Bryan McAnulty 0:00

Welcome to the creators adventure where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. My name is Brian McAnulty. I'm the founder of heights platform. And today I'm talking with Jeff Hegyi. About how to set goals effectively to reach success, and how to manage and balance time for your business, your family, hobbies and other areas of life.

Hey, everyone, we're here today with Jeff Hegyi. He is an entrepreneur, mortgage lender and success coach with a passion for helping others achieve their biggest dreams. As a coach, Jeff teaches people to become optimal performing entrepreneurs. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Heggie 0:48

Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.

Bryan McAnulty 0:51

So my first question for you is if you could tell us a little bit about what you do. How you got started with your online business. We noticed actually that you were a professional rodeo cowboy. So how did you shift your career into business coaching?

Jeff Heggie 1:07

You bet. So I guess if I go back aways I originally, when I graduated from college, I had a major in entrepreneurship. I knew I wanted to be my own boss, that sort of thing. I had been working at a bank while I was going to school. And they offered me a really fantastic job opportunity. When I graduated, I turned it down because I was a professional rodeo cowboy. And that's really what I wanted to do at the time. And so I hit the trail, I was roadie on I had been rodeo on for a number of years. And I continued to Rodeo for a number of years. But after a while, you know, as a newlywed, we had a family on the way. But maybe I should also go back and look at the banking opportunity. So I went back there and got into the banking industry and actually loved it.

I climbed the ladder really quick, pretty soon I I was a managing my own branch. And I worked with on the commercial side, I worked with all the entrepreneurs and business owners. And one day I was sitting in one of my clients offices, and they had a manufactured stone catalogue on their desk, the artificial stone that you put on houses. And he was a home builder. And I thought you know what I could figure that out. And so I quit the bank and created a company where we made rocks, we made artificial stone that we put on houses and fireplaces and whatnot. I was living in Canada at the time. So we opened a factory there, then I opened another factory in Utah and we ran that company from 2005 until just during the pandemic, we ended up shutting it down. But during that time,

I was into real estate as into a lot of different things that I had a lot of opportunities to coach and mentor people along the way. And coaching was something that I really loved. And so the last few years while I still running that company, I started getting into more of the coaching, doing some certifications and whatnot. And it just was a really good transition, I was doing quite a bit of coaching when I had to shut that company down. And I just made the transition that I started to do doing the coaching full time. And it's been really rewarding love, love the entrepreneurs and the business owners that I work with. And it's, it's just been really cool opportunity.

Bryan McAnulty 3:16

Awesome. So we noticed that right now you have all these different product offerings, you have coaching sessions, online courses, a mastermind and a book, not sure if we're missing anything even besides that, but which one of these products would you say is like your main focus or drives the most revenue for you now.

Jeff Heggie 3:35

You know, a lot of them, I combine a lot of them. But probably the majority of my focus is with my, my clients that I work with one on one, they're most of them are part of a one on one programme that I work with them. But then they also go through my courses. They also part of my group coaching, a number of them are in my mastermind groups. But the number one focus is the one on one coaching, working with them. And I guess to combine that with the group coaching because it's a opportunity for those that might not quite be at the level that they are ready to hire a coach one on one, but they still need the coaching, they can come into the group setting and really take advantage of that as well.

Bryan McAnulty 4:21

Got it. So would you say the the coaching part, then I'm guessing is what you enjoy the most as well. I love your business.

Jeff Heggie 4:29

It is I mean, it's even going I mean, the experience of running my own businesses for the past 20 something years.

I screwed up a lot. I did a lot of things, right. And so it's a real good opportunity to sit down with other entrepreneurs, see what they're doing. Advise them on things that they could do differently, how to avoid some of the pitfalls that I had, how to have some of the successes I had and whatnot but the the coaching with the entrepreneurs I mean it's even goon all the way back to when I was in the banking industry, the opportunity to sit down with entrepreneurs and see how they ran their businesses, and at that time, it was advising them on financial aspect. But really digging into the companies is really what I love and seeing how they're operating, figuring out how to we're going to help make them grow and be more successful. And that's really what I'm doing now. Cool. Yeah, I like that. I think it's good to mention too, because I feel that a lot of creators nowadays worth all these options. And like, with even yourself all these things, you could offer the courses, coaching, downloadable products, all kinds of things. I don't think there's like a right or wrong answer, it depends on what you really enjoy, and what kind of service you want to provide. And for some creators, they're going to enjoy reading the online course more. For others, they want to have those like one on one breakthrough moments, as a coach with someone. And for other still, they might prefer to have some kind of like membership or a community offering.

