Living with Purpose with Breck England

In this episode of the Franklin Planner podcast, host John Harding converses with the versatile and insightful Dr. Breck England. They delve into Dr. England’s extensive background, his work with leadership and productivity solutions at Franklin Covey, and the impactful Franklin Planner system. The discussion centers around the story of Margot, a woman striving to find balance in her chaotic life through the principles of the Franklin Planner. Dr. England elaborates on core components like values, goals, intermediate steps, and the weekly and daily planning process. Additionally, the episode explores the benefits of integrating both digital and paper planning tools to maximize productivity and maintain focus on what matters most. Ending with a tribute to Benjamin Franklin’s influence, this episode is a comprehensive guide to enhancing personal and professional life through thoughtful planning.

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Episode Timeline

00:52 Introducing Dr. Breck England

01:30 Breck’s Professional Journey

03:49 Margot’s Story: Overcoming Challenges

07:47 The Franklin Planner System

10:26 Defining Personal Values and Goals

13:38 The Productivity Pyramid

27:10 Mission, Vision, and Purpose

33:47 Setting Meaningful Goals

34:20 The Power of the Calendar

36:20 Achieving Goals with Intermediate Steps

39:28 The Importance of Writing Things Down

41:34 Balancing Digital and Paper Planning

45:12 Weekly and Daily Planning

53:38 The Planner System’s Impact on Life

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Episode Transcript

John Harding: Welcome back to the Franklin Planner podcast. I’m John Harding, your host. I’m delighted to be with you. Thank you for listening today. We’ll focus on leading your life and creating your best life, as well as helping lead your team. And I am delighted today to be joined by the distinguished guest, Dr. Breck England. Breck, thank you for joining us. Great to be with you.

Dr. Breck England: Great pleasure to be with you, John, you’re a great guy and I’m happy to be part of this.

John: Well, thank you. For those that don’t know Breck, I’m going to, uh, maybe just push here a little and do a little longer [00:01:00] introduction than Breck may want. But I think it’s really important because it is really a great opportunity to have Breck with us. So let me introduce him.

Introducing Dr. Breck England

I’m just thrilled to welcome someone here with us today that has been a trusted friend, mentor, a colleague for many years. Dr. Breck England and I worked shoulder to shoulder together in a number of organizations that kind of line up. And we did it through what I would call formative seasons of our careers. We partnered at Shipley Associates. We also worked together at Franklin Quest Consulting Group at Franklin Quest, then onto FranklinCovey, where we focused our work on really helping build leadership, communication, execution, productivity-type solutions that ended up really influencing people around the world. And I know I’m hoping, Breck, you’ll share [00:02:00] some of your experiences there.

Breck is one of the most versatile and insightful thinkers I know. He coauthored The 3rd Alternative with Stephen R. Covey, has shaped global presentation/leadership/communication methodologies at FranklinCovey. He has written significant works in kind of a—for me—a broad set of subjects: leadership, scripture, history, and even fiction. In addition to his published works, Breck is a gifted voice in the podcast world. He currently hosts and has hosted several inspiring series, including “The Bright and Morning Star,” “Encircled in the Arms of His Love,” “The Dews of Heaven,” each exploring scripture through the lens of truth and light and deeper spiritual understanding. His ability—and this is something I’ve seen firsthand through the years—to bring clarity [00:03:00] and insight, whether in the boardroom, a classroom, or behind the microphone, continues to lift and strengthen thousands of listeners.

Now, I know that Breck is an amazing father, husband, grandfather, and friend. Many have known him in a professional setting that—I’ll just conclude with this—that Breck has truly had an enormous effect on leaders for good around the world, and certainly on me. Today, we get to sit down with Breck here and dive into some of his most recent thinking and wisdom that he brings. And I’m just honored to be with you here.

Breck and I have planned ahead, and he has recently written a white paper that tells this unique story of a woman by the name of Margot. And our hope and goal is that, as listeners today, [00:04:00] you can hear Margot’s story, and what Breck has done is woven this in with a pathway and principles, the mindset truly related to how to tap into the greatness in you and how to lead your life, and also principles and strategies of how you can lead your team. And Breck, what I would love for you to do—and through this, you know, tell some of your stories—is walk us through this great work you’ve done and tell us about Margot and teach us, if you will, the principles that have stood out to you, that have impressed you through your—really, your career.

And maybe it’s a worth a second mention: if you didn’t pick it up in the background on Breck, he is an expert in the Franklin Planner system, in the principles. He is a teacher. I did fail to mention he’s a [00:05:00] PhD in English from the University of Utah, also holds a master’s degree. He was an adjunct professor for several years at the Marriott School of Business. And so he’s kind of got this calling as a teacher, calling as a consultant, calling as a leader, and he kind of brings that to this white paper. So Breck, please take off and tell us about Margot and teach us what you feel might be helpful today.

