My guest this week is Michael Hyatt, the founder and chairman of Full Focus and the author of several bestselling books, including Platform, Living Forward, Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, The Vision Driven Leader, and his newest book (with daughter Megan Hyatt Miller) Win at Work & Succeed at Life. (Listen to my interview with Megan on last week’s show!) Michael has scaled multiple companies over the years, including a $250M publishing company with 700+ employees and his own goal-achievement company that has grown over 60% year over year for the past 4 years. Under his leadership, Full Focus has been featured in the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America for three years in a row and in 2020 the company was named to Inc.’s Best Work Places list. 4:27 – Michael 101 He spent most of his career in book publishing and has written about 20 books Michael has five daughters and 10 grandkids and they all live within 20 minutes of each other. His granddaughter calls him “Gandhi.” 8:18 – Goal setting The role of imagination is so crucial in problem solving and goal setting. People who are successful aren’t smarter than most of us. They just tell themselves different stories about who they are.  They preserve the ability to imagine a bigger, better future. 21:10 – Finding your imagination You need to identify your story, interrogate your story and then tell a better story. You have to be conscious of your story. Because the story that you’re telling yourself in your head becomes a controlling narrative that limits the scope of what you think is possible. 34:34 – Michael’s heart attack Michael considers himself a very healthy person, but he had a heart attack while walking. He had to get quadruple bypass heart surgery. Some people have heart attacks and think their life is over, but others think their life has just begun. There are facts, and there is the meaning we assign to the experience. 41:12 – More brains are better than one God created us to live in communities. We’re not meant to be lone rangers. Left alone with our own thoughts can spiral downward. One of the things that I think is so detrimental to our creativity right now in our society is that social media is facilitating more silos. Find people who think differently than you do. That enriches our world. 50:20 – Get to know you Last thing that made him laugh? Something a nurse said at his cardiac rehab session. Last time he cried? He can’t recall, but the older he gets the more he cries. FEATURED QUOTES People that have accomplished more than us, a lot of times the only difference is they’re just telling themselves a different story. They preserve the ability to imagine a bigger, better future. You have to be conscious of your story. Because the story that you’re telling yourself in your head becomes a controlling narrative that limits the scope of what you think is possible. There are facts, and there is the meaning we assign to the experience. God created us to live in communities. We’re not meant to be lone rangers. One of the things that I think is so detrimental to our creativity right now in our society is that social media is facilitating more silos. https://fullfocus.co/rebrand/ http://mindyourmindsetbook.com/purpose