Insight Editions · No. 224
Unstoppable
1-3-5: Focused, Consistent, Exceptional
Pete Wilkinson
Pete Wilkinson presents a 1-3-5 planning system that links a personal vision and objectives to goals, weekly action, leadership, relationships, and strengths.
A study guide to Unstoppable by Pete Wilkinson. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
| # | Section | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| : | Unstoppable (title) | System map · 1-3-5 preview |
| : | Preface | Ultra dawn · why Unstoppable |
| 1 | Why Develop an Unstoppable Attitude? | Attitude before tactics |
| 2 | Habits Make You Effective | Habit architecture |
| 3 | Your Crystal Clear Vision | 7-step Vision |
| 4 | Your 3 Core Objectives | Monthly track |
| 5 | Keep Goals in Perspective | 5 Goals · 5-3-1 |
| 6 | The Four Key Skills You Need | Execution ring |
| 7 | Skill One: Leadership | Future · Engage · Deliver |
| 8 | Skill Two: Personal Organization | Weekly control · VITs |
| 9 | Skill Three: Relationship Building | Four value levels |
| 10 | Skill Four: Key Strength Development | Strengths over weakness grind |
| 11 | The Next 12 Months | Seven-step year plan |
| : | Conclusion | Group two · do the work |
| : | Synthesis · Attitude to 12 Months | Portable stack |
Unstoppable
Preface
The castle stood high on the hill in morning sun; the lake calm with small ripples. Competitors waited, nervous. Wilkinson had been up since 3:30 a.m., with a large breakfast for a long day. At 5:50 a.m. he entered the lake; even in August the cold in the wetsuit took his breath. At 6:00 a.m. the klaxon fired. Calm vanished into kicks and punches. First goal: reach the first buoy without panicking and sinking.
He left the water 2 minutes ahead of target time, then faced the 112-mile bike. About 7 hours later he hit transition and changed for a 26.2-mile marathon after roughly 8 hours already racing. Training paid, entrance fee paid, finish determined. New levels of fatigue; at the line he felt that such moments reveal who you really are.
That is why he loves long-distance triathlon and cycle events. People are goal-seeking mechanisms. Many underuse themselves because they do not habitually set goals. A real challenge that demands commitment reconnects you with dormant resolve and tenacity. Performing at your best to finish a goal makes you feel alive. He finished because he became Unstoppable. The preface ask: what will you achieve when you perform at your best and become Unstoppable?
Book map (from the spine)
| Part | Gist |
|---|---|
| One · Beginning | Why an Unstoppable attitude; how the system fits |
| Two · Foundation | Habits; Crystal Clear Vision; 3 Core Objectives; 5 Goals / perspective |
| Three · Execution | Leadership; personal organization; relationship building; key strengths |
| Four · Next 12 months | Review what worked; product, people, time, message; actions |
---
Why Develop an Unstoppable Attitude?
An Ultra Endurance Triathlon demands fitness, but finishing inside a 17-hour cut-off also demands mindset. Wilkinson's favourite line: Attitude is the little thing that makes the big difference. As a company sales manager (and later with his own retail business) he ran many interviews with one rule: appoint for attitude and train for skill. A candidate with the right attitude and incomplete skills beat a skilled candidate with the wrong attitude.
Service examples make the same point. One store, bank, or surgery can feel like you are interrupting staff; the next visit feels different. Even two people in the same train-station business can deliver opposite experiences. Attitude travels further than many firms admit.
Race mindset builds across months of training, including bad winter weather. A 140-mile race tests mental strength as much as physical. A roughly 20-week programme must build the attitude that you can finish (uncomfortable near the end is allowed). Components in the pot: nutrition, physical training, winter mental work, setbacks (bike mechanicals), missed sessions for work or family. Same logic for business and life: where you are now is the result of thoughts and actions so far; it is not where you must stay. Change is inevitable; growth is optional. You choose the response.
Reading this already signals willingness to try something different. Wilkinson shares seven components of the full Unstoppable system. Build mindset, grow confidence, meet challenges with more certainty, then set larger goals.
Winners often expect success before evidence is certain. Tom Peters (replying on Twitter; author of In Search of Excellence) told him belief is pointless without the right toolkit. Part Three builds that toolkit; then skills combine into a 1-3-5 Action Plan. Early uncertainty is normal. The system does not form overnight. Consistent practice grows belief, confidence, and toolkit together.
Seven components (system preview)
- 1 Crystal Clear Vision of successful life and business: where you want to be; overall focus.
- 3 Core Objectives that chunk the Vision so you stop chasing "bright blue butterflies."
- 5 action-oriented Goals per Core Objective for daily focus; tasks under each Goal. Goals → Objectives → Vision.
- Leadership skills (even if you only lead yourself).
- Personal organization to use 86,400 seconds a day well.
- Relationship skills focused on the relationship, not only the transaction.
- Key strengths developed; weaknesses managed or delegated.
Foundation 1-3-5 plus the four skill areas is the Unstoppable system: more confidence, more belief, clearer daily action.
His first Ultra entry terrified him. Doubt showed up in prep. Finish required focus and consistency. Readers face their own unfinished challenges; often the block is not knowing where to start. Attitude shapes thoughts, feelings, and actions. The path he offers: Unstoppable attitude plus Unstoppable system.
How the book works
| Part | Name | Job |
|---|---|---|
| One | The Beginning | Scene-setting; what Unstoppable makes possible |
| Two | The Foundation | Build your 1-3-5 Action Plan |
| Three | The Execution Skills | Use the plan (where "magic" happens) |
| Four | The Next 12 Months | Live the plan; review life and business areas |
Throughout: stories (his and others), the question "If I was the very best version of myself, what could I achieve?", Key Questions, and Key Development Points as takeaways. Stick to the end; pieces form a jigsaw.
Birth of the 1-3-5
Years of strategy study (including MBA) left him sceptical that most business plans work as living front-line documents. Many are written for a single start purpose, then ignored. Need: a simple plan that is easy to follow, clear on destination, focus, and goals that track progress.
Enter 1-3-5: motivates daily action on the most rewarding work; claim that living it lets you achieve more in a week than many drifting owners do in a month. Better results; not easy; worth it.
Alan Wigham, Director, Safeguard Commercial Finance, after completing the system: Core Objectives and Goals are fundamental and must be revisited regularly; to stay still is to go backwards. Interesting, uncomfortable, challenging, and worth it: yes.
Why develop an Unstoppable attitude? Challenges already on your desk; Unstoppable is the proposed path to meeting them and living the life you "deserve." Motivation pitch closes the chapter.
Foundation stack before Part Three skills: Vision → Objectives → Goals.
---
Habits Make You Effective
A solid foundation decides whether life and business hold under load. When Wilkinson decided to race an Ultra Endurance Triathlon, business school and work experience told him he needed a plan, and specifically a simple plan he could follow. Set yourself up to succeed. Many people start a business without enough attention to the foundation under it. The phrase is "built on shifting sand." Honest check between you and the page: how much time have you really given your business foundation?
Eiffel Tower: foundation as strategy
The Eiffel Tower in Paris stands about 1,063 feet. Standing underneath is awe-inspiring; Wilkinson recommends the high-level restaurant if you get the chance. Gustave Eiffel designed it. A French mathematics professor thought it would collapse at 748 feet. Some expected it to last only 20 years. It is still standing strong over 100 years later.
One main reason is the foundation design. Cement and stone placed at exact angles so each of the four curved piers, with an inward tilt of 54 degrees, maximized wind resistance and exerted a perpendicular thrust into the foundation. During construction the legs rested on sand boxes and hydraulic jacks so metal beams at the first platform could be levelled within one millimetre of the horizontal plane (Yale Scientific, 12 May 2011, yalescientific.org). Focus and detail in the foundation explain longevity. Lesson for the reader: inspect your life and business foundation the same way. If you have departments, inspect foundations there too. Physical training for an Endurance Triathlon is foundation work so you can move at pace consistently for up to 17 hours. Wilkinson claims that when you do build that foundation your business becomes more stable, more profitable, and more successful.
Most people skip that work. They hold a vague notion of success and start delivering. Action still matters; he executes ideas and keeps getting better at execution. That approach is opportunistic. Success in business or life needs strategy. A nice weekend away, a child's birthday party, double-digit growth this year: each requires a plan. Observation he treats as fact: most people spend more time planning their annual 2-week family holiday than their business or their role inside one.
Key Question: What is the number one goal you are currently working towards?
Training load as metaphor for consistency
Completing an Ultra was his hardest physical achievement; getting to the start line intact is already hard. Training demanded focus and consistency. First week: about 8 hours. Peak week, 5 weeks before race day: about 18 hours a week. Peak-week sample: swim 4,000 metres Monday; ride 6 hours and 100 miles Wednesday; run 3 hours covering 18 miles Friday; plus another five tough sessions. Others race more often and faster. His point is personal limit-testing. Your stretch may be a 10k, a double triathlon, a language, or another hard skill. Push out of the comfort zone; that is where development happens. Comfort invites coasting. Coasting is the worst state for a high-performance person. Look around: if you are comfortable, set a challenge, sign up, commit to a new performance level.
Key Development Point: The last thing you want to do is flick your cruise-control switch.
Stretch goals keep cruise control off. What stretch goal could you set right now and complete in the next 90 days? A stretch goal, when achieved, delivers a quantum shift in performance for you or the business: launch a product, write a book, learn an instrument, acquire a strategically significant client (ideal fit, pays the correct fee). Author marketing CTA: email pete@petewilkinson.com with subject "My 90-day stretch." Optional for Insight readers; keep the rule, skip the funnel if you prefer. An engaging 90-day stretch that forces real commitment makes you feel alive. That push raises limits.
Key Development Point: Begin the habit of setting 90-day stretch goals. You will love the progress. People are often overambitious about a day or a week and underambitious about three months or a year.
Outcome focus over task immersion
During the Ultra run he asked why he was doing this. Answer always: because you can, because you need to. Near the end he held a beautiful clear Vision: reach the finish by 7:30 p.m., back in Sherborne Castle grounds, the same castle that stood high at 6:00 a.m. when the race exploded into motion. See his wife in the finish chute; hear "Pete Wilkinson, you are an Ultra Endurance Triathlete"; medal around the neck; pain stops; proper food. That is why focus stayed off present pain and on end-state feeling.
When something is difficult, people often focus on the feeling while immersed in the task instead of the feeling after completion. Build the habit of connecting to the outcome rather than to the task. Control which thoughts occupy your mind. Sometimes take emotion out of the equation.
Business has fun work and non-fun work. Fun: new office or premises, product launch, a team that gels and grows (he has felt this), smashing a year-one sales target. Non-fun but required: write the report, follow up with notes after the meeting, get in sharp and attack the difficult task. When you keep positive thoughts and Vision in focus, momentum arrives. Three races he wanted to stop. Business periods with challenge after challenge made him want to stop. Occupying thoughts: you cannot go on, you are too tired, why more challenges. You can go on. Switch thoughts positive; Vision helps; get through it.
Business mirrors the swim chaos: kicked and punched by competitors. Do not only stare at discomfort; stare at the outcome. Focused and consistent: Unstoppable.
Triathlon also maps to multi-skilling. Being good at what you do is not enough; how you do it matters. Most client firms share a sector and target similar customers. Competitors are probably good. Process and system separate success from mediocrity. He distilled Unstoppable so it works in everyday life: build your system, then share it with team, support network, even customers.
Super busy days that are not super effective usually mean the plan is unsound, or missing. At a basic level, start each day with a picture of what success looks like and make sure every day counts somehow. Dr Tom Barratt (Business Life/Management, daretodream.net): do not confuse busyness with business. Networking theatre, social media scrolling, scattered calls can be busyness. Produce a result. Clearer desired result leads to more likely achievement. Same for life: most people lack the life they want because they are unclear what life they want.
Key Development Point: Vague focus produces vague results.
If your business or job is meant to fund the life you want, it deserves time spent designing a foundation that can deliver sustainable results for years. The first three system components form that foundation and the 1-3-5 Action Plan: 1 Vision, 3 Core Objectives, 5 Goals for each Core Objective. They shape time use, skill use, and everyday focus so progress is constant.