Setting the Stage: Margot’s Story

Breck: Good, okay, thanks. John, Margot is a symbol of the position a lot of people are in, probably most of us are in: she’s overwhelmed, okay? She’s in that season of life where things are just squeezing her. Okay? When she got out of school, she was excited to go [00:06:00] into the, you know, workplace and do good work, and she was doing really well, and her boss announced he was gonna retire and he wanted her to take his place. “Oh,” you know, “how flattering,” right? [Laughter] “This is great, I’m gonna be the boss now.” And that made her really excited until she realized that it was an impossible job. No one had ever taught her to be a manager, right? And you’ve heard of the famous principle where people get, you know, promoted to the point of their incompetence. [Laughter]

John: We’ve seen that a lot. Yeah.

“In over her head”

Breck: That’s been true with me a lot of times in my life. I’ve been promoted regardless of whether I was competent or not, and it has often been a price to pay, but anyway, Margot is one of those people who has got promoted to a point where she didn’t know what she was doing, okay? She was in over her head. And aren’t you? Are you in [00:07:00] over your head?

John: Always. Always. [Laughter]

Breck: Isn’t everybody who’s listening? Isn’t everybody who’s listening kind of in over your head? Ask me if I’m in over my head.

John: Are you in over your head?

Breck: I’m in over my head, John. But in Margot’s case, she was suddenly in charge of everything. She’s in charge of recruiting, training, scheduling, making human resources decisions. Dealing with endless complaints from customers and employees. On top of all that, she’s got a family, right?

John: You got a personal life. Yeah.

Breck: Yeah. She’s told her husband she should have been a firefighter ‘cause she’s running from one fire to another all day long. Things at home are tough. She hardly ever sees her husband. He’s got a big job, too. Keeps him crazy busy. They got two kids. As you know, [00:08:00] raising children is primarily a logistical issue. Isn’t it?

John: [Laughter] Yes.

Breck: And they need time. Okay, so Margot knows that her life is out of control. Ask me if my life is out of control.

John: Your life is not out of control, Breck. [Laughter]

Finding purpose amidst the chaos

Breck: It’s not as out of control as some others, maybe, but she had no idea how to get back into control. And then—okay, this might sound kind of, you know, commercial, quacky, kitschy—but it’s really true that when you hear about and learn about the Franklin Planner system, something happens: after a while of using it, the squeeze becomes a little less of a squeeze. Things start to make sense. [00:09:00] You start to be able to manage things pretty well. But there’s a deeper aspect to it, and that is, you feel like you’re actually pursuing a life that is meaningful. Okay? The meanings of things are what you’re pursuing, instead of trying to put out fires all over the place, all day long, all your life, until you just burned out yourself. Right?

John: Right.

Breck: Campfires have a way of spreading, okay? And pretty soon you’ve got a firestorm on your hands. And for a lot of people, that’s their life, isn’t it? Have you ever felt like your life is a firestorm?

John: It seems like no matter what your age is, there’s plenty of information and things that come at you, no matter. And in this case, Margot has this focused thing, but it does seem like something everyone deals with.

Breck: Yeah. There’s this funny cliche that when you’re retired, [00:10:00] it all settles down. Well, I’m retired now. Guess what?

John: You are busy.

The Franklin Planner changes lives

Breck: It’s worse than it was before, okay? [Laughter] In a lot of ways. All right, so, Franklin Planner system— Well, Margot, in her case, she met somebody, she had a friend who had this beautiful little sleek, small book. And her friend said, “This is my secret.” [Laughter] That sounds kind of silly. Okay, it’s like, if you’re like me and sometimes you watch dumb old TV shows at night, and there’s a commercial of the guy that comes on and says, “Hey, you know, this pill . . . ,” you know, or, “My catheter changed my life.” Okay? This changed my life.

And you hear all these, “This changed my life.” You know, and you go, “How could that change your life?” And in the case of the [00:11:00] Franklin Planner system, it really does. I mean, it’s not— I’m not trying to be commercial or kitschy or anything. It really does. Okay? And that was the beginning of her transformation: when she figured out the Franklin Planner system, she gradually started to gain control. And the fires never died out, right? But she wasn’t so focused on fires all the time, because a lot of things that she did in the system prevented fires from breaking out. Does that make sense?

John: Yeah. And you’re saying she learned about this and started to learn about it when—and this is probably where you’re headed, but—what did she do differently? What happened that changed her?

Guiding Questions to Discover Your Values

Breck: Yeah, before we answer that question, I want you to [00:12:00] answer a few questions about your own life. What matters most to you, and how will you achieve it? Second question: What do you want your life to be like, maybe at the end of this year? Five years from now? Or ten?

John: Right.

Breck: Here’s a third question: How are you deciding day to day what to do with your time?

John: Or not deciding, right?

Breck: [Laughter] Yeah, exactly. And here’s a fourth question: How do you feel at the end of each day? Do you feel like, you know, contented and peaceful, or you just feel weary and burned out?

The Franklin Planner as a guide

Now, those are big questions, kind of hard to answer, but I’ll tell you what the key benefits of the [00:13:00] Franklin Planner system are in relation to those questions. First of all, you do end up achieving what matters most to you. Is that valuable? Is there anything more valuable than that?

