Category: Day One

Seeking Clarity: #1 Habit of High Performers

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Action, Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Day One, Mindset, Purpose, Uncategorized

A few months ago I was recommended a book called High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary people come that way. It is written by Brendon Burchard a high-performance coach who is widely regarded as one of the best in his field. Over the past 20 years, he set out to understand three fundamental questions:

  1. Why do some individuals and teams succeed more quickly than others and sustain that success over the long-term?
  2. Of those who pull it off, why are some miserable and other happy on their journey?
  3. What motivates people to reach for higher levels of success in the first place, and what kinds of habits, training, and support help them improve faster?

These questions led him to speak with some of the highest performing athletes and business professionals the world has ever seen. He was able to uncover a ton of research and data to help him understand the answers. With all of this information, he was able to write this book.

Instead of doing my traditional review of the book, I felt like this book was really helpful and insightful to the point I wanted to break down each part to make sure you can really grasp his concepts since they can be really life-changing.

Brendon discovered that there are six habits of high performing* people. For the next six weeks I will post about each one:

  1. Seek Clarity
  2. Generate Energy
  3. Raise Necessity
  4. Increase Productivity
  5. Develop Influence
  6. Demonstrate Courage

*For the purpose of his book, high performance refers to succeeding beyond standard norms, consistently over the long-term.

Today, I will be sharing with you his first habit of high performance: Seeking Clarity

Let’s, start by answering this question: What does it mean to seek clarity?

It is remaining focused on today, and the present moment, while thinking about tomorrow and the future. Really tough to do, and balance your time between being present and thinking about what is next. Brendon’s research showed was that High Performers have figured out how to do it, and they centered their focus on the future into these core statements:

  • Who they are
  • Why they are here
  • What they wanted
  • How they were going to get there
  • What they found meaningful and fulfilling

Seems like pretty easy things to know, but you would be surprised that very few people have spent time thinking about those statements above.

To understand further into how Brendon went about his research on seeking clarity he interviewed people asking them questions like this:

  • Which things are you absolutely clear about that help you perform better than your peers?
  • What do you do when you are feeling uncertain, or undirected?
  • What aren’t you clear about, and how does that affect your performance?

By asking these questions he was able to identify how high performing people use clarity as the #1 habit for performing at levels that are so much higher than their peers.

Using all of his data and experience he lays out three simple practices for you to use to help you seek clarity in your life:

Practice 1: Envision the future four

  1. Self – You must know who you want to become. Have a vision for your future-self. An easy exercise to help you:
    • Think about yourself in daily situations with co-workers, your kids, and your wife. Is that person you want to be? If you do not like how you are, then ask yourself how would I want to be. Now, write down three aspirational words that represent how you want to be and use them as your guide
  2. Social – Understand how they want to treat other people
    • Write down each person name in your family and professional life that you see regularly
    • Imagine it is 20 years from and each person is describing why they love and respect you. If they had just three words, what would you want those words to be?
    • Next time, you are with them use that time to demonstrate those three qualities.
  3. Skill – Think about what you want your future to be like. Then understand the skills needed to get there, and obsess over obtaining those skills.
    • Think about your primary field of interest and write down three skills that make people successful
    • Under each skill, write down what you will do to develop it. Will you read, practice, get a coach, got to a training? Set up a plan to develop those skills.
    • Now think about your primary field of interest and write down three skills that you will need in order to succeed in that field five to ten years from now.
  4. Service – They care more about their service towards others than themselves.
    • For example, low performers ask themselves questions like this, “How can I get by with the least amount of effort” and high performs say, “ How can I serve with excellence”

Practice 2: Determine the feeling you are after

High performers define the feeling they are after. They know exactly what that feeling is and they do whatever it takes to there. They ask themselves, what is the primary feeling I want to “bring” to this situation and what is the primary feeling I want to “get”? As Brandon, shares from his studies he finds that underperformers shy away from the feelings they want.

Practice 3: Define what’s meaningful

High performers tend to take in four factors when describing something as meaningful.

