March 7, 2025
Story [#33]

Why you’re not getting results.

Or a minute of Systems.

We all have goals we strive for.

But not everyone manages to reach them.

For entrepreneurs, this is even more critical—your success depends on achieving your goals.

But distractions are everywhere—clients, family, unexpected issues.

You end up constantly putting out fires, and your plans either get postponed or forgotten altogether.

Many goals require time and multiple steps to reach.

Things go wrong, obstacles pile up, and suddenly, the goal feels impossible.

You map everything out in detail, yet the goal remains out of reach, still sitting on the horizon.

Frustrating, right?

I’ve been there.

Even now, with years of experience, I still procrastinate on certain tasks.

The truth is, most tasks and projects rarely stay on schedule or within budget.

Especially when you're dealing with something new and unfamiliar.

There are plenty of methods for setting and achieving goals.

Let’s go over a few.

The Wheel of Life

The wheel consists of eight key areas of life.

By rating your satisfaction in each, you get a visual snapshot of your overall balance.

Personally, I don’t use this tool much—it’s not great for setting or achieving goals.

But it does help you step back and see the bigger picture.

The SMART System

SMART is a framework for setting clear, achievable, and measurable goals:

  • Specific – What exactly do you want to achieve?
  • Measurable – How will you track progress and know when you've succeeded?
  • Achievable – Do you have the necessary resources and skills?
  • Relevant – Why is this goal important right now?
  • Time-bound – What’s the deadline?

This is a solid tool, widely used in project management.

Highly recommended.

It works best for well-defined, short-term goals.

The Goal Tree

The goal tree helps break objectives into smaller, structured sub-goals.

This is the method I personally use the most—both in business and personal planning.

It’s especially helpful for visual thinkers, as it allows you to see progress and engage with your goals consistently.

The Goal Pyramid

This method structures goals into different levels:

  1. Lifetime Goals – The big-picture vision.
  2. 10-Year Goals – Major milestones.
  3. 5-Year Goals – Key stepping stones.
  4. 1-Year Goals – Concrete actions for the near future.

It’s a solid approach for strategic planning, but it lacks flexibility in day-to-day execution.

The Key: A System

No matter which method you choose, the most important thing is to make it part of a system.

Without regular action, your plans will stay buried in Google Docs, to-do lists, or planners.

Dreaming isn’t enough—you have to take action.

Find what works for you and start systematically working toward your goals.

Disclaimer.

Every business has its nuances, and every founder has their unique context and resources. Whether or not my advice applies depends on your situation, experience, and needs. But one thing is universal—use your brain.

Think about how to apply the advice in your context before acting.

Your way.

Mind Mapping in Notion

Notion is my go-to tool for content management, planning, research, and knowledge storage.

The only downside?

It doesn’t have a built-in Mind Map feature.

A workaround is using toggles to create a structured outline that mimics a Mind Map, but I didn’t find it very practical.

I found a decent alternative that integrates with Notion—Mindmap.so.

It has some bugs, but for organizing existing Notion data, it can be quite handy.

Before moving to Notion, I relied on MindMeister—a well-designed tool with great features and an intuitive interface.

Miro is another option, but for my specific tasks, it felt unnecessarily complex.

And one more thing.

A quick video I made on the topic. Might be useful.
When things get tough,
I always remind myself:
giving up won’t make it any better.

You can’t defeat someone who never gives up.

From the journal of Nyx Thorne.
That’s all for today. See you next week.
— Eugene

Three ways forward from here:

1.  Keep reading.

Every Friday, new story. New lesson. Free.

2. The Different Tuesday Founder Kit (free)​

My ebook Business Black Box Unpacked, the 5‑Day Ops Setup email course, and mini tools to simplify your operations.
→ Explore The Different Tuesday Kit​​

3. Need deeper 1-on-1 strategy work?

A 60-minute 1:1 Strategy Session for founders ready to fix operational bottlenecks.
→ Book a Strategy Call

Join the founders learning how to build without burning out.

And get free The Different Tuesday Kit. The tools I wish I’d had while scaling my agency.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Hi, I’m Eugene.

My first daughter was six months old when I quit my job to start an agency. Leap of faith.

No clients. No savings.
A laptop in the bedroom and a promise to my wife that this would be worth it.

20 years later — 80 people, 3 continents, 7-figure revenue.
But for many years, I was the bottleneck in my own business.

Now I help founders escape the same trap. Through systems that actually work, not theory.

I write weekly: operational war stories, decision systems, and lessons learned the hard way.

For founders who want to build without burning out.

More Stories

Story [#102]
July 3, 2026

The rule of trust that holds

Story [#101]
June 26, 2026

The only way to stand

Story [#100]
June 19, 2026

The AI agent itch

Story [#99]
June 12, 2026

The trap that looks like freedom

Story [#97]
May 29, 2026

I believed control meant caring

Story [#93]
May 1, 2026

Two years to close one deal

RECENT ISSUES OF

Founder Stories

July 3, 2026

The rule of trust that holds

Or minute of learning that trust needs more than good intentions

A few weeks ago, I got into a small exchange in a LinkedIn comment thread. The post was about trust — specifically, how do you get clients to actually trust your team instead of redesigning everything themselves? My answer was short: "Never keep clients in the dark. Be open, honest, and proactive. Even when mistakes happen." I hit post, moved on, forgot about it. But the thought kept coming back. Not the comment itself — the word. Trust.
June 26, 2026

The only way to stand

Or minute of the only anxiety you can actually control

I was sitting with my coffee in the morning a few days ago… a few browser tabs open in front of me. My own YouTube channel I've been playing with. A queue of videos about how creators grow their audience. The feed itself, where I drift to see what's actually working for other people. Half research, half learning. But the feed felt different that day. AI shifting another industry, new tariffs somewhere, sanctions being added and lifted in the same week, a war I hadn't been following, crypto rules being rewritten, bank policy shifting, another conflict somewhere else. A relentless wall of things I couldn't control.
June 19, 2026

The AI agent itch

Or minute of realizing what I almost re-invented

In the first five months of 2026, nearly 88,000 people in the US lost their jobs because of AI. That's already more than all of 2025. In May alone, AI was behind 40% of all layoffs in the country. Headlines like this are everywhere now. And when you read them — and then scroll past fifteen posts about AI agents that automate everything, replace teams, build empires — it creates this burning itch. This feeling that everyone around you knows something you don't. That you're falling behind. That you need to drop everything and start building agents right now, everywhere you can.

Join the founders learning how to build without burning out.

And get free The Founder Decision Kit. The tools I wish I’d had while scaling my agency.
Thank you!
Didn’t get the email?
Make sure to check your spam folder.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.