that because God's plans are perfect and my plans are not perfect, that that means I shouldn't plan. No, that doesn't mean you shouldn't plan. It just means you should be willing to surrender those plans. Okay.
And so when we even look at, The reality of planning all throughout scripture, and I'm thinking about the Old Testament specifically, you're not exclusive, but the Old Testament specifically, even, and I mentioned this in the message on last night, when Joshua walked around the walls, or Joshua and Israel walked around the walls of Jericho, right? That was a plan. It wasn't random. God wasn't sitting proverbially on a throne with his legs crossed saying, let me figure out what I can tell them to do.
That's going to be weird. No, he had them walk around once a day for six days. seven times on the seventh day. That was planned. They planned, he had a plan for them to win.
Okay. And so as we go into this new year, we need to go into this new year thinking about how can we, as people who are made in the image of God, construct a plan to win. Now, I know some people even may have issue with that terminology.
What do you mean plan to win? Yes, here's my issue. Does any creator create anything to fail? Not that we won't have failures, but does any creator create anything to fail? No, a creator has the intention for whatever it creates to function in a way that is consistent with the way the creator intended.
So therefore, we are God's creation. It is he that has made us, not we ourselves. It doesn't mean we won't have failures, but it means he has an intent and intention for our life, a plan, excuse me, a vision.
And the performance of that vision requires a plan. So a couple of things that I want to share with you that I think are actually necessary when it comes to developing a plan to win. We're going to lean in on the third one, but the first two are incredibly important.
I don't want to overlook them. The first one is this. If I'm planning to win, I have to make sure I've got the right motive.
Now, when I say motive here, I don't want you to assume you understand where I'm going with this. When I say motive, here's what I mean. I mean, the first place you got to start is you got to make a non-judgmental assessment about what actually motivates you. You we've got to make a non-judgmental assessment about your why.
Remember, one of my coaching mentors taught me that whenever people are getting ready to make what he calls a phase change. What's a phase change? It's a change in form, not substance. I'm the same person, but I look like something completely different.
So an example of a phase change. Did y'all catch that? a phase change. I'm the same in substance, but I'm different in form.
So it's me, but when you look at me, I look like something completely different. And an example of a phase change is ice becoming water, liquid water, or liquid water becoming ice, right? Same substance, different in form, a phase change, what we would call the incarnation, God becoming a man.
God becoming Jesus. That's the same in substance, right? Homoousia, same in substance, different in form.
That's what I'm believing for you this year. That's what I'm believing for me. I'm Darius, substance, but a change in form. So he says, whenever people are making that kind of change, they're going to run into a wall. They're going to advance progress and they're going to hit a degree in the dimension of opposition where they're going to feel stuck and stagnant, where they're going to get a revelation that my growth is not linear.
Now, let me just share this too, man, because I want, are y'all getting this? If this is making sense, put yes in the chat. You see, growth isn't linear.
What do I mean by that? It's not a straight line. And so the sooner, watch this, the sooner we accept that reality is the sooner we can minimize some frustration because some frustration is a result of us not having an accurate assessment of reality. There are certain things that don't even frustrate you anymore because your frustration is tied to expectation, right?
So there are certain things that don't frustrate you anymore because you don't expect it from certain people anymore. It's like you're not even frustrated. So some of you, when some people are late, like it doesn't even frustrate you anymore. anymore because you expect them to be late. As a matter of fact, you don't even tell them the real time.
You tell them that you're leaving earlier so they can show up on time. It doesn't even frustrate you anymore. So there are some frustrations that we have because we have expectations that are not actually rooted in reality. Okay, so growth, if you're expecting growth to be linear, you're going to be frustrated with you more than you should, because it's not a straight line.
It's like it's ups and it's downs. And as you move forward, and it's two steps back, and then it's seven steps forward, and you might take two. All throughout scripture, we see no linear growth.
The only person where we see linear growth is Jesus. Every other person we see, Peter, amen, step forward, step back, step forward, step back. This is important.
So because growth is not linear and you're going to have these walls and these setbacks, the question is going to be this, how quick can you recover? It's not if you're going to fall off. And when I say fall off, I'm not talking about fall back into self-destructive behavior. That's what I mean.