While training up to 18 hours a week he ran a (then imperfect) triathlon 1-3-5: Vision of standing on the finish line by 7:30 p.m.; 3 Core Objectives, one per race stage; 5 Goals feeding those objectives. Early drafts flex; that is normal. You will tweak until it fits.
First things first: habit inventory
Before building your 1-3-5, inspect how you operate now. If 47% of what we do is habitual, assess habits and rituals: serving or strangling? Effectiveness is about habits.
A habit is behaviour we repeat until it is easy and automatic, good or bad.
Exercise A -- five good habits. Write five that serve you: on time, finishing projects, communicating to the team, recording business progress, and so on.
Exercise B -- benefit each. For each good habit, write the result. Example: communicating to the team leads to a team that is engaged and brings improvement ideas.
Exercise C -- five bad habits. Uncomfortable but required. Obvious (smoking, drinking too much) or subtle (always saying yes and taking on too much; one of his old ones). Bad habits influence performance; naming them enables change.
Exercise D -- five costs. How each bad habit affects you. Client example: morning procrastination forced late nights every night; solution for mornings led to a consistent 5:30 p.m. finish. Subtle changes can yield large results.
Cited claim: about 21 days to form a new habit. Protect conditions for good habits. Example: shave the night before a very early breakfast meeting to save morning minutes; then ensure the night has time to shave. Start with small setup wins.
Bring bad habits into the open so you will act. Two special traps:
- Never finishing anything.
- Sorting for bad: habitually seeing only why something will not work, focusing on bad outcomes instead of possibilities.
If you keep sorting for bad and never finishing, building 1-3-5 and the full Unstoppable system is wasted effort. You may not finish the book or give the plan a chance. Address those habits; open room to use your strengths. Form the habits of finishing and looking for the workable positive.
Quarterly successful-habit programme
Successful people have successful habits. Simple practice he started years ago: every business quarter, focus on developing one new successful habit. Sit and think about people you respect. What habits and rituals enable their success? Build a simple Vision of yourself displaying that habit. Get emotionally connected to the benefits. Make simple subtle life changes so the habit can form. Four new habits per year. Across a 30-40 year career that is a large stack of successful habit formation.
Sit now: pick someone successful in an area you admire. Name one habit of theirs. Picture yourself with it. Feel the benefit. List simple changes that would make the habit possible. Repeat every quarter.
Most of these habits are not massive life-changing rituals alone. Darren Hardy (best-selling author; publisher of Success magazine): The Compound Effect. Formula: Small smart choices + time + consistency = radical improvement. Each new habit builds on the last; performance rises in a short time.
Successful habits he has developed recently (capture the list; adopt selectively):
- Always calling people back within a certain time.
- Planning time better by estimating how long tasks will take.
- Not relying on "no traffic" and perfect green lights to arrive on time.
- Studying rather than only reading books; recording a brief summary in a journal.
- Only listening to personal-development CDs in the car between 8:00 a.m. Monday and 6:00 p.m. Friday.
- Giving genuine compliments to people at networking events and to colleagues and friends.
- Recording daily what he is grateful for (attitude of gratitude).
- Measuring net worth monthly to ensure it is increasing.
- Implementing social media with help from an expert rather than blind DIY.
- Continuously practising outcome thinking so every action and interaction has a named desired outcome.
- Getting to meetings and networking events early to meet and chat with other attendees.
Successful Habits Formula (The Power of Focus)
Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt share this formula:
- Identify the habit holding you back and the consequence of that habit.
- Write what the successful new habit would be to replace it, plus a clear benefit.
- Identify three easy steps to jump-start the new habit.
Worked example from the book:
- Bad: taking too much work home at weekends leads to guilt, restricted family time, damaged relationships.
- Good: completely free weekends from work leads to feeling more relaxed and rejuvenated, less stress, new family experiences.
- Jump-starts: (1) design work better by not overcommitting; (2) delegate secondary tasks to staff or a virtual assistant; (3) have family hold you accountable (no golf if you do not follow through).
Adopt the same process for the five bad habits you listed. If we want things to change, we must change. Follow through.
Key Development Point: Identify and correct bad habits. Maintain and then build good habits. If we want things to change, we must change.
Role creep: does it need to be you?
When he ran a small retail business he wore many hats: sales, distribution, finance, customer service. MDs and senior directors face the same pile. When did you last check that everything that needs doing needs doing by you? He bets it does not. Without realizing, we form the habit of adding more and more to our role. Some people want to control more than they need. Some appoint seniors and then cannot let go, so they do their own job plus the hired person's job. The role becomes too big; key responsibilities slip. He has seen projects stall because the MD wanted to input and never had time.
To be effective, keep focus on what is key and what makes the most of your strengths. Build life and business around natural abilities: things you do extremely well that others cannot easily match. That was the outcome when he left retail and, with his wife, designed the current business: profitable, loved, strength-utilizing. Rich Schefren ("Internet Business Manifesto"): number one reason people are not successful in business is that they are in the wrong business. Separate what you are interested in from what your strengths are.
A word of caution: delayed gratification
The "fun" card can be overplayed. He loves what he does; parts are not fun; some things just need doing. He is prepared to do things today he does not want to do in order to have what he wants tomorrow. Do you? Or do you put off hard stuff for easy, comfortable, non-stretch work? M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled: delayed gratification is a skill young people should learn and adults still need. Do the difficult things first; delay the good feelings rather than do what you want and postpone what you need.
His business funds a beautiful home and pension, food and clothes, holidays, and a home in Valencia. If you expect your business or job to do the same, sacrifice some time and focus on what needs doing. For most of the week, though, spend time on what you do really well: work you would do even unpaid, natural strengths, trained skills.
How much time this week did you allow yourself to excel? Happiness, income, and profit link directly to time on purpose. If the business or sales level is not where you want, check time on exceptional, value-adding work. Things may be blocking your best work. Build around key strengths.
Time audit: top 10 vs top 3
You need awareness of how time is spent. He ran this with a client who was surprised. Pattern matches Jurgen Wolff's Focus.
Step 1. List the 10 tasks that take up most of your work time.
Step 2. For each, list hours spent and percentage of total time. Example: 40-hour week, 4 hours answering email = 10%.
Step 3. List the three things that add the most value at work; note hours and percentage.
Client result: 52 hours in the business that week. Top 10 time tasks: 41 hours. Three highest-value tasks: 11 hours. About 80% of time on non-productive (often non-strength) tasks; 20% on high-value skilled work. Run the same audit. If you have a team, share it; optionally reward the best performer with a Friday early finish. Explain why: people need to feel engaged and see how results raise role satisfaction and business outcomes.
Final responsibility line: the reason your business is doing so well is because of you; the reason it is only doing so well is also because of you. Take responsibility for where you are. A major area to own is habits. Every bad habit needs a good replacement. Habits determine your future; what you do today affects what you receive tomorrow. Habit development is not overnight; over time results compound.
| Audit | Capture | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Good habits (5) | Benefit each | Protect and ritualize |
| Bad habits (5) | Cost each | Replace via Canfield 3 jump-start steps |
| Top 10 time tasks | Hours + % of week | Cut, delegate, or redesign |
| Top 3 value tasks | Hours + % of week | Expand toward most of the week |
| Quarterly habit | One new success habit | Four per year; compound |
| 90-day stretch | End-state feeling sentence | Kill cruise control |
Barratt's split: motion is not progress until the outcome is named.
---
Your Crystal Clear Vision
Habit work from Chapter 2 sets the table. Bad habits named, good habits started, admired people's rituals noted. Now build the 1-3-5 Action Plan, starting with Vision.
Wilkinson's opening probe is blunt: what are you focusing on in business or life right now? (Not the book.) Is it clear? Does it move you where you want to go? Do you carry the current major goal on a card, phone, or tablet?
Finding the most rewarding and profitable things to focus on is the job. Jim Rohn: learn to separate majors and minors. A lot of people do not do well simply because they major in minor things.
The entrepreneurial curse
Active minds see loads of options and notice opportunities others miss. That is the curse: you stop focusing on what you do brilliantly and stay unclear about exactly what you want. Opportunistic wandering feels attractive short term. When you run a small business or hold a key role, you need to be strategic about a crystal clear Vision. Other opportunities appeal; they also pull you off the planned direction and away from key strengths.
Think of a time you were moving one way, then something more attractive (usually short term) appeared, you changed course, and weeks later reversed with lost momentum. Success is not a straight line, but following a plan saves time. Prefer reaching Vision in 5 or 7 years instead of 10.
Return to the question: what are you focusing on right now?
Why Vision first
First Unstoppable component: crystal clear Vision (helicopter view). Wilkinson is focused by nature, yet without a clear Vision he would not have the business and life he has. Clients are more successful with a Vision-led strategy and feel more confident because they know where they are heading. People talk about being pulled toward Vision rather than only pushing. Clarified Vision also makes engaging others easier. You cannot succeed alone; better engagement makes the path easier.
Many owners say they have a Vision. Corporate Vision statements he has read are hard to engage with: they talk about the business and often omit the customer. All business delivers a result (product or service) the customer feels is worth more than they pay. Keep perceived value above monetary equivalent; do that enough times and you succeed. Include what clients receive in your Vision; it is about them as much as you.
Catch test: ask them to read the Vision aloud. They mumble, jump around, end with "something like that." Not good enough. Without a crystal clear picture of the life and business you want, how could you create it? Many owners finish each week unfulfilled because they are not engaged with the big picture they are creating. If you are fed up reaching week's end unfulfilled in business or life, act. Become Unstoppable: get crystal clear about Vision.
Eiffel again: did Gustave have width, height, and look in mind before the first spade? Of course. Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: begin with the end in mind means start with a clear understanding of destination so you know where you are now and keep steps on bearing. Creating Vision is creating that picture of success before (or while) you maximize progress.
Sample Vision (author)
Here excitement starts. Vision gives overall focus, frames every day, and pulls toward success the way gravity pulls an apple. He shares his own so you see the shape (sales target and date left as placeholders):
> I have built a super successful coaching and speaking business that has a monthly turnover of (sales target) by (date) by utilizing my God given skills of naturally motivating and inspiring people to become focused and consistent to achieve what they want out of their lives and businesses. I have a range of products and services that enable people to make sustainable change and growth. This means that I will then be able to achieve what I would like from my life and business for my family and myself.
Holiday absurdity: family at airport departure boards at 2 p.m. debating Spain at 3 p.m., Italy at 4:30 p.m., or Mexico tomorrow morning; wrong currency; hotel without a pool for swimming kids; inland hotel when someone wants beach. One year nine people at their Spain house made little holiday for him and his wife. Depending on your Vision of an excellent holiday you would set Core Objectives and Goals: book time off, pack, valid passports. Why then do businesses and lives wing it without deciding what fantastic looks like?
Vision for the 1-3-5 is not corporate wallpaper that turns readers off. It is engaging: what you do, who you do it for, what they get, what you receive, what you can do with that, and WHY you want it. To achieve lasting success, will power is not enough; you need WHY power (often forgotten).
Form: a succinct four to five sentence statement. Short enough to remember; detailed enough to describe what you will achieve. Vision is the real starting point; get it right via a 7-step process.
We think in pictures. Ask about your front door and you see colour, number, handle. Start with a simple picture of what the business will look like. He includes the actual drawing he made when he began (laptop for online products, presenting to audiences, detached house, separate office).
7-Step Vision process
Step 1. Create your picture. Keep it light. Sketch components of an ideal business and structure. Artistic skill optional; usefulness matters.
Step 2. Collect photographs of things and experiences success enables (magazines, catalogues). Client example: eco-friendly house on cliffs, sea view, free-range chickens. Exotic-holiday lovers: hammock on a private beach. Journal or whiteboard. Motivational juices and WHY power. When hard work tempts drift or tread-water, the picture of success can put you back on track.
Step 3. Describe a perfect day. You get in and say "I've had a fantastic day." What did you do? With whom? What value? What impact on lives? Capture ingredients of groove days when time flew and results were real. Those "on fire" days show what to recreate.