Bryan McAnulty 6:03

So I think it's nice to mention that and touch on the idea that for you, the coaching is is your main focus and your main goal.

Jeff Heggie 6:13

Yeah, it really is, because it allows me to really get personal with that individual and figure out how we're going to make that company grow. But and the other part, you know, in the beginning, in the introduction, one of the things you'd said is I teach people to be optimal performing entrepreneurs. And what that means to me is, when I work with someone, we work on more than just their business, because

from my experience, you can create a wildly successful business. But then if your family life, if your health if all these other things are failing at the same time, are you really successful. And so to me, an optimal performing entrepreneur is someone that can round it out. I mean, it's not saying you've got balance in all the different areas, but you've got success in all the areas, you know, your, your family, life's good, your spiritual, life's good, your physical life is good, all of those things. And I think you find a lot more satisfaction and success when you look at all of them in one package.

Bryan McAnulty 7:16

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's, that's really my philosophy as well, that, um, I rather I rather be more balanced than just be the most successful. Because I think it's important to, to enjoy yourself to be healthy, and have a great family life, all of that. Not only strong in business, or something like that. So I liked that idea.

Jeff Heggie 7:40

Yeah, so I think there's a lot of importance to that to really feel successful, you've got to be able to do that. Because, like I said, you can have a wildly successful business, but then when you walk away from it, if you feel like your world is falling apart, you're really not that successful. Yeah, exactly.

Bryan McAnulty 7:59

So who are the kinds of people that come looking for you need a business coach? And what kind of problem? Are you typically helping them solve? I think you kind of just touched on that a little bit. But could you expand on that?

Jeff Heggie 8:12

Yeah, it's, it's really been interesting, the people I get to work with, you know, I do work with some medium sized businesses, but most of them are smaller business, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, that are really looking to grow themselves and their business and take it to the next level. And, you know, a specific industry. There's not I work with people in a lot of different industries. I work with a lady that owns a septic company, I work with a lady that owns a treehouse campground, I work with a lot of marketers, manufacturers, a lot of different industries that I work with people. But it all comes down to the same things is what are the things that you need to incorporate into your business? To help it grow? And really, there's not a lot of difference? There can be very different industries. But how do you create more leads? How do you create better conversions? How do you increase profits, all of those things? It all comes down to the same bread and butter.

Bryan McAnulty 9:13

Yeah. Is it usually like, are the answers and kind of guidance that you give? Is that usually more process driven? Or like mindset driven? Or both? Maybe?

Jeff Heggie 9:23

You know, that's an interesting question, because that is something I've spent a lot of time the last couple years working on his mindset coaching, because a lot of it is mindset. There's definitely processes that need to be involved. And, you know, in one of my group coaching sessions last night, we really focused on some of the process stuff. But I've had an opportunity once I started focusing more and more on the mindset part of it. I had an opportunity to get to know Ryan Gottfredson, who is the author of success mindset. And so I've been working with him and he's created some Coaching systems to help identify different mindsets. And then also, he's helped train me on figuring out how those mindsets drive you in different areas of your life. And it's been really powerful to see how we can make some changes in some different areas to completely flip a mindset and make someone be more successful because of it.

Bryan McAnulty 10:24

Awesome. I'm curious. So you're mentioning it sounds like multiple areas? Like it's not just one thing. So what would be an example of like, a distinction between a different area? Explain a little more. So like, you mentioned that like, it's, it's not just like your overall mindset? Or is it about something specific, like related to specifically like, the earning or potential of a business? Or, like, is there these actually the specific details of getting into it?

Jeff Heggie 10:52

Well, there's a lot of things, you know, just looking at, say, a growth in a fixed mindset. You know, there's things we can do with a fixed mindset, you're afraid of failure, you know, if you fail, you consider yourself a failure. And you don't look at it as a growth opportunity and a learning opportunity. But there's things we can do to help you to develop more of a growth mindset. And a lot of times, when you look at different things, such as an open or a closed mindset, people with a closed mind that don't know they have a closed mindset, and so that until they can go through the system to really start recognising some of those things. And so I mean, it comes from, and you know, as entrepreneurs, no one, no one likes to fail, no one likes failure. But you've got to accept that as part of entrepreneurship, but it's going to happen at times. And you've got to be able to learn from it and grow from it. And so, you know, there's a lot of different ways that how we look at things is your mindsets drive your thinking and behaviour, your thinking and behaviour are going to drive your success and work life and leadership. And normally what people do with personal development, they look at your thinking and behaviour and say, Okay, how do we fix this to be more successful. But if you don't look at the underlying mindsets that drive that thinking and behaviour, you eventually just keep coming back to the original. And so when you can start lead with fixing your mindset, then your thinking and behaviours improve, and then you can have more success in your work life and leadership.