But no matter what plan you get ready that you set, whether it's physically, relationally, emotionally, right? There may be times where you find yourself veering off the path. The successful aren't those that don't veer off paths.
They're those that know how to recover quickly. Ooh, it's those that one week out of the gym done turned into three months. they recover quickly, right?
Okay, so I'm talking about, so when I say motive, it means you have to make a non-judgmental assessment, and it's really difficult for a certain, particularly if you're a person of faith, if you're a Christian specifically, it becomes really difficult for Christians to do this because they're judging what they feel before discovering what they feel, so they can't really get clear on what they feel. So as soon as they think they're feeling something, they start judging, they start asking whether or not I should be feeling that. Instead of saying, I am feeling this.
Now, why am I feeling this? So I can change what I'm feeling. Okay. All right.
So, so that's, that's got a lot to do with religious conditioning and that's a completely different conversation. But when I say motive, you gotta be, so here's what Dr. Muta said to me. He said, there's, when they get to a wall, whenever you get to a wall in growth, it's your why that gets you through the wall.
It's the why. that gets you through the wall. Growth isn't linear. It's the why that gets you through the wall. And he says this, if your why doesn't make you cry, the price of commitment will always be too high.
If your why doesn't make you cry, the price of commitment will always be too high. So the issue is the why. Let me, can I give you a practical example? Can I give you a really practical example? Okay.
And I know we're talking about I'm talking a lot about health, but that's, or fitness rather, those two are connected, but they're not always the same. Here's the point. So let's say someone says, hey, like, so like for me, I don't, I don't like to like run on a treadmill. I don't like to run on a treadmill and actually don't run on a treadmill.
I walk fast on incline, but I don't like to run on a treadmill. Right? So let's say, hey, Darius, someone said, hey, for you to run, for you to get a six pack or for you to look like a fitness model.
You got to run on the treadmill 30 minutes a day. That why is not enough to make me run. See, that's a non-judgmental assessment. It's like, no, I don't want to suspect. I don't want it that bad.
I don't want it that bad. They was like, hey, you can't ever have cookies ever again in your life. I don't want it that bad. That's a non-judgmental assessment of that why. But if someone says you have to run on that treadmill 30 minutes a day to live, you think I'm running?
If they say you got to run on that treadmill an hour a day for your dad, your mom, your sister, your wife, your kids to live, you think I'm running? What's the difference? The why.
See, some people think they don't have the right discipline when the truth is they don't have the right why because it's the why that evokes the discipline. Did you hear what I just said? If we could just conjure up the discipline to do things.
We all would be disciplined in every area we want to be disciplined in. It is the why that conjures up the discipline. I want somebody to put that in the chat.
Please, I need the right why. Some people say, I don't have the right discipline. No, you don't have the right why. And the right why is what brings about the discipline. So motive, let's make a non-judgmental assessment.
About motive here. And God motivates us in scripture two ways. Reward, consequence. Reward, consequence. Those are two primary motivators.
And so here's why I'm saying this. And let me jump into what I want to teach y'all real quick. But here's why I'm saying this, because this is so important, because I'm about to give you, because we're talking about motive, and then we're talking about mindset in a second, and then we're going to talk about maps. And I'm going to share with you this particular strategy I'm using this year with my goals.
Now, this is important, but the strategy doesn't work if I don't have the right motive. And so I remember I was working with one coach one time, and... we were doing what was called an activation plan. And so we were mapping out specific goals and specific areas, et cetera. And he said something to me, he said, it seems like a lot of what you're motivated by is like consequence.
And he was like, I want you to shift that a little bit to be more reward oriented. And I tried to do that because it sounded like bad. It sounded like I was cynical or just like, you know, so I tried to do it. You know what? It didn't work for me because here's what happened.
I had to be honest about my life experiences and your experiences in the past shape your motivation for the future. So there's some pain I had experienced in my past in certain areas that I was committed to never experiencing again. And because he hadn't experienced that pain in his past, he didn't know how to repurpose pain and use pain as a motivator for your future. So I thought he had me thinking it was an unhealthy attitude or it was an that I was adopting an unhealthy posture to say, I never want to experience that again.