Step 4. Imagine life when Vision is achieved. How does family benefit? Leisure? How will you feel when business or career hits potential? Note thoughts; build feelings so you associate with what you will receive. Without knowing how success feels and benefits you, why stretch through 40-hour smart weeks? Optional but useful: a future-paced present-tense statement describing how great life is because you took consistent action. High self-expectations plus stretch tasks need emotional reconnect; reading the statement boosts WHY power.
Step 5. Measure success. Pick measurable areas. His Vision uses monthly sales turnover (about 18 years retail habit) and an income figure needed for the family life he wants. Brian Tracy, Psychology of Achievement: Six Elements of Success:
| Element | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Peace of mind | Freedom from fear, anger, guilt |
| Health and energy | Feeling of well-being |
| Loving relationships | Time with loved ones |
| Financial freedom | Enough so money is not constant preoccupation |
| Worthy goals and ideals | Goal-seeking nature |
| Personal fulfilment | Self-actualization (Maslow) |
Financial freedom matters to him, hence an income target in Vision. Not everyone needs to be a millionaire: £10,000/year enough for some; others need more than £100,000. Personal. Performance measures: turnover, client count, gross recurring income, projects delivered, net worth. Numbers tell the story. Many work hard; unfocused effort fails. Do not finish the week with "I did OK." Finish able to say you are further ahead, and by year-end "here," which leads to "here." Get specific. Put measures into the Vision draft.
Step 6. Get clear on value delivered. What will target customers experience? How do they benefit? This also feeds later marketing communications (skills chapters). Help people make more money? Improve health? Run business better? Protect their future? Keep feature, benefit, and value. Insert "which means" for clarity. Weak: "I help people have better health." Stronger: "I help people have better health, which means they can still run around and have fun with their grandchildren" (chiropractic senior-citizen client). His Vision language: help people make massive sustainable change so they achieve more in a week than most do in a month; real growth and freedom to enjoy themselves. Write ways customers receive value. Clear value communication aids ideal-client recruitment. Many businesses do this poorly; that is one reason they do not get the price they feel they deserve. Stuck? Ask existing clients; they often help and surprise you.
Foundation recap (Eiffel): many businesses sit on shifting sand; boom then bust often points to shaky foundation. If you are not getting results you want, check whether you are clear where you are going and how. Weak areas often have weak foundations.
Getting into the detail
Physical training and health matter to him. When fitness was off, foundation was weak. First move: picture desired health. Not perfection; start and progress. Correct Vision as you move.
Now pull into a clear four-to-five-sentence Vision like his sample. Not perfect yet. Drawings and photo boards stay as motivational check-ins before stretch tasks. For the 1-3-5, distill the juicy bits.
Sentence architecture:
- What you do and for whom.
- How they benefit and what value they experience.
- What result or measure the business will achieve.
- What that enables you to do and who benefits from that result.
Customer/client benefit comes before your benefit. Time scale: many clients write Vision 3 years out; others 5. Do not place it so far that you never start. What you do in the next 86,400 seconds affects tomorrow. Practise giving first in order to receive (reap/sow).
Key Development Point: Write Vision clearly as if already achieved. Prefer "I have a fantastic business that supports these people to achieve these results..." over "I'm going to build...". Build belief that you have achieved it so the subconscious "goes to work." Do not wait for perfect; start writing now.
Step 7. Write first draft of business/life Vision in the workbook space. Having a simple memorable statement should feel good. Then build emotional connection.
Monday ritual: he reads Vision at least every Monday. Opens right-hand drawer, clear wallet with 1-3-5, reconnects; hairs on neck stand up. Imagine starting your week that way, Vision at the centre.
Chris Gillie, MD, Heritage Accountancy, after developing Vision with senior team: every day the company Vision makes him more engaged and focused; not overnight; small steps (goals) eventually turn into a sprint; far from previous constant firefighting.
Key Development Point: Clarify and then read your Vision weekly. Connect with it; keep it front of mind. This drives all of your actions.
Seven-step Vision build before Objectives and Goals.
---
Your 3 Core Objectives
Congratulations on Vision: a simple succinct statement of what success looks like, grand helicopter view with a personal element, about 3-5 years out. Feel good briefly; then work. Chunk it down.
Purpose of the full 1-3-5: a plan that enables focused action on a consistent basis so you become exceptional and Unstoppable. Vision alone is incomplete. Feeling good without a how-plan frustrates. Action is the essential ingredient: only what you think about, talk about, and then do something about will actually come about.
3 Core Objectives chunk the elephant. Focus on what is absolutely core to Vision. If it is not core, it is nice-to-have, not must-have.
This stage challenged him: active mind, many possible foci. Ever started something then gone another way? Ever chased a bright blue butterfly (tough project moment, then email, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook looks more interesting)? If yes, three Core Objectives are for you.
Why three? Most professionals he supports have more to do than time; task lists never complete; items carry to next day or week. Main cause: focusing on too many things; effort diluted; busy weeks with little impact. Many have busy weeks and achieve nothing. You will be in the minority who focus on progress and feel good about it.
Three Objectives cover the main loads needed for Vision and become where attention goes. Everything from here aims to achieve Vision effectively. Not "fast" as in instant; notable achievement takes time. People overestimate a day or week and underestimate 90 days or a year.
Paul Callaghan, Leighton Group (Sunderland; successful group of five independent companies): good leaders have to understand what their objectives are and carry people along with them.
When you know the three central Objectives you feel confidence and can share them for alignment. Fast-forward: after this section, if you undertake a task that does not contribute to one or all Core Objectives, question why. Majority of time should hit the three, not lesser distractions.
Creating your 3 Core Objectives
Core Objective 1. What first absolutely needs to be in place for Vision? Central, not optional.
Examples to start:
- Accountancy: level of gross recurring income. Toward £1m turnover, how many clients pay every year for accounts; mix and rates shape recurring income.
- Chiropractor: number of clients on a payment plan contributing to turnover.
- Shareholder path: value delivered to shareholders so they keep investing and allow development.
- Training/coaching: income from a particular stream or product line in a 12-month period.
He likes Objectives of this nature because they emphasize helping people do or have something before they pay. Whatever the business, you need people: supporters, people you support, or paying clients.
His CO1: passive income from online coaching and development programmes. More people reached, more impact; online content leverages time globally.
Key Development Point: Before writing CO1, three tests: must be core; must be specific; must be written like you have achieved them. Vague Objectives produce vague results. Prefer "I have £600k of recurring income each year from my 300 core clients" over "I do well and have lots of customers" or "my sales performance is big." More specific now means easier 5-Goal setting later.
Core Objective 2. Many businesses choose process and system. Looking at Vision, what process/system must exist? McDonald's success (like the food or not) owes much to system: building restaurants, recruiting, management development. Ray Kroc (joined 1954, built the global operation) was impressed by the simple efficient burger production system. That system enabled massive growth worldwide. Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth, calls it the best small business in the world.
Critically: CO2 could be a proven delivery system enabling growth and Vision; an excellent marketing or lead-generation system delivering a stream of clients (a certain number) to sales target; for manufacturing/retail, how you deliver product; a process/system manual for sustainable advantage; a more profitable delivery method that also benefits customers. Workshop clients often set CO2 as team development / high-performance team.
His CO2: face-to-face 121 and team coaching programmes; needed counts of professional teams and 121 clients. He would find it impossible to feel fulfilled without personal work. Different for you.
Core Objective 3. Final. When you become successful, the journey can be nearly as rewarding as the outcome. Success is not only what you get; it is who you become. Thinking widely: the person you need to be; brilliant new habits; new skills; far better time use. What evidence would show you have become exceptional?
Alternatively: team is fine and CO3 is a new product for a new market and profitable area. Or Vision is about impacting far more people than today. CEO group example: one leader chose CO1 personal, CO2 business, CO3 spiritual as absolutely core to living the life he wanted.
His CO3: speaking and presenting. To reach and support the numbers he wants he must speak to large audiences; he loves speaking; best use of a key strength. The Objective describes the result from developing that side.
Look back: absolutely core? Beware Objectives that are only simple goals achievable with eyes shut; they should stretch. Keep them tight (brief enough to remember, not long-winded). Overriding premise: you will use the 1-3-5.
Key Development Point: Keeping Core Objectives tight means you can read the 1-3-5 in minutes, then make it happen. Action is essential.
Recap, butterflies, and deeds
You have Vision written as achieved, packed with emotion, Monday neck-hair test, a thing of pride. Recheck Objectives: core, specific, achieved-tense. Honest: must they be in place for Vision?
You now have monthly focus areas. If you find yourself doing something that will not complete one of the three, question why. Stay on track; bright blue butterflies are not you.
Humour tactic: when asked onto a project that will not serve an Objective, or a meeting he lacks time for, he "blames" Core Objectives: "I'd help you with that project if I could but my Core Objectives won't allow it, I must stay on task." People often reply "er, OK, Pete, I understand." Fun, with a serious base: many start and do not finish because they never knew what to work on and why. Be different. Consistency matters for making the most of yourself.
Andrew Carnegie (sold steel business for $401m in 1901): as I get older I pay less attention to what people say; I just watch what they do. Read twice. He pledged to be someone who says and then does. Only think + talk + DO becomes real. Past over-promising is forgivable; from now on, when you say you will do something, take action. Core Objectives exist so you have key focus areas.
With your three: FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.
Measure or drift
Objectives are achieved only if actions around them can be monitored. Peter Drucker: basic management rules apply; what gets measured gets managed. Grow sales, measure sales; margin; profit; happiness (find a way). Measure progress on the three; set them for the same time frame as Vision.
Honest audit: what are you measuring now? Diet, fitness, happiness, wealth: if you want improvement, measure. As company sales manager he had 12 KPIs; thought excessive then; later saw he knew performance in all key areas. You may not want twelve; measure key results that prove you are on track. Progress motivates more consistency. Bonus: if measurement shows shortfall, amend quickly.
Because one Objective concerns 121/group/team coaching results, he keeps an A4 marketing plan of planned activities and tracks items such as Twitter followers, master email list size, and blog count. Hits, even small, motivate consistency.
Part of weekly 1-3-5 reading: look at the three and decide which Objective is the current major focus. While writing the book, his focus was CO3; tasks feeding Goals under that Objective. Align activities. Decide what a good result each week would be.
Key Question: Do you always have a weekly outcome?
Progress not perfection. Tom Peters recently on Twitter: 1980s "ready, aim, fire"; 1990s "ready, fire, aim"; now "fire, fire, fire." Keep taking action. Late Ultra stages were not pretty (he jokes about Rudolf Nureyev in ASICS); key was keep moving and hit each Objective. Great bike split fails if you cannot achieve CO3: stand on the finishing line in one piece by 7:30 p.m.
Look in the right place when measuring. That leads to the final foundation stage: 5 action-oriented Goals per Objective, daily focus, best use of 86,400 seconds. Busy-but-ineffective days should become a memory.
Key Development Point: If what you are doing is not contributing to one of your 3 Core Objectives, question whether you should be doing it.
| Slot | Typical focus (examples) | Author's choice |
|---|---|---|
| CO1 | Recurring income, clients, product-line revenue | Passive online coaching income |
| CO2 | Systems, marketing engine, delivery, team | Face-to-face 121 + team coaching |
| CO3 | Who you become, new market, reach, life blend | Speaking / presenting results |
| Rules | Core · specific · achieved-tense · tight · measured | Same time frame as Vision |
Chunk Vision into three measured must-haves; kill nice-to-haves and butterflies.
---
Keep Goals in Perspective
One major reason people miss their destination: they cannot see a route. Lost in the car (and reluctant to ask directions), relief arrives with a signpost. Design signposts for business and life so you know the way and can measure progress. That is why Goals matter.
This is where daily work that serves your magnificent Vision gets nailed down. "Magnificent" means what it means to you. His Vision need not excite you; yours need not excite him. Make sure yours excites you.
Three properties Goals must have
1. Stepping stones. Look back at the Ultra 1-3-5: Goals were stepping stones to each Core Objective. Unstoppable, and the foundation 1-3-5 especially, is a process: what you will do, where you will focus, how you will stay consistent. Goals exist to make progress. They are dynamic: replace them as you achieve them. He highlights completed Goals in bold italics for brief satisfaction, then installs the next. Always progressing.