John: Yeah, and with who matters most, right? It’s kind of a blend, same thing maybe.

Breck: Yeah. Second, you really do make your life count, not just in the short term but the long term. And third, day to day, you control your schedule instead of your schedule controlling you. And fourth, your days become peaceful instead of just busy. Now, when I was actively working, people would come into my office and say, “Hey Breck, I’m sorry—I know you’re busy—I’m sorry to interrupt you.” I could honestly say, “I’m not too busy to talk to you.” [00:14:00] Do you know how odd that is for people? People kind of go, “What? Everybody’s too busy to talk to me!”

John: Yeah. [Laughter]

Breck: Okay? “Well, I’m not. I’m never too busy to talk to you.” And it really surprised people. Of course I have my own priorities, but one priority that I really have is my love for people, my desire to be, you know, useful and helpful to people. Okay? Not just burning up the landscape with stuff to do. So— Do you want to get into the system? Is it time?

John: Let’s do it, yeah, go for it.

Breck: Okay.

How Breck’s direction has changed in retirement

John: I like what you said about [00:15:00] your retirement, and—before you jump into this—let me just ask you, like, why … why do you think that is? Why are you even continuing, you know, your time as so important? And why are— Did you think it would be different? Because you kept a pretty heavy workload, full-time at FranklinCovey, and over head writer and innovation. What happens? I’m not retired, so I’m very interested.

Breck: A lot of your focus changes, but—on a day-to-day basis—but you still have your governing values, and that’s what makes the Franklin Planner system what it is. And that’s why the system really does change your life. I’m still focused on my deepest values, as I [00:16:00] have tried to be all along. My deepest values are my love for people and my love for learning and my love for teaching. I value all of these things very deeply. And so I manage my life so that I am constantly trying to fulfill, constantly trying to live up to those values. And so it’s not that you’re less occupied.

John: Right.

Breck: In retirement, I’m just as occupied as I was before. I am occupied and fulfilling those values.

John: Awesome.

Breck: Just in different ways. Make sense?

John: I love it.

The Productivity Pyramid: Values, then Goals

Breck: And with the Franklin Planner system—it’s based on the Productivity Pyramid, which is kind of a cutesy [00:17:00] way of describing how to build on a sure foundation, build your life on a foundation that represents your deepest values. So the Productivity Pyramid is a kind of start to foundationally describing to yourself and really, really, deeply getting into what matters most to you, and that gives you your governing values. Okay?

John: Got it.

Breck: You build a second level on those foundational values, your long-range goals. What’s going to— How are you going to fulfill those values in your life? You build on that, the things you have to do to achieve [00:18:00] those goals. What are the steps you have to take in your life to achieve those goals? And it’s only at that point that you can describe what you’re gonna do on a day-to-day or weekly basis, right?

John: But that pyramid, I guess it’s anchored; it really gives you a line of sight on what—

Breck: Yeah.

John: You can really line those up and know, “Hey.”

Breck: And I think the problem that many people have is that they invert that pyramid.

John: Yeah.

Breck: You know what I’m saying?

John: Yeah.

Breck: They know deep down that there are things they want to do with their lives, but instead of building on that foundation, they actually start with their daily tasks.

John: Right.

Breck: And that’s where you foul up. “This is what I have to do today,” okay. And you don’t— You haven’t really thought through carefully whether “what you have to do today” [00:19:00] matters all that much.

John: I’m with you there.

Find your burning “yes”

Isn’t it also—and you tell me if you think this has changed since retirement—but there seems like there’s an agency and kind of a “someone else” being in charge of how your time and day is spent versus thoughtfully doing it. Even if you turn it upside down—somebody else versus you—you really having that power.

Breck: Right. Right. And you know, Dr. Covey used to say—and this is something I’ve always admired in his teaching—he would say, “You have to decide for yourself what your burning ‘yes’ is.” You know what I mean by that?

John: Yeah.

Breck: What is your burning yes? “Yes,” to me—it has to burn inside. [00:20:00] And if you have a burning yes inside, you can say no to a lot of things. Right?

John: Right.

Breck: Because you have that burning yes inside. You know, people ask me if I’d like to be involved in this, that, or the other, and I say, will it— Does the yes burn within me to do that? Right?

John: Right. And you can know that more quickly because you’ve thought through it.

Breck: I’ve already defined what that is, yeah. I’ve discovered and defined what governs me, what that burning yes is. You can feel free to say no if you have a burning yes inside.

John: Right.

Don’t fill your life with “whatevers”

Breck: But, on the other hand, if you invert that pyramid and you start saying, “Whatever you say, boss,” “Whatever you say, wife,” “Whatever you say, husband,” “Whatever [00:21:00] you say, kids,” then you have given your life over to a lot of whatevers. Right? And unless— In my life, if it burns inside, this is something I have to say yes to, because it comes from inside. Then, I can say no to a lot of things, and have done.

