The Keys to Achieving “Unreachable” Goals: Advice From Ray Higdon

This month, we spoke with Ray Higdon, a bestselling author, coach, philanthropist and entrepreneur. He and his wife run Rankmakers, an event dedicated to teaching people how to achieve their goals.

Dennis Postema: What does your career timeline look like?

Ray Higdon: I have done a lot of things and have had a lot of failures. I worked my way up in the corporate world to a pretty high-paying salary, and eventually, I realized that really wasn’t freedom. I was miserable, and I didn’t want to stay there.

In 2004, I saw some friends making money in real estate and figured, “If those knuckleheads can do it, I can too.”

I live in Florida, so I jumped right into real estate and did well until the 2008 market crash. I didn’t understand how to pivot from there and didn’t know what to do, so I got completely wiped out.

My career went in an unlikely direction from there. My credit was shot, and no one was hiring. I went into foreclosure and didn’t know what I was going to do.

A friend invited me to a network marketing meeting, which I had sworn off after some bad experiences in the past, but I thought, “You know what? I don’t know what else I’m going to do. I’m going to figure this out,” and so I did. I went on to make millions of dollars for that company.

I was on social media before most people were. People started asking me, “How do you do that?” So I started creating courses. Pretty soon, that business was generating millions of dollars.

In 2016, I decided to focus on the coaching and training business, and now we’re an Inc. 5000 company.

There are two worlds I live in: one in which I help people create information products based on their expertise or their niche; and the second in which I work with a lot of network marketing companies and network marketing leaders. I have worked with leaders who have 750,000 people on their team. I have worked with multiple people that make $1 million a month in their company. I work with people in real estate and insurance. We love the information marketing game.

I also do a lot of public speaking. Dennis: What advice would you give to somebody who is trying to recruit employees for their company in this economy?

Ray: Oftentimes, people hire someone to do a particular job, but they don’t fully get into their shoes and understand what the job entails and how to inspire someone.

We’ve never had a problem with that. I do a weekly huddle with my employees where I paint my vision of the company. A lot of times, business owners have a vision in their head of where they want to take the company and how they want to serve, impact and help people, but they don’t share that with everyone. They expect people to do their job and they’ll say, “You be over there,” but they need to paint a vision for them too. Inspire your employees to work with you.

When everyone was in quarantine during the pandemic, four of my employees reached out to me, unprompted, and said, “Hey, if you need to reduce our salaries, we totally understand. We want to make sure you’re OK.”

Like, when does that happen? They said they knew things were weird, and if I needed to delay or reduce their payments, they were OK with it. It was unbelievable. It’s because they bought into our mission. They bought into where we, as a company, are going.

When you lack that, when everyone in your company lacks that vision of where you’re going, you have what’s called “operational drag.” Operational drag is where you’re trying to get to this place, and just everyone is saying, “Eh, we’ll get to it whenever.”

When recruiting, it’s important for you to have a vision and to convey that vision. How does this person fit into that vision? Is there a growth plan? If someone isn’t interested in a growth plan, I’m probably not going to hire them. I want people that are hungry, people that are learners, that want to improve their skill set, and make more money.

The one-two punch is to paint the vision of where you’re going and how they’re going to fit into it, how it applies to them, and don’t get the cheapest person. My father-in-law built a steel foundry company that created all kinds of things for the military and big companies. It sold very well. One thing he taught me was that the most expensive thing in the world is cheap labor. When you get someone for the cheapest, they know they’re the cheapest and that’s the effort they’re going to put in. I incorporate something from Grant Cardone and his team. I do PPFs with my key people. PPF stands for Personal, Professional, Financial. I meet with those employees once every quarter and go over their personal, professional and financial goals. Many of their goals have nothing to do with my company. For example, if someone’s goal is to lose weight, I will help them with a game plan on how to do that, even though it has nothing to do with me or the company. It’s important that your employees know you care. It’s more important for long-term employees, because you can’t really convey that you care and have them believe it during the interview, but you can paint that vision and pay them what they’re worth. Dennis: What are some keys to bouncing back from failure?

Ray: The biggest thing is learning to catch your thoughts. Neuroscience and research teaches us that most of our thoughts are the same as the day before, so it’s very common to get into this rut of noticing how bad things are, that things aren’t going the way that you want, and comparing your current situation to how things used to be.

One of the most powerful things you can do is catch those thoughts before you’re on autopilot. I learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza, who is one of the speakers at our event next month, that we have neurological networks in the neocortex part of our brain for everything we know. Every person, every place, every thing— your cell phone, your coworkers, your boss, your computer—whatever it is, you have a neurological network for it.

As these neurological networks start firing and you start having these thoughts, eventually you have enough of these thoughts that you believe and accept them, and

that sends signals to the limbic brain—which handles emotions and memories—and that starts communicating through your spine to your adrenal glands and creates emotions. Those emotions are saying, “Here is what we’re thinking, now let’s feel this way too.”