  • They feel enthusiasm towards that project or goal. For example, most high performers wake up and ask themselves “What can I get excited or enthusiastic about today?
  • They factor in their connection and value challenges over comfort. They want to be around peers and family who challenge them not make them feel comfortable.
  • Satisfaction: High performers said they feel relate satisfaction with meaning and an equation Brandon puts together is this:

Passion + Growth + Contribution = Personal Satisfaction

  • Life Makes Sense: High performers want to know that everything happens for a reason. They want to feel like their effort is helping them or others work something greater than themselves and that their life has a purpose.

If you felt like these were helpful feel free to purchase the book here or check out this blog, podcast, and website here for other helpful insight on living your best life. Remember, making the choice to read through the practices is the first step. The second step is putting action towards implementing them into your day.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One.

Life Lessons From A Self-Made Merchant To His Son

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Day One, Effort, Mindset, Uncategorized

Outside of my mentors and defining moments, books have accelerated my learning both professionally and personally, and I truly believe that reading is the single most important thing you can do to better yourself. In light of this, on Monday’s I will be reviewing a book that has impacted me.

Today’s book is Letters from a Self Made Merchant to his Son by George Horace Lorimer.

Brief Summary:

George Horace Lorimer shares with us a fictional story about letters written between a father John Graham, the head of the house of Graham and Company, Pork Packers in Chicago to his Pierrepont who around the age of 18 is going off to Harvard. The letters span out over years from Pierrponts college days to getting his first job. The book consists of only the responses by John, so we get to see his advice back to his son about the different situations his son is facing. I share with you the lessons I took away from the book below.

Lessons learned from the book

Improving your character is more important than improving your IQ

John writes to his son, “The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. There are two parts of a college education – the part that you get in the schoolroom from the professors, and the part that you get outside it from the boys. That’s the really important part. For the first can only make you a scholar, while the second can make you a man.”
When you think back to college or high school where did you learn the most? Was it outside or inside the classroom? As John tells Pierrepont knowledge comes from all different sort of places and most of what we learn and who we become has nothing to do with what we learned in the classroom. School is not about where you went or what you learned it is about what you did while you were there. It made me think about how we might need to rethink the saying “knowledge is power”. I better way to say it would be knowledge + action = power.

Always be sweeping

John writes to his son that he is worried that his head is getting too big at Harvard, and he is being a foolish college kid wasting away his money. As Pierrepont is about to graduate John wants to make sure he understands what is going to take to be successful.
“The only sure way a man can get rich quick is to have it given to him or to inherit it. You are not going to get rich that way – at least, not until after you have proved your ability to hold a pretty important position within the firm. It doesn’t make any difference whether he is the son of the old man or the cellar boss – that place is the bottom. And the bottom in this office is a seat at the mailing desk.”

Always be learning is one of the greatest pieces of advice I have ever received. The best part about having a mindset where you are always learning is that it is a skill that everyone has the ability to do. No matter where you went to school, your title, or how “successful” you are. The one thing that separates the good from the great’s is their ability to continue to learn. While reading this book it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

“Training is like sweeping the floor. Just because we‘ve done it once, doesn’t mean the floor is clean forever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep.”

If you are really smart, don’t make the same mistake twice

Johns advice to his son about learning from mistakes is a classic reminder of how powerful mistakes can be. He writes “when you make a mistake, don’t make the second one – keeping it to yourself. Own up.”
You don’t learn from what you are good at. When you are good at something you just keep being good at it. The simplicity of that is scary because it causes people to do two things: To be afraid of failure and feel ashamed to discuss them. When we shy away from mistakes or failures we stop growing and learning. No matter how good you are at something, you are not perfect. It is an important piece of advice to remember because if you truly want to reach your potential you must be ready to learn from your mistakes.

Life is about the little things

John writes to his son about how important it is to not judge a book by its cover, “Just here I want to say that while it’s all right for another fellow to be influenced by appearances, it’s all wrong for you to go on them. Backup good looks by good character yourself, and make sure the other fellow does the same. ” John teaches his son that the little things in life are the most important things and that 2/3 of success is making people think you are all right.
To me, who cares what car you drive, clothes you wear, and how big your house is. None of those things tell anyone what type of person you are. What matters it the little things. Smile and laugh with others, give to others, contribute to society, help people, and just be a good person. That is what makes people think you are all right.