Bryan McAnulty 12:35

Yep, yeah, that makes sense.

On your website, we mentioned or we noticed that you mentioned we talked about setting goals to guide you to success. So can you explain a little bit more about this?

Jeff Heggie 12:47

Yeah, absolutely. I think goal setting. I mean, everyone talks about it, everyone does it at times. But I've really tried to focus on how are some ways we can focus on creating goal setting that is going to last that you're not going to set your New Year's resolutions, and come February, you've already blown them, and you've given up on them. And so I've got some systems where I help people go through this and create their goals. But a big part of it is a system that I learned from someone else called seven levels deep to really figure out your why behind each goal, your real purpose, and it's usually a lot deeper and different than what people think when they first set their goals. And once you can do that, then you've got something that's going to help you stick to that and a real driver to keep you motivated. You know, because there's always going to be these, you don't even want to get out of bed. Nevermind, focus on trying to achieve a goal. But when you've got a real purpose, and why behind that, that can help you do that. And then a big part of it, too, is implementing success habits into your life, and creating the routines that are going to help you do those things. And understanding where you need some flexibility so that you can keep on keep with the routines. And you know, to me, it really comes down to the habits you create around them.

Bryan McAnulty 14:20

Cool. So do you also practice this goal setting for personal or business milestones? And, and if so, like, what's an example of like a why for one of your goals?

Jeff Heggie 14:32

Yeah, absolutely.

So with an eye on, can I can I share a website with you as well? Yeah, sure. So if your listeners want to go to Jeff hayy.com/peak performance, you can get one of my trainings where I talk about going through the whole goal setting process understanding your why. But yeah, for myself, I definitely do this and one

Other things I do in that is future pacing, where you look at where you want to be a year from now, or whatever that timeframe is. Figure out where you want to be at that time and set that as your goal and then go through a process of saying, Okay, if that's where I want to be in a year, what does that look like month to month? What do I have to achieve month to month to get there, and then even break it down? And all the way back to weekly and daily? And, you know, we have accountability groups that I run, that that's what they do, they look at their big goal, and then they look okay, what's the monthly outcome I need for this month. And every day, we get on a call, it's only a 10 minute call. And everyone goes through and says, This is what my Y is, this is what my goal for the month is. My accountability yesterday was this, I got it done today. It's this. And that's a big part of goal setting. And I think is the accountability part. And getting someone that you can work with, it's going to hold you accountable to what you say you're going to do. And so for myself, I've gone through, I go through the future pacing quite regularly, just to make sure that my goals are in line with what I want to be doing. And then part of my routine, I have a morning routine and a night routine. And one of the things I do is what I call my mindset questions, and they're kind of just there to help me prime myself for the day. And you know, for example, one of them is just what are you grateful for today. Another one is, what are you going to do today, that's going to force you to step outside of your comfort zone, because you think of some time you've stepped outside of your comfort zone, the next time you go do that thing. It's not quite as uncomfortable. And so if you're looking for opportunities to step out of your comfort zone every day, your confidence is getting bigger and bigger, your comfort zone is getting bigger and bigger. And then another part of that after I do my mindset questions is I write out my top five goals every morning. And the reason for that is one just to keep them in mind. But our reticular activating system, your RAs, that's the filter in your brain that tells you here's your consciousness, what's important, what's not important. It's what makes it that you don't feel the blood pumping through your ear right now, because it's not important. You know, when we moved from Canada to Arizona, I bought my daughter a new car, we bought her this little spider Mitsubishi convertible, I'd never seen one before. But also we bought this car, and I started seeing this car everywhere. Well, it's not that that car wasn't always there. It was just all sudden, this car is important to me. And so when you are writing out your goals every day, your RAS is saying, hey, these things are important. How are we going to answer this? How are we going to find a solution so we can do this. And so I think that's a big part of why you need to be writing them out every day is because it helps bring your RAS into activation help you find ways to achieve them. And, and then at the end of the day, it's a similar thing, I looked at what or I have a set of questions I go through I go through and review what I have going on tomorrow and kind of push on to the next day when I you asked about what my why one of my main why's is to create opportunities for my family and help them to understand that they have choices. And so what I mean by that is, I want them to see through me that they have opportunities throughout the life. And they can put themselves in a position where they're in control of their life. They have choices on what they're going to do, how they're going to do it and when they're going to do it. That's my, my major why it's awesome. Yeah, I think that's great. And I think the the practice and everything that you're mentioning is really good, too. And I would encourage those who are listening who are thinking that like oh, maybe like maybe I don't really need to do that. And maybe that's not really helpful.

