Positively Leading

Summer Series Part 5: Goal Setting and Life Strategy Planning with Dr. Pete Stebbins

• Jenny Cole

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Unlock the secrets of strategic goal-setting with our special guest, Dr. Pete Stebbins, as we explore the art of transforming dreams into reality in the fifth and final episode in our special Summer Series. This episode promises to take you beyond the standard SMART goals to introduce the concepts of stretch goals and mini adventures, pushing you to expand your boundaries. Dr. Pete shares his insights on how aligning your goals with your legacy can prevent existential crises and help you achieve a cohesive life strategy.

Journey with us as we differentiate between dreams and actionable goals, particularly in the realms of life and career planning. Through engaging discussions, we reveal how to avoid the arrival fallacy by ensuring goals serve as stepping stones to future possibilities. The episode highlights the importance of strategic planning and preparation for career advancement, using mountaineering as a metaphor for readiness and seizing the right opportunities, while avoiding premature leaps that could lead to burnout.

Delve into the importance of adaptability and setback planning in your professional path. Learn about alternative strategies to overcome obstacles and the value of continuous learning. Dr. Pete and I encourage you to celebrate your achievements and preserve uplifting moments to maintain a positive outlook on your journey. Join us to gain insights on embracing complexity and staying motivated through discipline and vision, while confidently navigating your path to success.

Did you know there is more? You can access every episode, show notes, links and more via my website Positively Beaming.

Jenny Cole:

Welcome back to Positively Leading the Podcast Summer Series. I'm Jenny Cole, your host, and with me again is Dr Pete Stebbins. Welcome back, pete.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Hey, thank you, Jenny.

Jenny Cole:

So we've done the first action steps for the life strategy and today we're going to dive into step three, step four and then bring it all together at the end. Step three is setting goals and getting some stretch. Many of the people who are listening will be pretty familiar, they think, with goal setting. Tell me what goal setting means in this framework and what does it mean to you. How does it work in this last strategy framework?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Fabulous, that's right. That's right. So last episode we talked about legacy statements and we talked about why they're so important and how awkward they are or whatever, and then the whole task of dreaming as adults and why that's tricky, but also hopefully everyone who was listening is really getting the hang of why it's important to stay in that ambiguous, going right fantasy state and, again, permission for everyone to continue to go. That's weird, but I'll do it anyway in good faith. Goals is, as you rightly introduced, the topic. We're now getting to a place where people are a lot more familiar and a lot more concrete, and there are two aspects to goal setting Smart goals again, things people are familiar with specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound S-M-A-R-T. And then stretch goals and then a thing called mini adventures, and so that's a little different. Again, those who know my work will be fine with the idea of stretching a smart goal. The interesting part of this is actually doing it on yourself and on your dream. So now we get to the heart of it.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

The theory is pretty straightforward how do we turn this vague wonderful thing? In the last episode we ended with me fantasizing about this beach house that I wanted in my play, which stemmed from my legacy of play and adventure. Remember you have to draw a line through all of this, because if you can't draw a meaningful line through it again, that's why we have existential crises and that's why people adults do weird things in midlife. They're not congruent with who they are. And so goals we go through each of those four quadrants and building up now from my legacy to my dreams, to my goals. All very straightforward. But we can't just start at goals, otherwise, again, it's a house of cards or a house on the sand. It'll just blow away when the challenges of life come.

Jenny Cole:

So I spent a lot of time as a coach helping people to develop goals and I absolutely agree with you. Sometimes I feel like we've missed a whole lot, which is, at the very least, it's what I mentioned at the end of the last episode, which is who do I want to be, not necessarily what do I want to do, and when we're clearer on that, we can get our goals clearer. But I've never met anyone who can get to a goal on their own. Often they need somebody to help them and it's not the smart strategy, it's not the smart goal that they have trouble with. It's what we've covered before, which is the dreaming and the legacy. And where's this goal coming from? Let's imagine that they've done all of that work. They've done all of that thinking and it is work, and they've thought I want that house on the beach and it's part of my play thing. How the heck do I turn that into a goal? Are we talking five-year goals? Are these six-month goals? What do goals look like to you?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

fabulous, all right. So let's say, could we stay with that one?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

and then I'd love to look at our relationship, family friend. Just do the same exercise with some other areas. So, to recap, then we're going with this idea that, just like in the book, me, which is still true today that my legacy for play. So we're staying with just that one line of someone thinking through the four years of their life and that, in my case, I love the outdoors. It went on a great many adventures or whatever, and then in dreams well, people can read mine in the book, but we're now moving into I have this dream about waking up in the morning with all my family at some gorgeous beach house and from the front veranda there we're seeing the surf and then we're having pancakes and off. I go in this big, long fantasy about all of that, right? So the goals, then, are tied to that. So, as you were just saying, we'd say well, pete, what are the goals you might need to set so you can live that dream? And in living that dream, of course, have that legacy.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And this is where it gets really interesting, because obviously there's one goal you started to say, which is the financial planning goal. Okay, you want to own the beach house. What's that going to cost If we go down the road of planning all of that. We'll do the actual action planning of how to get them $5 million for the beach house in the next bit, okay. But the smart goal might well be that, sorry, you're in West Australia yelling up yeah, I love surfing, yelling up and three bears. Anyway, by date X or Y, I will have one of the houses on this particular street in this particular town, yelling up with this particular northwest view across the tea tree and over into the surf, and it'll be within 50 meters of this beach access track and every.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I'm sure our listeners get the idea. And so, yeah, smart goal tied to this dream, etc. But then there's a second smart goal here, because the question is your dream, pete, is waking up, looking at the beach with your lovely family and going to see all the stuff you just went on about. One way you could do that is own that house, but another way you could do that is rent that house. So let's do a second goal based on having the cash to have whichever house you want on Airbnb or whatever. Give me that as a smart goal, oh, okay, well, we'll do some research over the weekend with an extremely outrageously cool pad in yelling at west australia might be two grand for saturday, sunday or whatever and off I go.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