And in my work all those years, John, and you and I were working together, I’d say— For example, let’s just take a quick, very pragmatic example—a customer comes in and says, “Can you help us do X?” And I would look at it, I’d say, “I don’t feel intense desire to do X.” “Well, it’d bring us a lot of money!” I’d say “We can make money in ways that [00:22:00] matter to us.” Okay? We don’t have to do things that don’t matter to us or that, frankly, we’d mess up, or we think we’d make a lot of money in the short term, but in the long term it’ll mess us up. Right? And we had to make those decisions. But because we had governing values, we were able to prosper in the long term.

Breck’s deepest governing value

John: Breck, let me ask you here, one of the things I noticed over thirty years of being around you, and you said it, you know, how you value people: is there—while you’re talking about this—what insight do you have or what is your feeling about what is in people? I think some people—I know most of [00:23:00] our listeners, and maybe all of them, are really awesome at this, but by chance if somebody hasn’t seen this—I’m thinking, what do you think about what is really in people? What capability is in people? It seems like many of us, even those that are familiar with these principles, underestimate what is in us—the leader in us, the greatness in us. You’ve, you know, you’ve stated you have quite a high priority for people. I’m just curious about your view. I think that impacts how you see this model, you know, how that can impact it. What do you think on that?

Breck: Well, for me, my governing value would be—probably my deepest, at the deepest level—would be love for others. [00:24:00] Right at the base of my own Productivity Pyramid would be my love for others.

The I-beam: An anecdote from Hyrum W. Smith

Do you mind if I— I don’t know if you’ve told the story of the I-beam before.

John: No, share that with us.

Breck: This comes from Hyrum Smith, who founded Franklin. When he was teaching a seminar, he would ask people to picture a long, narrow metal beam on the ground, just lying on the ground. And then he would hold up a twenty-dollar bill. That was forty years ago, so maybe today he’d hold up a hundred dollars. [Laughter]

John: Several hundred.

Breck: Yeah, maybe thousands, I don’t know. And he would ask a volunteer from the group if you would walk across the beam for the twenty bucks. Okay? And [00:25:00] surprisingly, in one case, one of the participants said, “No, I wouldn’t do that.” Well, Hyrum was surprised. “You mean you wouldn’t walk across this thing for twenty bucks? It’s only, you know, it’s only a few feet long! Okay, so would you do it for a hundred bucks?” And the man said no. [Hyrum] was surprised again, he was startled. He took him up to a thousand, and then ten thousand, and the man would not cross the beam for any amount of money. And the man said—surprisingly, he says, “I don’t do anything for money.” [Laughter] This is an unusual person, okay?

Well then [Hyrum] asked for another volunteer. He thought, “This guy isn’t working.” [Laughter] He asked another volunteer to stand up and walk across the beam for twenty dollars. [00:26:00] And he said to the second man, “Do you have a child?” And the man said, “Yes, I have a small child.” He said, “Okay, I’m gonna change the scenario now. I am going to place the beam between two buildings, a thousand feet high.” Have you ever seen the Petronas Towers in Malaysia? In Kuala Lumpur?

John: A picture. A picture of them.

Breck: Yeah, they’re two towers that are identical, and there’s this tiny little bridge between them, and it’s, like, a thousand feet from the ground. It’s like, would I walk through that tunnel? [Laughter] But anyway: imagine you’ve got two towering buildings, and between them you have this beam that’s just a couple of feet wide, and you’re standing on top of one building and I’m standing on the top of the other one, [00:27:00] and I’m holding in my hand your small child by his arm. And I tell you, “I am gonna drop that child over the side if you do not cross the beam to get him.” Would you do it?

John: Of course.

Breck: Well, the man said, “Unequivocally, yes.”

John: Yes.

Breck: Well then he turned to the other man—the man who said he wouldn’t do anything for money, remember? Well he said, “If you were that guy, would you cross the beam?” He said, “Yes. I would.”

What would you cross the beam for?

So here’s the point: We all have things we value that are overwhelmingly important to us, right? The first man put hardly any value on money, but he put infinite value on his child, and he would give his life for that child. [00:28:00] So the problem is, we don’t always let that which is most deeply important to us govern what we do. The question is, what are you giving your life for? Right?

John: Huge question.

Breck: Huge question. So, that’s the question that you ask first in the Franklin Planner system. What would you give your life for?

John: That’s the base of that pyramid.

Breck: That’s the very base of the pyramid.

Margot’s governing value

Well in Margot’s case, she thought really hard about it, and she said, “I want to give my family high-quality life, I want to give my customers the best-quality service I can, [00:29:00] and my employees the best-quality experience. I even love quality music and food and clothing. I love quality.” So what do you think she wrote down? Quality. Because that word kind of summed up for her so much of what she cared about deeply. So the question is, what would you put down there? What I like that to teach people to do is to write down one word that kind of sums it all up. Maybe it’s love. Maybe it’s healing. Maybe it’s money. Okay? I’m not gonna make a judgment.