How has the book impacted me

When I went to college my dad told me the exact same type of advice that John told his son Pierrepont – it doesn’t matter where you went to school, it only matters what you do when you get there. Though this is a fictional story, I will be sharing the same piece of advice to my son one day when I send him off to college.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One. Please feel free to buy the book here!

All We Got Is Time

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Action, Choice, Day One, Effort, Uncategorized

As we continue on our journey to reaching our potential, we must remember, it is not about what has happened to you, where you came from, how long you have been here or where you are at today. It’s about what happens next and what you did with what happens to you and how you deal with what you are given. No matter who you are we are all given a time limit the day we were born. We can’t hide or run from it. We must embrace it. We must be ready to take action on every opportunity we get. To help me along the way I utilize these four simple principles as a guide to keep me moving forward.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint

As human we tend to be  A and Z thinkers, we obsess over how to start, and then we dream about what the end result will be. This type of thinking naturally leads us to neglect B thru Y.  From time to time, it will be important to remember “why” you started and where you want to end up, but we must not forget reaching your end goal is always is a process of many small things completed over an extended period of time. It is vital that you give B thru y some love. How do you do this? It is simple.

Instead, break up the task at hand into small pieces. Do what you need to do right now. Accomplish that thing. Then, move on to the next thing.

Never stop moving forward

The most straightforward and easy habit to form is reminding yourself constantly of what you control. Whenever you feel the emotion of anger, frustration, or thought of giving up remind yourself you are in control.

  1. Take a deep breath.
  2. Look at the situation objectively. It is what it is.
  3. Ask yourself what do I control?
  4. How or what do I need to solve this?
  5. Now, move forward.

Embrace failure

Here is the thing, you can never create a plan that can prepare you for trying. You just have to do it. The amount of time you spend talking about your plan vs. actually taking action on your plan will end in you living a life full of regret. The best part about trying is that no matter what it will lead you to two outcomes:

  1. You fail. We learn the task or idea we thought was possible was not.

What action can we take:

Ask yourself: What went wrong here? What am I missing? What can be improved?

  1. You succeed. We learn that the task or idea we thought was possible was.

What action can we take:

Ask yourself: What went right here? How can I improve? How can I maintain it?

Guess What? Life goes on and no matter the outcome you learned. If you failed great. If you succeeded great. At least you know you tried. Remember, nobody ever regrets trying.

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the tough questions

One of the ancient stoics practices is to remind yourself of this question: how important is this moment or issue hundreds of year from now? The answer is… probably not very important. Sadly, what you do today may or may not have any impact in the future. The fact is time will continue to march forward with or without you.

Depending on how you look at it you might feel the exact opposite of taking action. However,  the stoics posed this question to themselves to make them truly understand who they really were and allow themselves to fully believe in what they were supposed to do. It forced them to ask even more profound questions which can answer the most underlying reasons for why we choose to do anything in our lives: Why are you here? What is the point? What is the purpose? Why wake up today?

These questions are simple, but yet so difficult for people to answer. Why? Most of us are afraid to find the answer.

Good thing it’s day one.

 

Don’t Stop, Keep Going

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Action, Choice, Day One, Mindset, Perception, Uncategorized

After reading my prior posts, you learned that to start achieving your potential you need to be able to believe in yourself and redefine what the idea of success means. Hopefully, you have done both! If not, It’s OK. Step 1 is the hardest step to complete, and even if you do, it’s hard to maintain. Trust me. Others in your life will tempt you to follow the “rules,” and you will continuously feel tested with the vicious cycle of worrying about the past (failure) and future (success), which will try to prohibit you from making choices and taking action. You will feel like you want to give up and start to doubt yourself, but you must continue to move forward on your journey, and remind yourself of these four things:

1. Remember your “Why”:

Your “why” is your purpose which is what drives you and what wakes you up every single day. When you have moments where you want to give up, your “why” is the single most important thing to remember. You don’t need to focus on your “why” in the broader sense of your life but think about your “why” for this moment, which also allows you to be fully present. It helps you focus on what is right in front of you, and it gives you the meaning and motivation that you will need to continue forward.

Further questions to ask yourself:

Why are you here?