The adrenal glands then create the emotion in your body and distribute it throughout all of your cells. Then, it gets communicated back to your neocortex and reinforces those thoughts and feelings. Pretty soon, you’re on autopilot.

This cycle is difficult to get out of, especially when you aren’t aware of it. You’re just sitting there, thinking about bad things, and all of this stuff is happening.

The first step is to catch those thoughts. Tell yourself, “Hey, you know what? I don’t want to think about how life is tough right now, I don’t want to think about how much money I lost, I don’t want to think about how bad stuff is or why she left me,” or whatever. When you can catch them, you can shift your focus to what you do want. It takes I listened to the “Master Course” by Napoleon Hill. He said that when he notices a negative thought in his mind, he quickly writes down ten things that he wants in his life to interrupt the pattern.

When he said that, he didn’t know about neuroscience, but he knew enough to interrupt the process.

When I was in foreclosure, I went through depression for about a year. I drank heavily. Any time I thought about how bad life was, I would take a drink or a shot. Obviously, that wasn’t a good idea.

I created a different trigger. When I started thinking about how bad life was, I made myself prospect someone, or send a message, or do some profit-producing activity. Within five months, I was earning $10,000 a month; within seven months, $40,000 a month; and ten months into doing this, I was earning $50,000 a month. A lot of that was simply because I didn’t dwell on the bad stuff. I didn’t dwell on how good life used to be. A lot of people will say, “Just do the work, grind, hustle,” but if people maintain that negative mindset, they’re going to greatly reduce their results. It’s all about intercepting those thoughts and saying, “Hey, I don’t want to think that way. I don’t want that to dominate my thinking. Let me shift to something I do want.”

Dennis: How do you hit unreasonable goals?

Ray: There are a lot of ways you can do it. I use a fourstep process.

#1: Have a clearly defined goal. What do you actually want? What does it look like? How will you know it’s true?

#2: Do the work. You might be thinking, “Oh, wow, this is really mindblowing, Higdon. Who would’ve thought that?”

Well, it’s not the only component, but if you don’t do the work, most people are not going to be able to logically convince themselves that they should have what they want. This is where you have to look at, “What is my daily routine, and if I execute that daily routine, will that make success

If you say yes to that, then you’re accomplishing a major part here, because you’d logically believe that you should hit that goal.

Now, this is unconventional, but I’m not a fan of setting a date to reach a goal. I know some people will think, “Oh my God, don’t set a date?” The reason I don’t like setting a date for a goal is you are vibrationally saying you don’t have it. If it works for you, great, keep doing it. For a lot of people, this creates pressure, which changes the way they show up, because there is an attachment to their intention. When you have an intention and an attachment, it creates an imbalance in the brain and the body, and it can actually thwart you from achieving your goal.

#3: This is the hardest step: Stop dwelling on your missteps. Stop spending so much time noticing all of the things that you don’t have, noticing how you’re not getting the results you wish you had, noticing that Sally is doing much better than you or Joe is doing much better than you. Like Dr. Joe says, you have to live more in memories of your future than memories of your past or present.

A lot of people say affirmations don’t work, and the reason they don’t work for them is that those people spend five minutes in the morning saying affirmations, and then they spend eight hours in a negative vibration, negative energy and negative attitude. They don’t cancel each other out. You’re negative. You’re more negative than positive. You’re going to have more negative results than positive. That’s the toughest step, because people say, “Hey, man, I’m just telling it like it is.” Telling it like it is keeps it like it is. Justifying where you are keeps you where you are.

#4: This is the speed quotient. The first three steps are critical, but this one is optional. It’s what will absolutely speed up everything that you want. It’s called mental rehearsal.

Are you mentally rehearsing yourself at this level? Are you mentally rehearsing what it would feel like, what would it be like, what would it look like if you were the person that you wish you were, if you had that thing you wish you had?

How would you know it’s true? This is extremely

powerful. You actually use your imagination, use that frontal lobe, to see yourself in that role, to see yourself at the top of your comp plan, or the top sales rep, or being on stage, shaking hands with whoever, or having people thank you. You actually see your boss or your fellow entrepreneurs saying good things to you. You see people edifying you on social media. You see people asking you for podcast interviews. You see people featuring you in magazines.

Most people don’t do that. They mentally rehearse life getting worse and then they’re shocked when that continues to happen.

Those are the four steps that I absolutely believe and have proven over and over are the fastest way to achieve unreasonable goals.

Dennis: Should people include their daily disciplines in their mental rehearsals? Will that help them be consistent in these activities in everyday life?

Ray: I would not suggest mentally rehearsing the day-to-day activities that will get you there. I would suggest rehearsing the day-to-day activities as though you are already there. This isn’t about wishing “for” somewhere, it’s about wishing “from” somewhere. You’re mentally rehearsing being that person.

That kind of training comes from Neville Goddard. In the 1950s, he was rocking it out in New York, doing all kinds of amazing stuff, working with presidents and religious leaders all over the world.

The best time to do this is before bed, because whatever emotion you’re holding before bed is communicating to your subconscious, which is what’s running the show while you’re sleeping. The subconscious is a nonjudgmental partner. It doesn’t know that you don’t know how powerful you are.

