Bob Goff
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Episode Information
Our first guest is philanthropist and life coach, Bob Goff. Bob has been called “a one-man tsunami of grace and a hurricane of love” and has written multiple New York Times Best-Sellers and founded Love Does, a non-profit human rights organization operating schools and pursuing justice for children in war-torn countries. In part two, Bob talks about the mission of his nonprofit organization, how to deal with failure and adversity, and how he managed to keep his team focused during the pandemic.
Follow Bob on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Bob Goff is the author of the New York Times bestselling books Love Does and Everybody, Always and Dream Big. He is the Honorary Consul to the Republic of Uganda, an attorney, and the founder of Love Does—a nonprofit human rights organization operating in Uganda, India, Nepal, Iraq, and Somalia. He’s a lover of balloons, cake pops, and helping people pursue their big dreams. You can typically find Bob writing and taking calls from his boat, welcoming people to his Southern California retreat center- The Oaks, or at an event speaking. Bob’s greatest ambitions in life are to love others, do stuff, and, most importantly, to hold hands with his wife, Sweet Maria Goff, and spend time with their amazing kids. For more, check out BobGoff.com and LoveDoes.org.
Read The Transcript
Joe Pardavila:
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact presented by ForbesBooks each week. Our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes talk with business leaders powering their company success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here is Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes:
Maggie and I welcome you to our very first episode. We are so thrilled that you decided to join us today. We've made it our mission to help individuals and companies focus the world's abundant resources for good
Maggie Miller:
And Hannah and I are so excited to welcome our first guest this week. A person who's been called a one man tsunami of grace and a hurricane of love. His name is Bob Goff. Bob is a philanthropist and life coach who has authored three New York times bestsellers and founded Love Does a non-profit human rights organization, operating schools and pursuing justice for children in war torn countries. Bob, welcome to the podcast.
Bob Goff:
Hey, thanks a lot to you guys. Great to be talking you.
Maggie Miller:
Well, Bob you live such an interesting and amazing life and we are super psyched for the Bob Goff movie one day. Where maybe you'll be played by Tom Hanks, or if we're lucky you'll cameo as yourself. We'd love to hear about some of the key nudges on your path that led you from recovering lawyer to professional motivator.
Bob Goff:
Yeah, I think I'm still on the path, as we all are. Part of it is to move from what you're capable of. Like I was capable of practicing law and being a pretty good lawyer, to what you feel a sense of calling to. And so some people in faith expressions they think of, I was called to do this and I know what a telephone call is and everybody else does. So it's less of a direction or a destination, but it's more like a nudge in a direction to say, what I want you to do is do things that last. And I think that's what all of us want. We want certainly things that'll work. But I think what's an important pivot for me has been is this going to last and for a guy who's 62, I'm not going to last that long.
Bob Goff:
I got a couple more decades in me, but what if we say you plus a hundred years, what's there. I know this pickup truck I just got is not going to probably last me to the end of the week. But to say, what is it that's going to last well into next century? And those are the things I want to focus my time on. So it meant me just quitting. What I did for a day job. I just quit being a lawyer. I just walked into my own law firm, couple floors of a bank building. I said, I'm out.
Maggie Miller:
I love it.
Hannah Nokes:
Bob, when it comes to doing things that last in your most recent book Dream Big: Know What You Want, Why You Want It, and What You're Going to Do about It. You help people recapture that version of their lives that they dreamed about maybe when they were a child or before, as you said, fear starts calling the shots. What's one of the first steps to recapturing that version of their lives and work?
Bob Goff:
I think it's find a childlike faith, not childlike, a childish one. I know a lot of guys that are like that have found that and are clinging to it. But I'd say childlike, they just find the whimsy, find the wonder. And I would just find that in places that are adjacent, but aside from your vocation. So I'm going to learn how of it's called paragliding. Have you seen that where they it's like the parachute is already deployed, which seems like a good idea. But there's a guy who's going to teach me. And I'm like so excited. What is that have to do with my life? Everything, just that idea of challenge and risk and rewards and accomplishments.