John: And the idea of it is you—

Breck: Yeah, I’m not gonna judge.

John: You really have the power to choose.

Breck: You decide. Okay? And I’m not gonna judge what your values are. The question is, what would you cross the beam for?

John: Right.

Clarify your governing value, then live it

Breck: [00:30:00] And then, once you’ve written down a word, then we write down what we call a clarifying statement. Like when Margot wrote quality, then she wrote, “The word sums up so much for me,” right? Quality. Quality of life for my family, quality of life for my company, quality of life for my customers, et cetera, et cetera. So, she wrote down this clarifying statement—

John: This value seemed to cut through the different roles or aspects of her life.

Breck: Right. All of her roles. This particular value seemed to cut across all of her roles in life. And that’s kind of helpful, to think in terms of your whole life, right? All of it. So are we okay so far?

John: Yeah, we’re good, and I just want to ask you this. You’ve been doing this a long time. What is your feel [00:31:00] about— What percentage of people have you seen have actually taken the time to write this down, to think about this? What’s your experience been?

Breck: I have absolutely no way of knowing. But I will say that the people that I believe take this quite seriously are people who are actually living up to what matters most to them. I can think of a few examples of people. For example, in my youth, I knew a teacher who I really admired—everybody had a teacher that really made a difference in their lives, and this guy did—and he had a dream of making his students, of seeing his students, really excel and bloom and blossom. And he wasn’t a time-server—I’m sorry to say, but a lot of them are, [00:32:00] you know. He’s not a mediocrity because he really works hard, because his governing value was excellence. He said, “I don’t care if we win. I don’t care if you’re the best in the world. What I care about is if we are as good as we can be.” Okay?

So that’s an example. You and I both know a really great human resources manager—let’s just call him Todd, because that’s his name. [Laughter] It hurts him when people hurt. His governing value is seeing people flourish and do well and heal if they need it. And it hurts him if people hurt. And so he spends his life building up [00:33:00] and healing and encouraging and inspiring people. What a great guy.

John: Yeah.

Breck: I think he controls his life to that end. Okay? It’s one thing to say, “I control my life.” It’s another to say, “I control my life to a certain end that matters most to me.” Okay? All right?

John: He’s leading, right? He’s leading his life.

Breck: Yeah, he’s leading.

John: He’s not being led by others.

Breck: Leading his life instead of being led by something else or someone else. Yeah.

John: Todd’s a great example.

Breck: Yeah. Now, you can— Managers, okay, two human resources people. You can say, “Well, this person is a time-server,” you know? They handle the insurance, they handle this, they handle the hiring, they handle the onboard. This is what they do. Okay? They do that stuff. Then there’s this guy—I’m talking about Todd, who loves those people, and his life is tied up in making sure that they succeed and heal [00:34:00] when they need to. What a man.

John: Right. Great.

Breck: That’s foundation. How much time do we have left?

John: We have as much as you need.

Breck: Oh, okay.

John: Fifteen or twenty.

Breck: Well, do you want to go further? Should we go further?

Mission and Vision

John: Yeah, no, I would love it. Build that out, and let’s— You know, another time, we can go into more detail, but this is a question I get a lot and we attempt to clarify, you know. That base: we also fit in values, we say mission, we say vision, and that’s kind of in there. Share, like, anything you would about—still in that base, heavy, stable part of the pyramid—mission and vision. Any thoughts you have about that, Breck?

Breck: Some people are mission driven, you know. “We’re going to the moon,” [00:35:00] okay. [Laughter] That’s a mission, okay? “We’re going to, uh, we’re going to build the best, you know, the best catheter on the planet,” you know. [Laughter] Okay, that’s a mission. Some people’s missions to me seem kind of, you know—well, let’s say, not the ones I would choose.

John: Right.

What it means to be mission driven

Breck: But I have a very good friend, for example, who is mission driven. He’s actually a symphony conductor friend, and he has this, this, uh, value in life that is not a mission, okay? He doesn’t see himself as mission driven. He sees himself as driven by experiences. Okay? For him to stand in front of the symphony orchestra [00:36:00] and bring from that orchestra the most incredible performance of, you know, Beethoven or whatever. He— I wouldn’t say he’s mission driven; I’d say he’s experience driven. So to me, this talk about mission, vision, and values and stuff is helpful. Will it apply to everybody? “What’s my mission in life?” can be very, very helpful to define for people. And in some ways maybe we all should do that. Not necessarily fits everybody. Does that make— I’m sorry, but that’s how I see.

John: Yeah. And when you put the word “purpose” there, and “mission,” all of this seems to be some different thing—

Breck: Well, “mission” to me seems like I’m—

John: So what matters.

Breck: You know, I have a— [00:37:00] “I’m going to the moon,” okay. And back, hopefully. “Purpose” is maybe an even more helpful word because, like I say, my friend, the conductor, his purpose is to have these great, transcendent musical experiences in life. He doesn’t have a mission to be the best conductor on the planet or anything like that. It’s more like, “My purpose, my driving purpose, is great music.” So. Okay?