you know I'm not doing an action plan yet, sorry, I'm just articulating the smart goal. But, as everyone's doing in their heads, once you start smart going, your brain just urgently wants to move on into action planning, because it's already concretizing it to the point that filling in the gaps, which is the action plan, again, you have to encourage your clients. If you're a therapist doing life strategy, or again if you're just doing it yourself, like I do, you've got to suspend or cut off, decide to just not jump on from your SMART goal just yet. Just write it all out and press stop, and so you generate these SMART goals before you decide what's realistic or not or how you're going to get there. And this becomes really important.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I was working with a senior government executive, one below a minister, and they were doing exactly the same thing. They have this play goal around family and the water and not surfers. They were into paddle boards and snorkeling, whatever they had, this fantasy about tropical islands and the kids and all this cool stuff. And then, when they did smart goals, everything changed because they did their whole. I know, I know, pete, I'm going to check the Fiji specials and I'm going to do it. No, no, no, no, no. That's the action plan. We're not doing that yet I'm asking you to set smart goals. Oh well, by date X, I will have done X, y, z to have enabled trip, whatever, great, whatever Great, that's a smart goal. And, yep, we'll jump into all that detail that you urgently want to do. Now give me the smart goal, based on having no money, of the dream. Oh, you know, now they're truly stuck.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And so the real joy and goals in this part of life strategy is being able to articulate and express the dream being fulfilled in different amounts of time, in different locations and with different amounts of money. And so hers was a fantasy on an island, right? So in Queensland, in Brisbane, there's an island called Bribey Island, and you can drive to Bribey Island, right, but you could still paddle around on the Wurrum on the ocean side and you could still catch a wave on a boogie board and you could still wander along the beach as the sun set. You could live exactly the same dream on 1% of the budget.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And if they weren't forced to articulate their dream just to really bring this point home, if they didn't have the dream clear, it would have been Fiji or bust, right, but the dream is all about family and the ocean and the wandering along at sunset in the country, road chinos or whatever the fantasy is, and you can achieve that dream 100%. You can by, you know, heading down Scarborough and you're into the world and achieving the same behaviours and activities. I can achieve that dream at this place, bribie Island. You know there are places we can achieve all our dreams and if we're clear about our dreams, we can do them on not much money or a lot of money, and so that really, I hope, concretizes why the top section of life strategy, what your legacy is, what your dreams are important. So goals, pretty obvious stuff, but you need to set your goals under different layers of wealth and opportunity before you move on to action plan.

Jenny Cole:

That makes more sense because the minute you set that big, hairy, audacious goal around, I'm going to have this amazing house in the dunes at Yelling Up.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, you know where I mean.

Jenny Cole:

I think, yeah, yeah, I do, I do Always in Australian food it's divine. But I thought, oh, that's not going to happen and so all of that?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

no, can't whatever, because you didn't articulate the dream beforehand, right?

Jenny Cole:

Yes, exactly, but also that's what I mean about goals. People will often say I can't set a goal because I don't have that amount of money. I can't set a goal. I love it when they say that.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, think about what you didn't just say what you told me when you said I can't set that goal because I don't have that amount of money. Like a psychologist that I am, I'm on that like jumping like a straight in. Okay, what is that goal you can't set? And what they'll say out loud is their dream and they don't have that problem if they follow these steps. They got stuck at the dream level, but hopefully they didn't get stuck because we gave them permission not to need to wave a magic wand and in the dream wasn't about owning the house that's getting concrete again. The dream was about having access, being in the experience of that Feeling, the feeling.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Feeling, having access, being in the experience of that feeling the feeling. Feeling the feeling.

Jenny Cole:

Seeing the c y chart looks like, sounds like, feels like and there's many roads to roam but I'm not hearing you say that those three goals that you articulated, they're not a roadmap to that final thing they're not.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Roadmap is the action plan yeah, yeah.

Jenny Cole:

So it's about. My goal is to have the experience of this amazing house. Then, what is it? My dream is to have my dreams.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I'm so glad this is happening in our session, because that's what happens to people in real life. They blur between dreams and goals. They think they're articulating a dream, but they're actually stating a goal. Why is this a problem? It's a problem because if they can't get clear about what their dream actually is, there are many roads to roam. Then they can't articulate different ways to goal it in.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, and I'm also seeing people who confuse goals with actions, as you said earlier, which is, well, I've got to do this and then I've got to do that and they are my goal. So, yeah, I like this. So we've got to know where we're going. We've got to know where we're going. We've got to know what the perfect future and the end of summer looks like.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

We've got to connect it to our humanity and that we're okay, that that's okay or, better still, that that's worthwhile at the end of it.

Jenny Cole:

And it's probably not the right time to do this. So quite often when I'm working with aspirant leaders, they will say that their dream is to be a principal, and I reckon that's actually a goal nine times out of 10, not necessarily a dream. Their dream is to work with people and make a difference for kids and run a school. That's kind of innovative and whatever. In order to get to that dream, their goal is to be in a leadership position where they can lead in a way that X Y Z is going to happen and they can get closer to that dream. Their goal is to be in a leadership position where they can lead in a way that X Y Z is going to happen and they can get closer to their dream.

Jenny Cole:

In the work that I do, we talk about purpose goals versus profit goals. We're much more motivated towards something that's purposeful and satisfying than a profit like a number or an end sort of point. So being a principal is a profit goal. We've got to that point. And then people are like okay, now what? I'm not happier, I'm not more satisfied, I've got here, whereas if we had spent time working on what does it look like, sounds like, smell, light when you get to the end. What's the dream here? Oh well, I want to be making a difference and I want to be interacting with people like that feels like we're being pulled rather than driven which wasn't pushed yeah, yeah, like you said at the beginning, I'm really rambling now, but it's just, it's the goal setting stuff, but let's stay with that.

Jenny Cole:

Could we stay with that? Because?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I didn't want to as much as I personally love the whole beach house fantasy thing. It drives my life quite. I think the work stuff is really important for our listeners too. So, yeah, you've just nailed it right, because let's say, my goal is to be a principal or whatever, and then again, forgive me if I've not listened properly, but then my dream, or no, you're saying people would say, well, my dream is one day I'm going to be a principal, and then you were just suggesting it might be a goal not a dream, and I'm like with you about the fact that this is where this is why this process is really important.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And so if we say to someone, staying with your analogy, all we're doing listeners, with our three top parts of our plan is we've got to get that person in this hypothetical well, what's their legacy, what's their dream? And then what's their goal? And we just want to. Jenny and I are going to spend just a moment now clearing this one up, because it's fresh in Jenny's mind and it's totally relevant. So we go oh cool, you want to be a principal one day. That's wonderful. And in the back of our heads, we're trying to do life strategy with them. So we then say and when you're a principal, you know, in fantasy land, what's that going to achieve for you? How's that going to play? And then they'll talk about well then, i'd's just a simple question technique. So, if I understand it, right, at the end of your time on earth, for you it's really worthwhile to have an impact and help people out, as it is for me, by the way. But it's not about me, it's about you. Is that what you're saying?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Oh yeah, 100%. I totally think we should be helping one another. Great, let's just quickly we can change it, but let's just write that what you just said about you in the legacy box of work. Now I want to come back to the thing you just said about your dream is to be a principal. Can you tell me more again about if that's the having the principalship? What are you doing? You know, we know to be is to be helpful and all this cool stuff. What are you doing? And then they say things like you just said oh, I'm doing this with the kids and the cool school and all of this and we go well. Is that the dream that you've got? There? You're in a leadership role and you're leading this collaborative stuff and this innovative stuff in brackets principle. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

All right, well, let's write all that in the dreams box, and then you're right. Now we can set some goal, because one way to do that is to become a principal. So we could come up with a by date X, I'll have become a principal of a band five school or whatever. But you're opening them up to set some other goals. Well, what's another way to have that same dream and not be a principal? Is it even possible? Yeah, and what would you say?

Jenny Cole:

Oh, so I love that, because the other thing that opens up is if becoming a principal is not possible, then I can still have an impact, because I can be a team leader in the early childhood area or I could run the local table club and make a real difference to the eight-year-olds who are playing table with me.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And the two differences you want are innovation, so I could, and I want community, or, you know, helping people overcome stuff and doing cool things. So, yeah, the table club you could definitely do both those things as the leader of the table club a hundred percent, which stops the disappointment if people think, yeah, the T-ball club, you could definitely do both those things as the leader of the T-ball club.