Bob Goff:
But I don't want to go on this hedonistic bender. I mean stab me in the face with an [inaudible
00:04:15]if you ever see me climbing K2. What I want to do is things that actually add and contribute towards something. So I won't be learning how to paraglide alone. I'm going to do it with my sons and they just go like "Oh! Now we got it". That idea of building community together. That's where the good stuff happens. So I think God does his best stuff in unity. Always. That's what I've noticed at least.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah. I completely agree. And we often talk with business leaders about the concept of leading with love and seeing the people that work with them as partners, if leaders were truly able to love those they lead. How could things be different in corporations or even in nations?
Bob Goff:
Yeah, I think your definition of love for me, it's sacrificing commitment. So some people define love by linking with butterflies in the stomach or heart shaped cupids. I don't know but the people that have loved me well, have been people that have sacrifice for me, people that are committed to me. And if you go through a little bit of a rough patch then to say, was there a sacrificing commitment or did everybody bail and just go? Just kind of give or keep you at a safe distance for a while. I want to run towards people when they mess up, not keep a safe distance from them. I would say, these are the times that we get in the workplace. When somebody messes up, don't give them a hug because that's creepy. But instead just a word of affirmation just say "Wow, you really blew that big time".
Bob Goff:
But you know what brings into even sharper relief, all the things that you've done, right? This is just such an aberration from who I've experienced you to be. I just want to pause and hover over that for a moment. It's not ignoring the difficulty, the setback, the mess up, but to give context to it, to say the context of all you have done here, that is such a inconsequential blip. It cost us a couple bucks, no doubt. And my preference would be that we not do that often, but I just want you to know I'm committed to you. I'm telling you, you have an employee, a colleague or whatever. You just went through the war together, having it laced with that kind of evidence of commitment. That's what I do.
Maggie Miller:
Bob, I remember reading several of your books, but seeing that in the back, you put your cell phone number, offering readers to get in touch with you personally. And so I'm sure you get hundreds of calls a day. And I think there's even a person you call the vulgar guy because he calls you regularly to say unflattering things to you. Yet I think you'd still take his call. So I also saw recently on your social feed that you started a project in San Quentin with some of the prisoners there. And I do think that some of that came from your complete access to random strangers, but can you talk to us a little bit about the thinking behind giving that sort of complete access to random strangers?
Bob Goff:
Oh yeah, it's totally selfish on my part. What I'm trying to do is I want to learn. I want to grow. So I haven't taught, I've taught a class at San Quentin now for three or four years. There's maybe 150 guys that are part of this thing, but I haven't taught them a thing. We were learning together. There was a moment we were doing some pitching practice in the prison yard with those guys, there're huge guys who like lifting big weights and everybody punching punching bags and they're hitting those. I would not want to be in a fight with these guys. And so some of the guys were out playing baseball and this one, guy's a really accomplished athlete. And I said, Hey, can I throw a couple pitches? And he's like "Really!" And I was afraid I was going to do a Dr. Fauci aim for home plate and hit third.
Bob Goff:
But because I haven't thrown a ball since high school. But I got out, to out on the mound and there was actually one of those things in if you've seen people in pitching practice, they're behind a screen. So you can throw through it. But then when the guy hits a line drive, it doesn't take out your face. And the first thing I had the guys do is remove the screen. I like, I don't want anything between me and you buddy he's like "Really!" Literally you will not have a face if I do it. I'm like I think you're good enough to not hit me in the face. And so I was wondering as he was, whether I was good enough to throw it over the plate. And I think I surprised both of us when I did a couple times, the last thing I did, I wanted to brush him back a little bit and I hit him.
Maggie Miller:
Oh my God,
Bob Goff:
Don't get, don't hit a guy who's in San Quentin. Yeah.
Maggie Miller:
It sounds like you are sort of removing the screen between people
Bob Goff:
Bingo! And I thought to myself, this will preach. So what I want to do is ask ourselves in the work environment and your friendships and all that, what's that thing in between you and them right now, sometimes one of those things can be comparison. Like you're comparing how your business is doing with theirs or comparing this and that. We all know what that feels like. I do it often and I'm trying to do it less, but I'm trying to just kind of call it out when I see it. And it's say, let's actually creating some
distance between me and you. It's given me protection that I don't need safety. I don't actually want, and it's wrecking a relationship I'm actually interested in.
