This one’s for the visionary leaders, dreamers, and high performers ready to break through the fog and see clearly what’s next in life, leadership, and business. 💥

In today’s episode, Neal Reyes dives into a brilliant, photo-inspired analogy to teach a game-changing framework for gaining crystal-clear clarity. By breaking down the concepts of ISO and aperture from photography — and aligning them with knowledge and vision — Neal reveals the secret formula for unlocking hyper-clarity in your goals and direction. 📸

Whether you’re overwhelmed by too much information, stuck in inaction, or simply unsure of your next move — this episode will help you recalibrate your focus and move forward with bold confidence.

🔥 You’ll learn:

• Why knowledge without focus creates noise (and what to do about it)
• How to balance learning and doing so you don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis
• What "aperture" represents in your leadership and why vision is your greatest tool
• A 🔐 mindset shift to overcome the all-or-nothing trap
• 3 powerful outcomes when knowledge and vision are aligned

This isn’t just personal development — it’s a masterclass in perspective. One that helps you see the target and hit it.

🎯 If you're tired of feeling scattered, this is the episode that brings everything into focus.

🎙️ Listen now and begin seeing your life, business, and leadership through a whole new lens.

Chapters:

• 00:08 - The Framework for Clarity
• 05:38 - Navigating Knowledge: The Importance of ISO in Personal Development
• 10:34 - Understanding ISO and Aperture for Clarity
• 19:03 - Understanding Leadership: The Mindset Shift
• 29:43 - The Importance of Action in Personal Development

Mentioned in this episode:

To receive emails and our latest updates, please sign-up at nealreyes.com/email.

To inquire about 1:1 coaching with Neal, please visit nealreyes.com/now.

Hey, guys, this is Neal, and I want to welcome you back to today's show.

Today we have a fireball for you today.

Today I'm going to be teaching on the subject of clarity.

But I'm going to do so by dropping a framework that teaches two things, two important things that if you combine these two together, it'll lead to clarity and can be applied to just about any area of your life, whether if it's in your personal development, if it's in your business, if it's in leadership.

No matter what it is.

Man, I'm so pumped.

Get ready.

This is your captain speaking.

We want to let you know we've been cleared for takeoff.

We have clear skies today with no winds, so we are expecting a smooth and highly enjoyable flight.

However, should you experience some personal turbulence, don't worry as you've chosen the right airline.

As we are trained in navigating unexpected bumps, our destination today is high performance and success.

Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do.

As we too are pumped for today's flight.

We understand you have options when you fly, and we are grateful that you have chosen to fly with us today.

We recognize by choosing to fly Nilreyes you are committed to growing personal development and reaching higher than you ever have before.

Enjoy today's flight, be blessed, and remember, the best is yet to come.

What's up, champion?

This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you to the Executive Perspective.

For years I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living?

Why?

Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing.

I'm an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership and technology.

I'm also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm.

My number one passion is people, and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential.

If you're a high performance individual like me, or you're simply ready to take your business, leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because.

Because I'm locked in and all in.

This is the Executive Perspective.

What's up, guys?

This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you back to the Executive Perspective with Neal Reyes podcast.

I'm pumped that you've joined us today, guys.

I want to first of all, start by thanking all of you for following and listening to this podcast and sharing it with those around you, especially those who you know.

It will help and encourage I also want to let you know that I believe in you.

I know I say that quite often, but I want to let you know that I believe in you.

You showing up to listen to podcasts like this shows your dedication to personal development, but it also shows your willingness to work on yourselves and put in the deep work to continue to grow.

So congratulations with that.

I am so proud of you.

Today I want to talk with you about something that I believe is so important and I'm going to break it down through an analogy that might make it a little easier for to understand.

But I'm also going to help you learn about cameras a little bit more.

Now, I'm not an expert on cameras, but today I'm going to talk to you about ISO and aperture and when you combine them, how they equal clarity.

So today let's just jump right into it.

The first thing I want to start off with is ISO.

So whenever you're working with any type of a high end camera, there are two main things that make you have great picture.

Whether if it's still pictures or if it's video.

There are two main things that help you to have amazing picture.

The first one is ISO.

ISO is when you allow.

It's basically ISO is what allows you to let light in to the lens.

It's a setting that you can adjust where you can either let a lot of light in or very little light in.

In fact, I'm going to tell you the type of cameras that work best like at night or in low light settings.

Those are high end cameras that are able to open up really wide and much light as they can in.

So you can get a great picture.

At the same time though, if you let too much light in in the wrong situation, it can also create what we refer to as noise or a grainy type of look on a picture or video.