Jenny Cole:

100% you could, which stops the disappointment if people think, well, I can't reach that goal so I've been thwarted because I never seem to get to interview or I live in the, but we don't want people to reach their goals.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

We want people to live their dreams.

Jenny Cole:

Ah, lovely, lovely Goals that's just a stepping stone.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

More people die on the way down from Mount Everest than on the way up. Yeah, yeah, one in four people die on K2, and 90% of those deaths are on the way down. No-transcript. Well, achieving your goals, if it's not tied to a bigger dream, it's a death sentence.

Jenny Cole:

Correct. Yeah, there's no purpose, that's again. That's what.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I'm made by. Well, the purpose was the goal.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was the end point and we got there and we go right now. What?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You should be skipping down Mount Everest going. I'm so excited I can now get to whatever.

Jenny Cole:

And I speak to so leaders who go. It was always my ambition to run this school or to be this kind of principal or whatever, and they're like okay right Now, what?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, and we talk about the arrival fallacy in the first session. You know that I'll delay all sorts of things till I have something.

Jenny Cole:

So why are goals important then?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, because they help us live out our dreams. And why do goals fail upon us? Why do we have fear of success? Because we've only thought as far as our goal. If we go back to the marathon runner 1970s fear of success theory we introduced they couldn't connect a different life outside of their drinking buddies, that they would find enough meaning in that they wouldn't feel lonely, that all of those things that kept them trapped in that domestically unsatisfactory social circle, the devil we don't know is more fearful than the devil we know.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And so again, what's going on in this life strategy process? When you have to set a dream up, you've had to embrace the devil you don't know. But it's not a devil, it's an angel. Right, we forced you to think about what could go right and we've made you sit in that fantasy going right space so that when you get to goals you're simply heading towards something you've properly emotionally registered as a good thing. So of course you're going to start moving away from your drinking buddies and move into your marathon because you're keen to build up that running club connection, or your brain's already started the fantasy loops that getting there is going to be a good thing, but when getting there is the be all and end all. It's a letdown right. Hence why the accidents happen on the way down mountains, not on the way up.

Jenny Cole:

And one of the things I encourage people to do is to write goals around, as we talked about. Who do we want to be? So I want to be a confident leader who can do X, y and Z. That's a lovely goal because it's heading towards the dream of confidently moving through life with whatever, whatever. So sometimes you don't have to have goals around things. The doing it can actually be goals around being. I want to be a calm and considered leader.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I want to be a but in the spirit of life strategy. I challenge whether that's really what we should be using the word goal for.

Jenny Cole:

Right, okay, and so you're saying that kind of is in our dream phase, or is that a legacy?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, it's a B.

Jenny Cole:

It's a, b, sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I dream of being confident.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah okay, I dream of. And then why do I dream? Because I don't want my kids to grow up doubting themselves. Right, all of a sudden we've got legacy, we've got dream. Now we're ready to go to goals. Well, let's crunch out confidence 101. Let's start talking about some goal setting around confidence. I love it. Let's go, and then they'll go. Oh, I was thinking about doing this course. I'll go into Toastmasters. Great, let's not plan those yet, but let is get them all down as proper smart goals. What about if you won the lotto tomorrow? What if you had every resource under the sun? Can you give me what's a smart goal to be more confident? Oh, I'd hire Tony Robbins and he'd follow me around all day and give me tips. Great, let's write that down as another smart goal. Right, and so you're opening their brain up. But everything they're starting to goal set is tied to the dream.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

The being is tied to the dream the being, the being, yes, and so my challenge there is if everything's always a goal all the time, how do you disconnect or link them together in an existential way? You're asking a lot of a stress leader, but if you break them into legacy, dream, goal, the columns connect them or don't connect them, so they can take ownership of that or see how these things are making sense or not.

Jenny Cole:

And that's just made me think that this is about just jumping in and giving the process a go and trying to make it make sense for you.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Suspend if police scribble stuff down. Yep.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, and just the labels. They're important, but they're not. If you don't know if it's a dream, a goal or a legacy, just put it somewhere and keep going.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Again, page 120,. You can cross-check everything at the end of the journey with my example and you'll go oh okay, that's really interesting, and you just move some stuff around.

Jenny Cole:

Absolutely, because every journey starts with the first small step. And so the next bit, it's about taking action, less about putting things in boxes. Tell us about the action planning. Devil's in the detail, isn't it?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

just, and so again, just to recap, so by now you know, in these four quadrants, whoever we are. We're like oh my goodness, certain bits of this are pretty straightforward. Or I can literally copy Pete's or tweak it to suit me. That's not too hard. But all these other bits I'm like a deer in the headlights. Wow, I'm going to slowly breathing, I'm confused and I'm just working it up.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

We've got through the top that's called part one of the action plan, the top layer, and so we know the goals we need. We know that there's more than one way to sort of be in a beach house and see the sunrise and that that can happen in completely different budgets and completely different ways. The same thing for our work as a school leader. We've seen what we really wanted was all of these amazing connections and leadership experiences, and we can do that the president of the T-ball association, and we can do that as the principal of the largest school in West Australia. And we're really getting clear on who we are. And it's really important that we get clear like that before we go to part two, because the deeper we get into this, the more familiar the good news is, the more familiar it is to us, and so part two, then, is making it happen. The action plan and action planning. It's all very straightforward we take a goal, we pick one off the shelf from the top of our plan and we do the strategies resources, timelines, support strategies and setback plans. And what's really interesting about that, of course, is every principal with an annual improvement plan or a 12-month operational plan, every leader in healthcare. We all roll our eyes. We've all seen those templates before.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

But what's interesting about this when I do this with them is, yes, there's just nothing hard about this next section, how we started talking about goals. The thing itself is clear. What's interesting is often when we're really familiar with something. We're actually very poorly skilled at it, but it's our familiarization. The more we know something, the more we assume competence. So again, side note for those who know my other work in high-performance teams we often do meeting training, so we actually train people in how to have a meeting and how to chair a meeting and so on. It's the simplest thing, and people really don't like being they feel like they're being told to suck eggs when we do it as quick as we can, but we get across the rules anyway. So they learn some basics and then bang off, they go, and as soon as they go they actually don't do anything that they've just been trained on.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

They default to some unconscious programming and then they jump around and argue over the top of one another and waste time and they can't see themselves do it. That's what's really interesting. And when you debrief it later, eventually they'll sort of audit with each other and see how dysfunctional their meeting was. But when we think bringing that back to right now when we think about action planning, the biggest problem most of us have is we've never done it. Well, we don't like doing it and we assume we're good at it because we've seen it before.