Why have you gotten this far?

Why do you wake up every day?

Why should you continue to move forward?

2. What you can control, and your supposed “superhuman idols” control:

Writing down what you control and what your idols control is a great exercise to help you realize that you both control the same things. Typically, people will notice three things about their role models: 1. They put in more effort. 2. They learn every day 3. They are not afraid to fail. That’s it. Understanding you can be as great as they are by noting these things is an incredibly powerful feeling.

Further questions to ask yourself:

How do they go about their improving their skill or ability?

How did they get to where they are?

How hard did they work? What specifics outside of pure talent did they do to be successful?

How many times did they fail?

3. The present moment:

Stop worrying about what happened yesterday or what is going to happen tomorrow. Focus on the here and now. In this moment, how can you just merely contribute? Ask yourself each day, what did I do to add value to the world? These questions will allow you to see how much you accomplish in just one day. You realize that you make an impact and you quickly start to understand how you have the ability to do amazing things in your life.

4. How you respond:

This goes along with the prior point of focusing on the present. What has happened in the past is what it is. Every second spent talking about regret, could have, should have, would have is time you are wasting that could be spent on moving forward. If you are serious about reaching your potential, we need to get going. We have more steps to take in this journey. Make a choice and TAKE ACTION.

You might think it can’t be that simple, but it truly is. As humans, we tend to overcomplicate EVERYTHING. It’s time to cut the bullshit. You need to WAKE UP! The good thing? It’s Day One. So, my first question to you is: Are you ready to make the choice to move forward?

Wake Up! It’s Book Review Monday – Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Choice, Day One, Mindset, Perception, Uncategorized

Outside of my mentors and defining moments, books have accelerated my learning both professionally and personally and I truly believe that reading is the single most important thing you can do to better yourself.  In light of this, on Mondays, I will be reviewing a book that has impacted me.

Today’s book is Linchpin: Are you Indispensable? by Seth Godin.

In my last post, I discussed the idea of how you can reinvent your life and the idea of success. This book has helped me solidify these thoughts and has become one of my top ten favorites. It can help further explain my thought process and help paint a clearer picture of how important it is that you write your own rules.

“My goal is to persuade you that there is an opportunity available to you, a chance to significantly change your life for the better. Not by doing something that is easy or that you have been trained to do, but by understanding how the rules of our world have fundamentally changed and by taking advantage of this moment to become someone the world believes is indispensable.” – Seth Godin

Brief summary of LinchPin: Are you Indispensable?

Seth Godin discusses the idea of how the world has significantly changed, and how in the past it paid to follow the rules. He explains that there have always been two teams: Management and Labor, but now there is a third team: Linchpins. Linchpins are the type of people who make their own map and don’t follow the guidelines of corporate America that have been set in stone for hundreds of years. He shares ideas and stories about how you too can do this and once you do, reaching your potential will never be easier. And Seth makes it clear that it starts with YOU and YOUR CHOICES.

Things I learned from the book:

  • The world has evolved, and it will only continue to evolve. If you keep complying with the system, you will fail to achieve your potential. If you want to reach your goals, you must create your own map.
  • The world is changing because of innovation. The first people to fail are the map-followers, non-risk takers, the fearful and scared to be different. Those type of people gets lost in the fast pace world we live in. It is unfortunate because they were told to “follow the system” and over time it has failed them.
  • Innovative employees are typically the most successful. As a manager, at times I feel like I need to control every situation, and that is unnecessary. Let your employees think for themselves.
  • We have a choice every single day. You can choose to be great, learn, and contribute or you can follow the process and do what others tell you to do. I will take the former.
  • People don’t take a risk because they are afraid. Schools (not all, but most) created a fear like environment. Pass or Fail. We were rarely taught “It’s ok to fail. Get back up. Just give maximum effort.”
  • It’s OK to be unique. You have a purpose. You have your own thoughts and views. Share them with the world. Don’t be scared. If you don’t it will be challenging to reach your goals.
  • Life is about choice: Are you going to choose to be part of the machine or are you going to pave your own way?