Maggie Miller:
Absolutely. I actually read in an article that you've called Comparison a lot of things, including a punk, a landmine and a cage fight. These days it just feels like we struggle so much with comparison and all we see are people doing life or business better than us. I think this is so especially challenging for entrepreneurs. I'd love to hear Bob, how you deal with comparison and guard against it.
Bob Goff:
Yeah, the first thing that came to mind when you ask that is that I try to recognize it. When it's happening and say we'll [inaudible 00:10:25] to somebody who's practicing for the Olympics and they said "Your body's going to go where your head's looking". Which kind of makes sense, even in the business world. If you're pointing your head towards something, another person, another business. Then all of our thoughts, all of our energies is going there, instead of just doing your work. There in my faith tradition, there's a concept of complete your work, do it like you're doing it for God. And so God never compares what he creates. And so I just want to just remind myself, make that a bit of about, put it on a loop. So I'm telling myself, I'm just, I'm not comparing myself to God's good work in somebody else. I'm comparing myself to what God's put in front of me.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah. And speaking of what God has put in front of you and where God has placed us. Can you talk a little bit about our role as business people in using the resources of our company or the skills that we have or the products that we have created to make the world a better place?
Bob Goff:
Yeah, I think most people that are listening are already doing that. What I found is that one thing leads to another. I know you guys have found that to be true in your life as well. One thing will lead to something beautiful. I'll give you an example. We decided that we were going to just be another feather in the balance, of people helping feed some hungry people. So we just, I can't fit it in the back of my pickup truck. So he's want to like feed a lot of people. So we bought a great big truck and we're delivering whatever it is that people need to these families. But because I was thinking about feeding people that are hungry, I had my head in [inaudible 00:12:09], there was a business for sale. Advert that I saw it and it was a chicken farm of all things. I don't know anything about chickens, like I've been to Chick-fil-A twice.
Bob Goff:
So I saw this chicken farm and I started investigating a little bit, get this 85,000 chickens produced 60,000 eggs every single day. So I met with a guy and I literally am in escrow right now to buy a chicken farm for a guy that doesn't know anything about chickens. But it turns out in California, you can't have a chicken who lays an egg, if that chicken was in a cage, isn't that crazy?
Hannah Nokes:
Wow.
Bob Goff:
So it's like set them free. You can't even buy an egg from another state, if that chicken was in a cage. Well, this is just messing with of chicken farmers everywhere, because they've had these chickens evidently in little chicken prison. And so I don't know anything about the value of a chicken farm, but I know the value of real estate in Southern California. And so I meet with a guy today, who's going to take over the operation of the chicken farm because he knows chickens and they're the biggest egg something in the state.
Bob Goff:
And my deal is I want a thousand eggs a day. Why? I've got a truck and we're feeding hungry people. So I'm going to do something in the marketplace. That makes sense. And I think I can get a thousand eggs a day out of the thing. Can you imagine how many people you could feed with 365,000 eggs?
Hannah Nokes:
Wow.
Bob Goff:
And the cholesterol levels spiking, throughout the community. So I'm not saying you're going to get it all right, but you can do some help. Think you can not be afraid. And do I know much about chickens? Not much, lots of feathers and lots of other stuff. But evidently you can sell that stuff too, which that'll preach. So what I want to do is to have your head on a swivel, make your business prowess. If you are a businessman or woman to say, are there some adjacent things that you can do that'll be helpful for everybody?
Hannah Nokes:
Well, I love what you said about success in the marketplace, begets impact for others. And I think that many of us and many of those listening have an opportunity to do their best in their businesses and make those businesses as profitable as possible so that they can do more good for others. Do you see that in the people that you interact with, Bob?
