Finding the Real Why That Drives Your Success
Dave Wood didn’t start marketing online with a mission. He started because he was homeless, broke, and sleeping in a beat-up nineteen-nineties Dodge Caravan. In this episode he walks through the exact exercise that took him from a survival-level reason to keep going to the real one that actually multiplied his income, then lays out the five-step cycle of vision, goals, game planning, working, and counsel that every person who sustains success ends up running on repeat. Here’s the episode.
Carl Sandburg said it like this: nothing happens without first a dream. It may sound ridiculous, but the problem most people building businesses online have is they don’t really have a strong enough reason why they’re doing it right now. They have no compelling, in-this-moment dream. When you aim at nothing, you hit it every single time.
The first step to building a profitable business online, or doing just about anything powerful, is having a strong reason why that connects to the core of who you really are. Before you can start succeeding at anything, you need to be totally motivated and totally focused, and motivation comes from knowing why you’re doing something. Knowing why, really knowing why, is more important than even knowing how or knowing what it is you’re doing, because a strong internal why provides an unlimited amount of motivation to figure out the how and take massive, focused action every day.
Back when I started marketing online, it was all about me. My main reason for marketing was to cure my homelessness, my financial desperation, the bad situations in my life, to be able to eat the things I wanted to eat and provide for myself. And you know what? My burning desire worked. I went from homeless, living in a beat-up nineteen-nineties Dodge Caravan, broke, to having a twelve thousand dollar night within ninety days, and I’ve since created a movement that’s reached around the world. Let me show you what actually happened.
The Night in the Van That Started Everything
It was 2009, and I remember living in that van. I was eating canned beans, sleeping in my van on public beaches, and here’s what happened. One night I was asleep in the van, and I woke up to a sound like a smack on my window, and I looked up and there was a light in my eyes, much like these studio lights right here, and it was a police officer writing me a ticket for my last thirty-five bucks. There was a time when I hit so low that I just had to change. I reached down inside myself and found a new source of motivation to escape and make my life better, and it worked.
So here’s my question: was self-centered escape motivation enough? For a short period, yes. I started getting massive traction, increasing results everywhere, because I needed to. I set an outcome to achieve results within ninety days of getting started online. But after I covered my own needs, it stopped being so effective. It didn’t expand anymore. I wasn’t motivated to earn more money because I already had everything I needed. I had no real reason. I didn’t want a Ferrari. I didn’t want a bigger home. It wasn’t until I discovered my true why, my inside reason, that my dream skyrocketed my income and I started living my purpose and transforming the lives of others.
What Separates a Wish From a Real Dream
Your why is your dream, and it’s rooted in who you are. Dreams are an idea of creating something better in the future, a clear vision, something you’re going to step into. Some people let their dreams fade away, but the people who really succeed nourish and protect them until those dreams become the reality of their experience right now, and then they set an even bigger dream for the next chapter. A dream doesn’t have to be massive to work. It doesn’t have to transform the lives of millions of people or leave a dent in world history. A dream can be a real desire to serve other people through any kind of medium.
Dreams are not fantasies. They’re not wishes. Dreams are burning desires that inspire the dreamer to take action even when it doesn’t make sense. Dreams can be a mission, and once you find it, it demands you to take action. That’s the power of a real dream. They’re like flags placed in the future. What’s the famous line we all remember every time we think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? He said, I have a dream. There are several levels to dreaming power, and each one takes you to another level. A selfish dream, like owning a Ferrari in the next year, is fine, and it can drive you with motivation for a time, but that’s merely a surface-level, material dream, something that benefits you alone. Few people transcend that level to the area of significance in their life, but you need to, in order to take things to a new level and live a life filled with purpose. Larger dreams have more to do with personal destiny, with identity, with why you exist as a human being. These are the dreams that feed the soul, dominate your thoughts, and fuel your ambition. Your dream is the biggest lever in your life. It provides more leverage for taking massive action than anything else you could do.
