How To Stay Locked In On Your Vision

0:00 Welcome to the Next Level Leaders Podcast. We, Dr. Joseph Walker, this podcast is designed to offer strategies in moving vision to reality. Leaders can expect to be mentored, inspired, challenged to succeed at the next level. So prepare to be exposed, empowered, and equipped for excellence. Thank you for connecting and allowing this space to become an opportunity for growth and collaborative learning. Now, let's go on this journey together and spark the change we wish to see in ourselves, our team, and the world. Hi, I'm Dr. Joseph Walker, and thank you so much for tuning in to the Next Level Leader Podcast. This is the place we come every single week to grow, to receive knowledge that leaders enjoy receiving.

0:45 Iron sharpens iron. We believe every single week as we come together and hear strategies and share ideas, this is the place where leaders grow. Thank you for once again listening. And of course, if you are a first-time listener, I would love for you to make certain you share this with as many people as you can. Our goal is to try to reach a million people on this platform, and boy, we're pushing that, we're getting close to it. I appreciate all of you so much, and of course, I am very grateful for those of you that share this podcast. Why don't you share with friends, share with about 10 people or so, and let them know that it's blessing you. Now, I'd love for you to follow me if you're not on Instagram at Joseph Walker 3, that's our community, which we stay connected, ask questions, share.

1:29 So please do that, and I really appreciate if you do. Also, I want you to go to JosephWalker3.org for more of my content, books, speaking engagements. You want to invite us to come in, to share with your team, to create opportunity now, so we're doing a lot of training and team building exercises. We'd love to do that for your organization. So that's what Next Level Leader is all about, and I just appreciate the opportunity to be able to pour into you. My wife and I have a YouTube channel, and thank all of you for supporting it. Man, I want you to go out there and subscribe on YouTube to our life, our journey, our truth. Many people ask you about how to manage all the chaos with family and business, and just moving forward, and trying to do it and keep your sanity.

2:16 We talk about a variety of topics, and it's become really, really popular among so many who are interested in how you do this together. I encourage you to go out there and subscribe to our life, our journey, and our truth. Today, got a great topic for you. How to stay locked in on your vision. You already know, as you begin this year, as you move forward, it's gonna be important. The vision you have comes to fruition. The foundation of this message today is for you not to forgo, to hinder, and certainly not to eradicate the manifestation of your vision. How do you stay locked in?

2:57 How do you continue to move forward with precision to make certain that you are completely focused on your vision coming to fruition? I'm gonna give you a few things to consider, and perhaps as you consider these things, you'll see how significant your vision is and why it's important to protect it at all costs. The first thing I wanna tell you is how to eliminate distractions. Let's put that out there right now. Eliminating distractions is so important, right? Because there are a lot of people who don't realize that the reason that they cannot manifest their vision is because they're all over the place. You've gotta be mindful of time gremlins.

3:41 You gotta be mindful of all the things that have nothing to do with your vision. You get distracted by reverie or partying. You get distracted by negative comments. You get distracted by social media. When you get locked in, you gotta be focused. I want you to hear this. Keep your eye on the goalpost. Keep your eye on where you're going. Don't look to the left and look to the right, but make certain that you surround yourself with people who can keep you away from distractions. One of the things that's important to do, particularly now, is to begin thinking about how do I release myself from things that distract me?

4:22 How do I carve out time in my day where I put my phone on do not disturb? How do I create an opportunity where I have moments where I listen to social media and watch it, but not throughout the day? I block out time to do that. How do I carve out this time where I am locked in on my vision? When I'm locked in, everybody understands that. You're not creating a culture by which people don't bother me because they know during this time, I'm completely locked in. That's what matters. So I want you to eliminate distractions, get them out of your way. And the second thing I want you to do is I want you to improve and increase your devotional life. See, staying locked in is about a spiritual focus.

5:04 If you begin thinking about your devotional life and really increasing that, you'd be amazed at the dividends that will pay for your life. One of the very practical things I do is I get up in the morning at about 4.45. I go to the gym at 5. And I'm at the gym and I have my devotion going. I turn the television on YouTube and I go right to a service or a word or worship. And I'm locked in. I'll put my Bible or something on my elliptical and I'll read text. I'll read my iPad and I'll read what God wants to say to me. I'll pray when I get off of my treadmill, of my elliptical, I'll sit down, I'll read, I'll talk to God before I start lifting.

5:48 You see, I integrate these things together so that my devotional life remains consistent. If you allow time to get away from you, you'll look up and it'll be days since you prayed, days since you read the word. I just believe you got to find the space every single day that keeps you focused. When I lock in on my devotional life and increase that, my day is more focused. I feel more robust. I feel more energized to go and achieve what's ahead of me. I want you to work on improving that and increasing your devotional life, your prayer life, your time in the word. I've given you a lot of, I mean, a lot of content to do that.