John: Well if we have that in place, Breck, go up that pyramid again with what Margot did.

Defining a vision in practical terms

Breck: Okay. Yeah. Well, you have that grounding in what matters most to you. And the guy who would walk across the I-beam for his child, obviously his child is going to be very foundational in his value. What he has to do now is think in terms of, okay, give him that value. [00:38:00] How do you see? What do you see five, ten, fifty years from now, in terms of your child? Or the guy who has the mission like John F. Kennedy when he said, “We’re going to the moon by the end of the decade, and come back.” Well that’s kind of— because he announced that goal in 1961. It was, uh—he had nine years to make that goal. Right?

John: Right.

Breck: It was a decade. It was actually time-bound.

John: It was a lot to do, still.

Breck: It was a great deal to do, because at that point, America was putting up rockets that just blew up on the launch. I mean, we were no good at this.

John: Right.

Breck: At that point. We had to get really good at this. So, at that point, once you decide whether your mission, or purpose, or whatever it is—once you’ve decided that—then you have to think in terms of, [00:39:00] what does that look like, right, in practical, actual terms? Is it a year? Is it five years? Is it ten years? Is it your life? Okay. What is your long-range goal or set of goals?

John: That makes sense. I saw a statistic, by the way—we’ve used it a few different times, there’s more than one, but—it said people who do articulate, write down, think about, make goals and write ‘em down are ten times more successful, or more likely to succeed. That was one study. Kind of that combination of even establishing—

Breck: Yeah, for one thing, they will know what success is.

John: Right.

Breck: Right? You don’t know what success is.

John: Right.

Successful Goals

Breck: Like your child. Okay, [00:40:00] let’s just take people with children, okay? Presumably, their purpose in life is to have happy children, okay? Successful children, blah, blah. “I want my children to succeed.” Well, what does success look like? In the case of a child, I would say you raise your children so that in twenty years they are healthy, they’re well on their way to a productive and full but— a life that fulfills their potential. So these long-range goals will be fairly, you know, broad.

John: Right.

Breck: Some long-range goals can be a lot more precise, like going to the moon and coming back in ten years. That’s a precise long-range goal. But in either case, whether it’s very precise or very, kind of, broad ranging, [00:41:00] you have to have it, you have to define what that is. Let’s take Margot for example. She is a very customer-oriented person. She wanted her customers to have a quality experience, right? And she found that only about a third of them on the customer satisfaction surveys were giving them a 10. That meant that two thirds of them weren’t.

John: Right.

Define your goals with precision

Breck: So she actually set a fairly precise goal that within five years—was it five? Maybe two, I don’t know—she wanted that average to go up to 80 percent, at least. So that’s a big leap. So she gives herself a certain amount of time, like NASA did in the sixties. Gives herself a certain amount of time, [00:42:00] decides what the start line is and what the finish line is—and make it pretty precise, right? Imagine yourself a hundred-yard sprinter, okay? And you know that you can sprint that in … I have no idea, John, help me.

John: [Laughter]

Breck: Um, ten seconds? I don’t know, I have no idea. “I’m gonna do that in ten seconds. Right now, it takes me twelve, okay, but I’m gonna shave two seconds off.” That’s what I mean by being precise.

John: Yeah.

Breck: About a long-range goal. So that’s precision, right?

John: Right.

Breck: Go to the moon and back, and within the decade: that’s precision. Quality of life, of your children’s lives, maybe that’s a little harder to measure. But you can come up with [00:43:00] fairly precise measures there, too. You can say, for example, how much time are you actually spending with your children on a given day? It might be none.

John: Yeah, or those grandchildren, right?

Breck: Yeah, it might be none, right? Why not take this goal and say, and being a little more precise about it, and saying, “Well this year, I’m gonna spend fifteen minutes a day with each one.”

John: Right.

Breck: For some of us, that’s a lot, okay? And I want this to be going on for a year. And see what happens.

Select the goals that matter most

So what goals would help you achieve what matters most in your life? That’s the question at this level.

John: Right.

Breck: Don’t make the mistake of setting a lot of goals. One, two, or three really significant goals. Like Margot: Customer goal. Employee satisfaction goal. [00:44:00] Children, family, quality, time goal. Just—okay, don’t kill yourself. Just think in terms of one, two, or three. Really, really important goals. They’re important because you’ve said they were important in your foundational statement. Okay?

John: And you’re moving up now, so you got your values, your goals—

Breck: You’ve got your values, now you got your goals; try and be precise about them.

Schedule goals in your planner

John: You’re putting ‘em in writing, you’re looking at it daily, you’re using the blessing of days and weeks. Talk to us about those top two in terms of days and weeks. I’ve had this thought that, you know, as we’ve kind of gone along in Franklin Planner, there was a point where we would say, “Hey, it’s not just a calendar,” but I’ve kind of returned to that, and I see almost a magical miracle in the way our [00:45:00] lives are set up. Day and night, weeks and months are a beautiful structure. And so I’ve had this feeling: don’t minimize the power of the calendar. And those top two, once you’ve got this anchor, seem so powerful if you kind of understand, maybe, what a weekly look and a daily look. Share with us your perspective on that, Breck.