So I'm going to use it for motivation when really I had to make a nonjudgmental, honest assessment about myself and say, no, I've experienced that. And my motivation is to never experience that again. And that's okay. Somebody put that in a chat.
That's okay. I'm not saying that's what's going to motivate you in every area, but some of us. Um, like, I grew up, I saw a lot of alcoholism.
Like, I saw it. I saw how destructive it could be to careers and health and relationships. Like, I saw it.
So for me, part of my motivation growing up was like, no, I don't want that. So when certain kids in high school might have been sneaking out, let's drink this up. I don't want that, fam.
Nope. I don't want that. So it's okay to repurpose pain.
And I'm not saying that's what's going to motivate some of you, but this plan we're going to, that you're going to create, and I'm actually gonna give you a free template in just a second. Like I'm gonna give you an example. Like it's not my actual goals, that's my business, but I'm gonna give you an example of the exact template that I created this year.
And in just a second, I'm going to give that with you, give that to you. But if you don't discover that why, I'm just telling you, it's not going to work. And you're going to blame the template.
And the template is not going to be the problem. It's the why. You're going to say, I'm not disciplined enough.
Yes, you are. Because there's some areas you are disciplined in. And those areas you're disciplined in is the areas where you've discovered the right why.
So it's not just reward. You know what I mean? So somebody say, so let's say a motivation for wealth building for some of us is going to be your motivation is I want to be a gazillionaire. That's your motivation.
For some of us, it's like, I don't really care. I just don't want to be poor. I don't want to not be able to help those in need. I don't want to be able to not take a vacation. I don't want to be able to not be a philanthropist.
I don't want to be able to not take care of my parents. That's my motive. So we need to have a non, make a non-judgmental assessment of our own motives.
Because until you find your real why. You'll never be able to evoke the right kind of discipline. We got to get your real why, not your church why.
What's your real why? That is what's going to cause you to work the plan. So motive. Number two, let me go through this quickly.
Mindset, okay? Because growth is not linear, you're going to experience defeat. I talked about this last night.
The problem isn't defeat. The problem is being defeated. Defeat outside. Defeated inside.
Defeat temporary. Defeated can be terminal. Defeat is a feeling. Defeated can affect your future. Got me?
So you're going to fall short. It's like, oh, I said I was going to the gym five days this week. It's going to be a week where that doesn't happen.
I was going to get in my Bible. 365 days. It's going to be a week where that doesn't happen. Oh, I was going to journal. I was going to, it's going to be a week where that doesn't happen.
The key is not whether or not you experienced defeat is whether or not you allowed the defeat to make you defeated. And defeated is a mindset. Okay? Defeated is a mindset.
So, here's what I want you to understand. This year, your mind is a field and it will grow what you're allowed to be planted. What is being planted in the field of your...
I know you've heard of mine field, but mind field. Your mind is a field, all right? Okay, so this year what's being planted?
What's being planted and what's being uprooted? What does this mean? You got to have a filter.
Like even on this platform, YouTube, it's certain things. If it's like negative and cynical and it increases anxiousness, I'll press that don't recommend to me. I'll press that little button don't recommend that to me. I have to, I can't. allow, I'm going to experience defeat.
I can't allow it to make me defeated. So if you're going to plan to win, you got to have the right motive, got to have the right mindset. So you need faith based, faith building information that you're being exposed to on a regular basis.
All right. And then finally you need a map. And this map is what I'm calling a goal guide. And I know we, we all set goals or most of us set goals. But here's what I'm doing this year that's a bit different, right?
Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 2 says, write the vision, make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but in the end it will speak and not lie. Watch this.
So there's a vision that you kind of have for your life. Here's what Habakkuk has. So hopefully it's a God-given vision, right? So here's what Habakkuk says.
He says, write it and make it plain on tablets so that he may run who reads it. Now, listen to this. Write it refers to this is important now, making it visual so it can be actionable.
So you don't have to like literally write with a pen. You can type it. But here's what he's saying is if it is not clear, it is not something that can be ran with. Right. If it's not clear, it's not something that can be executed.
So he says you got to write it. And you got to make it plain because if it's not plain, if it's not visible, if I can't really see what exactly am I believing for, then it can't be actionable. Let me give you this example of that's cool.