On the Ultra bike: Goals around food eaten, fluid drunk, pace, heart rate, perceived effort. Focusing on those for about 7 hours meant arriving at the marathon around 3:15 p.m. with energy left. Under-fuel (bike is main fuelling stage) and you run out. Heart rate over 160 and you burn out. Little Goals enabled progress (sometimes slow) toward finishing inside 14 hours. Business Goals under each Objective work the same: benchmarks you step onto, bit by bit.
Key Development Point: When setting Goals, make them a stretch. Believable, yet enough to shift comfort zone.
2. Action-oriented. He has met people whose Goals require no action. Reject those. Thinking is good, talking better, action best. Action is essential: only think + talk + do becomes real. Doers succeed. Goals should motivate the action habit. Be a Goal achiever, not only a Goal setter. Carnegie again: watch what people do.
Press-ups for all-round strength (triathletes bias legs): 10 was a struggle at first; consistent action reached a comfortable 40. Same in business. Client claims: client base up 97% in 12 months; monthly sales up 54%. Now set 5 action-oriented Goals for each of 3 Core Objectives.
Jump ahead: action cures procrastination. Alarm; you want to lie there; at the CMD (Dr Tom Barratt: critical moment of decision), take action, jump up, dress.
3. Outcome-focused. Vague Goals ("lose some weight," "get more sales") underperform clear ones: "weigh 79 kg by 15 August because I'm racing 1 September"; "grow 10% this year and reach £300,000 by 31 December." His triathlon strength Goal was not "become stronger" but leg press 180 kg: can you or not? Bourne films (Nicki): they do not make mistakes, do not do random, there is always an outcome. You need not become an assassin; you do need an outcome in mind for each Goal.
Keep Goals in the right perspective
Goals in the 1-3-5 exist to motivate and inspire, keep you engaged with Vision, show what deserves time, and let you feel progress. They are not there to kick you or make you feel bad. Do not set Goals that make you think "I'll never achieve that." Set Goals that make you think "if I really focus and work to the level I'm capable of, with effort I can." Bad line-manager appraisal Goals without buy-in kill engagement before start. Here the Goals are yours, for your Objectives, for your Vision.
Key Development Point: Your Goals are to motivate you to keep taking action and fulfil your potential.
You may not get this stage right first time. Start; make progress. As long as you progress you cannot fail; you only fail when you stop or give up. Some Goals will challenge; that is the idea. The 1-3-5 develops who you are and who you can become. Consistency makes hard things easier than expected.
Why not 1-3-10? He wanted only the really key items. He has seen people busy on loads of stuff with no real progress; ask what they are working on and get a list as long as their arm. Five Goals focus on what enables progress right now. Goals stay dynamic with progress. Example: build email list to 1,000 people who get what you do and could become prospects in 6 months; update when achieved; tasks sit behind the Goal. Diary time for particular Goals; finish one, move to the next. Fifteen Goals at once is enough. Client feedback: single-page 1-3-5 raises regular use. What you focus on magnifies; keep the page close.
Key Development Point: Beware Action Apathy. As we age, action-taking can slow and stop. Exercise: weekly squash becomes occasional dog walk, then walking to the car (some walk into the garage and drive to the office parking space). Financial Goals: less target-driven until necessity returns. Early love/lust goal energy fades with time. Do not only set Goals; achieve them.
Brian Tracy: Goals are how to get everything you want, faster than you ever thought possible.
Your Goal checklist
When setting each of the 5 Goals per Objective:
- What do you want to achieve? Link to Vision; which Goal advances the Objective?
- Think how you will achieve it; be positive. Belief matters; stretch yet believable. Napoleon Hill: what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.
- Write it on the 1-3-5 template. Head-only Goals stay less real.
- Current position? Swim 4,000 m under 1.5 hours needs a baseline.
- Why must you achieve it? WHY power from Vision work.
- Completion date. No deadline, drift, especially for boss-less owners.
- Obstacles. Not negativity; awareness so you can plan around.
- Extra knowledge/skills needed? Upgrade prep.
- Who can help? No one succeeds hugely alone; Part Four people review expands this.
- Review continually. Vision pictures + weekly 1-3-5 check.
- Be consistent. Focused consistency is the key; always too soon to give up. Clear Vision makes consistency easier.
Writing Goals under each Objective
Core Objective 1. Client: personal effectiveness; result inside a shorter working time frame. Goals: time management, time blocks, better delegation so the team delivers and the client works on the right things; focus on return on energy per 59-minute segment. Author CO1 (online passive coaching income): range of online programmes at price points; membership site; joint-venture relationships with people who serve the same audience for a free intro product that demonstrates value. Stuck? Imagine the Objective already achieved; brainstorm what you had to do; distill five.
Core Objective 2. Client: systems manual so the offer duplicates without the owner present (leverage/growth). Goals: document process, record it, produce manual, test, tweak. Author (face-to-face coaching volume): build five connector relationships; email list of suspects to build relationship with; free resources to demonstrate expert status; systemized referral process. Mostly marketing steps toward the Objective.
Core Objective 3. Many work long hours. One client's CO3: work/life blend (hours worked vs time with wife/family). Goals: 1 day/month with spouse trying new activities (clay pigeon, hot air balloon, archery); rejuvenation time; physical training time. Hit those and the blend Objective follows. Author (speaking turnover and talk count): develop and practise keynote toward world class; unpaid talks to ideal target audiences; speaking marketing materials (one-page info sheet, showreel). Each Goal is progress. Consistency: send the email, write the letter, make the call, have the difficult conversation. Reward milestones; look back at distance covered.
Recap: 15 Goals, stepping stones, action-oriented, outcome-focused, daily focus. Maximize every day; make every day count. Because Goals build momentum, write out one Goal you really want every day for 30 days. Most people have no Goals; constant focus rewards the work of setting them. Control thoughts by keeping Goals in mind and writing them as achieved.
Pull the whole together
Crystal clear Vision. 3 Core Objectives central to Vision (monthly focus). 5 action-oriented Goals per Objective (daily focus). Now create the world-class one-page 1-3-5 Action Plan. Blank template: petewilkinson.com/1-3-5template.
Here's an idea
A professional team's chief executive instantly saw a firm-level 1-3-5, then department 1-3-5s feeding the centre, then a 1-3-5 for a polar expedition. Once confident with the business plan, use it for renovations, once-in-a-lifetime holidays, new products or divisions. One client even built a Christmas 1-3-5: Vision of a good Christmas, 3 Objectives, Goals as little stretches, so hard-working owners could enjoy time off.
Making your foundation work
Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics, "Acquiring the habit of happiness": man is a goal-striving being; functioning naturally when oriented toward some positive desirable goal; happiness is a symptom of normal functioning; when functioning as a goal-striver he tends to feel fairly happy regardless of circumstances. Wilkinson agrees: clients who feel lost often lack specific enough Goals and a clear outcome picture. When Goals are results-focused and effort concentrates, flow arrives. Pursue Goals aggressively (he talks aggressively to himself in the training zone; wife feedback). Do not be passive about what you want, as long as it does not cost or harm others. People who act like they have lost often have lost aggressive attitude toward a Goal. Exciting, engaging Goals put you on a mission. Momentum is a train: hard to start, hard to stop. Imagine when that is you; imagine Unstoppable.
You created Vision, then Objectives, then Goals. Magic starts when you use the plan.
Turn everything on its head
In use, invert the stack: work daily on the 5 Goals, which complete the 3 Objectives, which achieve the 1 Vision. Creation is 1-3-5; execution is 5-3-1.
Download the template; fill it. His sits in the top drawer; every Monday morning before work he looks at it. Laptop/tablet copy also works. Keep it close; read Vision regularly. Because you followed the process, Vision is not only corporate; personal WHY reminds you. Lose WHY and focus slips, then effectiveness. New successful habit: at least weekly (preferably week start) read the full 1-3-5. Vision excites; Objectives remind monthly/weekly focus; Goals (and writing main Goal(s) on a pad or card if you are serious) multiply progress. Do not complete exercises and abandon the page in a drawer. Triathlon training followed a plan; each day sessions per discipline (his three Objectives). Training diary benefit: always see what you are doing, plan to do, and progress from doing. Darren Hardy consistency formula again. When will you diary a weekly 1-3-5 review?
Discipline. Focus means discipline about what needs doing. Action Pause moments determine the future: choose what needs doing now (even unwanted) over what is easier. No one achieves success without discipline. Self-discipline: do what you need, when you need, whether you want to or not. Grand Vision requires it. Stick to cause, plan, 1-3-5. Removing emotion from some task decisions helps; "I don't feel like it" is not enough reason. Take emotion out; get on with the task. Consistency on what matters produces progress. Part Three: key skills to make the best of yourself and the 1-3-5.
Mike Weedon, Life Cover For All: like most owners he wasted huge time on a detailed business plan never updated (too heavy; company had changed). Then 1-3-5: usable real-time snapshot of past, present, and future; easy to nudge focus or Goal knowing all still serve Vision and Objectives.
Key Development Point: Get serious about discipline and be focused on your 1-3-5. Plan diary time for a regular 1-3-5 slot.
Build top-down; work bottom-up. Weekly read keeps WHY alive.
---
The Four Key Skills You Need
Many skills matter for success. Wilkinson focuses on four that, from his experience and client results, bring the best outcome for you and the business. The same four he needed for Ultra Endurance Triathlon training and for growing his coaching business.
Why these four
Leadership. He had to build a clear picture of what he would achieve and engage himself regularly (especially before a 3-hour run). Clear picture → consistent training. Delivery and execution: you cannot think yourself fit; you must train. Reply to Tom Peters (@tom_peters) on leadership and accountability: leading yourself may be toughest of all. Easy to let yourself off, ease back, never flick cruise control. Peters said he was brutal on himself. Jim Rohn (The Art of Exceptional Living): if you work hard on your job you will make a living; if you work hard on yourself you will make a fortune.
Key Question: If I was the very best version of myself, what could I achieve? Answer, then do something about it.
Personal Organization. Major obstacle in Ultra training or career building: time. Endurance training runs 8 to 18 hours a week. At race time he was married with two daughters and a demanding business. Eighteen hours is a part-time job. He had to find training time and make sessions effective. Same in business: be clear what each task should achieve. Outcome thinking before starting. Family relationships needed quality time: not reading 220 Triathlon beside his wife; not core work during a film with his daughters. Negotiating time and effort with a partner is part of committing to an Endurance Triathlon, and to launching and running a business. Rewards can be great; effort is required.
Key Strength Development. Not only physical strength (though that mattered). Areas of natural strength: groin strain limited running; bike was strong, so training leaned on the bike until he almost lived on it, aiming to dismount reasonably fresh. Other disciplines still needed work; focus on bike strength made sense. Business parallel: identify strengths and use them fully.
The four skills (execution layer)
Leadership (preview)
You cannot make the best of yourself and circumstances without leadership skill. Even as a micro professional, how you lead yourself matters. Alone or with a team, self-leadership and other-leadership set the success level. Covey Habit 7, Sharpen the saw, applies: keep sharpening leadership. After leadership, make the most of time. "I don't have the time" is a common excuse (he has used it too).
Key Development Point: If we needed more time, the day would be longer. Clearly, it is long enough.
Personal Organization (preview)
He has invested many hours here.
Relationship Building (preview)
Management Today article he cites: companies that understand customer relationship management will be first out of recession. Too often owners emphasize the transaction. Slick sales process matters; emphasis should still sit on the relationship.
Key Strength Development (preview)
After better leadership (engaging supporters), after making the most of roughly 86,400 seconds a day (text once says 86,500; treat as the same daily allotment), and after creative relationship work, develop key strengths. How fully you use them and design the business around them is the final piece for Vision and making the most of yourself.
Progress, not perfection. You are not aiming to be perfect in any skill; only to progress so the 1-3-5 Action Plan works. That is the only reason to train these skills.
Execution ring: skills exist to serve the living 1-3-5, not as separate hobbies.
---
Skill One: Leadership
Leadership, for Wilkinson, keeps things as simple as they can be. Not overcomplication: results. Decide what result the organization, family, or sports club wants; engage yourself and those around you with effective communication to come on board and deliver.