When you go to bed angry or jealous or whatever, then you are telling your subconscious, “This is what I want more of,” and so it is going to help you notice more things and verify more reasons to be angry or jealous. It’s very important to master your emotions, especially before bed.

To give a personal example, about a year and a half ago, my wife and I started doing ballroom dance lessons together twice a week. I knew I wasn’t great at dancing, but I figured we would spend time together.

I was terrible at it.

They asked me, “Ray, do you hear the rhythm? It goes doom-duh-da-doom, it’s a downbeat. Do you hear that?”

I was just like Frankenstein’s monster, stomping around, and they even asked me if I’d been in an accident. “Do your hips move? Are you able to do this?”

I was like, it’s very insulting, you know? I said, “No, I wasn’t, why do you ask?”

And they said, “Oh, oh, OK, that’s fine.”

I know how bad I was. I didn’t want to go, but I went, twice a week. I really wanted to get good at it.

Four months in, a new student came in early and he was watching us. Afterwards, he rushed over

to us and said, “I’m so glad I came early, I feel so much better.” And I was like, “Thanks. Thanks for that, buddy.” That was exactly what I needed. Walt Disney said, “Sometimes a kick in the teeth is exactly what you need.” I went home and I thought, “I’m not using anything that I know about achieving. I’m not using any of my mental powers. I’m just going in there and saying, ‘I’m not good at dancing, I don’t remember, oh man, that sucks,’ and I’m just living in my current situation, I’m letting my senses define my reality, which is lazy. It’s just mental laziness.” That night, I started mentally rehearsing. I started seeing myself as a good dancer. I didn’t see myself practicing, I saw myself as a good dancer. I glided across the floor—it was just amazing. I asked myself, “How would I feel?”

I’d feel confident, I’d feel proud, I’d be a good representation for my wife.

I asked, “How would I know it’s true?” people would compliment me. I would dance and people would say, “Dang, Higdon, that’s good,” right? And so I started rehearsing people giving me different compliments. I spent probably two minutes every night, for many months, mentally rehearsing. Fast forward six months, my wife and I came in first place at an international competition in Miami. We were first place in our division in two different dances.

My instructor said to me, “Man, I’ve got to be honest, you really weren’t getting any better, but then one day, you skyrocketed, like everything changed. All of a sudden, you started getting really good really fast,” and they said, “That must’ve been the day you started practicing at home.”

I said, “Well, not really.” I didn’t actually increase my pipeline, I didn’t actually increase my work, I was still doing two classes a week. I didn’t go to three or four. I didn’t start practicing at home. All I did was a couple minutes of mental rehearsals before I went to bed.

I stopped noticing my missteps—I didn’t show up the next day, and all of a sudden I’m killing it—I still made missteps, I just didn’t dwell on them and I didn’t notice them as much, didn’t feel bad about them. I just didn’t harp on them and share about them, and so that little two-step tweak is what totally changed the game.

After that, I was like, “Man, what else can I do?” Because this was incredible.

I’ve since applied this set of processes into other areas of my life. It’s been incredible. It worked for me, and I know it works for others because we have taught it to a lot of clients, and it’s a powerful process.

Dennis: Tell us about Rank Makers.

Ray: My wife and I have a private community called Rank Makers. We have just over 10,000 people paying $27 a month. I make a video for them every day, ranging from about five minutes to eight minutes long, where I do an action step and a training short.

We run an annual event called Rank Makers Live. Anyone can buy a ticket, member or not. It’s in Orlando, Florida, on October 27th through the 29th. There is a virtual component and an inperson component.

Our goal is to help you get out of being held hostage by your fears and become an action-taker. We help people show up in implementation mode and completely change the game. There are two sets of processes. There’s the mindset piece, getting over your fears, stopping self-sabotage, and then there’s the business strategy piece, where we teach you what’s working right now on social media, how to generate more traffic, and so on.

We have amazing speakers. Dr. Joe Dispenza, ClickFunnels co-founder Russel Brunson, Stormy Wellington, Justin Prince, Gloria Mayfield Banks, and a bunch of people that are really good at using TikTok, Instagram Reels, branding, generating leads, and making money online.

This event is powerful, and we’re really excited about it.

To learn more about the event, go to rankmakerslive.com. Anyone can purchase a ticket, but there is limited seating, so check it out soon!

Ray dives into detail on negativity:

The biggest problem with negative thoughts is that they limit the choices that you see. You go from possibility to probability. When you’re in that mindset, you’re only going to see certain choices, which will dictate your actions and behaviors, and that dictates your experience, which will dictate your emotion.

Catching negative thoughts is key.

When you start traveling down that path and really paying attention to what you’re thinking, you will find that you think negatively all the time.

I was shocked. I started this practice just two years ago, and I realized, “Dang, I think negatively all of the time.”

Learning to catch those thoughts changed my life. Practicing it changed me as an entrepreneur, as a husband, and as a dad.