So I want you to follow a short exercise with me, one that will help you get to the bottom of what you really want in your life. This is how I actually got to the bottom of what I really wanted and why I’m here. Ask yourself right now, and take fifteen or twenty minutes to write down real answers. First question: what do you want, and why do you want it in your life? It could be a car, a new home, quitting your job, giving a better life to your family, anything on the surface of your mind. Next question: when you have that thing, what will having it or accomplishing that outcome get you in your life that you don’t have already? Write that down, all the way until you run into a blank. Then ask again: when you have what you just wrote down, what will that give you that you don’t have right now? Keep asking the question and writing down the answer until you go deep down into your unconscious mind, into the silence inside, because that’s where you’re going to find your power.
Let me tell you a quick story about this. It happened in 2013. We were in a room with leaders, and my brother William Wood, who helps develop products here with us, was training some of them and walked the whole room through this exact exercise. When people find the real motivation driving them from the inside, something inside of them shifts. It’s like a light goes off in their eye. Keep asking the question, embracing the silence, going deep into your unconscious, and when you finally hit what that thing will give you that you don’t have right now, that’s the power of a real why, your real motivation inside. My why is my purpose, which is transformation. Do this properly and you’ll come up with your ultimate why, and when you do, use it to fuel your ambition and your motivation to take massive action.
The Five-Step Cycle Every Achiever Runs
When you identify your true motivation, you step into the cycle of achievement, the cycle every great leader and achiever goes through to create impact in their field. It roots with vision. Once you find your why, your vision becomes clearer than ever, because vision always comes from why. Vision is dreaming of a better future, seeing something, envisioning it today, dreaming up a better version of tomorrow. It can be small or it can be large enough to encompass thousands, or millions, of other people. A unified vision is inexplicably more powerful than a single vision held by one person alone, which is why we’ve been able to create so much in such a short time with Empower Network: one unified vision, four hundred thousand people.
Number two is goal setting. Setting goals is easy, yet few people do it in a way that creates powerful, transformational results. Your goal should be set in stone, rock solid, immovable, and it shouldn’t change until you’ve achieved it. The only way to make sure of that is to get really clear on what you want, and why you want it, before you go. Your goals should be specific, written on paper, measurable, realistic, and motivational all at the same time.
Number three is game planning, the step after goal setting. A game plan is how you’re actually going to achieve your goal, what action steps you’re going to take. Get clear, and you’ll create results that match the power of your clarity. But game plans shouldn’t be set in stone, they should be set in sand. They need to stay flexible while moving toward your goal, and you need to know when to stop doing what isn’t working and change course. If a traffic strategy stops converting, or a marketing funnel isn’t generating leads the way it should, stop it and adjust that part of the plan. You can’t be hard-headed about your method of getting there.
Number four is working, actually doing something. It isn’t like the movie The Secret, where you imagine a Ferrari and it drives itself into your driveway. The most powerful way to get other people to join your vision is to lead by example, and if you’re building something others can join, you need to cast that vision out, speak it into the world. In network marketing, this means casting a vision of a better, more abundant place to live, building an organization, and inspiring others to unify their vision with yours. Before you start working, create a list of the resources available to you and figure out how to best use them to build your action plan. Learn to delegate, operate productively, and above all, be consistent. If you’re not consistent, you won’t create results.
Number five is seeking counsel from mentors who already have what you want. The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you’re smarter than everyone else. None of us are better at everything than the people around us. We might be better at one thing, but worse at plenty of others, so not listening to people who are already where you want to be isn’t wise. Ask for help, and you’ll get it eventually if you keep asking. Always revise your strategy based on the numbers, look at what’s working every day, and adjust.
That, my friend, is the cycle of achievement, and it works every single time because the entire thing is based on clarity and consistency.
Full episode transcript
Lightly edited from the original recording — fillers removed, nothing added. Income disclaimer.
Welcome to The Daily Shortcut. My name is Dave Wood, of course, and I've been thinking about those of you who are struggling right now. As I watch people in the community I care about run around in circles wondering why they're not getting the results that they want, I always observe them in total fascination. Carl Sandburg said this, nothing happens without first a dream. Well, it may sound ridiculous.