I used to mentor a lot of pastors. So for a while I had this group, probably about 20 something pastors or so that I was mentoring and pastoring. And some of them I was pastoring, some of them I was mentoring. And then from time to time I always ask them questions.
I would say, hey, how's the church doing? And then. And sometimes I would get answers. It's like, hey, man, it's doing good.
It's going well, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, okay, great. And part of that's right because some of what you feel is intangible, right?
You can just feel momentum. Then I would say, so how do you know? It was like, what do you mean?
I was like, well, how many people are attending? Is that increasing? How many people are using their gifts to serve in ministry? Is that increasing?
How many people are being more generous with their resources? Is that increasing? what kind of contribution are you making to the community around you? Is that increasing? So it didn't mean that things weren't going well, but there was a vision that wasn't...
You see what I'm saying here? It's almost like religious space is the only space where we can say stuff is going well with no fruit that confirms what we're saying. So trees should produce fruit.
So write the vision. Make it plain. So when someone says, I want to get in shape this year, it's not plain. You can't run with that. Does that make sense?
Someone says, I want to have a better relationship with my wife. It's not plain. That's a great place to start. It's not plain. You can't run with that.
So I'm about to give you an example in just a second here. So we're going to write the vision, make it plain so that they that run can read it. So it's like, okay, I got to make it. I got to write it and make it plain. So that's so that people can read it.
But then once they read it, they got to run with it. So here's what I'm doing this year. So not only do I have a goal, I got a system.
So there's the goal. That's the what? That's the reading. Then I got the system. That's the running.
I got the goal. That's what I want. Then I got the system. That's how. Once I write the system, am I making sense here?
Once I write the system, the system becomes the priority, okay? Let me break this down. In Exodus 23, 29, it says, but I will not drive them out in a single year because the land will become desolate and the wild animals will be too numerous for you.
Little by little, I will drive them out before you until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. Okay, check this out. So here's what he says. He says, I'm not going to do this all at once. I'm going to drive them out little by little.
So there's nothing wrong with setting yearly goals and there's nothing, right? So you want to set a goal for one year, two year, three year, four, that's fine. What I'm doing this year is I'm experimenting with Exodus 23, 29. I'm taking this and appropriating this. What God did in terms of advancing his agenda, accomplishing his vision for Israel, he said, I'm going to drive out the enemies little by little. So as you get in the promised land, which is my vision for you, I'm going to do that little by little.
I decided, okay, as it relates to God's vision for me this year, I'm going little by little. So Darius does not have yearly goals. Not this year.
Listen to what I've got. I've got what I'm calling the four by four method. What does that mean?
Four quarters. So I've got 90 day goals. Does that make sense?
So four sets of 90 day goals. Why is it called four by four? Because it's four areas that I got goals in.
So in 90 days, I'm trying to accomplish four things. And if I can accomplish those four things in 90 days, then the next 90 days, what am I going to do? Another four things.
Then the next 90 days, another four things. And then the next 90 days, another four things. So at the end of the year, I got 12 things accomplished.
So I'm going little by little. Because I'm not saying you should do this. I'm saying I'm experimenting with this this year because here's been my challenge. As organized as I try to be, I still deal with the degree sometimes of the tendency, I'm not gonna call it procrastinating.
to perform under pressure. I was the guy in college used to write the papers the night before and it'd be a great paper. I would like try to sit down before and just like write and it was like man I could like it was like I performed well under pressure.
So what started happening is I would have these yearly goals and it's like because I got a year to do it that wasn't the urgency. I wasn't operating with a sense of urgency so each year I'm having certain goals I'm at. So I'm saying, okay, let me try something different.
So what does this mean? I'm going to break it down to you. All right.
So for me, I got four areas. The spiritual and the emotional are one for me, because we're talking about the spirit and the soul. The soul is what's actually being sanctified. Once I'm a believer, my spirit's regenerated, and now the object of the spirit becomes my soul.
Mind, will, emotions, imaginations, and affections. Receive and make this the inoperative word of God, which is able to save your soul. Does that make sense? All right. So I'm transformed by the renewing of my mind.