Other things I learned from this book:

Seth explains that when you become a linchpin, you strengthen your abilities in these 7 areas:

  1. Provide a unique interface between members of the organization
  2. Deliver unique creativity
  3. Manage a situation or organization of great complexity
  4. Lead customers
  5. Inspire staff
  6. Provide deep domain knowledge
  7. Possess a unique talent

Where does average come from?

  1. You were brainwashed by a school (not all, but a majority) and by the system into believing that your job is to do your job. You have to follow the rules and instructions.
  2. We all have a little voice inside our heads that’s angry and scared. That voice is what Seth refers to as the “resistance” (your lizard brain) and it wants you to play it safe and be average.

The law of linchpin leverage

People who we view as “ultra-successful” or “brilliant” are only truly this way for short bursts. The rest of the time they are doing work that anyone could do. The difference is that for 1 minute or 5 minutes they think differently about how they can contribute and create value in this world. At your job, take a second to think about how you could do it better or create more value because that is what Linchpins do. The ones who do not choose to think this way become replaceable.

We live in a fear driven culture

The “system” prohibits you from being innovative and standing out. We have created a sense of fear in the world that employees cannot share their thoughts and opinions because they must follow the rules. We must break down the walls and barriers to innovation. We all have ideas. Whether they are right or not shouldn’t prohibit someone from speaking up about it. Because we are afraid to take a risk and create our own map, we tend to say things like this:

    • “I don’t have any good ideas”
    • “I don’t know what to do”
    • “I didn’t graduate from (insert brand of some prestigious educational institution here)” –  I LOVE WHEN I HEAR THIS. WHO CARES WHERE YOU WENT TO SCHOOL. IT’S NOT WHERE YOU WENT, IT’S WHAT YOU DO.
    • “My boss won’t let me”
    • “Well, that’s fine for you, but my gender, race, health, religion, nationality, shoe size, handicap, or DNA don’t make it easy”

There is NO map

This is simple. As I mentioned in my last post, everything is invented. We are all human. We all have a purpose. We all have a voice. We are all powerful. If you believe in something, go DO IT. Nobody is in control of you except for yourself.

How has this book impacted me?

As a young kid, I always remember thinking and asking myself “why this”, “why that”. I have always been a curious person, and I have always wanted to be unique and different. This book reassured me that it is OK to want to be that way. It is what makes me a human and not a cog in a machine.

Seth also opened my mind up to the ideas of “choice” and “innovation”. He made it OK and furthermore necessary to challenge the status quo if you are going to reach your potential. He also shares two stories that I actually printed out and laminated for my sales team. I have all my new hires read it, and if you have or still do work for me, you know the story of “Richard and Steve”. I will shortly be sharing a post with those stories. But for now, I can say that we are always given a choice and the people who choose to create their own map end up finding their potential.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One. Time to create your own map, and become indispensable. Purchase Seth’s book here: Buy the book here! and I highly recommend you subscribe to his blog: Click here to view his blog and subscribe!

 

Time to Reinvent Success

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Day One, Effort, Perception, Uncategorized

As I discussed in my previous post life is all about perception. You must change the way you view the world and view yourself which can ultimately allow you to start believing in yourself.

This might be difficult for some, so an easy way to start is by thinking differently. If you told me the sky is purple, ok… then the sky is purple. If you think 2 + 2 = 5, awesome! If you truly believed that I would say, ‘GREAT! Tell me more!’

The majority of people would tell you those statements are not possible and you are wrong. The sky is blue and 2 + 2 = 4. And yes, they are correct, but only because they followed the rules. Here is what the rules say: You go to school. You learn. You get a job. You work for 30+ years. At the end of the day, you either succeed or fail. That’s how life works. Since the day we were born, we were taught that life has rules. Follow them and you will be on a path to success. Why does it work this way?

Think about school: you pass or fail a class, and you have to pass a grade to get to the next grade. It is just a continuing upward climb to “success”. It doesn’t end though. As you go to work, you are constantly trying to move up “the ladder”.  If you do not get that promotion or you don’t close that deal, you fail. That is how we were told to believe and perceive how life works: succeed or fail. What people don’t realize and are often never taught is that the concept of succeeding or failing was invented. Even crazier and one of the cold hard facts of life is that everything in life is invented.