6:31 You can go to the Mount Zion YouTube page. There are deeper dive Bible studies there. There's Sunday morning messages there. I mean, you can go to our Life by Journey, our Truth and listen to Dr. Stephani's YouTube page, 20 minutes while you're working out. I mean, it's a lot of content out there that we're giving you absolutely free for you to just go and build your devotional life and hear what God may be saying to you. The third thing I want you to remember is to read every single day. Now, one of the things that I've done, let me tell you, I've learned this and I have to give a big shout out to my friend and mentor Oprah for really pushing me in this area.

7:12 You know, to try to read 50 books, 50 books a year. It's something that I'm really committed to because the more I read, my vocabulary gets better, my mind gets sharper and I stay more focused. I can read a chapter two a day, sometimes three or four chapters a day and boy, it just ignites my passion. It gets me focused back on the assignment. I want you to understand something. Leaders are readers. And when you learn how to read content, you learn how to read things that can keep your mind sharp, it can inspire you to go and lock in and focus on your vision. You'd be amazed at how that will work. I've always found out that when I put myself in that space, man, when I get myself a good cup of coffee and I again, give me a good book and I start reading something that challenges me, that helps me see what I didn't see, regarding my organization, regarding my vision.

8:04 Man, it makes me energized. I can't wait to like put that book down and go get it. I feel like let's make it happen. The tools that I get, the principles I get from reading, I can't wait to apply those to my current situation. So read every single day. Make a list, start today. Say, you know, I'm gonna make a quarterly list of books that I want to read. Every quarter, I'm gonna put down the books that I wanna read. And I hope you include some of mine, like leadership and loneliness, or Restore That The Root, or No Opportunity Wasted. All those books are available. Go out there and get them at josephwalker3.org and we'll send them to you.

8:45 I just want you to make certain that you are reading. Get them on Amazon as well. Get them anywhere, books or so. I promise you, it will be a blessing to you. Here's number four. Make it measurable and track its progress. When you're locked in on your vision, you have to make certain that every move you make is measurable and you have to track the progress. One of the things we did in our organization is that I began talking to my staff and my team about how do we measure success? So that's a great deal of intentionality. I did this on the international level as well as the local level. And I challenged leaders and sometimes it's counterintuitive. People don't necessarily think about this because they use vague terms as, oh, we're doing well, things are moving along.

9:30 But when you challenge people toward metrics, toward really identifying measurables and tracking progress, it really holds them accountable. It allows you to stay focused in on where the deficits are. For example, you look at your vision and you say, I want to see growth in this particular area. You have an honest conversation about where you are. And if you're at level two and you're trying to get to level seven by a certain amount of time, you keep measuring that. Are you trending in that direction after three or four months or are you static? These are the kinds of things that help any leader, any organization look critically at what you're trying to do. And it helps you achieve it because you develop an accountability structure around you that they know that every single thing we do, we are using metrics to make it happen.

10:20 This is so very, very important. So I want you to really think about that. Think about how to use measurables and how to track your progress. Numbers don't lie. If you keep that at the forefront, you're constantly watching the data. It helps motivate you to say, I can do better in this area, more of the same in this area. I see we're moving in the right direction. That's why great leaders focus on data because that's what can help you get to the next level. Here's the thing. Number five, and this is a big one. I've talked about it, I did a whole podcast on it, but I want to talk about it here, avoiding burnout.

11:01 Now, staying locked in has a lot to do with you being refreshed, you taking care of yourself, your mind, your body, your spirit. It has a lot to do with you not allowing yourself to run ragged. Many people who get distracted, who become lethargic, sometimes they fall by the wayside in terms of their vision, it's because they're tired, they're burnout, they lack energy and passion. I have seen this so many times and you have to own that. Am I burnt out? Have I taken on too much? Have I not allowed myself to make a cessation from my work and I've just constantly burned the candle at both ends without stepping away?

11:42 It is said that if you do not come apart, you will come apart. And I think it's important for all of us to begin to consider ways in which we can truly, truly, truly prevent burnout. I think it's important, one, to stay in your original assignment, to never go outside of what God called you to do. Sometimes we take on things because they are good things to do, but they may not be God things. So you gotta stay consistent with the original assignment. And then I think secondly, you gotta admit that no is an answer. You can't let people run your ragged, pulling you in so many directions and you are so emotionally impacted by their feelings when you say no.

12:23 You have got to learn the power of no. But then I think also you have to make certain dirty that you put boundaries around you. Boundaries that people do not encroach upon the time in which you are vacationing. To vacate means to vacate. Sometimes you're on vacation and you're still answering emails, you're still doing this and that. You gotta learn how to create a system or you can truly be away and really get poured into. And I think number four, while you're away, always make certain that you have something pouring into you. You're an empty cup and you got to be filled back up. You can't as a leader constantly pour out and nothing is pouring back into you.

13:04 So what's important? Let's avoid burnout. Let's declare that in 2024, there will be no burnout in my life. And I am going to proceed, locked in on my vision, making good decisions, taking vacations, making certain I have good boundaries and learning the power to say, no, I'm gonna make certain I keep the original assignment at the forefront of everything I do and remain locked in on that. Here's the deal. Number six is surround yourself with innovative people. One of the things that helps me stay locked in on my vision, man, is that I've got people around me that are just smart, flat out smart.

