Speaker 1: What's the difference between goals and dreams? For one eight
Speaker 1: hundred Got Junk founder and CEO Brian Scrutemore, there isn't one.
Speaker 1: After entering the hyper competitive world of entrepreneurship, Brian was disillusioned.
Speaker 1: He couldn't help but compare himself to his new peers
Speaker 1: who had bigger, more successful businesses. So struggling to stay
Speaker 1: motivated or excited about the future, Brian turned to his imagination.
Speaker 1: Debating whether or not to just pack it in and
Speaker 1: give up. Brian started painting a picture he wrote feverishly,
Speaker 1: detailing everything he could possibly hope for his companies and
Speaker 1: his life to become. And the possibilities excited him, but
Speaker 1: they also scared him a little. But according to Brian,
Speaker 1: that's how you know that you're on the right track.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this
Speaker 1: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 1: you do your best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Brian and he shares one
Speaker 1: of the fundamental strategies that's really helped him in business,
Speaker 1: called Painted Picture.
Speaker 2: I was about seven or eight years into my business.
Speaker 2: I had created a million dollar junk removal business. It
Speaker 2: was called the Rubbish Boys at the time, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to grow it into something bigger, and I joined
Speaker 2: the Entrepreneur Organization and I started comparing myself to others,
Speaker 2: which was a terrible thing to do. And I saw
Speaker 2: these people had much bigger, better businesses than I did.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't finished high school, hadn't finished college. And
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, can I actually do this? Can I
Speaker 2: build this business? Do I want to do I have
Speaker 2: the money? And do I even have a good idea?
Speaker 2: So I was in a negative space and I went
Speaker 2: and sat on my parents dock at their summer cottage,
Speaker 2: and I pulled out a sheet of paper and I
Speaker 2: started writing out feverishly what my future would look like
Speaker 2: and just dreaming up possibilities. I said, we'd be in
Speaker 2: the top thirty metros in North America by the end
Speaker 2: of two thousand and three, we'd be the FedEx A
Speaker 2: Junker Moval, We'd be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And
Speaker 2: I started writing out this vision of what the future
Speaker 2: would look like five years down the road in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, And when I took that sheet of
Speaker 2: paper and read it over at the end, I was like, Wow.
Speaker 2: I went from absolute depression to feeling excited and energized
Speaker 2: about a future that I could see in my brain
Speaker 2: that I decided to put into writing to share with others.
Speaker 2: And when I got out and started to share it
Speaker 2: with others, that was the key point. That was where
Speaker 2: the real power behind this painted picture visioning process started
Speaker 2: for me. Was I realized there were people in one
Speaker 2: of two camps. Ryan's nuts, he's smoking some hope dope,
Speaker 2: there's no way he can be on Oprah and grow
Speaker 2: this thirty city business, or the rest of the people
Speaker 2: who said, wow, this is compelling and exciting. I don't
Speaker 2: know how we're going to get there, but I want
Speaker 2: to be a part of it. And they stuck around,
Speaker 2: and you know, some of those people are still here
Speaker 2: today and we've built an incredible We've got a six
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar business, which back then was a million
Speaker 2: dollar business and was just an idea of something bigger
Speaker 2: and better that we could build together. So it's really
Speaker 2: just imagining the future, putting it and writing, and off
Speaker 2: we go to share it with people. And you know,
Speaker 2: if any of your listeners want a painted picture to
Speaker 2: get a sense of what it's like, they can go
Speaker 2: to my Instagram or LinkedIn and message me and just
Speaker 2: say can I see your painted picture? And I'll send
Speaker 2: one over as an example. But it's been a powerful,
Speaker 2: powerful process, and we do it with every brand. Every
Speaker 2: five years we've got a new painted picture, and it
Speaker 2: never tells us how to at where we're going. It
Speaker 2: just says, here's what it looks like, here's why we're
Speaker 2: doing what we're doing, and what the whole picture. It's
Speaker 2: like someone envisioning going on a trip. You know, if
Speaker 2: I asked you where would you go tomorrow? If money
Speaker 2: wasn't an object, you'd probably have some pretty cool vacation
Speaker 2: that you'd read out to me of what you have
Speaker 2: that you could see in your mind and who would
Speaker 2: be there and what you're drinking and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. And it's that same process, but doing it
Speaker 2: with your business or doing it with your life.
Speaker 1: How do you remove like just the natural obstacles and
Speaker 1: fears and barriers that your brain wants to put up
Speaker 1: like when you you know, when you ask yourself, where
Speaker 1: do I want to be in five years? Like what
Speaker 1: are the questions that you're asking yourself to get over
Speaker 1: the part of your brain that's like, well, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be on Oprah.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. Well, I mean a couple of things. One is,
Speaker 2: I believe if your idea isn't a little bit ridiculous
Speaker 2: and make you a little nervous, you're you're not dreaming
Speaker 2: big enough. If you can get your life's work done
Speaker 2: in a lifetime, you're not dreaming big enough. And so
Speaker 2: I think it's it's got to be a little bit
Speaker 2: edgy and a little bit kind of out there. And
Speaker 2: you know, mine was Oprah because I thought Oprah was
Speaker 2: one of the most amazing leaders and visionaries in the
Speaker 2: world and having a great impact on the world. And
Speaker 2: I wanted to meet her and give her a big hug,
Speaker 2: which I got to do. And it wasn't as much
Speaker 2: being on the show as it was meeting her and
Speaker 2: getting to connect with her and spend some time. So
Speaker 2: everyone has a gift, and everyone comes to this world
Speaker 2: with some possibility that they might not have tapped into
Speaker 2: yet and I think it's just dreaming big but knowing.
Speaker 2: You know, for me, it's getting rid of the fear
Speaker 2: of well, what if I fail? To me, it's I
Speaker 2: don't think about how to get there. I just think
Speaker 2: about where do I Where am I going to go?
Speaker 2: And then I start to figure out the how after
Speaker 2: I've written it down, after I've committed to something. You know,
Speaker 2: we wanted to be on the Ellen Degenerous Show, and
Speaker 2: you know we made that happen twice and it wasn't easy,
Speaker 2: but I remember it was. You write it down, it
Speaker 2: creates some fear. It makes you feel a little sick
Speaker 2: because you're like, how are you going to make that happen?
Speaker 2: We failed the first you know, twenty or thirty times
Speaker 2: we tried to.
Speaker 1: Make it happen.
Speaker 2: But eventually, if it's important, you follow through and you
Speaker 2: find a way, and you find someone that can connect
Speaker 2: you and make it happen. And it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be something big. It can just be big to you.
Speaker 2: But dreaming big and committing to it and then not
Speaker 2: worrying about the how until you've written it down.
Speaker 1: If you would like to listen to the rest of
Speaker 1: my chat with Brian, you can check out a link
Speaker 1: to the full episode in the show notes. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for more tips to improve the way that you work,
Speaker 1: I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool
Speaker 1: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging
Speaker 1: from software and gadgets that I'm loving truly interesting research findings.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for that at howiwork dot com.
Speaker 1: That's how I work dot co. How I Work is
Speaker 1: produced by Inventim with production support from dead Set Studios,
Speaker 1: and thank you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio
Speaker 1: mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.