I will also tell you that not all cameras are made equal.

But in addition, if we're talking about that, not all lenses are made equal either.

Someone, sometimes someone can have a really good camera, but with a cheaper lens.

They don't get as good of a quality as they should.

But when they improve their lens, what they're viewing through now, they can see details that they couldn't before.

Man, I'm telling you, this speaks because in life, ISO, especially in leadership or business or personal development, I'm going to equate ISO not to light, but to knowledge.

So for today's purpose, ISO equals knowledge.

I want you to, I want that to stick with you and I want to Read something to you.

The more knowledge or light you let in, the more you're equipped to expose the truth of your situation.

Oh gosh, that speaks right there.

You know, it could be that you need some truth about what it is you're trying to develop.

It could be you need truth about your business, about the business state you're in, about how successful that next product launch is going to be, or about your current clientele.

Or maybe it's a membership or a service that you offer.

And maybe it's dwindling, or maybe it's rapidly increasing, but you don't know why either way.

Well, that's why you need some ISO.

You need knowledge, you need light on that situation.

And the more light you let in, the more you'll be able to expose the truth.

Another thing it can do though, and be mindful of this because I said this earlier, if you have too high of an ISO, you can let in too much light.

In other words, that's like letting in too much raw and unfiltered knowledge.

And if you do so, having too much raw and unfiltered knowledge, or I'm going to say knowledge from the wrong sources, it can lead to noise within your life.

It can lead to noise within your business or your leadership.

How does noise pop up in those situations?

It will almost always pop up and not nest.

This isn't an exhaustive list, but you'll almost always see it pop up in one of these three, if not all three of these.

When you let in too high or too much noise, too much light in from the wrong sources and it begins to create noise in your environment, noise with your vision that you see through your lens, it'll almost always show up as overwhelm, confusion or misinformation.

I'm going to say that again.

When you have too much raw, unfiltered, wrong sources of information coming in, it'll almost always cause noise in your life.

And when it causes noise in your life for your business, it'll almost always show up in one, if not all three of these ways.

It'll show up as overwhelm, confusion and misinformation.

Now, I want you to know that intentional learning sharpens perspective, but it also, if you over consume it, it can blur your focus.

I'm going to say that again.

Intentional learning can sharpen your perspective.

That's a good thing.

But over consumption, that can blur focus.

What are types of things that you can over consume?

Well, I'm an avid reader and I really believe in reading books.

But sometimes There can be too many books you're reading or too many broad subjects you're learning.

Sometimes it can be having too many mentors, or maybe not the right mentors, or maybe no mentor at all.

Other times, though, it can be too many experiences.

You know, I really, really enjoy going to summits, learning summits, leadership summits, growth summits.

But one of the things I really highly enjoy is being part of masterminds.

And I'm part of actually several masterminds.

Some of them I attend in person, others I intend online.

But whether if I'm attending online or in person, this is a group of people who I've committed to be around, who have like minded mindsets as I do, even though we may have vastly different businesses or even leadership styles, but we turn around and help support each other in community and we grow together.

But I will tell you that sometimes what I witness are people who are always looking for another mastermind or another membership or another group or another course to learn from.

And they're always consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming.

But as I'm going to teach you in later in today's podcast, sometimes there's a, I guess a penalty almost for over consumption and lack of output.

Now here's what I mean by that.

I think it's important for you to learn as much as you can, as often as you can.

And sometimes it's extremely important to learn broad and in broad ways.

But if there's something you really need to specialize in, then it doesn't benefit you to be a mile wide in your learning, but only an inch deep.

Sometimes you need to be an inch wide, but a mile deep.

In other words, you need specific information detailed about that area.

And so you need to lock in.

You need to turn around and lock in on what it is that you're trying to learn.

But at the same time, there has to be a balance between learning and doing.

The next thing I want to talk to you about is aperture.

So I talked to you about ISO.

And with cameras, ISO is the amount of light you let into the lens.

Well, with cameras you also have aperture, and aperture is what allows you to focus.

Now it does so by the amount of light it lets in as well, but it does it different.

But that's what manages focus.

So ISO on a camera, if you're going camera shopping, pay attention.

But ISO pays attention to the amount of light and aperture tends to manage focus.

But for our learning purposes today, we're referring to ISO as the amount of knowledge you have, and we're referring to Aperture as your vision or as your focus.

So a wide aperture on a camera lets in more light, but it also narrows what's known as your depth of field, meaning it allows you to focus on a key subject really well, but it blurs other things out.