13:45 You need innovative and creative people that can constantly push the envelope, that can look at where you are, challenging you to take it to another level, always bringing fresh ideas. You don't want people constantly just keeping the system the way it is, just aiding and abetting complacency. What new ideas, what new suggestions are the people around you bringing to help make you better? Sometimes people are just facilitating what is normal. They're facilitating what they're comfortable doing, but you need people that are innovative enough and creative enough to say, hey, we can be doing much more. That's what keeps you focused on the vision. How can we get better here? Thank you for introducing me to that concept, that way of doing things.

14:28 And boy, when you do that, you realize there's a lot of stuff out there that will enhance your vision, that will keep you relevant, that will keep you sustained to make certain that you are consistently moving forward in the manifestation of your vision. All right, so before we go to number seven, let me go back and review. And of course, I hope that you're locked in on this as we talk about being locked in on your vision. We talk first of all about how to eliminate these distractions. And we all know we have these distractions, these things that pull at us. And so we gotta guard our mind, our spirits. We gotta make certain that we carve out time to focus on our vision, eliminating distractions, turning off the phone or putting it on silent mode or do not disturb.

15:14 We gotta have specific time throughout the day in which we carve out to do those recreational things like social media or what have you. But we've got to make certain that we create a culture where we are absolutely locked in and we have eliminated these distractions. And then we're gonna improve and increase our devotional life. We're gonna really find scriptures and get us a Bible reading plan. We're gonna learn to power devotion, spending time in the presence of God, maybe integrating it into something you do every single day to make it easier for you to actually do it. I mentioned that I do it working out. It makes it so much easier because I'm taking care of my body while my soul at the same time.

15:55 Number three is read every day. Leaders, let's read, man. There's so many great books out there and I encourage you to find great books. Try to read as many books as you can. This year I'm committing myself to reading 50 books. I know they're 52 weeks in a year, but boy, I'm so committed to reading 50 books this year because I know the more I read, the better I get. And then number four, make whatever you do measurable and track its progress. Make sure that whatever vision you put out there, whatever thing you're trying to do, teach your team, we are measuring this. Where are we? Where we're trying to go? And how are we progressing?

16:38 These things will help you stay locked in because the conversations will be around, the facilitation and manifestation of your vision. Therefore, we avoid burnout, meaning that we don't carry all this stuff ourselves. We learn to step away. We create a powerful team that can hold things down. You don't micromanage, but you constantly stay locked in. So I want to make certain that you are taking vacations, taking care of yourself, taking your hand off of things so that you can get poured into. Two milliliters out there are burnout. When you burn out, you lose passion, you lose creativity. So here's the deal. Number six, surround yourself with innovative people.

17:18 Don't be intimidated by this. Please don't. Don't be intimidated by all these brilliant and bright people around you. That's what I love to have around me. I travel with them. They talk to me. I meet in Starbucks. I just love being surrounded by people that have great ideas to do amazing things. And so I just want you to do that. And then number seven, finally, I want you to create a daily regimen. Like create a pattern. Create something that you do. Like I do this every day. Like I know by clockwork, I'm up at 4.45 because I go to bed at 9.30, 10 o'clock. I'm up at 4.45. I'm in the gym at five, you know? By six, I'm eating breakfast, taking my kids to school. By eight o'clock, I'm in Starbucks.

18:00 I'm locked in for two or three hours doing things, catching up on stuff. I'm doing meetings at the office. I'm doing these things. And by two o'clock, I'm done. It's a regimen for me. And when you stay locked in, if you don't have a regimen, you don't have a to-do list, you don't have a system. Again, I quote James Clear, a telling habits. If you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. What is your system of operation? What is your regimen? You need a daily regimen. So I hope this has blessed you. I really do. And I really hope you stay locked in. We're waiting on this vision. You have to come to fruition. You gotta be focused.

18:41 We wanna see it come to pass. Thank you for tuning in today to Next Level Leader Podcast. And I wanna make sure that you follow me at Joseph Walker III. Let me know on Instagram that you were blessed by this. You have questions. Go to josephwalker III.org for our books and all of that. Make sure you follow my wife and I's YouTube page. Subscribe to it. Now, our life, our journey, our truth. And man, so much content out there. I just wanna see you win. Next Level Leader, thank you so much. Take this if it's blessed you. Share with at least 10 people. Tell them, download this podcast. You need this one in your life. And if you're a first time listener, please let me know. Let me know your story and how this blessed you on Instagram at Joseph Walker III.

19:26 I thank you so much. This has been a tremendous blessing. And I believe there is a next Level Leader inside of you waiting to emerge. Thank you for tuning in. And I pray God's richest blessings be upon you, be upon yours until we meet again. Peace. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's podcast. I want you to subscribe to iTunes, cpnshows.com or whatever podcast or download it. I also want you to follow me on Instagram at JosephLiquid.