Jenny Cole:

What do we need to be aware of? What's the bits that people get wrong at this point?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

They just simply don't do it with fidelity. They just don't actually fill in every box thoroughly. They'd get a C based on if they're teachers. There's no way they would give their student a high mark if they gave their student a very clear task and student turned up with bits of the task missing.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, right, so there's six steps define the specific goal, list all the strategies and steps involved, identify the resources, establish the timelines and any critical paths, develop any necessary support networks and plan ahead for any setbacks. I'm interested in number six, but tell me more about the other ones. Are there any spots that people need to be aware of? Talk to me about those six.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

No worries. And again, if you're happy, we can just play it through those two strands of play and work, being again the person who wants to have that goal of a principal and play. The person who's now will have to decide which one we want to do, whether they're going to save up to have the Airbnb budget at their whim to get any beach house they like, or whether they're going to try to tackle the whole, own the multi-million dollar property. So let's do it the other way Now. Let's begin with this goal of being a principal or something. Would that be okay? So again, I'm staring literally at that. So again, for anyone who wants, to where they'd be looking at.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

If they're looking at my one, they're on page 120 on the floor, but again, we've talked out the headings so people can get it. We're working across a typical planner document and so we start by identifying which specific goal in work we're actually going to put now into the machine of action planning. The first problem I have doing this stuff with schools is that's when we realize whatever smart goal they had wasn't smart Because when we audit their goal in the first place.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

As we write it down on the action plan, it starts to hang on. That's like 10 different things all at once. Oh, hang on, that's just some grand wish, that's a dream. That's still valuable, but it's just in the wrong spot. Oh yeah, what smart goal are we going to write down there if we're running with work and we're going to action plan out what to become a principal?

Jenny Cole:

yeah, and so let's imagine that they're only at a sort of team leader stage. It could be something like by the end of 2025, I will have applied for, and won, a deputy principal position. Is that the kind of goal that might be a smart goal?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Let's test it. So it's specific, it's measurable, there's a date on it. It sounds pretty realistic anyway in terms of enough time, and there's a lot of those positions in different states across Australia and so on Time band yeah, yeah let's run with that.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Love it. Strategies, okay. Well now, and this is where goals and strategies get mixed up, and the only point here is there's all sorts of strategies that you would rightly also say well, aren't they little mini goals? And I go yeah, they are, but they're all related. It's all linear, it's about connecting it to the bigger one, and so it might well be another little goal inside a goal. Well, as long as it's part of this one, it belongs in the strategies box. So let's do it. So here you are as that team leader for our role play, trying, by the end of 2025, move up one notch to be a DP Totally realistic, great goal and the bigger goal around that is leading and engaging and principalships, and the legacy, of course, is to have spent your life helping others and pushing forwards, with teaching people new stuff and good things. What are the strategies, then? To, by the end of 2025, land at a DP role. Talk to me what comes to mind.

Jenny Cole:

I will have done the professional learning run by the department on being a middle leader in a school.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So I'll Take off all the relevant courses in your jurisdiction.

Jenny Cole:

Yep Done, what else? I will have sought support from my network to find out what a good application looks like that. I've written some applications.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And had a few ones you can ghost against. You know, yeah, keep going. What else will you do?

Jenny Cole:

I will have kept an eye on the positions that are being advertised and read their job descriptions and consider where my experience and gaps might be.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Fabulous. We're writing all this down frantically on our little sheets if we were doing this on our own or with a mate over a coffee.

Jenny Cole:

Anything else. Join some networks or associations that might have more of the sorts of people that I need to be around, so that I can yeah, can I throw a few more in.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You might have also work shadowed at least three other DPs you might have also tried to interview, have a coffee slash, tell me about your thoughts with at least three other DP and above, so it could be principals, et cetera. So again we're getting our nice mixture of learning and concrete web searching and reading stuff, and then the having the attainment stuff, and then the being the shadowing or the sitting with someone vicariously as a principal going. You know, I wish I had done this differently when I was a DP, or I hired 10 of them, and the ones are oh, every time this happens I hire them, and every time that happens I just would whoa, red light, Great. So then we move on in the action plan. This will be pretty quick, but then we go well, what are the resources you need? And so for each one of those there's a resource, whether it's time, connections or money.

Jenny Cole:

So what comes to mind? What are some of the resources? Oh, I'm going to need a professional learning budget, possibly my own funds, but also perhaps asking for school funds. I would need to allocate some time for those meetings with networks and mentors and those sorts of things, and I'd have to put those in my diary and allocate time to them writing the job applications. That might mean setting aside a couple of weekends or after schools to actually just physically do the grunt work and, you know, maybe just set up some processes so that I keep abreast of what's being advertised and I know what's out there. So, oh, yeah, like alerts or whatever Great.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So I'm just right with you loving this. If I was doing this with you, I'd be like you are all over this and I'm frantically scribbling, or one of us is capturing all this gold. And then, on resources, the only other thing I'd add, on that one I'd be saying so again just from my experience as an executive coach are coach. Are you prepared to spend your own money and your own time? Because if you're going to try to achieve all of this based on what the equivalent department or equivalent within hours time is, I'd imagine that we're going to keep planning, but that's going to constrain itself quite quickly. If this really is a legacy, go back to dreams. So this is how we the sheet makes sense. If we go back to dreams and legacy, we look at that and we go. Is this worth it?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

They go oh yeah, no, no, no, 100%. I never thought of it that way, pete. And then I can say well, you could easily hire a resume writer. You could easily go away and actually just talk to a recruiter or pay a fee and they would mock interview. You could buy the coffees for the mentors. You could take leave. You could buy the coffees for the mentors, you could take leave, but in your leave be on your own time, go and visit the other school during school hours. All of this is possible.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

But because we're on resources right now, I just want to make sure you've thought about time and money as it relates to your individual goals, because it's your legacy, it's your tombstone and if you're lucky, work will take you some of the way, but very rarely will work take you the whole way. There'll be things you will have to do. Yeah, good point, easy timelines. I don't think we need to do that one too much. I don't think everyone's getting the idea. But what's interesting here is they have to usually break up time.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, it's not realistic for me to go and do the resume coaching. There's no that until this part of the cycle. If you're happy, we'll just remind all the listeners that don't skip timelines because just-in-time project management is critical for this stuff and there's nothing worse than someone barreling into an application because the job's sprung up and in their timeline that they didn't want to do that till term three. So their opportunity seizing is out of sync with their master plan. So they end up frustrated and annoyed when you know it's like buying properties or whatever. You shouldn't be doing this stuff till you've decided it's the right time to. So when opportunities pop up, that's sometimes the worst thing that can happen because you're going to say yes too soon.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, and so being prepared, even if there is, in this example, even if there's not a job available, making sure that we're still writing our applications, we're still meeting with our mentors. We don't do all of that the minute we see that job pop up.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

We don't apply for the job. Sorry, this is life strategy. I'd say if your plan is you don't commence till second semester looking for the job, then you stick to your plan.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, right, okay.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, good, and if your plan is, you have got past mock interview by the end of term one. There's a quote, I think it's from Confucius, that says when you don't adjust your goals, you adjust your action steps. So remember, we put all this evidence earlier about goals. Well, if we're action planning properly and we've got a timeline that's integrated, all the moving paths, what we're doing is we're setting up the discipline to stick to it. And so it's mid-semester two, in this analogy where I'm not seeing any jobs come up, that I now consider what to do, move ahead of my timeline simply because the opportunity was there. If some of my other preparation isn't done and we see this all the time you see some principal.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You know I've got one now. They've gone from, like you said, team leader to principal because it's like a crisis of staffing and they always wanted to be a principal and they're like five years too early and they are stressed off the richter scale.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I don't know that they'll even stay in the job. Are they a 100%? Do they have the moral fiber and the legacy goal and dream about why they chose this 100%? Are they going to survive it? Probably not. Why? Because they didn't stick to the discipline of their action plan, which was four years from now, not right now. They just took the opportunity that came. How common is that, though, jeannie?