The problem with which most people building businesses online have is they don't really have a strong enough reason why they're going to do it right now. They have no compelling in-this-moment dream. When you aim at nothing, you hit it every single time. In this episode of The Daily Shortcut, I'm going to help you find your ultimate source of motivation, and that's your real why. Because the first step to building a profitable business online, or doing just about anything powerful, is to have a strong reason why that connects to the core of who you really are.
It seems so simple when people say, you show me how to make money and I'll show you exactly how to spend it. Well, unfortunately for those people, success just doesn't really work that way. Before you can begin to start succeeding in anything, you need to be totally motivated and totally focused. Motivation comes from knowing why you're doing something. See, having a benefit of some kind, a compelling why, gives you power from the inside to step into your dreams and goals.
Knowing why, and I mean really knowing why, is much more important than even knowing how or even knowing what it is that you're doing. Simply because a strong internal why provides an unlimited amount of motivation to figure out the how and to take massive focused action each day. Back when I started marketing online, it was all about me. My main reason why I was marketing was to cure my homelessness, my financial desperation, the bad situations in my life, to be able to eat the things I wanted to eat, buy the foods I wanted to buy, to provide for myself. And you know what?
My burning desire, it worked. I went from homeless, I was living in a green 1990s, 96 dodge caravan, I was broke, to having a 12,000-dollar night within 90 days and now have created a movement that has reached throughout the whole world. Let me share what actually happened to me that created that transformation. So it was 2009 and I remember I was living in a van. I was eating canned beans, I was sleeping in my van on public beaches and what happened was this, is one night I was sleeping in my van, and I woke up in up sounds like this smack into my window and I look up there's a light in my eyes much like these studio lights right here and it was a police officer writing me a ticket for my last 35 bucks there was a time when I hit so low I did that I had to just change I reached down inside myself and I just found something inside a new source of motivation to escape and make my life better and it worked so here's my question was self-centered escape motivation enough well for a short period of time I started getting massive traction increasing results everywhere because I needed to I set an outcome to achieve results within 90 days of getting started online but after I covered my own needs it stopped being so effective in the sense that it didn't expand anymore I wasn't really motivated to just earn more money because I had everything that I need I had no real reason why I didn't want Ferrari I didn't want a bigger home it wasn't until I discovered my true why my inside reason that my dream inside skyrocketed my income and I started living my purpose and transforming lives of others see your why is your dream and it's rooted into who you are dreams are an idea of creating something better in the future a clear vision something that you're going to step into some people let their dreams fade away but the people who really succeed in a new and powerful way they nourish and protect them until those dreams become the reality of their experience right now and then they have even a bigger dream in the new and powerful future themselves see a dream doesn't have to be massive to work a dream doesn't have to transform the lives of millions of people or leave a dent in world history a dream can be a real desire to serve other people through any sort of a medium.
Dreams are not fantasies. They're not wishes. Dreams are burning desires that inspire the dreamer to take action when it doesn't make any sense. Dreams can be a mission, and once you find it, you feel like it demands you to take action. That's the power, my friend, of a real dream.
They're like flags placed in the future. What's the famous line that we all remember every time we think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? He says, I have a dream. There are several levels to dreaming power, and each one has the power to take you to another level.
One dream, selfish placed, can be to own a Ferrari in the next year, and that's okay, and it could drive you with motivation for a time, but that's merely a surface level or material dream. In other words, something that benefits you. Few people transcend this level of a dream to the area of significance in their life, but you need to in order to take things in your life to a new level and live a life that's filled with purpose. Larger dreams are more to do with personal destiny, more to do with identity. In other words, why you are here on this planet and why you exist as a human being.
These are the kind of dreams that provide food for the soul, a dream that dominates your thoughts, a dream that fuels your ambition. It gives you drive and motivation to do powerful things. Your dream is your biggest lever in your life. It provides more leverage for taking massive action than anything else you could do. So I want you to follow this short exercise that I'm going to do with you, and this is going to help you get to the bottom of what you really want in your life.