Bryan McAnulty 19:06

To be honest, I think maybe I should do it a little bit more myself. But I can see how it is helpful. Because otherwise, like if you wake up every day, like your brain naturally wants to just follow that same pattern and do what you did yesterday. And so if you want to make sure that you're going to actually grow, you need to set yourself up for that and then train yourself into that process of growth.

Jeff Heggie 19:32

Absolutely. You know, I, most of my clients go through my mindset questions every day. And it's interesting to watch the ones that are diligent with it, that they'll answer every one every day and email it to me and the ones that start with it and don't let it become a habit. And pretty soon they're just not doing it. And the ones that stick with it and create that habit. The progress you see them grow So much quicker.

Bryan McAnulty 20:03

Interesting.

So aside from being a business coach, we see that you're also Arizona mortgage loan officer. Why did you decide to start this career path as well?

Jeff Heggie 20:16

Well, it kind of reflected back on my original days in the banking industry. And it was an opportunity, a friend of mine owned a branch of a mortgage company. And he asked me if I wanted to join forces with him. And so it gave me the opportunity to get back into that industry and use my network to kind of just start being in the industry again. And, you know, one of the good things is it's been another great networking opportunity.

It's definitely hasn't. It's not as big as the coaching side. But it's, I've always loved the banking industry. And so it's just a good part to good thing to be a part of.

Bryan McAnulty 21:00

Cool. Yeah, I think it's, it's interesting and a great reminder for creators that, like if you're running this coaching business, or a course business, something like that, it doesn't have to be the only thing you do. If you have other passions, like you can still pursue those as well. So that's interesting. On top of managing all these businesses, you have a family you have hobbies, how do you manage your time to fit all that in?

Jeff Heggie 21:27

You know, I mean, I guess part of that goes back to, I've also been a basketball coach for the last 20 years, which was a good opportunity, because most of that time was coaching my own kids, I had an opportunity, I started coaching my daughter when she was young, and I had an opportunity to coach her all the way through her senior year. That's also created a situation during the pandemic, I started a programme called the confident athlete programme, because I was seeing a lot of kids that were dealing with a lot of mental struggles related to their sports. And so in that programme, we work on mindset and confidence and all those sorts of things. But I think the biggest part about trying to fit all these things in is no one the priority. You know, it's it's never balanced. But the focus is that when, when I'm doing one of them, say it's the dad part, that's what I'm focused on. I'm 100% there. And when I'm doing the coaching part, I'm 100% there. And I think that's really the thing you need to try doing rather than trying to multitask on all of them, and not do very well at any of them to really when your whatever one you're focused on at the time, give it 100%.

Bryan McAnulty 22:50

Right, yeah, I like that.

I think that's good advice. I have a new baby daughter myself. So I'm learning to add that into the equation of everything. And I feel like I like to follow the same practice that when I'm doing that thing, it's 100%. For that thing, giving into the tension. I'm finding for myself that having a strict schedule for these things really helps it for you. Is that similar Do you like really schedule out all of that? Or does it kind of more of just flow?

Jeff Heggie 23:23

Yeah. I mean, it definitely needs to be planned out. And that's why my evening. You know, mindset questions and stuff are important because it has me figuring out, okay, here's what I have tomorrow. Here's how I need to prioritise things and look at it that way. And one of the things I really like to do is block my time and say, Okay, from seven to eight, I'm doing this eight tonight, I'm doing this and really block that time and try sticking with that. But the thing that I've really found with that is, you've got to create some flexibility in that too. You know, I was working with a client.