Jenny Cole:

Oh, absolutely, and in my podcast people will have heard people say I just said yes to everything, and sometimes that's great. It may have been in their mental planning that they were ready, but sometimes they're not ready and they learn through accident and misadventure rather than through careful planning and goal setting. So we don't want people to have to well burn out or get stressed in order to learn the lessons they need. The more disciplined we are in our goal setting and our visioning there's always time.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, and this is it, and I recently again mountaineering wise. It's a great metaphor for life. We also talk about when do you go for the summit and you have to get ready, so you can't just rush it. You have to acclimatize because you'll die on the way out, literally. But then the other thing you have to do is you have to wait for the weather window, and that metaphor is perfect for principalship. There is a whole bunch you just need to do and move and prepare for get your personal brand right, all the different bits that you've just articulated so well. Where's the weather window?

Jenny Cole:

And the opposite is those people who miss the weather window. They're all prepared.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

They've done their last, that's just. You just wait a season, that's easy.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the number of people who just they've done all the preparation and they're just sitting on the edge the whole time. So that's why I think the dreaming part is right. If I'm going to get to my dream, I need to plan it.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And then it requires me to action. And your dream was to help people grow and develop and do wonderful things, and your goal was t-ball manager as much as it was principal, but you built a lot of wiggle room to have the endless summer to have the best life you can have at work, but nonetheless, right now you're working through the jump to dp from team leader not team leader to principal no leader to tp yeah, and you've given yourself the whole time and the weather window is really important that you just raised, you see, because that on kilimanjaro, some of the mountains I have climbed, that's critical.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You cannot go up if the weather's not right, nor can you go up if your preparation's not right, if you're not acclimatized.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And so the first thing is in your control is getting acclimatized, which is all the stuff we've just said about the strategies to be ready to apply for DP. And there's no point trying to jump to the summit because the weather cleared when you're not acclimatised right. That's going to go bad. And there's no point starting to apply for DP positions when you haven't done the four coffee chats with the principals, the work shadowing, and I see this time and time again in my field. People are now in amazing dream positions, shall we say. And again, we know the position isn't the dream, but that's how they articulate it. And they haven't done the pre-work and they're distressed by it. Sorry, that's not a criticism of them, it's a sadness, because they're stressed, they're unhappy, they're overwhelmed, they're thinking of giving up something that up until now they've spent their whole life trying to get.

Jenny Cole:

And the danger always is also and this is probably my story was that I ended up in a position that I hadn't even really dreamed of. People had seen something in me and there I was. No skills. I was clever and I could learn stuff really fast, but I was stuck on the side of a mountain, dressed in my shorts and t-shirt, going. I don't know what I'm doing here, and so let's talk about planning for setbacks and why they're important yeah, so good.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Oh, and just before we do that, sorry, I've been listening to hayman suman, this buddhist monk who's written a book. When things don't go your way, then it's just a current, contemporary thing. But there's this quote if you can control your ambition, you will never overextend yourself back to the mountain and the career. And, of course, if you don't overextend yourself back to the mountain and the career, and of course, if you don't overextend yourself, you can never harm your own health. And that just hit me like a brick Control your ambition, and that's it.

Jenny Cole:

And is that your ego? Is that what he's saying, or is it different?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, ego, id et cetera, superego. That's very Freudian. I just have to plead ignorance. I wouldn't want any listeners, I wouldn't want to wing that one. I think, in fairness, and there's clearly a connection between the more simplistic views of ego that we talk about.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I didn't mean that, but ambition is the goal.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

If we take it back to life strategy, we're talking about ambition being that goal. You've set Right and your ambition is to be the DP by date X. And what he's saying is, if you can keep that under control not rush ahead of it, not skip a step then you can't possibly overextend yourself and we all go yeah, yeah, if I think about that for a moment. Of course you can't overextend. You're doing everything in a methodical, calm, organized way, but to do that you have to ignore that opportunity. You have to think twice when people go oh, you've got great skills, do this. You know what I mean. So I think controlling your ambition is the single hardest thing that we face as leaders, and I think it's the single hardest thing we face in society. With social media, hyping and everything. We don't plan and when we do plan, we certainly don't stick to it. We let all the positive and amazing different messages and negative ones upset our plans. You know we keep adjusting our expectations based on what's around us, not based on what we plan.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, and I think there's also a message for some people who are less confident to go back and look and say I have met every step and so, therefore, I am allowed to go to the next step.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, I have no choice. It's not a question of permission.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, but some people think that they need some kind of permission and whereas if you've mapped this out, if you've planned it, you've met every step, then do it.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well and that's the beauty of a life strategy If you're sitting with someone who's struggling with that and you're all staring at the same life strategy plan that they created, we're back at the beginning. Well, hang on, you've done all this great work and you've done everything here. What's happened inside you that you're now doubting yourself? Didn't you make a commitment to decide to give this a go and then whatever it is can come out? You know what I mean. Well, let's put that back on the plan. You've got a whole loop here. Maybe you've changed your dream. That's cool, but let's work out what that is. And it's an ecosystem, a life strategy map. It just serves itself and we have to be attuned to it. We have to follow it and then, when we're not following it, we have to get out our pen and cross stuff out and then write what the new thing is. So setbacks the last part of that setback plan. For what are the setbacks here? Let's finish off with this the DP, you know right.

Jenny Cole:

Oh, I just didn't. There wasn't the time or the money to invest in the professional learning that I needed, Right.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So I didn't have the time or money to do the required courses that the department, unlucky for me, decided I wasn't eligible for.

Jenny Cole:

whatever the story, Well, how would you get around that apply earlier next year, so that I'm so I try again.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Essentially, I suppose yeah, yeah, so um I could review.

Jenny Cole:

I could just do some talk to my husband about doing some financial planning so we can set aside some money for me to perhaps apply for those courses out of our own funds and remember though you're that's good and you'd be filling this out before that problem happened not afterwards. Yes, yes.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

so before that problem happened, I not afterwards. Yes, yes, yes. So before that problem happened, I've decided hey, what would happen if the department changed its rules and there wasn't enough leave time or these courses were retracted from being available? And we're having this conversation beforehand, we're thinking about how would I set that plan now?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, oh, I see, okay, see the problem is people don't manage setback planning until after the setbacks happened. Better they do that than nothing, but that's not what living your endless summer is about. In your endless summer you still do a little bit of doom forecasting, but you do it as you're planning, not after something's gone wrong.

Jenny Cole:

So the language that I sometimes hear used is what are the possible obstacles and how would you get around them? Same thing. Same thing yeah, yeah, good, okay, and so.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So we're set back planning that there was a departmental institute that ran a DP pipeline production program, that all team leaders, but anyway, there was this whole history of this being available and next year, when I want it, I'm going to set back plan that it's suddenly been pulled Budget cuts. How would I get around that?