Where's my mind? It's a part of my soul. So for me, even though the spirit and the soul are different, the Bible says in Hebrews that they are, they're distinct, but it says they're like joints and marrow. Like they're so intertwined.
So for me, spiritual and emotional is one category. Does that make sense? So that's one. Then I got the relational category.
Then I've got the physical category. And then I got the financial category. OK, I'm picking four.
Now, here's the thing. I could have the professional category. Does that make sense?
But for me, these four are the ones I'm prioritizing in this season. Let's say I reach my physical goal. Then, boom, I'm going to take that one off and then I'll add the professional goal the next 90 days.
Now, for those of you that are entrepreneurs or you are an entrepreneur and you've got leadership roles within a company. I'm doing this same thing with my church and business, with the church. It's not my church, with the church I lead and the businesses I own.
So it's four every 90 days. It's like, OK, what are four things? So let's go personal again, spiritual and emotional, relational.
And there's the physical and then there's a financial. So what my team is getting ready to do right now is they're going to put a link in the chat for you. This is a sample. All you got to do is take this and put your stuff in. And what I did was I gave you sample statements that are, I think, a picture of what it means to to make the goals clear and to make it plain.
So if you're wondering, like, how do I write it? Like if I want to get in shape, you'll see how specific some of these examples are. And so all you got to do, I think you'll click it or take it. It's no fee. It's free.
So. You just click the link and it'll take you to probably my website, dearestdance.com. And I think you drop an email in there and then you'll get that template. OK, so it is four by four.
Now, I'm not doing yearly goals this year. I'm planning to win. I'm focusing on these first 90 days. I got very specific goals. I got one goal.
Listen to me. So it's not four goals. I got one goal, spiritual and emotionally. One goal, relationally.
Does that make sense? One goal, physically, and one goal, financially. Got me? So it's not four goals in each category. That's too much.
You're not going to do that. That's 16 things in a 90-day period. It's not manageable.
Little by little, it's not manageable. Because life's going to life. Remember, growth's not linear. So does that make sense? So spiritually and emotionally, one thing.
Relationally, one thing. Physically, one thing. Financially, one thing.
So there's the goal and then you'll see the system. This is what am I going to do to do this? That's right.
So let me give you an example of one of mine. So like physically, I have a very specific goal of a body weight and a body fat percentage. So it's clear.
I want this amount of body fat and I want to be at this weight. What's really like, I want this amount of body fat without going under this amount of weight. So with the system, it's like, okay, here's what I'm going to do to do that.
So now, even though I got the goal, the system becomes my priority, not the goal, because the system is going to hopefully give me the result. Does that make sense? So once you're clear on the goal, I'm not focusing on the goal, I'm focusing on the system.
And then I'm evaluating weekly to see if the system is actually getting me to my goal, because I'm not changing my goal. But over these 90 days, I may have to tweak my system. Now, here's what's interesting. What I don't finish in quarter one, I'm bringing over to quarter two, because this is the year I'm not leaving. This is the year I'm going to handle unfinished business.
So let's say out of the four categories I accomplished two this year, two this quarter. That's fine. That's two I may not have accomplished. I'll bring two more over. And so let's say like in the relational category, you pick an area of your relationships.
You can't have goals for all your relationships, right? So I've got my goals are specifically with my immediate family. Let's say I reach those goals.
Then maybe next time, the next 90 days, I might have a relational goal with in the workplace. Does that make sense? Or maybe it's friends.
Maybe it's advisors. So one thing in these four categories. So there's four goals, 90 days, four quarters.
We're going to do this together. We're going to finish strong. My team's putting a link in the chat now.
And I hope this was helpful for you guys. Hey, Daniel's Den. If you're in Daniel's Den.
I'm getting ready to go over to Zoom right now. And I'm gonna spend about half an hour with you answering any of your questions and coaching you into implementation with this, okay? So if you're in Daniels, then go to Zoom right now. I'm not leaving this desk.
I'm getting ready to jump on my computer right now. And we're gonna have a session. I'm gonna walk you through how to actually implement this. I'm gonna answer questions that you have for the next half hour or so.
Okay, family. Love you. Hope this was helpful.
This is the year we plan to win four by four. Take care.