Bob Goff:
Yes. I was just thinking I'm the one guy that can answer the question. Why did Bob walk to the other side of the road? To buy the chicken farm. I find myself traveling in a posse of people and you guys are included of people that want to move the needle in other people's lives. I think most of the people that are listening want to do that as well. They're not just saying accumulation for accumulation's sake. But you can accumulate some cash to just make some things happen and they'll be beautiful for your family and beautiful for your friends and beautiful for your communities. So I'm on team use what you're good at, but don't have what you're good at swallow up who you are. So I'm a pretty good trial lawyer, but I don't think I was put on earth to be a trial lawyer.
Bob Goff:
I think it's something I know how to do. Just like I know a thing or two about chickens that doesn't make me the chicken dude. It's just another thing I do. But to say like, who am I? And who's the husband, dad, friend, co-worker companion that I'm becoming? I want to be, think of these characteristics. Think less career, more character. I want to become more patient. I can make coffee nervous. And many of the people that run in our mutual posses are so uptight. They're just like "Come on, come on, come on". And I don't know man, if you're listening and that's you, buy a puppy.
Bob Goff:
Just chill out little bit, just get a little bit more patient with the people around you. Because I was finding that in a moment of honesty, sweet Maria told me "You were driving me nuts buddy, you just need to chill out". And then if you are medicating, you are impatience with a substance or the most powerful substance which is activity. I just need to, just stop and see what's going on here. This is me always staring at a screen because I'm like you fill in the sentence because I'm really insecure or I'm desiring approval from strangers or whatever it is, but we got to see it so we can understand so we can fix it.
Maggie Miller:
Well, I heard you mention your lovely wife, sweet Maria in there. And certainly I know sharing the journey with this woman who captured your heart must be so incredible. I read somewhere that you'll even fly home to see her just to get up, to fly to another state in the morning. How important is it for us to bring people alongside on our journeys with us?
Bob Goff:
Yeah. I would say just bring some people along with you whatever, if it's a marriage, that's awesome. Whatever relationships that are the most important to you to keep those people close at hand, but be really extravagant in the way that you love people like being fully present. I don't fly home for her. She'd be fine. I fly home for me because I want to spend time with her. Even if we get between 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM I'm like I'll take it. And so to be a little bit less efficient in the way that you're loving the people that you're around you, because the people around you will see that they'll see Oh I'm just your next customer. I'm just your next person you're being really efficient with. And man, there's just something beautifully inefficient about taking a walk or flying home or whatever. Go return to that. And you'll remind yourself of the stuff that's important. Then go launch back out in the business world and crush it if you need to.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah, well we'll have to stop right here, but coming up in the second part of our conversation with bestselling author and philanthropist, Bob Goff, Bob has some advice for dealing with failure and adversity.
Bob Goff:
I think an overlying idea for all of us is to fail trying and don't fail watching. And so I know you too feel that way just say listen. I just, I'm going to try a couple things. If those don't work, I'll try a couple more things.
Joe Pardavila:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact a production of ForbesBooks. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes
@magnifyingimpact.com.
Part Two
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact, presented by Forbes Books. Each week our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes talk with business leaders, powering their company success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes:
Welcome back, as Maggie and I continue our conversation with best-selling author, philanthropist and life coach, Bob Goff.
Hannah Nokes:
Bob, I want to talk a little bit about your nonprofit, Love Does. I understand that the proceeds from your first bestseller support the organization to fight injustices committed against children. Do you have any examples of some of the most daring and effective projects you've undertaken?
Bob Goff:
Yeah, my most daring and effective project was having children. But then they all grew up and they're in their thirties and are good citizens. But there's these children that didn't have the shot that my kids have. And so I'm a big fan of just loving your neighbor, like make it happen across the street, not across an ocean. But somehow in the confluence of events, we ended up starting overseas. And so our first school was in Uganda and they were in the middle of a civil war. And so there's just a lot of opportunities to help.
Bob Goff:
I told 400,000 young people who were out of school and displaced, you can come to my school for free. And then we got the word out to as many as we could and nine kids showed up. But I wasn't bummed, I'm like, "We got a soccer team."