Jenny Cole:

Ah, I'm going to set back plan, that it's suddenly been pulled Budget cuts. How would I get around that? Ah, and so that's good for those people who are fixated or there's something that's so important in their goal and their action. Some people get very fixated on a particular way of going, and so I imagine, if there's a well, what if that thing doesn't exist anymore? What's the alternative? Got you? You're doing that. This is an exercise.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

It might take a few weeks and it might spring up a bunch of things you've got to talk to your peers about in different quadrants of your life and all of that it might be a journey to get here, but there's just zero complexity with what people are actually being asked to do.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

It's pen and paper, it's very straightforward. The complexity is in the wrestling with it. And so, yes, let's deal with this one. They go oh gee.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Well, currently the rules are the eligibility is to have done this course or equivalent. We can pull a job description off the web about being a DP in West Australia or whatever, and typically we'll see things about to have done these qualifications or equivalents. That's the law in the Western world and list of things. And we go right, if the department pulls this training next year, right, when you want it, you certainly won't get that qualification by that date, would we agree? And they go hell, yeah. So it says here our equivalent, have you printed out the course or have you got a list of its competencies? And they might say no, I haven't. Or yes, I have.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Typically go no, no, I don't want to do that. That's all kind, all a hassle, fair enough. But then you keep coming back to the life, dream and legacy If this is important, we'll find a way. And so then you just quickly say well, what if you just pull the competencies and do an RPL recognition of prior learning. Have you taken the time to just scan this and spend maximum of half an hour typing on a Word doc how you would describe that you have the equivalent skill? And then basically, you do a self-development course next year where you've already got the criteria response going and where you can't, you're now talking to your boss. Hey, I'm just future-proofing myself. If I get this course, wonderful. If I don't, I already know this is something.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I can't talk to very well, whereas the others I can. What do you think? Again, I'm doing this live as we speak, with a deputy principal wanting to go principal. They're doing the standards audit and then they're like, aha, I would never pass this. I have no experience with school budget systems in their particular case. So they just go to their principal, share their goal and ask for help. Yeah, if their principal won't help them, they can go to another one down the road.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah and yeah, if their principal won't help them, they can go to another one down the road. Yeah, and then all of a sudden we've got some strategies for future proofing and getting around those obstacles.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I can respond to every criteria that the course offers with proof of learning.

Jenny Cole:

As you were talking, it dawned on me that so often the thing that we don't go to is a conversation my principal, a conversation with the person who's running that course, to find out what their credentials are a conversation with. Sometimes, when we're action planning, we forget to take out the fact that other people sometimes know some of this information.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

With rich, famous or highly influential Mother Teresa types, whoever you like, who's very successful in their own course of endeavor. There's a cliche, there's no straight lines in nature, and what that simply means is, when you get to those people you admire and they lift the lid and share their journey, you're like, oh my goodness, that has pretty much nothing to do with the ethos that we get told about success.

Jenny Cole:

Correct, that's exactly right.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

They went randomly over here and then randomly over there, but what they did do was keep learning and keep getting more and more efficient. About all the dog legs in life, that cliche. What does success look like? And everyone thinks it's a straight line, and then there's this ball of string in the middle, because that's what success really is. So setback planning to finish off, when you're doing the life strategy in the workspace that forces you to, on purpose, create that ball of messy string and solve it before you even start.

Jenny Cole:

So it's no surprises. You know you don't fall down in a heap. When again that way to your endless summer has been thwarted, you're like it's all right, we knew that might've happened, we planned for that. We're good, we've got a different strategy or tactic or way of getting there.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Or, more importantly, you realise you don't need half of the qualifications and bureaucracy and alleged experiences that you thought you did when you began the proper planning. And then suddenly you're an efficient person who has mastery and complete responsibility and you'll take a sidestep or a pay cut or you'll work on the weekend. You'll start making smart sacrifices because that allows you to complete the criteria. Course criteria is a beautiful thing. Yes, you might do the course for a lot of different reasons, or just the deeper you understand what it's teaching you, the more you get realised your awesomeness as well as your specific niche of learning. And the sharper you are with your deficits, the less time you spend correcting them.

Jenny Cole:

We're much more efficient if we're working on our strengths, but that doesn't mean we ignore our deficits. But if we know really what they are and we're really clear about them, it is just faster because we're not worried about them. Well, again the DPA.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I'm working with. How long is it going to take for them to do SBSS, one revolution cycle? Well, they've got to inevitably wait for the cycle of a 12-month school budget. But the actual task and process of living through all of that, other than spend their own time doing it when the time's right, most of it fits into work.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, that's exactly right, and their only other deficit in this particular real case is around communicating strategic vision right, so they can quickly do some prepare a conference paper or decide to present something about some work their school's been doing, and then they're forced into articulating and visually communicating end-to-end strategy. So they actually don't need to do any more courses, they certainly don't need to sign up to all sorts of other big master's degrees. What they have to do are two very targeted things that are still time-consuming, that may cost them in terms of their own time and money, but not much, and they're bulletproof, ready to go for principalship. But because they use these tools, they got to that conclusion.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, they got to that point.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

yeah, point, yeah, indeed otherwise they would have been like everyone else, just sheep in herding in waiting for the course to start and then getting angry because I did the course. Why haven't I got the job?

Jenny Cole:

it's like well and I had to, shrugging their shoulders and saying I'm 18 months behind and it's such a delay and blame and all of that stuff let's do that as our last one.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

For setbacks, though, because that's important delay, by the time they're ready, the window for dps for next year. All the recruitment's been done and they've missed it.

Jenny Cole:

I'm working with a lot of people in that boat at the moment.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Right. So on a life strategy again. Going back to the planning, well, the first thing we do is we have that chat before that happens and we say hey, what if the recruitment cycle changed? And even though you've currently got it all organised here, what if next year there's a freeze on positions? Anyway, let's create whatever fantastic reason. All of that gets wiped out. What do you do?

Jenny Cole:

What do I do? And?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

they go oh, I don't know, I don't know. So cool, take a breath. We're going to spend some time throwing around ideas about what we would do if that happened. So schools would still be open. Is that right? And they might say in our scenario, the schools are still open and people are still retiring out of schools and getting sick and having babies and doing whatever life stage stuff. So there are still jobs moving around. But that'd be fair, they go okay. But the system of recruiting, bulk and placing is, for whatever reason, not available to us in this scenario.

