What changes when you stop treating success as something you hope to achieve and start understanding it as a system you can repeat?

Back in 2022, I sat down with my long-term client Shane Hiscock to talk about the extraordinary change he had created in his life and business since we first began working together in 2019. It remains one of my favourite client conversations, not simply because of the financial results Shane created, but because his story demonstrates what can happen when you learn a proven formula, apply it consistently and continue returning to it as your goals grow.

When Shane first came to me, he was working in a commission-only role for another business. On paper, he and his wife were earning reasonable incomes, but the reality behind the scenes was very different. There could be months without income coming in, he was carrying significant debt and the uncertainty had created enormous pressure. He described his emotional state at the time as a constant rollercoaster between temporary relief when money arrived and genuine anxiety about how he was going to provide for his family when it didn’t.

And yet Shane wasn’t someone who had ignored his growth or never invested in himself. 

He’d already spent somewhere between six and ten years studying personal development, reading books and completing different programs. The problem, as he described it, was that much of what he’d done had been piecemeal – a book here, a program there, something that lasted several months and then ended.

He had plenty of information. What he needed was a repeatable formula for creating results.

The decision came before the evidence

When Shane found my work, making the decision to join wasn’t easy. In fact, he remembers it very clearly because financially it made very little sense based on his circumstances at the time.

His credit cards were stretched, he owed money to family after trying to keep a previous business alive, and there was very real pressure around providing for his wife and two daughters. Any additional investment felt frightening, and he openly wondered whether making it was irresponsible.

But Shane also knew that continuing to do what he’d been doing wasn’t going to change anything.

So he made the decision and committed himself fully to the work. He studied every morning and evening, used repetition deliberately and applied what he was learning because, in his words, he felt as though he had to make this work.

That distinction matters because a committed decision isn’t something you make once and then wait for the result to appear. You continue making that decision through the way you think, the way you study, the actions you take and what you choose to believe when your circumstances haven’t changed yet.

You can always measure what you give up

Only a few months into the program, Shane left the role he’d been working in and started his own business again.

During our 2022 conversation, he reminded me of something I’d said to him at the time that had stayed with him:

“You can always measure what you give up, but you never measure what you gain.”

I’ve always loved that idea because when you’re standing in front of a significant decision, particularly when you’re already established in your career or business, it’s very easy to calculate what you could lose. You can measure the income, security, client, position, time or certainty you’re potentially walking away from because all of those things already exist.

What you cannot measure with the same certainty is what becomes available because you moved.

You don’t yet know who you’ll meet, what opportunities will appear, what new abilities you’ll develop, how much your thinking will change or what becomes possible when you stop making decisions from the level you’re currently operating at.

Shane couldn’t measure any of that in 2019.

By the time we had this conversation in 2022, he could.

From financial pressure to a $2M+ business

Shane initially set an income goal through the program and then expanded it to earning $1 million a year in commission income. He went out on his own, achieved that goal in the first financial year of his new business and then doubled it in the second, building a business producing more than $2 million.

The transformation extended well beyond business. His family moved into a new home, his children’s school fees were taken care of for years, they were planning a family trip to Europe, his wife’s income had doubled and he eventually bought the Porsche 911 that had once been a lifelong dream. Even his daughters had begun applying the principles themselves through visualisation, journalling and affirmations.

Those are wonderful results, but they’re not the part of Shane’s story I find most valuable.

The real shift is that he learned how to create a result deliberately and how to do it again.

Success is a system

During our conversation, Shane explained that once he’d achieved so much of what he’d originally wanted, he found himself needing to reset and ask a new question: What’s my C-Type Goal now?

He goes back to the goal, makes the decision and returns to the tools and principles he learned to begin creating the next result. In his own words, “success is a system.”

That’s an important distinction for anyone who is already successful.

You don’t want to create one extraordinary result and then spend the next five years trying to work out how you did it. You want to understand the principles well enough that when it’s time to grow the business again, change direction, create greater freedom, improve another area of your life or pursue a goal that currently feels beyond you, you know where to begin.

Shane spoke about learning to maintain the vision even when a deal fell over or circumstances suggested things weren’t working. Rather than allowing the external result to dictate his thinking, he learned to go back within, reconnect with the goal, act from it and listen to the ideas and guidance that came from that place.

That’s why this work has never simply been about achieving a particular income, buying the house or growing the business.

It’s about becoming someone who understands how to create the next result deliberately.

Shane’s circumstances today may look completely different from those he described when we first met, but the principles he learned remain the same. There will always be another goal, another decision and another opportunity to grow.

And when you understand the system, you don’t have to start from scratch every time.

WATCH MY FULL CONVERSATION WITH SHANE

If this has you thinking about what’s next for you, I’ve created a collection of free trainings to help you see what’s possible and if you’re ready to begin, enrol in The GPS for New Success Program. 

→ Explore The Free Trainings here