And I'll give you example, because this is what's known as a shallow depth of field.

If you watch videos or movies of some sort, or you see pictures where the subject, meaning whatever it is they're trying to take a picture of, if it's a person or an object, whatever it is, but when you see them and they're very clear, but the background behind them is blurred, well, the more aperture you apply, the more that subject comes into focus and the blurrier the background can get.

However, though, if you have a narrow aperture, it increases what's referred to as your depth of field, meaning it lets you see more.

But while it allows you to see more in focus, the items may not be as in high focus as they are when you turn around and widen that aperture to where you create a shallow depth of field.

I'll give you an example.

Sometimes you might be watching a movie, and when you are, they do these really cool shots where they focus on a person up close and everything in the background is blurred out, but then they change the aperture in the middle of the shot, and now that person who is in focus goes blurry, but something in the background comes into focus real clear.

Sometimes they do that when they're trying to show you someone's watching somebody or something.

But I've always thought that was a fascinating shot that these camera professionals do.

Well, that being said, that gives you an idea of how aperture works.

Now, why is this important?

Well, because aperture represents vision, and it represents what you're focused on.

Is your focus too wide or is your focus too narrow?

You know, sometimes if you're only focused on what's right in front of you, you lack peripheral vision.

And I have some things I'll teach you in the future about that as well.

But when you have a leader who has really good focus on what's in front of them, that's important.

I call that laser focus.

Focus.

But if they don't have peripheral vision, they won't see the other items around them that could impact or influence that situation.

So sometimes you have to have a balance between both the laser focus in front of you but peripheral vision around you.

And so when you turn around and do that, it helps you by defining your vision that'll help determine what comes into focus.

If you Have a clear vision.

Most likely you'll have a clear focus.

But if you don't determine a clear vision of whatever that thing is you're working on or trying to learn or accomplish or do, you won't have a clear focus.

But the more you determine your vision, your vision will determine your focus.

And without vision, people perish or get distracted.

In fact, that's a biblical principle.

There are scriptures in the Bible that say that where the Lord talks to us, and he says that where there is no vision, the people suffer, or with a lack of vision, the people perish.

Vision is extremely important.

But what happens when you take ISO, which we're referring to as knowledge, and you take aperture, which we're referring to as vision, and you combine them together?

Well, and when you have in a camera, ISO, which is light, an aperture, which is the focus, and you combine them together, you get clarity on whatever it is you're looking at, whatever it is you're studying.

Well, same exact thing in life.

Whatever you're looking at through your lens, whether if it's your lens of personal development, whether if it's your lens of business strategy, or if it's your lens of leadership, or whatever it is you're doing, when you take ISO, which represents knowledge, and you take aperture, which represents focus, vision, and you combine knowledge and vision or focus together, those two together will equal clarity.

And I'm going to even take a step further and say hyper clarity.

This is so important.

When ISO and aperture are both adjusted correctly for this specific situation, you get a balanced and clear image.

Just like when knowledge and vision are aligned, clarity is birthed.

Now, that should be an unlock for some of you right there.

Because some of you are trying to pursue endeavors within your life.

Maybe it's that next level you're leveling up to.

Leveling up in your finances, leveling up in your investments.

Maybe you're at the point where you're trying to debate whether you open the next location for your business.

Maybe you're trying to figure out whether or not if it's time to bring on partners or silent investors.

Or maybe you're just trying to launch for the first time and you're trying to figure out which product you launch with.

Maybe you have something that resonates deep inside of you, where you know you have a voice for a specific topic or subject, but you're trying to figure out how to get started.

This is the keys on how to get started.

You need ISO knowledge and you need aperture, vision or focus.

And when you combine the Two together, you'll get clarity about where you're headed or need to head and clarity about what you need to accomplish.

Now understand this, because this is for leaders.

And if you're listening to the show, you are absolutely a leader.

And for the person who says in the back of their mind, but I don't lead anybody.

I don't have any employees that report to me, stop that.

You can be a leader even without people who report to you.

Because when you're a leader, someone is always watching your actions.

I'm going to say that again.

When you're a leader, I'm talking about leadership mindset, leadership character, leadership personality.

When you're a leader, someone is always watching you.

You know, today on social media, if you take something like Instagram or TikTok or something like that, there's other ones, obviously YouTube.

There are influencers, millions and millions of influencers out there.

And those influencers may not have any staff that reports them or anyone that works for them.

In fact, many of them have full time jobs where they report to somebody, but on the side, they're doing their thing as an influencer, but those people are being watched by others.