Jenny Cole:

I'd also be reminding myself or them, if I'm working with them, that their dream is to be making a difference, not getting the job. And so how could you, in your current team leader role for early childhood, be building on your leadership skills so you're even more equipped when an opportunity arises? But how could you be content in the role of leading your team Because you know, and how could you be making a difference at that level?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yeah, and that's the final setback, isn't it? Which is to say, I go to all this trouble and then literally I get a health setback. I don't know. They literally abolish DP positions and now have some other thing that has some other criteria. I just get locked out of the game and so that's where you were going. But can I just return to the other scenario? Which is there's basically still these positions actually.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

There's still musical chairs going on, but there's no systemic access for this person into that game. So what I would say to them is well, my understanding back in a corporate business world is people hire people they think can do the job and they'll then navigate and manipulate all of the systems around them to try to find someone they think can do the job and hire them, and it's only when all that fails that they'll be following a bureaucratic process.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Yes, absolutely yeah yeah, and then we'll talk about this. If they don't get it, we'll talk about the sparky, the plumber, electrician, the builder, whoever, the beautician, the massage therapist. Eventually we'll all get to the same point. And so we say, okay, if we look at your action plan and we go backwards through all the things we just scribbled down and we assume that you're going to have like six or seven school touch points, because you said you'd work, shadow and go back through all the things they said they do and join their network and maybe present on PBL or NTSS. Anyway, they've been doing this stuff.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

What's the likelihood that all of those schools you're networked with and then they're one degree of separation, the people they know, if you've been in their face and really listening and serving and volunteering and sweat equity-ing into this, is it realistic that among those 10 or 15 schools in that network, adp position will come up based on the churn rates, typical churn rates, yeah, right. So is it possible if you continue to, albeit very gently and very carefully, keep grounding and keep positioning in circle around that that, regardless of all these other things that will come up, and then, if those other things happen, given they're really just the last thing a leader wants to do. They are necessary evil. You know everyone wants to cooperate those systems because legally we have to. But what we really want is, inside that process to grab that person.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Isn't doing this whole loop and brand positioning and reinforcing the most important thing you can do, whether or not that process is there for you next year or not. Yes, absolutely so. The set finishing itself this action plan. You take this process deeply and properly. It actually reveals to you the single most important, or the fundamentals that make you achieve your endless summer, and that is the networking. You've still dealt with all the other sort of superficial headlines, but you've now worked out deep inside you what you really need to do.

Jenny Cole:

It's the thing that's going to move the needle or give you the most leverage. It's that, yes.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And then you've been able to deflate or devalue or, I would say, realistically, value what you thought were the things that mattered most. They don't matter most at all, but some of them are necessary, important steps, if you can have them. And then finishing all the way off is your last setback question, which is okay, peace don't exist anymore. Or you have a health crisis, and that's right, because of the life strategy plan in its wholeness. You go back to the well, what about the T-ball manager? So let's move all the way back up through the life strategy and just say, okay, well, there's no way to plan around that with the DP, because the role itself doesn't exist. Let's go back to the goals you set in the first place. Was there any other goal we could spend some time thinking about? Why? Because the goal is just a conduit, to be to have the dream fulfilled. You've got to look back on your life going. Yeah, man, highs and lows, but big picture. That's what I did and that was valuable and that was worthwhile.

Jenny Cole:

So I thought your question was great because it brings the thing to completion, doesn't it? And it also shows how you can move in and out of work and family and play. So maybe that purpose and fulfillment can't happen in your work domain, but we can do it, perhaps, in other domains. We can do it with our kids at T-Ball, I mean the T-Ball becomes our voluntary job. Yes, exactly.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So it stays in the work domain, just to nuance it so slightly I would suggest that, because it's come out of work and it's a smart goal that we wrote down in work and we picked one of our two smart goals.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

We just switch to the other goal. We effortlessly are able to make what to the outside looks like pretty radical adjustments, but to the inside, emotionally, like, yeah, we've got our own frustrations about the universe, but we knew what the fundamental drive is the emotional satisfaction, the dream. But we knew what the fundamental drive is the emotional satisfaction, the dream, the fantasy. We knew what that was, so we can just switch Again. Another one we talked about earlier the play one. We could do the same thing, which we want to, but we could go all the way through how to get 5 million bucks and buy this beach house, buy date X, and go through and then property prices and this and that, and we might get somewhere with that. But a lot of the time the reality is for principals on certain salaries and the extreme nature of being jobs in Australia. Cost-wise, some of that isn't so cool. So, just like the other one we went through, at some point it might just flame out and we can't contingency it. No worries, we could still go back to the goal list and go okay, well, let's just now move to the other way. We could fulfill the dream of waking up and looking at the ocean and cooking the pancakes while the kids watch the silly music videos on youtube. And batting at your islands at your surfer chick wife and all your whatever's going on your head pete.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

This time you're going to drop into the action plan part two. You're going to drop in having the budget to get any amazing beach house up to whatever available at your beck and call, so you can pull this stunt whenever you want. So the specific goal might be to always have a set aside $5,000 budget to be able to Airbnb a beach house when I want to with my family for the weekend, right? Well, what are the strategies for that? Oh, I need to create five grand in a targeted account, or double check that, that's right. I'd probably want a hit list of Airbnb houses that I want and off you go. What are the resources and so on? And then setbacks and all of that.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

So the life strategy process whether you're applying it to play, to work, to your relationship again, that's such an important area, but time is upon us or to family and friends. If you follow the methodology properly, it actually reveals to you what you need to see. The challenge is being self-aware and self-disciplined, not just quickly escaping out the side of it all, because it's too hard not just giving up. Well, I filled in that box. There's something in there, I'll move on. It's owning, it's personifying, it's manifesting it, and manifesting it in its zero dollar application, or it's. You know, I'm at the campground at Yelling Up.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

If it's still there, it's been many years since I was there and that was on the beach when I was last there and there was a good left-handed reef break off the point.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I meant it. You know it's just keeping to work with. And if your dream is the ocean and the seas and the family, you'll be able to do that in different goal formats depending on your resources. If your dream is to be a hero of children's education and changing the futures of lives, you'll be able to do that with different levels of qualifications. And if your dream is to be in a wonderful loving relationship, again, you'll be able to do that in as much as your own honesty, humility, self-growth, communication and potentially your ability to let go of relationships or assert. But you'll be able to keep being you and that's what living your endless summer really is. It's about being authentically you in a way that's deep and meaningful and amazing. But it's not Pollyanna-ish as we've just discussed. There's a lot of actual strategy, tactics and action planning going on. As you take the cards, you're dealt and you play them to the best you can.

Jenny Cole:

And it takes discipline. You just said so discipline requires motivation. Tell us about staying motivated and perhaps even the value of celebrating success, which is in the last chapter.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Thank you, yeah, yeah, so bringing this completely to its fruition. We begin by sort of asking questions about burnout, which is well. Why on earth do we do things when we're stressed out? Anyway, we just keep going and saving the day. And then the second question despite wanting to do my needlework or my surfing or whatever I'm into, why do I always find I never get to it?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And so celebrating our successes and staying motivated is the finishing piece, and obviously, if we looked at our life strategy and we meditated on it, we sort of put those images, our dreams, back into play our heads every morning over coffee. That would be enough, but the reality is we don't, are not always as disciplined as we need to be. We skip the meditation session. And so two big things one is the visual cues. We talked about context dependent memory in episode one and a little bit into two. And so you gotta like.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