Steve Radcliffe, Future Engage Deliver: from large-organization CEO work and leadership coaching, he saw we make leadership more complex than it is. Agree: effective leaders think about the future.
Key Question: In the last week, how much structured time have you spent thinking about your future or your business future?
Most owners he meets answer with not much. Reminder: the business does well because of you; it only does so well also because of you. If you want great things, spend time thinking and working on them. He will not prescribe exact hours; a lot of thinking should sit in the future.
Retail years: think where the business needed to be, which suppliers to add, what the team should look like, which skill gaps existed. Small business meant working in it a great deal while consciously pulling out to work on it. As company sales manager with 30 store managers: keep the future (juicy sales target) clear; think how to reach and exceed it. Firefighting customer demands is familiar; if you are not thinking and deciding about Vision, nobody else is. Develop others' leadership; still spend time on your future. It is your Vision.
Exceptional leaders leave you feeling better after a short meeting: more confidence, bigger goals. They are connected to their Vision; success matters to them; enthusiasm is contagious. After your personal Vision exists, communicate it. Not "work like mad so I can swim in Mexico," but enthuse people with success and how it positively impacts them.
His successful move: link business Vision to what each person cared about by taking genuine interest. Bonus for a car; time off with family; advancement and new skills. Managers were needed for his success; making them feel involved as a team made the future more secure.
Weekly 1-3-5 read (ideally week start) reconnects you with Vision. Short time imagining achievement and feeling is "spending time in the future."
Who do I engage?
If you lead a team, engage them. Harder than it sounds. Early coaching session with a professional team: two directors, seven support people, briefing on process, outcomes, and working together. Session was very difficult: little prior engagement; "them and us"; underperformance. Directors often strong on product technique, weak on leadership as a skill. That is why leadership sits in Unstoppable. After more whole-team sessions, people opened up, brought ideas, and moved toward Vision faster. Little difference, big difference; team engaged.
Honest questions: How well have you engaged your team? Do they know where you are heading? Do they know progress and their performance? Is there structured performance management (good rewarded, poor highlighted and acted on)? Last team meeting: agenda? Did you do all the talking, or ask needs and support them? How well do you know them? If someone asked Monday how engaged they feel, what would they say?
Obvious questions, often unasked. Lead the team and you get ahead; engaged teams grow leaders at more levels.
Feedback passion. Robust process so people know performance, contribution, and can request support or skill development. Have something rather than nothing. Internal communication remains a major business challenge. His tested four-stage system (two-way; people know where they are; you get "golden nuggets"):
| Stage | Length | Cadence | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| KIT (keep in touch) | 2-4 min informal | Weekly | Light contact |
| 121 | 15-20 min | Monthly | Structured (sales, quality, results); engage Vision; praise and improve |
| Quarterly review | 30-45 min | Quarterly | More formal; member prepares; action plan; on-the-job performance |
| Annual appraisal | ~1 hour | Yearly | Structured; reward great year; set stretch goals; guidelines (client resource: fingertipsolutions.org.uk) |
Simple system so people know what is happening, how they contribute, and what the future needs.
It all falls down with execution
Radcliffe's third piece: Deliver. Shiny pizza menu and perfect chef fail if the driver gets lost. New car you love fails when service promised for 5 p.m. is not ready and you have a meeting 200 miles away next day. Wife ordered a mobility scooter for her father; due date missed; call centre unhelpful; website promised "We promise to keep our promises." Delivery company that did not deliver and did not call. Audit your business: great product and sales process, weak delivery? Where can delivery improve? Leader's job to check and fix.
When you and the business do not deliver, you fall short of potential and let yourself, the business, and clients down. Better leadership means follow-through. Un-glamorous work; as leader nobody may kick you if you skip it. Build execution anyway. Unfair to team and customers if you do not.
1-3-5 helps execution via Vision connection and WHY power; still not enough. Need measurement so you can hold yourself accountable: simple KPI spreadsheet. What results prove consistent execution: sales target, marketing result, margin improvement? Personal; have something so you can lead yourself.
Team execution problems: first check how you communicated Vision. Shared direction? Engaged or left resistant like the early coaching team? Motivation or training issue? Measure and monitor (Drucker again); evidence will show non-execution.
Client system: after one month with a new client, send a feedback postcard: rate service 1-10; if not 10, what would make it a 10? Strong improvement ideas; signals that delivery is taken seriously.
Mini leadership review
Pause and check direction (top of business). Questions:
- How clear is the future of business or life? Crystal Vision? Engaged; living it?
- How much time last month engaging direct team in Vision? Do people know direction and current performance?
- Who is on your support team? Advice mix? Synergize; you need not go alone.
- Last critical assessment of ability to deliver product/service through clients' eyes?
- What delivery developments in the last 30 days? Constantly improve delivery.
Darren Hardy plane metaphor: planes leave more often off plan; gyroscope constantly corrects; without correction you could finish 150 miles off course. Do the same.
Entrepreneurs Forum (Newcastle upon Tyne): support team plus hearing leaders. Jeff Grout session: four questions from learning from the past:
- What good things must you keep doing?
- What good things must you start doing?
- What do you do occasionally that you must do consistently?
- What bad things must you stop doing?
Answer properly; set time; do not scrape the surface.
Keep: Identify past goods that produced results; build a system so they continue. Also reconnects you with value you will later communicate. Complacency damages: stop the good things → lose sales, profit, customers, share. Speculative examples he floats: IBM leaving home PC leadership; Sony TVs overtaken by Samsung; Nokia losing to BlackBerry and iPhone. Sporting: Rocky in Rocky III stops old training, loses to Clubber Lang, returns to basics, regains title (fiction with a point).
Start: Not a vague list. If social media, what specifically? He hired social media coach Karen James (KLJ Social Media) for strategy and implementation; tracked outcomes. Another start: demonstrate value up front without risk: free action book + landing page to capture names/emails and begin relationships. Follow-up? Support team? Strategic networking?
Consistently: Direct mail that once generated £1000s of sales had stopped (broken habit, weak measure, or laziness). Networking: prepared 60-second introduction beat winging it. Tortoise wins. Relationships, health, business: would consistency have improved results? Appraisals, weekly meetings, connector relationships, rewarding yourself, holidays. Your 5 Goals per Objective are the move from occasional to consistent.
Stop: First he thought he did no bad things; looked deeper. Sold himself short. David Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big: chapters "You are better than you think you are" and "You are twice as good as you think you are." If twice as good, what could you achieve? Charged less from selling short? What small action today? Another stop: lateness from underestimating task time, overestimating drive speed, underestimating red lights → late, stressed, unprofessional. Client stops: overpromising; allowing unrealistic client expectations (respond within minutes) that wreck planned work. Answer to learn, not to kick yourself. Leadership of self requires learning from past operation; being good at the job is not enough.
Leadership communication (NLP snapshot)
Good communication is essential. He completed a Certificate in the Art and Science of NLP with Cricket Kemp (North East NLP). NLP framed as a "manual for your brain"; model from the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, studying therapists who got better results with common master-communicator traits. Use ethically.
Four pillars:
| Pillar | Practice |
|---|---|
| Rapport | Match language predicates: visual ("I see," "future looks bright"), auditory ("rings a bell," "loud and clear"), kinaesthetic ("good feeling," "something tells me"). Match body language carefully; extreme mismatch breaks rapport. Tone and pace too. Rapport raises influence odds. |
| Sensory awareness | Read signals (home example: know before Sharon speaks that something was forgotten). Team: neck flush, broken eye contact on sales questions. Calibrate; change approach when signals say so. |
| Behavioural flexibility | Break rigid habits (same shoe, same toothbrush hand, same commute, same boardroom seat). If it is not working, do something different. Pay-deal breakdowns often lack flexibility. Adapt mid-conversation. |
| Outcome thinking | Always name the outcome before meetings, projects, calls. Kills the 40-minute call that ends with "what was the point?" Aligns with Covey Habit 2, begin with the end in mind. |
Together: rapport → comfort; sensory awareness → tune effects; flexibility → adapt; outcome → higher hit rate. More effective leadership → better business results. Optional: his blog on "The 13 Operating Beliefs of NLP" at petewilkinson.com/blog.
Reputation (personal brand)
Overlooked by many. Reputation from three areas:
- What you say
- What you do
- What others say about you
Influence them deliberately. Gerald Ratner (Ratners Group) lost millions via remarks about products. Early 2013 coffee-shop tax controversy reportedly damaged image for a time. Third area: consciously shape what others say. PR is one path; smaller owners can produce and share work that demonstrates expertise. His free pocket action book download builds reputation via what people say.
Leadership is the first Unstoppable skill; it unlocks better use of the 1-3-5.
Your progress so far
1-3-5 exists: Vision, monthly Objectives, weekly/daily Goals and tasks. Better leader even if you only lead yourself; that determines focus. Build support team for acceleration; momentum; people notice you are "up to something" (Vision). Grand Vision scares "normal" people; you own responsibility for the life and business you want.
Key Development Point: The toughest challenge is how you lead yourself; be brutal on yourself.
Simple leadership loop: think ahead, bring people in, keep promises in the real world.
Engage deeper: what "them and us" costs
When engagement is missing, technical competence in the product cannot save results. Directors who never ask the Monday engagement question leave support people guessing. Structure performance management so good work is rewarded and poor work is named and acted on; without that, KIT chats become small talk and appraisals become theatre. Agenda-led meetings that ask for needs (not monologues) are how leaders grow leaders at more levels. Wilkinson is blunt: these "obvious" questions are simply not asked in many firms.
Two-way communication is the point of the four-stage system. Weekly KIT keeps contact cheap and frequent. Monthly 121 starts structure (sales, quality, general results) and ties the person to Vision with praise and, when needed, improvement areas. Quarterly reviews ask the member to prepare; action plans appear; the focus is on-the-job performance. Annual appraisals stretch an hour, follow guidelines, reward a strong year, and set next-year stretch goals. Client tooling (fingertipsolutions.org.uk in the book) is optional; having a cadence beats having none.
Delivery as leadership proof
Customer experience collapses when delivery fails after a strong sale. Pizza that never arrives, a car not ready at 5 p.m. before a 200-mile trip, a mobility scooter promised and not delivered under the slogan "We promise to keep our promises": each is a leadership failure to check the last mile. Ask: where is our product or sales experience strong and our delivery weak? Fix that first. Self-leadership without execution is unfair to team and clients because nobody may force the leader to follow through. Build a KPI sheet that answers: if we execute consistently, which numbers move (sales, marketing result, margin)? Drucker-style monitoring makes non-execution visible. The one-month 1-10 postcard ("If you cannot give a 10, what would?") both harvests improvements and signals that delivery is serious.
Grout questions as a leadership audit
Set calendar time; scrape answers and you learn little.
Keep. Name goods that produced results last year and wire them into a system so they do not fade. Complacency stories (IBM PCs, Sony vs Samsung, Nokia vs BlackBerry/iPhone, Rocky vs Clubber Lang) are narrative warnings that stopping what worked loses share and titles. Also use the keep-list later when you communicate value.
Start. Specifics beat slogans. Social media meant hiring Karen James for strategy and tracked implementation, not "be on Twitter." Value-up-front meant a free action book and landing page to start email relationships with less risk to suspects and prospects. Ask: follow-up quality, support-team build, strategic networking?
Consistently. Direct mail that once returned £1000s had stopped. Networking without a prepared 60-second introduction underperformed. Tortoise logic applies across relationships, health, and business. Your five Goals per Objective are the official occasional-to-consistent list: appraisals, weekly meetings, connector relationships, self-rewards, holidays.
Stop. Selling short (Schwartz: better than you think; twice as good). Chronic lateness from stacked underestimates. Overpromising. Absorbing minute-level client expectations that destroy planned work. Learn; do not self-punish. Self-leadership is learning from how you operated, not only from how skilled you are at the craft.