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
So don't be despising, like small beginnings. That same school has like, I think, 1,500 kids right now in it. And I don't know how many hundreds in university and law school and all that. But to start somewhere and you don't get to the end, I just knew I had nine kids and I was as excited then about them as I am about a larger number of kids we can help.
Bob Goff:
Somalia has been in a civil war since the seventies. And so we're in Mogadishu and we have several schools there. Everybody knows what happened in Iraq and the Yazidi kids, so we started a school and a hospital, and a village there. Then Afghanistan has been a problem for years, so we've got one school built for girls that the Taliban say can't learn. We're like, "Well forget that." So we've got that school and a second school getting built right now. And there's just a lot of tension in the region.
Bob Goff:
But I still think God loves kids. And he loves me and you, too, that's my worldview. And he loves everybody equal. But if we can be helpful in some way. But here's the deal, this doesn't make me either the hero or the victim. It just makes me a participant. And so I think it's participation that we're called to, not success, not acknowledgement, not fans. It's participation. So for each person listening to say,
"Hey, what's my participation? What's my in on this?" And maybe it's monetary, maybe it's something way more important. Which is your passion and your desires. Like find this thing and get your food truck, and pretty soon you'll find out about chickens and you'll go in this direction.
Bob Goff:
I've just finished planning a vineyard, you guys have been along on the adventure.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
Because I've been planning a vineyard for a guy who doesn't drink wine, which cracks me up.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
Yeah just a grape picker. I just think it's beautiful. And so I just think there's something really neat about making beautiful things and I'm happy to ferment it for somebody else. But it doesn't need to be all about me, I would just know that people were going to experience some joy and I get some pretty green leaves out of it. And sounds like a fair deal.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah, tell us a little bit more about how the vineyard and the horse track and all of that evolved out of COVID at the Oaks, the beautiful retreat space in Southern California called the Oaks.
Bob Goff:
Yeah. So we just, we bought an old junior high school camp and fixed it up. And then when COVID happened, it was empty. And so we looked across the valley and we saw a big like field and a beat up barn and in a horse racing track of all the things. And then I had been... Have the two of you been on horses, like when you were growing up.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah. They're difficult for me.
Maggie Miller:
A little bit.
Bob Goff:
Yeah. So I was learning. I don't recall ever having been on one, but we got the field, we got the barn and we got the track and now we train other people's horses, horses I couldn't afford, but feed them hay and hope they don't die, but these are race horses. They go to all these tracks and we've got some trainers and jockeys. And the only reason I got it is because we were losing so much money having an empty camp, but we're making bank on the race horses, just like just storing them and making sure that they get exercise every day. So what I think in the business world, this is that idea of adjacency, like find things that are adjacent to you. If the camp isn't working, if your business isn't working, say what's adjacent. If you've got a food truck, what's adjacent? Chickens. If you got a camp what's adjacent? Horses. What's in between you and the horses, big field, what's a big field? Vineyard.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
So just like got one thing. It didn't seem like it's working. I went with something adjacent. And then as we all do in the curve of things, you say like, well, what's in between me and that is just like, kind of what's in between me and the guy with the bat. There's this screen, there was this problem. It was an economic problem. And we just tried it that's the business world. You're just trying to finesse the problem. And if it doesn't work and the grapes all die, that doesn't mean I'm a failure. It just means I'm not a very good wine maker [inaudible 00:06:19 wine]
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
I can't keep a cactus alive. I don't know how I can keep enough grapes to produce 50,000 bottles of wine. It's no small vineyard. [inaudible 00:06:30] But I think an overlying idea for all of us is to fail trying; don't fail watching. And so I know you two feel that way. Like just say like listen, I just, I'm going to try a couple things. If those don't work, I'll try a couple more things.
Maggie Miller:
It makes me think of some advice that you gave us once Bob, about, when you want to try and try something new in your business, or you want to try a new impact project, think about what the revenue stream could be to offset the investment that you might work, make trying this new thing.
Bob Goff:
Yes.
Maggie Miller:
And I thought that was a really interesting way to think about it. Can you just talk a little bit more about that concept?
