Key Takeaways from Over 1000 Coaching Sessions
Coach Michael Regan breaks down the frameworks he uses after thousands of coaching sessions: role reflection, narrative planning, and numerical navigation. He covers mindset vs. skill set, how to find the real 'why' behind production goals, and why top producers are boring in the best way. LOs planning for 2025 who want a structured year-end review process will get the most from this episode.
Top producers win by obsessive repetition of boring fundamentals — not by chasing shiny new strategies.
Takeaways you can run this week
- Run the KISS filter on every current activity before year-end: list what you'll Keep, Improve, Start, and Stop — then actually cut at least one thing from your Stop list before January 1.
- Before setting 2025 production goals, write out the narrative behind each one: answer who, what, when, where, why, and how. If you can't fill those in, the goal isn't ready to commit to.
- Use the Five Whys exercise on your biggest goal. Ask 'why does that matter?' five times in succession until you either hit a genuine emotional driver or realize the goal is shallow and needs to be reworked.
- Build a 'Navigator' breakdown for your top production goal: start with the lagging measure (units/volume), then reverse-engineer the leading measures — hours scheduled with referral partners, follow-up calls blocked, and minimum weekly connection count — and time-block each one on your calendar.
- Pull out last year's written goals and score yourself against them before building 2025 plans. Note where you exceeded, where you missed, and document the storyline behind each gap.
- Ask a trusted peer, coach, or manager for one piece of candid feedback on how you show up — in partner meetings, at events, or on video — and act on one specific thing they identify.
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GET FREE ACCESSThe playbook
- Step 1 — Role Reflection: Review the year just completed against goals set 12 months ago. Score results and document the storylines behind wins and misses.
- Step 2 — KISS Filter: For every current activity, decide: Keep (evidence it accelerates results), Improve (working but not exponentially), Start (new action to capture a market opportunity), or Stop (not paying off — park it, don't burn fuel on it).
- Step 3 — Narratives: Write out the story behind each major 2025 goal. Answer the journalism questions — who, what, when, where, why, how. Run the Five Whys on the purpose to surface real emotional drivers.
- Step 4 — Navigation: Break the big goal into lagging measures (closed units, volume, profit) and leading measures (partner meetings scheduled, follow-up calls blocked, minimum weekly connections). Time-block all leading measures and test them against personal commitments (health, family) to resolve conflicts before the year starts.
- Step 5 — Accountability: Build in a mechanism to compare weekly actions against weekly plans so execution matches commitment.
Worth quoting
“It's this relentless focus on fundamental execution — it's so freaking boring and repetitive that most people think, no, that can't be it.”
“If your mindset is in any way not stable, it's going to be really hard to build your skill set. Really hard.”
Best for
LOs who set big production goals each January but skip a structured year-end review and want a repeatable planning framework to close 2024 strong and build 2025 momentum.