Humans created this idea of success and failure and rules of how life works. We all just fall into our place in this world, and there is not much you can do about it. And this has led us to believe that there are such things as “superhumans” and other people we can never hope to be like. People such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk (just to name a few).

Do they think the sky is purple? Or 2 + 2 = 5? Maybe. Maybe not. But they sure as hell woke up one day and said “I am going to create my own rules”, and asked themselves something like this: Why do we measure and perceive success based off what someone hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago decided were the rules of life? So they went outside the box. They believed in their own rules and their own path. And guess what? They are just humans and they simply thought differently. And once they did that, no one could stop them. They didn’t just reach their potential, they changed the world.

To reiterate, we are letting someone who invented this idea of success to tell us what makes us successful. What this idea and everyone else failed to tell you is that you are the one in control and you will always be the one in control. If you truly believe something, then nothing can stop you. You must start with reinventing yourself and your idea of success to achieve your potential. What stops you from achieving your potential is that that you have let others control the idea of it and tell you what you should or shouldn’t do to be considered successful. And that is the most bullshit thing I have ever heard.

“The world is made up of crazy ideas. History is one long procession of crazy ideas. Let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where there is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” – Phil Knight, Founder – NIKE

This has led us to worry about two things: the past (our failures) and the future (our success).  We constantly measure our past and future selves against this idea of what success should look like. Why do we do this? It is rooted in how we were taught as kids. Every story we hear is always about the trials of failure or success by someone who seems like a mythical character, or god, or superhuman. Trust me, I am guilty of believing in it. We all are.  But if we don’t stop and invent our own way, it becomes difficult to actually accomplish anything.

This persistent worrying about the past and the future means your mind will be on a treadmill your entire life. It will never stop. You will feel like you worked so hard and it will just be running and running, but the problem is that it will be going nowhere. And the amount of time and energy wasted thinking about how you once were and how you have to be a certain way in the future is time you are wasting to improve yourself in the actual moment.

If you can’t focus on the step that is in front of you, then how are you going to take the next steps to reach your potential? If you do not actually stop and complete step 1, being fully present in that moment, then you can’t take steps 2 and 3.  Just taking that first step is so hard and then to actually decide and act on anything is another challenge. Since we follow the rules that have been pounded into our heads, we do nothing. We sit and worry. And our obsession with the rules that someone else created holds us back and ultimately destroys our hopes and dreams.

Well today, I am declaring this as your day to reinvent success and your beliefs of success. Remember, it is day one. Every day is day one. If you are living in this moment right now, then you just learned something. Though I am declaring today as your day, guess what every day is your day to reinvent yourself. Some person at some point decided what success and failure should look like, but that does not mean that you don’t have every right to redefine it for yourself. And if you want to achieve your potential, then you need to believe that life is not as black and white as success versus failure. It is about giving maximum effort and making up your own rules.

If you need some guidelines on where and how to start, here are my rules I invented for achieving success in my life:

  • Attempt, find, or at least think about what your purpose is.
  • Discover and write out your core values and beliefs.
  • Know your end result, know where you want to go, and what the outcome is going to be.
  • Write down and track three things:
    • How many times did you fall and get back up (literally and figuratively)? It should be a long list.
    • Learn 1 thing each day. Go home and write it down.
    • Every day is day one. Keep track of how many times you reinvent yourself or your beliefs.
  • At the end of the day, if the first four points don’t happen, simply contribute every day. Here are a few ways to do that:
    • Hold the door for someone.
    • Tell someone that you are thankful or grateful for them and what they do for you.
    • If you are having a bad day, help someone else have a good day.
    • Smile at someone today. Tell a joke.
  • Remember every day is day one. There is no time limit or amount of time you need to achieve success in life.

Now Wakeup! It’s Day One. Be thankful every single day (not just the week of Thanksgiving) for the opportunity to wake up and have the chance to reinvent success and reach your potential.

Step 1: Believe in Yourself

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Day One, Effort, Mindset, Perception, Purpose, Uncategorized

“For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life” – Carol Dweck Author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Here is the thing: Life is all about perception. Plain and simple. From the instant you were born, you opened your eyes and everything you saw, heard, and experienced from then until now has shaped your view of the world. This directly correlates to how you see yourself fitting in.  You likely form these types of thoughts in your head: ‘I am not smart enough to do this’, ‘I don’t have the skill’, or ‘other people are just naturally better at it than me’.