NLP pillars in one leadership conversation
Rapport first so people feel on your wavelength. Sensory awareness so you notice when a neck flush or lost eye contact says the message landed wrong. Behavioural flexibility so you change angle instead of repeating the failed approach. Outcome thinking so the conversation had a defined success state before it began. Used ethically, the stack raises the odds of influence and clarity; used as a trick kit, it damages trust. Reputation still rests on what you say, what you do, and what others say: Ratner-style product jokes and tax-image hits show speech and action can erase years of brand work; free useful content can shape what others say without a big PR budget.
---
Skill Two: Personal Organization
For Wilkinson this skill changed how he worked. He was weak here and trained hard. More than classic time management: you cannot manage time, only what you do with it.
Keynote habit: ask who has had a busy day with nothing achieved; nearly every hand goes up. Common challenge. Start with honest self-assessment.
Self-assessment (yes/no probes)
| Probe | Underlying issue |
|---|---|
| Tackle paperwork first time you see it? | Do-it-now mindset |
| Face more crises than needed from poor planning? | Stuck in urgent/important pressure |
| Others chase you to finish? | External push to stay on task |
| Vague priorities? | Key business/life priorities unclear |
| More than 30 minutes/day looking for things? | Disorganized environment |
| Meetings last longer than needed? | Weak outcome focus; lose track of time |
| Others negatively influence your time use? | Not always in control |
| Start more projects than you finish? | Bright blue butterflies |
| Always busy, not always productive? | Motion without result |
| Hang on to tasks that should be delegated? | "No one is better" trap |
Purpose: see whether you waste time or invest it. Every day: 86,400 seconds. How effectively do you use them?
Get control at the start of your week
Beginning of personal organization: fully use the 1-3-5. Ideally read it Monday morning to frame the week: reconnect with Vision and WHY; remind yourself of monthly, weekly, daily work toward the big picture. That step alone puts you in an effective state. Believe you are destined for the Vision; feel client, self, and family benefit; that is motivational juice for the day's seconds.
Not luck or always a larger team. They:
- Plan
- Stay focused
- Work on important, not only urgent
- Stay consistent
- Manage distractions
- Stay clear about what they want to achieve
Plan the week from the 1-3-5
How well do you plan? Many clients lack an effective diary (electronic optional; his now is; must simply work for you). Plan at least one week at a time. Arriving and asking "what should I do today?" wastes the 1-3-5 habit.
Formulate the plan at the end of the previous week (Friday afternoon or Sunday night; Monday early only if you are an early bird). Friday process:
- Open 1-3-5; pick which Core Objective is major focus next week (monthly track).
- From its 5 Goals, pick the one or few to progress.
- List tasks under those Goals for dedicated working-on-the-business time blocks.
- Place those activities in the diary.
Time blocks: diary sections from 30 minutes to a few hours, protected. Clear outcome per block. No Facebook/Twitter, no email, no calls. Disconnect; flow surprises you.
He uses ACT (Sage CRM) as diary. Each day: three VITs (very important things), written in red. VITs come from Goals ← Objectives ← Vision: full alignment. End state: a week with about 15 VIT tasks across five days; completing them means progress. Not every minute must be planned; get control of time.
Real world has crises and urgent surprises. Still set yourself up: plan important work Friday or early Monday. Days that hit 5 p.m. unnoticed need a planned week.
Start-of-day and end-of-day routines
Retail: morning jobs (security tapes, till floats, tickets, sales board); end-of-day (shutdown, ring sales to head office, 15 minutes centre leadership on store standards). Middle could be chaos; bookends held.
What success routine starts and ends your day, week, month, quarter? After weekly VITs exist, build simple start/finish routines. New? Start easy and maintainable; build once the habit sticks. Brian Tracy: start day by writing three major goals. Brendon Burchard: decide what to achieve, who to talk to, gather resources. Darren Hardy: father woke him at 6 a.m. for garage weight training.
His routine: Monday read full 1-3-5; decide what a good week looks like, weekly outcome, where to be by Friday night. Other mornings: check ACT, confirm three VITs, chunk other tasks (social updates, calls, emails). Never check email first until the day is planned and framed. Carry forward? Concentrate on important work.
E.M. Gray, essay "The Common Denominator of Success": the successful person has the habit of doing the things failures do not like to do. Without a daily plan he filled days with enjoyable but non-progress work. Now everything is driven from the 1-3-5.
Past pattern: like-to-do before should-do. Joined-up business running means doing the should-dos. Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog: hard thing first; then enjoy the rest. Nice-first leaves the tough item carried for days. Discipline on a few unwanted-but-needed items each day surges progress and self-respect.
Plan beyond one week
Next week (and next month) already exists in the diary. Build the habit of planning a month and even 90 days ahead: not three months of VITs, but placing 1-3-5 actions and activities forward. Time blocks again: e.g. writing block Wednesday 10:30-14:30; outcome for the block; while writing this book, target 5,000 words per block. Ring-fence; when someone wants an appointment, find another slot. Proactive result delivery beats reactive five-minute scraps. Even a 1-hour / 59-minute single-task block surprises you.
Seven planning rules:
- Plan at least 1 week at a time.
- Prefer planning the upcoming week at the end of the current week.
- Focus on a Core Objective, then its Goals.
- Identify tasks; create three VITs per day.
- Build start/end routines for day and week.
- Use time blocks; manage distractions.
- Remember next week and next month are already in the diary.
How do some people stay focused?
Focus and consistency must not be underestimated. No Triathlon finish or book without daily training focus. Wanting sub-17-hour finish was not enough without consistent sessions.
Overwhelm is almost a prerequisite of small business. Focus on what matters. Critical tasks that shape the future and deliver Vision often arrive at the same moment as something more enjoyable, easier, more comfortable, with immediate satisfaction. That is Barratt's CMD (critical moment of decision). Easy-now sells you short; uncomfortable-important creates progress. His habit: focus hard on the outcome of the hard thing, not the activity (cold dark 6-mile run vs breaking 40 minutes at the next 10k or playing football with kids at 50). Weekly Vision read keeps the destination in mind.
Prioritize major tasks (important over urgent)
Organized people work important before merely urgent. Jim Rohn: some people major on the minor things. "No time" often means hopping tasks and chasing butterflies. Reframe: the day is 24 hours because that is enough; if more were needed it would be 30. You lack time for all the non-best stuff you allow. Stop distractions from the plan.
With a 1-3-5, important work is already identified. Rule when off-track risk rises: Will this task take me closer to my Vision? If yes, important; if no, maybe later, after importants.
Time matrix:
| Urgent | Not urgent | |
|---|---|---|
| Important | Q1: firefighting, stress | Q2: best zone (Vision work before it becomes urgent) |
| Not important | Q3: others' urgency (say no; their bad planning) | Q4: avoid (no progress) |
Most people think they should live in Q1; best results come from Q2. Chronic Q1 is backs-to-the-wall stress; a little stress can help, constant firefighting does not. Endurance parallel: overtraining from too much stress too long → wiped out or injured → lose consistency. Plan into Q2; take breaks. Team caution on Q3. List sample tasks per quadrant so you recognize them in the week. Covey Habit 1: Be Proactive (act before acted upon). Client habit: being early for everything.
Consistency
Decide to be consistent and results often improve quickly. Ultra: not only big 3-, 4-, 5-hour sessions; consistent sessions matter. Running build of about 10% per week: 30-minute jog to an hour in about 8 weeks. Real world: jog a few weeks, stall, stop, TV, then "can't do the charity 10k," negative self-talk. Be different: clear daily actions, reward little breakthroughs, keep Vision picture, commit to must-dos; build gradually. Tortoise wins. Time blocks help: Friday 4:30 p.m. reflect/plan; Monday 1-3-5 read; protect them.
Are you being distracted?
Write three distractions from this week. Manage them. His: unwanted calls → phone silent large chunks / screen via PA; email → four times a day, never before the day is planned (email-first builds reactive Q1 habit); social → Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook at planned times only (newsfeed can steal 40+ minutes). Disconnect; reward after excellent work with a break.
Tactics: university library for book writing; client rents a hot desk for on-business days; another closes the door as do-not-disturb signal. FAQ/cheat-sheet PDFs on a site cut unnecessary query calls; measured reduction; more consistency. Addressing distractions also enabled weekends off.
Key Development Point: Time-effective people have a clear picture.
Vision may be 3 or 5 years out; also keep shorter-term pictures (trip waypoints). Monday: clear weekly outcome; Friday night success picture; Friday review and congratulate progress. Clear picture → identify Goal tasks → focus → consistency → manage distractions because outcome is named. People wasting time often are unsure what to do. Clear daily, weekly, monthly outcomes from the 1-3-5 put you on a mission; missions hate waste.
Working ON vs IN
ON the business: improve and make it more effective. IN: deliver product/service. Plan ON time or the business stalls.
Your progress so far
Growing comfort with 1-3-5; better self-leadership; tools for 86,400 seconds; clear picture; distraction management; importance focus; day/week/month planning from 1-3-5. He claims you are about 25% more effective with time after this upgrade (treat as motivational estimate). Confidence grows with plan + leadership + organization.
Key Development Point: Book a short weekly time block to review what you did and plan next week. Be disciplined with it.
| Tool | Rule |
|---|---|
| Monday 1-3-5 | Frame week; WHY + focus Objective |
| 3 VITs/day | Red; aligned to Goals |
| Time blocks | 30 min to hours; no social/email/phone |
| Frog first | Hard needed task early |
| After plan; limited checks/day | |
| Matrix | Live in Q2; guard Q3; avoid Q4 |
| ON time | Diary it or it disappears |
Prefer Q2 before work becomes Q1. Three VITs a day keep the week on Vision.
From assessment to Monday control
If most of the yes/no probes land on the problem side, you are investing seconds poorly: crises from weak planning, chase-me task completion, vague priorities, search time over 30 minutes a day, meeting drift, other people steering your calendar, unfinished projects, busy emptiness, and refusal to delegate. The cure path starts Monday (or Friday night): read the full 1-3-5, pick the Core Objective for the week, select Goal(s), list tasks, and place three VITs per day in the diary in a colour that stands out. Fifteen VIT completions in a five-day week is a concrete progress definition. Crises will still appear; the plan is the default, not the fantasy that every minute is scheduled.
Bookend routines stop days from dissolving. Retail open/close jobs (tapes, floats, tickets, sales board; shutdown, head-office figures, 15-minute centre leadership) prove that chaos in the middle is survivable when start and end are solid. Tracy's three goals, Burchard's achieve/talk-to/resources check, Hardy's 6 a.m. garage weights: pick a small routine you will keep. Wilkinson's rule that email waits until the day is framed is non-negotiable if you want Q2 instead of other people's urgency.
Focus at the critical moment of decision
Barratt's CMD is where easy-now pleasure competes with Vision-hard work. Activity focus ("cold dark 6-mile run") loses; outcome focus (sub-40-minute 10k; football with kids at 50) wins. Weekly Vision reading keeps the destination warm so stretch tasks have a reason. Gray's common denominator: successes do what failures dislike. Tracy's frog: hard first so it is not carried for days. Joined-up running means should-dos happen even when they are not fun.
Matrix discipline and distraction design
Live in Q2 (important, not yet urgent). Visit Q1 when true fires exist; do not live there. Guard Q3 when teammates' bad planning becomes your urgency; practice no. Starve Q4. List sample tasks per quadrant before the week starts so recognition is fast. Proactivity (Covey Habit 1) is doing Vision work before it screams. Consistency compounds: 10% weekly running build turns 30 minutes into an hour in about 8 weeks; stop-start patterns invent evidence that "I cannot run." Same pattern kills charity 10ks and business Goals.
Distraction design is concrete: silent phone blocks; PA/screening; email about four times a day after the plan exists; social at appointed slots only; library or hot desk for ON-business deep work; closed door as team signal; FAQ/cheat-sheet PDFs that cut repeat query calls. Measure the call drop. Reward deep work with a break, not with a feed first. ON time (improve the business) must be diaried or IN delivery will eat it forever.
Clarity is the multiplier
Time-effective people hold a short-horizon picture as well as a 3- or 5-year Vision: Friday-night success defined on Monday; Friday review with honest congratulations. Clear week outcome → Goal tasks → focus → consistency → distraction control because the outcome is named. Unsure people waste days. Mission posture hates waste: the purpose is the life and business the Vision describes. Protect a weekly review-and-plan block the way you protect a client meeting.