They're a leader in some way.

Whatever topic is that they speak on, whatever knowledge they try to convey or help others with, they're a leader.

So when you listen to a show like this, you're absolutely a leader.

And I know we have a lot of executives and things like that and senior leadership people and just, just high power people that listen to this podcast.

But if you're not one of those or you don't fall in that group, don't think that you're not a leader.

You're most certainly a leader.

Especially if you have a family, if you're a father or you're a mother or you're a husband or a wife, I guarantee you that you're leading people.

There's always ways to impact and influence those around you.

And the more you embrace that and the more you can sow into the benefit of others and help them grow, the more you will develop and establish yourself as a leader.

So listen up, leader, because I got three things I'm getting ready to share with you.

Leaders need both learning and focus to do three things.

Leaders need both learning and focus or knowledge and focus to do three things.

And here they are.

They need learning and focus to gain clarity.

They need learning and focus to lead others.

And they need learning and focus to take action with confidence.

Man, that last one's a big one.

In fact, I will tell you that as a coach, you know, I think about all the things I can teach people and I think about all the courses I can create.

And I've got several coming out.

But one of the things that I know I'm best at is teaching confidence, helping people how to connect with confidence for their life.

Whether if it's introverts learning how to be confident in situations where they have to speak or mingle with others or network, or whether if it's confidence in your communication, if it's confidence in how you present yourself, if it's confidence in how you speak, if you're a stage speaker or something like that, or just in your leadership alone, but confidence.

So again, leaders must have knowledge or learning plus focus to gain clarity, to lead others, and to take action with confidence.

And the more you learn to embrace and do those things, the more powerful of an influence you're going to be.

I want to share with you a story real quick about a client that I have.

And this is something we tackled a while back.

But if you listen to one of our previous episodes where I talked about the Legos on the floor, well, this is a client of mine that had some Legos on the floor.

This is someone who has a real big vision to accomplish and do some really amazing things.

But let's say, for example, for this purpose, that his goal was to land on the moon.

Well, that's a great purpose and great vision.

However, he was never accomplishing this goal because he had an all or nothing mindset like many of you watching may have as well.

In other words, he felt that if he couldn't get on the moon with one giant leap or step, or if he couldn't make one jump and land on it, then what was the purpose of landing on it?

He had a great vision for it.

He had his why of why he wanted to land on the moon.

Now, he didn't really want to land on the moon.

I'm using that as an example.

But anyways, if he did, nothing wrong with that.

But his whole thing was if he couldn't do it in one step, one jump or one leap, what was the purpose?

He was never going to get there.

He had some Legos on the floor, he had some blocks and I had to help him understand.

Hey, if you back up, why don't we just focus on getting a little closer to the moon?

Maybe getting a little closer to the moon is.

Why don't you pick the grocery store closest to your house and let's just focus on starting to walk to the closest grocery store that might only be a mile away.

But you have to start somewhere.

And I'm going to tell you that whenever you're starting out, one of the biggest blocks, and we've covered that in other podcasts, one of the biggest blocks that people run into is thinking that they have to know all the steps before they can begin.

When you're starting out, whatever it is, all you need is to take the first step.

And I'm going to give you a news flash.

The first step.

While it feels like it's a giant step or a giant leap, sometimes it can feel like you have a chasm between you and you got to make this major leap or jump, the first step is almost always a baby step.

Oh, gosh.

I know that that speaks, but I'm helping you to retrain the way your mind works.

You know, there's a principle in the Bible, it's in Romans 12, 2, where it talks about to be not conformed to the ways and patterns of this world's thinking, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Now, that's the Neil Reyes translation, but that's basically what it says.

Don't be conformed to the way this world thinks.

Don't be conformed to the patterns or limitations that this world says you must operate by or that you can operate by, but instead be transformed by renewing your mind, learning a different and better and higher way.

God tells us in his word that his ways are higher and his ways are bigger and deeper and wider and just greater than ours could ever be.

That's why you want to tap into the source.

But when you're doing this, understand we're retraining mindset today.

If there's a giant goal you have, like my client did where he wanted to land on the moon, but he felt if he couldn't get there in one jump, what's the purpose?

What that mindset was doing was it was preventing him from ever getting started.

But the moment he grabbed that unlock that the first step is a baby step.

And once he takes the first step, then he'll see step two and then three and then four.

Well, what happened in that situation?

He got ISO knowledge or light on the situation.

He then got aperture, which was focus or vision.

And as he learned how to combine the two together, because you can't just have one, you'll never get a clear picture.