This is how I actually got to the bottom of what I really wanted and why I'm here, and this is the real source of my own life. motivation because I found what's motivating me inside. So here's what I want you to ask yourself right now, and you could pause the video and think for a minute if you want, or you could go through the bonus materials and the daily shortcut, but I want you to leave me your experience of this in the comments. You could even win something if you do, and I want you to write down the answer to the following questions, and it'll take you about 15 or 20 minutes to do this properly. So you can either do it now or in the bonus materials.
This is the first question. What do you want? And why do you want it in your life? This can be a car. It could be a new home.
It could be, you know, to give a better life to your family. Anything that you think on the surface level of your mind. Now the next question is this. When you have that thing, I want you to ask yourself and meditate on this question for a minute, and ask yourself this. What will having that thing or accomplishing that outcome get you in your life that you don't want?
Now, I want you to stop and write that down. All answers until you run into a blank. And then I want you to proceed to the next step, which is to ask yourself again. When you have what you just wrote down, what will that give you that you don't have already right now in your life? Again, write everything down.
And now I want you to take a look at what you just wrote down the third time, and ask yourself again, when you have that, what will that give you that you don't have already right now? Keep asking the question and writing it down until you go deep down, down into your unconscious mind, into the void, the silence inside, and that's where you're going to find your power. Let me tell you a quick story about this. This happened in 2013. We were in a room with leaders.
My brother, William Wood, who participates in these daily shortcut episodes and helps us develop products here at the Power Network, he came into a room and he was training some leaders and walked us all through this exercise. And when people find the source motivation for what happens on the inside that's driving them, something inside of them just shifts and changes and it's like light goes off in their eye. So we're in this place. And I'm going to tell you this story. In a little bit, embrace the silence and deep from your unconscious.
When you have that, what will that give you that you don't have right now? That's the power of a real why, your real motivation inside. See, my why is my purpose, which is transformation. Do this properly and you'll come up with your ultimate why. When you do, use it to fuel your ambition, your motivation to take massive action.
Create magical results and create the life that you want right now. When you identify what your true motivation is, you can step into the cycle of achievement and you can start winning, maybe even for the first time. I want you to pay attention as you experience this because as you pay attention, you're going to realize something interesting. And now I want to talk about something bigger, which is a cycle, a cycle all great leaders and achievers go through to accomplish their goals and create impact. And it's a cycle.
It's a cycle. It's a cycle of influence in their own respective fields. This is the formula for creating magic, like the results that seem to transform people with anything that you touch like a Midas touch. And it all roots with vision. So number one principle is vision.
Once you find your why, your vision will become more clear to you than ever because vision is always coming from our why. Vision is dreaming of a better future. Seeing something in the future. envisioning it today and dreaming up a better version of the tomorrow that we're creating. Vision can be small and it can be large.
If it's big enough it can encompass the vision of thousands or millions or billions of other people. Your vision, like my vision, can be big enough for everyone to be inside. Because a unified vision is inexplicably more powerful than a single vision of one person. That's why we've been able to create such magic and in such a short time with Empower Network. One unified vision, 400,000 people, and we're taking it to a new level now with each new episode of The Daily Shortcut, like you're watching this moment.
The first step is to have a vision or to be a part of one until you learn to have one. Your vision is your dream. However small, however large, it has to be a dream of something better, a change in the future and clear. Number two, goal setting. The next step is to set clear goals and outcomes like I've talked about and my brothers talked about in the last couple of episodes.
Setting goals is easy, yet few people do it in the right way that creates powerful transformational results. Your goal should be set in stone, rock-solid, immovable. The goal shouldn't change until you've achieved it. The only way to make sure of that is to get really clear on what you want and why you want it before you go. Your goals should be specific.
They should be written on paper, measurable, realistic, and motivational all at the same time. Number three, game planning. Game planning is the next step after goal setting. A game plan is how you're going to achieve your goal, what action steps are you going to take to achieve it. Get clear and you'll create compelling results that match the exquisite power of your clarity.