Bob Goff:
Yes. Just thinking of what might be possible and would the effort be worth it? So I'm big on starting a school of nine. I would have started with more, but to prove the concept, there's a great verse in the old Testament, it's called a Zachariah and it says don't despise small beginnings because the Lord loves watching the work began. So I think to start with something, even if it's nine kids and to say, can we get one trustworthy teacher? We are 21 years later, that's still teacher still working for us. And to say, can we pilot this? I wouldn't necessarily start with 85,000 chickens, but if that's what it comes with and if it works, then maybe we'll do another one. We'll just see what's adjacent. So I would, I'm a fan of just starting something, piloting it. And then you're going to get getting that pig through the snake. You're going to hit every bend, but to just say, I know these things and some things will work in some won't.
Bob Goff:
I decided since we have a school in India, we would raise money by selling tea. Doesn't that just sound like such a smart idea from India. So I had 10,000 boxes of tea, a box, and it had the name of the nonprofit and all that. And it shipped over here and I got a call from customs. You need to have a sticker on each box that says made in India. Like no!
Bob Goff:
So I was literally sitting at customs all alone with 10,000 stickers, putting one..
Maggie Miller:
Sticker.
Bob Goff:
Sticker on every box. Now that was not my best moment, but it was a beautiful moment. I found where the bend in the snake was.
Maggie Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bob Goff:
Next time, put it on the box.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
Have you done you look at a box of tea now and it says made in wherever you'll go like that saved a guy or a gal down there putting stickers on. So I just say, this is the tuition that we pay for life that is of meaning and purpose and engaged. And the tuition will be, there'll be times that are wonderfully inefficient,
Maggie Miller:
Positivity, joy are such hallmarks of your career. And that had to have been challenged during the isolation and struggles of the pandemic. I'd love to hear more about how you managed to keep your positive outlook, maintain your focus and keep your optimism during this last year.
Bob Goff:
Well, this is what we all get this. I don't know if it's good or bad news for everybody, but on average, 27,373 days more, if you broccoli less if you eat Pop-Tarts so like, that's what you got. So I'm just not going to spend a whole bunch of them wrapped around the axle. I'm not going to spend a lot of time figuring out what color hat somebody's wearing or who they're for and who they're against and, whatever the social issue of the day is. I'm just not spend a lot of time on that. I want to live an un-distracted life. I want to find some things that are worth me throwing a lot of energy into it. And I think that's where the positivity comes. I think it'd be a really kind of morbid sad thought, but like, there's going to be someday. I end up in a jar on somebody's mantle. I'm probably sold at a garage sale, be in somebody else's mantle
Hannah Nokes:
Or turn you into a diamond and stuff.
Bob Goff:
Yeah who know, but what I wanted to do is leave a little evidence behind that I was here. And so I decided I'd write some books for somebody else so leave some beautiful legacy and their friends and family and all that. And I hope to leave a little of that as well. But I think having a clear context of the limited period of time that you have, and then to say, I'm just, I want to spend it joyful, I want to spend it more like the roller coaster that it makes lots of twists and turns. But like sitting on one of these like kind of broken down, tired, carnival ponies, that just going around like that. That isn't how I'm going to spend the limited number of time.
Bob Goff:
There's a scene in A Bug's Life. I have a friend who was the gal that made that movie for Pixar and we used to be roommates. And then she went on to this really magnificent creative career. And there's a scene where one of the flies, black flies into the circus tent and he says, I only have one day to live and ain't spending it here.
Hannah Nokes:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yeah.
Bob Goff:
And there actually 2,500 one day insects. Did you know that there's 2,500 insects that only live a day and we live a little bit longer than that, but it still feels like a day on reflection. So I just want to fill it, fill with joy.
Maggie Miller:
Obviously you're modeling that joy for the people that work with you and for you, but how did you manage to keep your teams focused and positive, particularly during the early days of COVID?