I wrote the book in 2014, so we weren't as internet sensitive as we are now. So back then I'd get and I was working on this with clients since 2000, 2001 and so in the old days we'd go to the travel agent, when there was one, and you'd steal all their holiday catalogues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'd get your scissors out and you'd literally cut out the farm tree or the Antarctic crew, whatever it was, and then you'd create a vision board and vision boards, you know, on the block home reno shows. Well, they call them mood boards, it's the same thing.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You know you're putting examples of what you're aiming at somewhere, somewhere that you can constantly look at them. My favorite one right now I've got a picture of Skye and myself with surfboards in Spain, surfing, and it's a stick. She printed it as a stick. It doesn't matter, but I stuck it on the inside of my visor when I drive. Oh great, yeah, and I forget it's there until the sun's there and I flick it down and it hits me in the face.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And I used to have a gym, is it gym, ron? Don't wish life was easier. I wish that you were better, and that was for 10 years, from like 2006 to 2016. That was on the back of a business card, but that was on my visor. So, again, I'd be randomly prompted every time the glare was there. Jim Rohn or whatever would like, punch me in the face. Come on, pete, don't blame everybody else. Go do something about it. Having prompts, having vision boards, looking at stuff where you brush your teeth Again, if I could sort of take people on a tour in my house, they'd see I've got anti-Domelo quotes that I look at before I go to sleep at night. They'd see I've got these sort of rock climbing pictures right next to where I brush my teeth. We're only humans. We have to use those tools, and if people belittle you for that, they really don't understand the species properly. We're not that good to outplay ourselves. We need those props.

Jenny Cole:

I have a client you probably know her, but anyway, she's got a picture of a dolphin on a beach and it's directly she's at her desk. If someone was sitting on the opposite side of her desk, the dolphin is behind them, so she's always reminding herself. It's actually more about how she has to be. I just need to be a bit more dolphin.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Manifest the love. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jenny Cole:

And a little bit less shark. She says Well, that is really shark, I love it.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

That's like 10 out of 10. That is exactly what we're talking about. And the trick is people like me you know, with my PhD and all this, I used to poo-poo a lot of these ideas, or, you know, get a final one pass that I'm more mature. Again, context-dependent memory. Think about it. If you have struggled with this or you think it's a bit lightweight for you, you may or may not be properly grounding with the limitations of your gene code. You know what I mean.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And, of course, the network. You have the sum of the five people you spend the most time, if not. A truer word has been spoken I'm not sure if that was Tony Robbins or who said that one, but you've got to find people to do stuff with. Remember, we said, though, if they're your preferred activities, if you're doing it, then it's intrinsically valuable whether there's people with you or not. But you really do need, over the long term, to have people, and this is the point of the four quadrants. People say, oh, I haven't found my tribe yet, or hey, I had this great day on my tribe, or whatever, and that's true, but there's really four tribes. You see, it's not just the tribe at work, it's the tribe in the play space, relationship-wise, and then family and friends, and that's why it's the end of summer. If you only really master one of these quadrants across all areas, you'll be super successful in one part of your life. But why do?

Jenny Cole:

that, when you can do it all for the same effort, and we want to do it all, and when you were born, wasn't that?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

whether you're into religion or not, you know, isn't there a special reason? You know, and aren't you special as we all are? Yeah, and nobody. You weren't born with an exclusion stamped on you, that you weren't allowed to be happy. Yes, there was no denying of your basic rights upon your birth. So this process we spent these five sessions on is really allowing people to put all of the structure, all of the adult-y frameworks back in, so they can really just embrace that beauty of the sun on their face before they even have words or memory. You know what I mean. What a beautiful thing.

Jenny Cole:

Indeed, I'm a big one for celebrating the small moments of success, but the small moments of joy and beauty and awe, and all of those positive emotions that make life worth living. Have you got any strategies for celebrating success that work for?

Dr Pete Stebbins:

you Two quick ones. One is write them down as well as register them, yeah, or tell the person or the book I'm reading it from the monk send yourself a text message. He says text yourself. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes heaps of sense.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

But the other one, which is a little more whatever my mentor, rowdy mclean, who I worked with for a long time and public speaking and leadership, he was very full-on about making sure that when I hit some of these milestones, I bought a bottle of champagne. That was the maximum I could afford and I had a toast with my partner or, if I'm single, with a friend or your colleague, or even just cheersing your dog. But then again, the biggest point of that was then I wrote down the date, who was with me or my dog, or whatever, and the event. And so if you go to a place in my house, you can open a cupboard and there's like 16 bottles for the last 15 or 16 years and everyone has a sticky note. One of them was from my sister's professorship. It didn't have anything to do with me, but it was one of these moments and I pulled Rowdy's stunt, I bought the dom. We did the whole thing. So, yeah, having a celebratory event and then recording it.

Jenny Cole:

It's sort of putting a flag in the ground and going this happened, it happened, it was joyful, and I get to remember it rather than oh, thanks the end and we move on to the next thing One third of all those bottles actually have quotes from other people that were just said to me.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Oh lovely, yeah. On this date, this person who ran this publishing house said you are enough, you're already a star. And I'm like, mate, I need to write that down. You know I need to do a rowdy. I need to write that down and tell my wife. I need to just moment that. So that's right, You've got to be. Life is challenging. It's not getting easier. These tools are here to to do the work, and so celebrating is critical, but leave a memory milestone, as you said. Don't just leave it to a verbal wash-off. Find a way, and the best way is a bottle of wine or an object that you can put a sticker on you know, whatever that is.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

And then that stays in an archive and you can like a trophy room. You can literally open it up and go look at all this. I feel terrible. I feel like I'm just irrelevant right now. Hang on a minute. That's just now. Look at all this stuff. I've actually people have said this and I've done that.

Jenny Cole:

The thing that I've started to do is I have a folder in my email box called joy and when someone sends me a testimonial that I like or when I've got a photo that I like, I email it to myself and I put it in the joy folder so that I can remember those lovely things. And I'm watching now on social media as people are getting in their offices little lovely messages from the year two about I love you, ms Cole, because you're such a great teacher. Take a photo of that, stick it in your joy folder so that when you're having a bad day you can go back and remember the good stuff that happened. But those milestone celebrations remember the good stuff that happened, but those milestone celebrations so important to record them and to have them there for later so that you can measure that your life is moving closer to the things that are in your dream.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Absolutely. And again, every one of those wrapping up, yes, works, where we spend a lot of our energy, but there's so much joy to taking play as adults and working that through, despite maybe being married forever, to pause and reassess the relationship or, if you're not, to still self-love intimacy, connect again and, of course, family and friends, which, at the end of it all, are the people that love us the most, but we may or may not be making the most of that love.

Jenny Cole:

Beautiful Dr Pe. Pete, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us in this summer series, and I really hope that people have been listening to this on the beach or on their walks or wherever is bringing them joy on the school holidays. We want everyone, but we want our school leaders to return to school in 2025 with the tools and the strategies to make sure that they can lead with wellbeing and lead with intention, and so thank you so much for sharing your wonderful resources and, if you are listening along, there are links at the bottom of each episode for the book for the life strategy PDF for how to contact Pete. So, Pete final words. Thank you so much from me, but you get to have a final word.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

Oh, my favourite one was said to me by a famous Australian Personal note. At my lowest ebb she said to me Pete, the best is yet to come.

Jenny Cole:

Oh, what a great way to finish. The best is yet to come. Thank you so much.

Dr Pete Stebbins:

You're welcome.