He was a home builder. And I talked to him about the time blocking and how to do that. But he was very, he felt like he failed his day, like seven days, I'm doing this eight to nine and doing this and he had his day, right blocked really well. Productivity wise, he was killing it. But he was also the leader of a team. And when people needed him, he was never available because he had blocked every second of his time. And he had he hadn't built any flexibility into that or any free time. And so it really wasn't helping them how it needed to. And once he started creating some more flexibility into it and some free time, then he could be more productive by doing that, but also still be able to be the leader of his team.

Bryan McAnulty 24:51

Awesome. Yeah, I think that's great advice.

I feel I think I'm kind of in that mode right now.

Now where there's certain things where there's maybe a set time for it, but other things, there's got to be flexibility with it otherwise, yeah, what you're saying can happen. So yeah, I like that.

Can you share some tips for our audience on how they can better balance their time, or grow an online business while also juggling family life and hobbies, things like that?

Jeff Heggie 25:24

You know, I think being intentional is a big part of it, and no one knows what your, what your outcome is that you're looking for. And when you do that, like I said, in the goal setting is reverse engineering and saying, Okay, this is what I've got to do. And then figure out a way to hold yourself accountable, whether it's a coach or a mentor, or an accountability group, figure out a way to be held accountable to that. And then commit to the things that you need to commit to that, when I'm, when I'm working, I'm working, these are what I'm focused on. And that's why you need to understand what your y is, too, because it's very easy to get distracted. But if your Y is something that's always in the forefront of your mind, and I'll send you catch yourself scrolling through, like, hey, this isn't why I'm running this business. And you can even kind of get back in there. But I think it's really knowing what your priorities are, why you're doing what you're doing. And work from the goal, you know, don't always you know, my friend, Richie Norton has a new book coming out in August, called anti time management. And that's one of the things that he teaches is, you don't always have to be working towards that goal, that someday you're going to be able to achieve something, figure out how you can make it part of today and build your work around that. So, you know, as a young entrepreneur, it's not, I'm going to work so hard that when I'm 65, I'll have time with my family. Well, all your kids are gonna be out of the house by then. And that's, you know, I talked about with my wife choices. I, I've structured my life that I've been able to coach, my kids in their sports, I've been able to go into the band concerts, I've been able to do all those things, because that's what I value. And that's what I wanted to structure my life around.

Bryan McAnulty 27:22

Yeah, yeah, I like that. And I think the the idea of the accountability is really important, I think, especially for someone just starting out. And if you feel you're struggling with that, I think like a coach or someone like yourself can be really useful. As you grow, I feel like it gets easier not only from your own practice with that, but you have, you'll eventually have more things keeping you accountable in some way, which could be like your team, it could be your family, it could be that everything is going to pull you in different directions eventually. But especially starting out, I think it's helpful for people to have somebody to be there alongside them and give them that accountability.

Jeff Heggie 28:04

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is such a key. In fact, you can find out more of it at Jeff at.com/accountability. But we've been doing that and the change we see in people on just focusing on their accountability has been remarkable. And at the end of May, we took a few days off just because of some things that were happening. And when we started up the next Monday, everyone was like, I never realised how much I was going to miss having an accountability call every single day. Because it just, you know, we got out of sync. And so yeah, it's something when you start holding yourself accountable and seeing the results from doing it. It's pretty powerful.

Bryan McAnulty 28:48

Awesome. So with the show, we'd like to ask each of our guests, if they have any questions for our audience. Or if you could ask anything to our audience, what would you ask them?

Jeff Heggie 29:02

You know, I think I asked them. It's a two part question. What are your business goals? And as you look at that business goal, one of the things that I really see with a lot of people is they'll say, Okay, I've got this goal in my business that in five years, I'm going to be here. Well look at your business goal. And if it's five years out, what do you need to do to do it in six months or one year? How can you accelerate that increase emergency around?

Bryan McAnulty 29:34

Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's really good question. I find that that kind of like introspection has been really helpful to me in business as well. Because it forces you to think in like, well, what actually has to happen then, if I'm going to accomplish that? And otherwise, you might not think it's more of just like, oh, well, I would like this to happen. But you're not thinking about what are the steps that are required for that? Yeah, and you

Jeff Heggie 30:00

Another big part of that is and Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan have a great book on this who not how, you know, as entrepreneurs, we're always looking at, okay, if I'm going to do this, how am I going to do it? Start looking at who do I need to get to do this with me? So I can accomplish that?