And unfortunately, that is precisely what stops you from achieving your potential. YOU. Before we talk about making choices and taking action, we need to start with the actual stem of the problem – the way you view yourself.

The reason you might have these negative views is because of thoughts Carol Dweck says we have:

“We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary” – Carol Dweck Author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

In my post on Monday, I shared with you Carol Dweck’s idea that humans have two mindsets: Fixed and Growth. People with a fixed mindset think they can’t change and they were born that way. The growth mindset believes that you can improve your skill and intelligence with hard work and effort every day.

Pretty simple concept. Right?

Well, sadly, that’s typically not the case. It is shocking how many people I hear and see not believing in themselves or saying “I was just born that way.”

Let’s look at one person who most people should know and view as superhuman: Michael Jordan.

MJ is one of the many athletes that have a mindset that put them in a class of their own. When I think about it, it’s hard for me to honestly believe he is actually human… but he is.

After reading several biographies on Jordan and his coach Phil Jackson, I learned MJ didn’t start dribbling a basketball in the delivery room on the day he was born or dunk at his first birthday party. What I read is that he outworked everyone and nobody believes more in himself than Michael Jordan. That was the difference between him and everyone else. He knew what he wanted his end result to be, and he gave all the effort he could towards it.

Now, yes he grew to 6’6 and could jump through a roof. But let’s not talk about physical attributes because there are plenty of others out there who are 6’6 and have not come even close to Jordan’s success.

The moments that make him human and that we can all relate to are these:

As a sophomore in high school, he was cut from the varsity team. He was 5’10, could not dunk and 15 other kids made varsity over him. MICHAEL JORDAN. MICHAEL F-ING JORDAN. The supposed greatest basketball player to walk this planet failed to make varsity on his first try.

In another relatable moment, in 1993, his father passed away at a young age. Michael Jordan, the most competitive athlete, the best of all time, walked away from the sport of basketball. You know why? Because as great as he was, as mentally tough as he was; he broke down. The loss of his father broke him. Your first thought: MJ can’t be broken, not possible. Look at Game 7. Highest stage in his respected field. One shot. MJ is the guy who takes it and makes it. But nope, he gave up on basketball (and then decided to play major league baseball. We all know the story.)

How many times have you doubted yourself after you failed? Or how many times have you just not even tried because you figured, ‘I don’t have what it takes’? How many times have you faced a tough moment, and just given up? The answer for me personally would be A LOT. And unless you are not human, I would assume it has happened to all of us. Even people like Michael Jordan, who we view as superhuman.

The difference between MJ and you are not his physical attributes, it’s his mindset. He failed. He gave up, but yet he bounced back every time. What he did is something that is actually extremely simple. He did what most of us are afraid to do. And until we do it, we can’t achieve our potential.

He took the first step: He believed in himself and altered his perception of his abilities

If you are rolling your eyes or thinking, “Jeff, you are crazy. MJ is a legend. He worked hard, but he was born that way. It does not matter what he thought of himself. He is Michael Jordan.”

My response is that you are the crazy one. You keep waking up viewing the world in the same way and expecting a different result. That is called INSANITY. So, you keep living your life that way. While you do that, I am going to do the opposite, and try to think differently and expect a different result. That is what I call the beginning of a Day One mindset.

If you think that is harsh, great! It’s time to wake up. Do you think MJ started on his journey to become the greatest of all time by leaning on others to tell him that they believed in him? No. He began with changing his belief in himself. It starts with you. You are in control. First, you need to believe in yourself.

Do you think that when I launched this blog I felt that I was the only blogger or motivational voice on this planet talking about mindsets? No, I am one of a million. But if I believe in myself, my purpose, my values, and my end result; and I honestly give all the effort I have into this, nothing can stop me. Before I made a choice and took action to create this site, I started with changing my view of myself and what I can accomplish in this world.

Now, WAKE UP! It’s Day One. Anything is possible. It’s time to start believing in yourself.