Bob Goff:
Yeah, I'm not sure. I did such a great job of that. Maybe for some people they felt like I did and others, they felt like I didn't, but I think clarity what we had people do. If you were a teacher, you'd have a lesson plan, you'd say, this is what we're learning in reading. This is the exercise we're going to do. These are our goals. This is the book we're going to read or the chapter in the book, it would get right down to the specifics. It wouldn't just say lesson plan. Wouldn't be like, learn a lot today. Then it would go to math and then it would go to another subject. And so what I had our team do is say on Mondays, this is what we plan to do. And then on Friday, say, this is what we got done. And there's a lot of chatter in between, but I want people to have clarity.
Bob Goff:
I want people to have clarity in their life. If your lesson plan for life just says, be happy. Like that's great. I mean, sign me up for that. But to say, what does happy look like? So what does a productive week look like for a team? So just laying those out and then not [inaudible 00:13:23] people when they didn't hit that, it isn't like, well, let me aim low on Monday so on Friday I can say nailed it. I'd say let's aim high on Monday, and on Friday we can say, what can we refocus on? So I would say if there's people that you want to meet, things that you want to accomplish, calls that you want to make, I bet See's Candy knows how many candies they want coming out today. They said like, I don't think they just say, well, you know, whatever comes out, it'd be like, no, no, no, this is macaroons.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
I like, this is what we're doing today. So I want the people working with me and I expect this of myself to give some clarity. This is what we're shooting for this week.
Hannah Nokes:
Thinking about your latest book, Dream Big. You talk about big goals and I know one of your own goal is to be an awesome grandpa. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing to accomplish that goal.
Bob Goff:
Yeah. What I'm trying to do is be an awesome grandpa and just think what would make an awesome grandpa, like pretty much availability. I mean, I could have a cabbage and my grandson would be stoked. He'd just say, look at this thing.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
So awesome grandpa doesn't necessarily mean a trip to Tahiti, but it doesn't not mean a trip to Tahiti. I just, but just a realization of the part that he's going to remember at two and a half years old, I think the cabbage will do. And then...
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah.
Bob Goff:
Well, we'll upgrade later to some other things. So knowing...
Maggie Miller:
Upgrade to hot air balloon someday,
Bob Goff:
Yes, exactly. Something like one or two lessons away from having my hot air balloon license. So but you can have think of things as small, medium and large, so what are the small things like a cabbage, what's a medium thing. What's the large thing. And then just spend a little time on each.
Maggie Miller:
Well Bob, it's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast and we hope you enjoyed it.
Bob Goff:
Hey, thanks you guys. Well I appreciate the time to get on and talk and dream a little bit. I'm glad you guys have your book. I just think you have a important message. You guys are like Paul Revere, you've got an important message and you got to find a fast tours. And so if you're listening, grab the book, write down some of your own ideas and say, why am I doing what I'm doing? What is there? Where do I want to be? What do I want to be remembered for a hundred years from now? If there's some things that pinged you in the course of this conversation, write them down, hover over those. Instead of just getting busy with the next thing, hover over him a bit and to say, okay, this my next courageous move.
Hannah Nokes:
Absolutely Bob. So if people want to get ahold of you or follow you on social, how do they find you?
Bob Goff:
I'm easy enough to find just like Google the word, Bob. That'll show up. I get to try that someday. It just say Google, if you Google Bob, will he show up? But yeah, I've just got a bunch of things that are out there on different platforms that start with Bob, bobgoff.com
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah Bob Goff.
Bob Goff:
All those things.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah. @bobgoff G-O-F-F on social and LinkedIn. So you're definitely worth following you inspire us on a daily basis. So thank you so much for being a mentor and a friend and leading so many people into inspiration and learning to love fully in their lives.
Bob Goff:
Oh, you're so kind. Thanks a million.
Maggie Miller:
Thank you, Bob.
Hannah Nokes:
Thanks again, Bob. And that's it for this episode of magnify your impact. If you enjoy the show, make sure you take a second to subscribe so you can automatically get our new shows when they drop. Also, if you have a minute, we'd love if you'd leave us a review so others can discover the show.
Maggie Miller:
Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact, a production of Forbes Books. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnify-impact.com.