With ISO only or with aperture only, you might get a clear picture, but not true clarity.

But when you learn to combine your ISO, your knowledge on that situation with your aperture, the vision or focus.

And you combine those two together.

Whoa, man.

Now you're in alignment and watch out baller, because you're coming on through.

Now you got clarity, but clarity is not action.

You've got to find a way to step forward on that.

I'm going to give you two quick quotes that I believe will help you and you should write these down because I think they're going to be a huge impact and unlock for you.

Here's my first quote for you.

Vision without wisdom is blurry, but wisdom without vision is scattered.

And the second one that I have for you is clarity is born when insight meets intention.

Whoa, man, that's a fire quotes right there.

I'm telling you, write those things down.

In fact, sometimes when I'm coming across things and I hear it, I'll stop.

And for me, this is a Neil thing, maybe you incorporate it too.

But this is a Neil thing where I'll stop and I'll say, lord, would you please write that on the tablet of my heart?

Please inscribe that on the tablet of my heart so that I never lose it.

And it's a guiding post for me going forward in my journey of self development and growth, man, it's powerful.

Guys, I want to tell you that when you're a business, and so let's say you're a business for a minute or you own a business, if you're a company, you know, you can be a company with all the data and all the information, but if you never define a clear goal, aperture combining ISO with aperture combined, you'll almost never succeed.

What I equate that to is like as if, let's say, for example, your business was throwing darts and you got to land the darts on the dartboard and the closer you get to the bullseye, the better you do.

But when you, oh, we have a guest in the studio.

Did you hear little Livy?

Livy may pop in in the studio here in a minute.

I apologize if you heard my dog, but I think she's ready to play.

That being said, though, sorry for the distraction.

That being said, if you turn around and you go in that room and you're getting ready to throw some darts, but before you do, you put on a blindfold and you turn off all the lights.

Holy cow.

You might know kind of where the dartboard is, but it's going to be pure luck if you hit the dartboard at all, let alone get close to the bullseye.

That's what it's like when you have a business where you have a lot of ISO, you have a lot of data, but you don't have aperture, you don't have clearly defined goals.

What about on the personal level though for the person who doesn't have a business or if they do, but they're just working on person, A person who reads and I come across this regularly, a person who reads dozens or tons of self help books, but they never set personal goals.

Maybe you have someone who's always attending conferences, self development conferences.

They're always reading the next video, taking the next course.

I say reading the video.

Goodness.

Reading the next book, taking the next course, watching video, video, video.

But they never set personal goals.

They're never going to accomplish what they choose or what they'd like to because they're not doing anything, they're not setting any goals, they don't have any projects that are going to help them get there.

There's a time for learning, but there is also a time for doing.

I'm going to say that again.

There's a time for learning, but there's also a time for doing.

And I remember when the Lord started speaking to me about this, initially I was thinking one mastermind.

But eventually he talked to me about having multiple masterminds.

But he also told me that there were going to be those who wanted to attend every mastermind.

I really see us doing one once a quarter.

Eventually.

But eventually I see doing one a quarter.

But I'm still kind of baking that idea before the Lord so I'm getting some clarity on it from him.

And off the cuff I kind of see one once a quarter.

So I kind of see one in January, April, July, October.

And what he kind of showed me was that with these masterminds there may be those people who embrace them so much, they're going to want to come to all four.

And if they have the means and ability to the financial means and the time and resources and freedom, they're going to want to come to all four.

And for some of them that'll be okay.

But for others, if all they're doing is coming and they're getting their dopamine hit by being there, by just being in that environment and being around these high achievers, but they're always in a constant state of learning, learning, learning.

But they never do or they never couple their learning with action.

Then I may have to block them from coming to them until they start to do some action.

Now that may sound wrong, but understand My heart is to help people.

My heart is to help people succeed.

I don't just want people who listen.

I want people who also do so Some quick takeaways as we finish today.

How do you adjust your ISO?

You do so by limiting your intake and focusing on high quality relevant information.

2.

How to adjust your aperture?

You do so by clarifying your goals, your purpose and your values.

And number three, how do you know when you've achieved clarity?

And this is the simple one.

You'll always know because you'll have defined direction, decreased overwhelm and increased momentum.

And sometimes all three together.

Guys, I'm so thankful that you stopped by to grow with us again today.

I want to invite you to go by our website@neal Reyes.com for all of our resources where you can find all our resources.

But I want to let you know as we part today that I believe in you.

I believe in you and I know you're going to achieve and do great things.

Thank you and have a blessed day.