Episode 54: Envisioning 2021 with L’areal Lipkins

Real Job Talk

Welcome to L’areal Lipkins, a sales trainer and expert in goal setting, vision boards, and how to make your goals a reality by adopting the right plan and mindset.

L’areal does NOT believe in SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timebound) , and we get right into it asking about her approach to goal setting. L’areal is a “recovering SMART goals user,” and she pivoted to her CLARITY method when she saw clients coming back year after year with the same goals. CLARITY stands for:

C- crystal clear
L- linked to a bigger goal (like your company’s or your boss’ or a step towards a bigger personal goal)
A- actionable
R- realistic
I- important
T- time bound
Y- tied to your core “why”

“Your why is irrelevant unless you know WHY your why is important.” You have to go deep to figure out why something is important to you to find your emotional connection to your goal in order to make the sacrifices needed to make it happen.

If you don’t have the vision of where you are going, you don’t have enough oomph behind your why. We talk about flexibility, and how you need to adjust goals and not have a 30 year plan. Where do I want to be 1-2 years from now vs 30 years from now. For L’areal, she knew she wanted to own her own business, but she didn’t know what form that would take.

We talk about how important it is for leaders to bring in their people to co-create goals and make sure everyone’s goals feed into the company goals to bring the company to achieve success.

We talk about sales goals and aligning sales and personal career goals. Sales goals are usually tied to revenue, but we talk about how a certain revenue target will help them to achieve personal goals- whether that is a new house, a working spouse or other personal goals. We then go bigger picture and learn about other people’s compelling “why” around their career driver.

L’areal wrote a book called A Woman With Vision. She instructs people to divide their yearly goals into quarters, and then uses her CLARITY method to dive deeply into what each goal looks like and what it will take to get there. Focusing on quarterly goals helps L’areal’s clients prevent being overwhelmed, and allows them to break goals into achievable chunks.

Having a visual representation in front of you helps you stay focused, but also having the whole team share their goals helps teams get to know each other. For example, 4 people on a team L’areal worked with wanted to buy a house, so they brought in a home buying expert to help….

Increasing transparency, especially when times are tougher, is hard as a leader, but it helps keep the team aligned and help everyone get on the same page to success. Especially if there are discrepancies between different teams at a company, helping everyone understand each other’s needs and struggles allows everyone to set goals that lead everyone to success.

Gratitude is a powerful mindset tool, and when we need to shift our goals (like we all did in 2020), we look to gratitude and our core beliefs to reset or adjust our goals. Want a tool to help? Here's L'areal's free tools page.

Want to changed a fixed mindset? Remind yourself (like L’areal does with her 4 year old), “I can figure it out!" Believing in yourself and your ability to overcome will help you move to a growth mindset and get rid of your negative beliefs.

How do I shift my mindset? We think 55-75,000 thoughts a dayand 80% of them are negatively pre-dispositioned, so if we’re not actively working on positivity, we could allow those negative thoughts to take over. We have to identify our negative thoughts and then find the positive, rooted in truth and then repeat it as an affirmation. It takes practice, but eventually you can do it in real time.

L’areal loves the image of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, shedding old skins to grow into our new selves.

She also talks about Vision, Goals, and Rewards. A goal is not a handbag -- a goal is something that moves you forward and a reward is something you can get when a goal is met. Rewarding yourself is important to avoid burnout and grind.

Another important thing about setting goals that align with your vision is to identify and make a plan for any potential roadblocks. Roadblocks often derail us from our goals, but if we have a plan for us, we can overcome them with ease.

L'areal's web site: A Woman with Vision
L'areal Lipkin on Instagram: @awomanwithvision
L'areal Lipkin's book: A Woman With Vision