---
Skill Three: Relationship Building
Relationship systems checklist
Document the post-purchase sequence the way you would document a delivery SLA: day 0 thank-you and expectation set; day 7 check-in; day 30 1-10 score with "what would make a 10?"; day 90 value touch (article, invite, or catch-up). Pair that with a pre-purchase sequence for slow decisions: subject lines tested, each email teaching one useful next step, call-to-action that invites reply rather than hard close. Train whoever answers the phone that unreturned enquiries are relationship failures, not admin backlog. Recalculate LTV whenever pricing or frequency changes so acquisition cost stays honest. Pick one client this month for a Level 4 move: something useful that does not require a new invoice. Track referrals for 90 days after Level 4 touches; that is how you know fans are forming.
"Focus on the relationship and not the transaction." For Wilkinson it is always about the relationship. Reaching Vision on the 1-3-5 and making the most of yourself requires continuously enhancing, strengthening, and developing relationships with clients and those around you. Others will also have a great product, deliver a strong customer experience, and produce results. To stand out you need those three plus one more: deep relationship value.
Value is in the eye of the beholder
Too many owners mismanage client relationships. The key word is value. We do not buy on price alone; we buy on felt value. If price alone ruled, everyone would drive the cheapest car and wear the cheapest clothes. Instead people drive what feels like good value at £3,000, £10,000, or £50,000. Assuming the customer was right for you, you have probably never lost one purely on price; you failed to communicate value against their needs and wants, asked weak needs questions, or assumed they already understood your offer. They could not make an informed decision and went elsewhere, sometimes to someone who will not care for them as well. That is a letdown you caused.
Four levels of value
| Level | Name | Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Product | Features that deliver; enhance; then tell people |
| 2 | Experience | Customer journey as differentiator |
| 3 | Results | Measured outcomes; social proof |
| 4 | Senior team member | Integral to their business or life; top level |
Level 1: Product
Good product that delivers what it promises adds value. Unstoppable readers presumably already have that. When did you last look through a customer's eyes for 20 minutes and find enhancements? His group coaching: three enhancements with little cost to him and high client benefit. Exercise: three enhancements; describe customer benefit; then plan how you will communicate the extra value. Common failure: enhance, then keep improvements a secret.
Level 2: Experience
Disney and John Lewis style: experience as major differentiation; customer feels important. Rate your experience. Ask ideal clients how they rate it and what to change. Requesting improvement feedback makes clients feel special and shows seriousness. Benchmark even across sectors: McDonald's systems file for consistency; Amazon for service. Improve product, communicate benefit, view experience through customer eyes, and borrow practices from outside your sector.
Level 3: Results
Especially strong in B2B; also works B2C. How clear are the results you deliver? Share them with prospects, in newsletters, blogs, social posts. Request testimonials as social proof. Basics, yet uncommon (fear of "blowing your own trumpet"). Vision needs customers; sales and profit come from helping enough people get what they want: value and results. Measure and share (where appropriate) so ideal prospects can decide. Keep it simple. Results need not always be tangible. His coaching feedback surprise: clients felt much more confident, set bigger goals, and achieved them via an Unstoppable system. He then attracted owners who valued confidence and bigger goals. Exercise also solidified clients' journeys: win-win.
Level 4: Senior team member (top / critical for longevity)
Long-lasting relationships when clients see you as part of their team or life. B2C example: friends who "invest" heavily in satellite/cable TV monthly without a structured savings plan (he has had no TV at home for 8 years at writing). B2B focus: be seen as integral to their management team. Send reports or case studies that build knowledge or help with a hard challenge without expecting immediate extra spend. Engineering client: mapped a yard process, invited the customer on site, enabled better planning; became integral; referrals followed. He has sent practice-running reports to accountant clients, simple marketing plans to chiropractic clients, performance-management processes to a printer client: third-party resources, no credit-claiming, pure value signal. Top level: consistent fresh ideas; lifelong win-win relationships.
Key Question: What can you do today that takes you one step further toward top-level value?
Follow-up (after and before)
Follow-up is a mindset, not an occasional task. Customers leave easily (physical or online). If they do not feel valued, you lose them. Source cites Rockefeller Corporation: 68% leave because they think you do not care. Unreturned enquiry calls leave people let down. After purchase: structured follow-up that kicks in automatically; stay remembered; add value after the transaction.
Post-purchase questions: Are they happy? Feedback to improve? Further service for them or people they know? Options: value-first newsletter (not selling 90% of the time); 1-10 feedback form; physical letter (stands out) inviting a free refresher/taster if they bring a friend; value blog for their interests. Document a simple system.
His working stack: eight emails after free action-book download; monthly newsletter (petewilkinson.com/subscribe); free client appreciation events; 90-day catch-up after programmes to check 1-3-5 use; free shareable resources; key actions from live sessions. Habit because he values the relationship.
Jet2.com: after a Spain trip for his father's 70th, late January email: around this time last year you flew to Spain; here are deals. Simple, powerful; another short-haul airline never did similar. Amazon: useful emails, offers, feedback requests (opt-out available).
Follow up BEFORE delivery
Costly mistake: only follow up after delivery. Start the relationship by demonstrating value up front. John (tourism): international enquiries → quote → call → trail dies unless prospect returns. They wrote 10 value-add emails on an autoresponder with tested subject lines: fundraising ideas, UK visit tips, packing lists, coaching the prospect toward selecting them. By email six, contact surged; about 35% sales uplift; John bought a new car and moved office. Develop the upfront-value mindset.
Unfreeze / change / refreeze (MBA habit change)
- Unfreeze the no-follow-up habit.
- Change: replace with a good habit; start small (diary entry 30 days after delivery for a short happiness call; automate at volume). Retail years: religiously called every customer after delivery.
- Refreeze: own it; many firms start then slide back. Regular checks; start small, then build.
Lifetime value
Do not judge clients only on first purchase. Sharon's haircut example: £50 every 6 weeks ≈ £430/year; 5 years → over £2,000 lifetime (he jokes about his carbon-fibre race bike cost transparency). Formula: initial purchase × purchases per year × average years stayed. Surprises owners; changes willingness to invest in the relationship; also informs marketing budget for attracting ideal clients.
Satisfied vs loyal vs raving fans
Satisfied ≠ loyal. Satisfied may return; will not be an ambassador. Meal on time, correct order, tastes fine = satisfied (expected). Loyalty and raving fans need something extra. iTunes: album £7.99; system noted three songs already owned; "complete my album" at £6.02. Satisfaction on price; loyalty from saving money and compiling the album.
Key Question: What can you do to develop customers into raving fans? Follow-up and top-level value are paths. Raving fans actively want your business to improve; they become ambassadors (reputation via what others say); you see referrals and warm enquiries. Value relationships → proper follow-up → value up front → leads generated by clients.
Key Development Point: It is not about the transaction; it is about the relationship; always. Are your client relationships strong enough?
Climb the value tree; top level earns lifelong relationships and referrals.
Communicating value without secrecy
Level 1 fails when owners improve the product and stay silent. After the 20-minute enhancement pass, write the benefit in customer language and put it in the next newsletter, sales conversation, and proposal. Level 2 fails when experience is assumed rather than measured: ask ideal clients for ratings and change requests; borrow consistency ideas from operators outside your sector. Level 3 fails when results live only in your head: capture tangible and emotional outcomes, then share appropriate proof so prospects can decide. Level 4 fails when every helpful touch is immediately monetized; sometimes the relationship win is a third-party report, a process map, or a site visit with no invoice attached.
Follow-up is the operating system of Skill Three. After delivery: happiness check, feedback, further-need ask, referral ask. Before delivery: teach the prospect toward an informed choice (John's 10 emails). Unfreeze old neglect; install a small habit (30-day call or automation); refreeze with audits so the team does not slide back. Lifetime value reframes a £50 visit as a multi-year asset; marketing spend to acquire the right avatar becomes easier to justify when LTV is known. Satisfied customers got what they ordered; loyal and raving fans got a surprise that made them ambassadors. Design one deliberate "extra" per ideal client segment.
---
Skill Four: Key Strength Development
From inventory to redesign
Strengths unused are inventory rotting on the shelf. Once three strengths are named, redesign one offer, one weekly block, and one conversation type around them (the IT consultant marrying simplify + teach into group sessions). Revisit Belbin/MBTI/Insights only if the simple feedback loop stalls; tools do not replace the five-person ask. Leader-strength scores below 6 get a micro-practice: one finish, one influence conversation, one stakeholder coffee, one helicopter hour on the 1-3-5. That is how Skill Four stops being a personality quiz and becomes calendar reality.
You have many strengths; do you know them? Weaknesses exist too; that is fine. Leaders he has worked with could not do everything; the strong ones surrounded themselves with people better than they were, then led and motivated for a better collective result. Effective ownership: know what you can and cannot do; focus on can. Success is often simple; people miss the obvious hunting for complexity.
Advice to "work on your weaknesses" is, in his business experience, the wrong default. Personal relationships may need skill growth as partner or parent. Business success needs strength focus plus manage/delegate for weaknesses.
Retail → coaching. Electrical retail for 6 years, fairly successful, but some skills for world-class retail he lacked; he would not reach the success level he wanted there. Speaking and coaching fit: motivating, inspiring, enthusing people to work higher. Staying in retail meant "fairly well," not excel; not making the most of himself.
Sport parallel. Longer events suit high energy and sustained endurance; sprint power over 12 miles is not his bag; 50+ hilly miles is. Ultra Endurance Triathlon can take up to 17 hours (6 a.m. to 11 p.m. moving): focus and consistency, like running a business and an effective life. Launching a business, product, or market: not finished in a few months; stay on the plan. Is your current business right and fitting? You can still work hard there while positioning to move if needed. In the right business he hits flow on strengths.
Finding strengths
Structured tools he has seen: Belbin, Myers Briggs, Insights (investigate separately). Start simpler.
- Ask five people you worked with closely (past or present) for your three key skills. Be ready for surprises. Overlap answers matter. Openness to feedback drives development.
- Ask yourself the same. Clues: things you do easily; do not put off; enjoy; that make you feel good; you would do even unpaid.
Interest ≠ business foundation (he loves triathlon; will not go pro). Strengths: natural ability + training + experience + potential world-class level.
Manage/delegate weaknesses. Paperwork he puts off → someone else does it. Chat about focus and success: he jumps in. Business should involve talking, listening, enthusing, sharing strategies: easy, never put off, enjoyable, feel-good, extra mile unpaid. Probe yourself: numbers vs people; teaching; problem-solving; creative; multi-project vs finish; start-then-hand-off; kids vs adults; mind vs hands; office vs outdoors; listen vs talk; influence and tension; single-task focus vs scatter; detail vs big picture.
Write three key strengths after feedback. Then: Are you fully utilizing them now? What could you do today to use one more? What business effect would that create? Ultimate success and fulfilment link to weekly time spent in key strengths.
IT consultant client: clients said he made IT sound simple; also loved teaching and explaining; motor-club mechanical curiosity. He had never married "simple IT teaching" with group delivery for businesses. Combining strengths opened another income stream and growth path. Underused strengths are a quiet waste. Go from good to great with expert input (branding, messages, product, marketing, speaking) even when you are already solid.
Weaknesses: identify to delegate
Clients list weaknesses faster than strengths: faulty emphasis if most thinking is weakness-first. Identify weaknesses, then creatively delegate to people who love that work. Cost base matters in small business; if a task takes you 2-3 hours to a middling standard and someone else does it in 40 minutes better, engage them. Virtual assistants are especially useful. Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth: do not stay stuck at technician level; grow toward maturity.
His support stack: wife on bookkeeping; VA on direct mail, welcome packs, repetitive admin; social media expert on Twitter/LinkedIn strategy (he still posts); web person on landing pages and site changes. Four drains removed. Weight lifts; results follow when you work where you should.
Name three main weaknesses and a creative support path for each.
Four key strengths of an effective leader
Executing. Completer/finisher skill optional; ensuring completion is not. Get support if needed. Link to delivery (Ch7). Connect to outcome (see, hear, feel) to push through uncomfortable finish work. Key question: what unfinished item will you box off by this date next month?