Breck: Well, if you set a goal—say, “I’m gonna lose twenty pounds by Easter,” and you say, “Okay, that’s my goal,” and you—well, you never check back, you never put yourself on the scale, you have no idea. Okay, that’s just ridiculous. I worked with a company once who, [00:46:00] the CEO got up at the beginning of the fiscal year, and he gave everybody a binder. And this binder had ten important goals for the company. Okay? And six months later, they had another company meeting. The binders were nowhere in sight. What happened to the binders? Nobody knew. But what was more important: nobody cared, because everybody had forgotten about the binders! The binders were gathering dust in everybody’s offices, and nobody had ever looked at them again.

Well that’s just ridiculous. That’s not leadership, okay. That’s not leading a company or your life or anything. That’s just ridiculous. So setting a goal and actually achieving it are two different things. Okay? And unless you control your schedule, [00:47:00] your schedule will just control you, and the binder will cease to be of any value at all, or importance. So say you have a couple of goals that really matter to you. You wanna figure out what you’re gonna do to reach them. And in the Franklin Planner system, we call those intermediate steps. You can call ‘em what you want, but that’s a good, that’s a good little phrase.

John: Right?

Breck: And what’s the intermediate step to get to the moon by the end of the decade?

John: And the step is, is it not—or the set of intermediate steps—from where you are now …

Breck: Yep.

John: To where you— where this goal takes you.

Breck: Yeah.

John: And some things are easier to measure and some things aren’t.

Breck: Yeah, what success is. Yeah. Once you define what success is, you have to decide what you’re gonna do to get there. Now, that sounds so obvious, but people don’t do it.

John: Right.

Breck: I mean, the binder disappeared from everybody’s … you know, [00:48:00] everybody’s view.

Why these steps work

John: I saw another statistic that only 4 percent—this seems low, but there’s some good research behind it—only 4 percent of people consistently set goals like this and write them down with enough detail. You’re referring to 4 percent, and ten times the result. It seems that it’s quite doable. Isn’t that part of the vision? This is very doable by all of us.

Breck: Because it becomes manageable. It’s not overwhelming you. Right? And furthermore, what’s nice about it is that once you’ve set these things in and defined them carefully, then you can start saying no to other stuff. And that’s just as valuable. Right? Okay?

John: Right. And what about your energy and your—

Breck: Yeah. Your energy becomes focused.

John: [00:49:00] The function of your brain going to work on something that, really, you’ve chosen, versus whatever somebody pushes in your way.

Breck: Yeah. Yeah. Your life becomes a lot of whatevers if you don’t do this. Okay? So President John F. Kennedy died within three years of his inauguration, but the goal was so energizing.

John: Wow. The goal outlived him.

Breck: The goal outlived him, and they achieved it. By golly, they achieved it. But they wouldn’t have achieved it if they hadn’t set down, carefully, the steps they had to take to get there. And of course there were a lot of steps, but one step would be, well, “What steps do we have to take to keep the astronauts alive?” Right? So they can get there and back. So that would be life-preserving steps. Other steps would be, “How do we actually hit the moon? [00:50:00] It’s traveling really fast, we’re traveling really fast, it’s like a bullet hitting a bullet, you know. How do we get there and back?” So you have to take steps to navigate and back. Another would be, “What steps do we have to take to finance this thing?” Right? Okay, so there are all kinds of steps you have to take, but if you don’t sit down and count— You count the cost in terms of what steps you have to take to get there.

Writing your goals down is the key

John: All right, let me ask you this. One of the great changes or additions to my life was when I joined Shipley and I joined their CFO, and you were a leader amongst the group—but constantly there was this statement or truth or principle about what happens when you clarify your thinking in writing. What happens to the brain? What happens to the [00:51:00] creativity? What happens to people? What happens to teams? You are one of the best in the world to comment on this. We’ve talked about brain science behind it and so on, but can you just share your view on this, because you’re an expert in this. What happens in the brain, in the person, in the motivation, in the team when you write things down and clarify it?

Breck: All the science tells us that writing something down clarifies it for you, makes it possible for you to see exactly what you think.

John: Yeah. [Laughter] Otherwise you don’t know.

Breck: There’s a famous writer named E. M. Forster who said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”

John: Yeah.

Breck: Okay? In other words, what you write down is the—sort of the blood sample or the hair sample of your thinking. It makes it real [00:52:00] to you, it enables you to focus your attention on it, and the more precise it is.

Vague goals aren’t effective

When John F. Kennedy wrote down the goal, he said, “We are going to send a person to the moon and return them safely to Earth by the end of this decade.” Now, when he wrote that down, people said, “Oh, all of a sudden we can focus.” What if he had stood up and said, “We’re gonna lead the world in space travel”? Oh, that sounds very aspirational, but what the heck does it mean?