Game plans shouldn't be set in stone, they should be set in sand. See game plans need to be flexible moving towards your goal and you need to know when to stop doing what's not working and to change course in order to achieve your outcome. Like if a particular traffic generation strategy isn't working anymore or some kind of marketing funnel isn't working in the right kind of way to accomplish your outcome, if you decided to generate leads through a medium that's not working, you need to stop it and adjust that part of the plan in order to achieve your goal. You can't be hard-headed about your method of getting there. The game plan is like the vehicle, the strategy.
Always prioritize tasks in your game plan by creating a meta and a micro strategy like my brother William Wood talks about in our daily shortcut episodes when he pops on. And the next step is this, working. The next step in the cycle of achievement is actually working. Doing something. It's not like the secret, you don't imagine a Ferrari and have it drive itself into your house.
Right, with a deed. The most powerful way to get other people to join your vision is to actually lead by example. Now maybe you're doing something where other people can join your vision and if you are you need to cast out your vision speak it into the world, speak your vision into existence. If you're in the network marketing space for example this makes a lot of sense, you can cast your vision of the future a better and more abundant place to live for everyone by building an organization and speaking that vision into them because you have a better way and people can join that vision and cast it out and create that movement themselves, inspiring others to unify their vision with yours now. Before you can start the working process, always create a list of resources that you have available to you and figure out how to best utilize that list of resources in order to create an action plan to achieve your outcome.
Learn to delegate and operate productively and you can only do that if you're clear and can explain these things to others. Most importantly, you want to be consistent. You want to be consistent in your actions that you take. If you're not consistent, you won't create results. Number five, you want to seek counsel from great mentors that have what you actually want.
The last step in the great cycle of achievement is seeking counsel, asking for help from mentors. The biggest mistake you can ever make is thinking that you're smarter than everyone and none of us are better at everything than the people around us. We may be better at one thing, but maybe we're worse at lots of other things, right? So not listening to the advice of people who are better than us at things that already have what we want, already are in the position that you want to be, that's not wise. Seek counsel in people who empower you and who inspire you to become great.
The kind of people who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Ask for help, and you're going to get it eventually if you just keep asking. Always revise your strategy based on the numbers. Look at it and adjust your game plan. Focus on what's working every single day.
That, my friend, is the cycle of achievement, and it works every single time because the entire thing is based on clarity and consistency. I want to know what you've taken away from today's episode, so you should comment. Tell me in detail about your experience today. Take notes and apply it in your life. What was your biggest takeaway from this episode?
I'd like to know specifically what you've learned. And what was your major a-ha today? So be sure to share it in the comments below this video. Leave a detailed, thoughtful comment. You could win $100, a free book.
And that's true even if you're not a paid member of our community, if you're just enjoying The Daily Show every day. And with every daily shortcut, we help you tap into a greater purpose-filled life with wealth, prosperity, and freedom to transform the world. So we've developed three bonus shortcuts to help you continue to grow and move towards that goal. Your first bonus is a free PDF guide and worksheet that you can save and you can print. And using this PDF can be a powerful way to reinforce these success principles in your unconscious mind and to tap into your purpose inside.
Your second bonus today is a free audio download of today's message that you can listen to again and again to absorb these ideas into your unconscious mind. I encourage you to download it and listen to it in your car on your way to work if you have a normal job. You'll become more powerful because you're reinforcing the principles that will create the success and the lifestyle that you want to have in your life. And your last daily shortcut, you're going to get my whole system. I'm going to give you my business system that I use to make money.
And I'm going to give you every part of everything that I do and you can work with our team to create the results that you want to create in your life. You're going to get my entire sales process. It's done $195 million in sales online. And you can just follow a step-by-step daily action plan we give you every day at 9 a.m. Eastern Time and create a powerful residual income online.
So I want to encourage you right now, go ahead and leave a detailed thoughtful comment. You could win something and we'll be in touch with you if you do. And I will see you tomorrow in the next episode of The Daily Shortcut. So put in your name and email and download your bonuses right now. And let's go out and transform the world.
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