Influencing. Not a "dark art" when the outcome is ethical. Influence team performance; help clients see you can support their problem (or they leave for worse service and you have let them down). Review NLP four pillars with influence as the outcome. Key: who influence in 7 days, and why?
Relationship building. Beyond clients: shareholders, suppliers, team. Regular boosts. Nobody succeeds alone; relationships build the support team. Key: who strengthen; what common ground can you learn?
Strategic thinking. Future, Engage, Deliver again. Look ahead; choose course; big picture over bogging detail. Helicopter seat: is direction right? Decide what will happen; do not wake up asking "what happened?" The 1-3-5 exists so you can think strategically and move from here to Vision effectively. Commit to weekly 1-3-5 review. Look farther than the end of the bonnet (driving analogy): anticipate; make progress.
Mo Farah breaks records on the track; he does not compete in the deadlift. Use strengths fully; manage the rest.
Key Development Point: Build your business around your strengths; find ways to manage and delegate weaknesses.
Where you will be by now
Background → own 1-3-5 → Monday frame → Vision (4-5 sentences; clear, positive, personal; give/who/value/return) → 3 Core Objectives → 5 Goals each → daily VITs → four skills (Leadership, Personal Organization, Relationships, Strength Development) → Be Focused, Be Consistent, Be Exceptional. Next: apply to the next 12 months.
Centre the week on strengths; park weaknesses with people who love that work.
Strength hours are the real KPI
After the five-person feedback and self-clues (easy, not postponed, enjoyed, feel-good, unpaid-willing), protect diary time for those strengths the way you protect billable work. Redundant strengths inside a mis-fit business feel like slow leakage: retail "fairly well" versus coaching flow. Weakness lists come easily; flip the ratio of thought time toward strengths, then assign each weakness a name and a helper (VA, spouse, specialist, skill-swap). Gerber's warning still applies: technician heroics cap maturity.
Rate the four leader strengths honestly. Execution: finish the open loop by next month's same date. Influence: one ethical target in 7 days, using clear outcomes and rapport. Strategy: weekly 1-3-5 plus a longer look down the road than the end of the bonnet. Mo Farah stays on the track; you stay in the work only you do at a high level, while others carry the rest.
---
The Next 12 Months
Make the year review unskippable
Book a half-day before the new year (or before your next business birthday) and run Steps 1-7 with notes, not vibes. Bring last year's calendar and bank figures so "what worked" is evidence-based. For each life area write one observable finish line. For business metrics write the monthly dashboards before January starts. Product: name the hero and one update. People: name one gap and the ask (mentor, VA, skill-swap). Time: name two cuts and one protected strength block. Message: one paragraph in avatar words plus three channels with owners and cadences. Close the half-day by scheduling the seven actions into the first two weeks so the plan does not die in a notebook.
A process to make the next 12 months strong: seven steps he and many clients use. Foundation plan and upgraded skills are in place. Vision covers 3-5 years; now add motivation and persistence for a tough year.
Step 1: What worked and what has not?
Most people skip the look-back. Start with what has not worked (last year or 6 months): time spent without desired result; social media; blog comments; structure that forced too many hours. Decide: change/train, or stop and try something else. NLP operating belief: if it is not working, do something different. He kept failing patterns until a year review forced a stop.
Then what is working: networking, marketing, customer relations, referrals, pricing, follow-up. Identify, celebrate, and (as a leader) keep the team doing them.
Key Development Point: Stop what is not working. Do more of what is.
Step 2: Success for the next 12 months
Think strategically across life areas (one goal each is enough for balance):
| Area | Sample questions |
|---|---|
| Health | Exercise frequency; weight/composition; physical challenge; nutrition; coffee limit; 80/20 diet reward |
| Wealth | Debt cut; wealth plan; income; save %; three wealth books |
| Family | Time; growth; spouse specials; weekend away every 6 weeks; kids' clubs |
| Relationships | Develop whom; attract to support network; visit old friend; spend less time with whom |
| Contribution | Charity £; voluntary hours; mentee |
Then business success: imagine a brilliant-year conversation with partner or friend. Pick relevant numbers:
- Sales figure
- Customers/clients supported
- Boxes shifted
- Professional connectors in relationship
- Margin level
- Profit level
Track each: e.g. £100,000 sales → monthly target; where recorded; system to see it. Margin: measure with accountant; raise value/price while holding cost base. Better than last year requires change; work back from the picture to actions. End of Step 2: clear 12-month success idea.
Step 3: Product review
Widgets, coaching products, accountant reports: whatever you deliver.
Quick overview: Happy with range? Logical progression product to product? Manufacturer range satisfaction? Coach branded products? Accountant value-added MI product? Rate the range for next year's result. Gaps? He found a gap in high-end team coaching (2-5 senior people) and later a workbook workshop for larger teams; both drove growth. Ask clients what they want; scan competitors for offers you lack.
Updates: Freshness; support-network eyes. Car makers watch sales curves and stage next models; source cites Nissan UK £1 billion sales increase in a year via constant refresh. His group coaching updates: more content, work file, action sheets, accountability calls between face-to-face sessions. Chiropractic client: streamlined to mainly three named stages + journey map + clear investment per stage; clients understood the path ("a thing of beauty").
Hero product: Which performs best? Measure each. Retail electric fireplace outsold others with excellent margin; stock and delivery had to protect it or the department suffered. His best coaching product: results + programme structure + investment fit for the avatar; develop and promote it when time is scarce. Improve products to improve client value and business results.
Step 4: People review
Every business is a people business. Micro professionals still need trainers, coaches, mentors, family. Knowledge/skill gaps for this year's result? Right support people? Upgrade skills of the support team? Creative hires if cost base is tight.
His gap: mentor for Core Objective 3 (speaking business size). Entrepreneurs Forum allocated Michael; shared 1-3-5; ongoing support. Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone: "Find mentors, find mentees, repeat."
Client "Peter": people review → part-time assistant "Julie" in his weak area → back office revolution, streamlined files, systems killing repeated manual work → he works strengths; business grows.
No budget to employ? Skill-swap with other professionals. Reconnect with Vision; find a creative support path.
Step 5: Time review
Rate last year's time effectiveness (he was about 5/10). His cuts: too much time with non-ideal prospects (now assess fit first); too many free brain-pick catch-ups (now colour-coded; max two/week); opportunistic off-strategy projects (now outcome thinking + 1-3-5 filter: helps a Core Objective or no); searching for misplaced tools (workspace organisation).
Key Development Point: Focus on return from energy invested. Is it worth it?
Build around strengths (Ch10). Identify weakness activities that do not pay. Ask: time blocks last year? Plan beyond a week? Master weekly task list from Goals? Who/what stole time? Which distractions? Stop and take stock before growth. Claim: relationship with time can yield about 25% more effectiveness, better results, fewer hours (motivational estimate).
Step 6: Message review
Consciously choose messages. How clear is yours now? Key message for the year: clear to the avatar, in their language (message to market match), value-driven. Targeting everyone = targeting no one. Geography, interests, sector, age, gender clarity.
His message components: focused + consistent → better results; more in a week than most in a month; 65% → ~95% effective; more on-form days; senior teams on one company 1-3-5 instead of firing in different directions. Busy audiences get limited airtime; clarity wins.
Princess on board sticker speeding at ~35 mph in a 20 mph school zone near Cleadon: brand sign vs actual behaviour. Businesses buy a "sign" (brand spend) then act otherwise: lost profit and weak relationships. Align daily action with claimed message. Write a draft key message. Channels: blogs, e-books, reports, social, webinars, website, letters, networking, workshops, testimonials, case studies. Do more of past winners once the message is clear; networking improved when message sharpened and venue fit improved. Many messages for everyone underperform one clear message for a defined market.
Step 7: Actions
Thinking is good; talking is better; action is best. Seven immediate actions:
- Three things that did not work last year
- Three things that really worked
- Clear picture of business success for the upcoming year?
- Right people; gaps named?
- Better time use + strength focus identified?
- Clear message + three ways you will share it?
Completing them builds the yearly review habit: worked/not, products, people, time, message → maximize strengths and multiply results.
Annual review loop: evidence, picture, product, people, time, message, then moves.
Running the seven steps as an annual operating rhythm
Treat Step 1 as a kill-or-scale meeting: three stops, three doubles. Step 2 writes numbers you can track monthly (sales, clients, margin, profit, connectors) and one goal in each life lane so business wins do not bankrupt health or family. Step 3 forces a hero product and a refresh plan; gaps and journey maps (chiropractic three stages) beat sprawling menus. Step 4 fills mentor and assistant gaps before the year demands heroics (Michael; Julie/Peter). Step 5 cuts non-ideal prospects, caps brain-picks, filters projects through Core Objectives, and restores workspace and time blocks. Step 6 writes the avatar message and checks behaviour against the "sign" (no 35-in-a-20 hypocrisy). Step 7 is the written action set that turns the review into habit. Re-run the loop every year; the 3-5 year Vision stays the north star while the 12-month layer steers.
---
Conclusion
Journey complete through the Unstoppable system. Exercises undone still matter: do them. Follow-up reviews show two groups.
| Group | Pattern | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reasonable effort; learned "cool stuff"; motivation shot | Quite good results |
| 2 | Full tasks and actions | Crystal Vision; 3 Core Objectives (no bright blue butterflies); 5 dynamic Goals replaced when achieved; leadership + new habit each quarter; 86,400 seconds with week-ahead planning; strong internal/external relationships with rising value; business built on strengths; strategic use of 1-3-5 every Monday |
Purpose: help you make the most of yourself. The system delivers when you join group two and do the work. Commit to the system and he claims you will make more progress in a week than most people do in a month.
Contact: pete@petewilkinson.com for progress stories. Free resources at www.petewilkinson.com : fortnightly video blog (tips, challenges, encouragement); monthly Action Elite newsletter (review and consolidate).
Do the work. Complete the actions. Focused. Consistent. Exceptional. That is what being unstoppable is about.
Be Unstoppable.
Pete Wilkinson
Group two does the work; the triad is the finish line posture.
Belong to group two
Group one leaves with ideas and a temporary lift. Freedom in business is real when fun work, hard work, and must-do work all sit inside that system. Use the free video blog and Action Elite newsletter if they help you stay honest; the work still sits with you.
Close the loop each Monday
Body complete means the system is writable into the week: Vision and Objectives in view, three VITs chosen from Goals, one relationship follow-up queued, one strength block protected, one weakness parked with a named helper, and the 12-month metrics glanced so the year does not drift. That Monday loop is how Unstoppable leaves the page and enters the diary. If a week slips, restart the next Monday without drama; consistency beats intensity.
---
Attitude to 12 Months
Portable stack
| Layer | Gist | Chapter anchors |
|---|---|---|
| Attitude | Choose Unstoppable posture; stop negotiating with mood | Ch1 |
| Habits | Design defaults that carry the week | Ch2 |
| Vision / Objectives / Goals | 1 Vision · 3 Core Objectives · 5 Goals each (1-3-5) | Ch3-5 |
| Four skills | Leadership · Personal Organization · Relationships · Strengths | Ch6-10 |
| 12 months | Worked/not · success picture · product · people · time · message · act | Ch11 |
Carry the stack Monday to Monday; synthesis is a checklist, not a substitute for the exercises.
Monday operating loop
- Read the 1-3-5; reconnect with Vision and WHY.
- Name the Core Objective for the week; pick Goals and three VITs per day.
- Protect one time block; plan before email.
- Lead yourself: Future, Engage, Deliver; measure delivery.
- Climb one value level with a client (product → experience → results → integral).
- Schedule strength hours; delegate one weakness task.
- Once a year (or business birthday): run the seven-step 12-month review.
About this book
Unstoppable: 1-3-5: Focused, Consistent, Exceptional by Pete Wilkinson. This is a chapter-by-chapter study of the book, with summaries, maps, tables and diagrams; short quotations keep their page references. It is shared free for personal study, is not for sale, and is not endorsed by the author or publisher. Please read and buy the original.
Insight Editions · rajeshrmahapatra.com/insight-editions