John: So general.

Breck: Yeah, it’s too general. Your thinking is too vague and too— it’s useless thinking. Okay? And how many times have you heard great business leaders, so-called, say, “We are going to lead the world in such and such,” “We’re gonna lead the world in catheters,” you know? You say, well, what does that— Please, help me understand what that means, [00:53:00] make it precise, and then help me understand what I need to do to get there. That’s leadership. Okay?

Final Thoughts: Paper versus Digital

John: That’s powerful. Now, Breck, as people have used the planner—and then as technology has, I guess you would say, expanded, because the planner, writing, paper, the mindset, the skills, all of that comes together under the definition of technology, long before digital—you know, smartphones came along, and then some people shifted. Many people shifted, we saw, away from digital.

You’ve studied this. Can you share with us: How do you approach these different technologies? The technology of paper, the technology of a phone or apps? When you’re— I mean, we all are overwhelmed with digital [00:54:00] technology, but I know you’ve studied this. Help us— because that’s a big part of this whole pyramid, right, how we approach this given the environment we’re in, the circumstance we’re in, and what we need to do. And it’s almost like the digital technology and overwhelm cannot be ignored. So if we talk about these principles and this model without that, it seems like something’s missing. Help us there.

Paper engages, digital neglects

Breck: I was gonna say that, listening to your question there, I’ve watched students in college—I was a college teacher—I watched them when they started bringing— You know, I’m kind of old now, okay?

John: You’re a young but experienced man. [Laughter]

Breck: Yeah. Yeah. But I’m talking about twenty, thirty years ago, they started bringing their laptops into the classroom. And​ [00:55:00] the interesting thing about that was that they would start to take notes, and I got interested in what they were doing, and they would simply write down everything I said. Yeah. A lot of ‘em would. And so you get a lot of— so you heard a lot of tapping. Okay? And eventually, it came clear to me that they weren’t really listening. They were making a record of what I said.

John: Wow.

Breck: But oddly enough, they weren’t digesting it. And I could tell.

John: They weren’t engaged in …

Breck: They weren’t engaged in learning what I was teaching them. They were engaged in making a recording. And I thought, well, why don’t they just send in a tape recorder or a voice recorder or a phone, turn it on to the recorder, and then leave. Because that’s all they’d need to do.

John: [Laughter]

Breck: They don’t even need to be here. ​And [00:56:00] so something was going on, something was going wrong, and what I think was going wrong was that they simply were not digesting it. It was like they were eating food that wouldn’t nourish.

John: Right.

Breck: Does that make sense?

John: Yeah, they were maybe just repeating, and so—

Breck: Yeah, it was like empty calories. And so, what I tried to encourage them to do—and there’s a lot of science behind this; there’s something called the Princeton method, which is a way of taking notes, for example—I tried to encourage them to, instead of making a word-for-word record of what I was saying, which simply made their minds focus on the mechanics, okay, I tried to encourage them to use paper. To write down what struck them as important.

John: Put pen and pencil to paper, tangibly, and write it down.

Breck: Yeah, pen and pencil to paper, and [00:57:00] write down what struck them as being important. And we talked about what strikes you as being important. And I would ask them at the end of the class period, I would say, “Okay, we’ve talked about such and such. What struck you as important from our discussion?”

John: Right.

Breck: If they were simply mechanically recording it, they could not answer that question. Because they weren’t digesting it.

John: That’s powerful. That’s a great example. Well, Breck, thank you. Thanks for all the time today, and we’ll look forward to inviting you back and we wish you well in all that you’re doing, and we’ll listen to your podcast, and we’ll look for your next books. And thanks for giving us insight about the Franklin Planner system.

We invite all our listeners to check the show notes and the resources. We’ll attach the other podcasts, and we invite you to lead your life and to recognize [00:58:00] the greatness within you. We’re grateful that you would take time to listen. And Breck—thank you again for joining, Dr. England.

Breck: Like I said, it was my pleasure.

John: All right, take care.

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Thank you for joining us on this Journey to create your best life and to lead your Life and Teams. Please share this show, and we look forward to the journey we will take together.

The Franklin Planner Team

About Guest: Dr. Breck England

Dr. Breck England is Senior Product Architect and Writer-in-Chief for FranklinCovey. As a senior consultant, Breck has 25 years of field experience in helping some of the world’s prime corporations become more effective in leadership and communication. He has directed projects for some 200 organizations around the world, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bank of America, GE, AT&T, Groupe Bull, Hoffmann-La Roche, Chevron, and Lawrence-Livermore Laboratories.

Before joining FranklinCovey, Breck served as Vice President of Intellectual Property for FranklinQuest and Vice President of Consulting for Shipley Associates, an international communication training firm. Breck earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah and was adjunct professor of organizational leadership and strategy in the Marriott School of Brigham Young University for seven years.

Book: Presentation Advantage: How to Inform and Persuade Any Audience

Podcast: https://breckengland.podbean.com/