The question is easy, but if you ask 100 different people, you will get 700 different answers. How do I know this? I simply did the math. I’ve been asking people my entire career what can you do to guarantee success, and I usually get seven answers from each person. Why seven?
A lot of it has to do with ego I believe because it starts off with three answers usually when I pose the question. The next response from my successful group is how many answers do you get from other people I’ve asked? My answer is then seven, simply because I pulled it out of the air. I’m interested in the number of responses and not the information they are giving to ascertain their credibility.
Truly successful people who’s advice I take, don’t deviate from their first response. If they’ve given me five answers originally, they stick with their answers and don’t artificially inflate that number to seven to compensate. They don’t care if the average number was seven, their advice is good information and nothing else is needed.
The majority of the other group falls into the “fake it until you make it group” as I see it. They are in competition with the world, and if seven answers is the magic number, they’ll come up with ten to prove that they are smarter than everyone else. They are trying to boost their own ego by imparting their so-called wisdom to you in the attempts to appear more knowledgeable than they really are. Quite simply they are frauds who are trying to pass themselves off as successful and accomplished. They don’t even realize that the answers they are giving after their first three are horrible, and anybody can see this, except for them. You can learn a lot from this group by being able to recognize what they are attempting to do and steering clear from them and their advice.
So what’s the moral of the story? For my blog post, it’s up to you to decide. Sorry, but I just used this as an introduction to pivot into some of the answers that the truly successful people gave me. There is a lot of commonality with the responses from these successful people, and their answers are more profound than a simple laundry list of “to-do” items. Much like the introduction, information is given, and it’s up to you to dig out the essential facts and implement them as you see fit. One useful takeaway from the introduction might be, be wary of who you take advice from.
Have you ever heard the phrase “scared money never wins?” If you gamble, then you’ve probably recognized this saying. By no means am I promoting going out and betting the kid’s lunch money at the casino, but this phrase rings true in many instances.
Most people, when they go gambling, have a certain amount to spend or lose in most cases. When they get close to hitting this dollar amount, they make incrementally smaller and smaller bets to make their money last longer. In most cases, the end result is the same, you lose your money, and it’s time to go home. If they do happen to hit a jackpot, the amount that they put into the bet is so small that the jackpot only pays out a fraction of what it would have if you made a maximum bet. Again the outcome is probably the same either way, so you might as well place big bets for as long as you can in the hopes that a jackpot will be a substantial amount of money. Like in life and business, scared money never wins.
So that’s all fine and dandy, but how does this information affect my success in my personal life and business? This bit of information points to betting big on yourself in your private and professional life. If you don’t believe in yourself, then why should anyone else? More often than not, in everyone’s life, there is a point for a decision or opportunity, when you have to bet the house on yourself and go “all in” on this one decision. Depending on how you react, you will either catapult yourself forward or continue in mediocrity. These “all in” moments can happen numerous times in a person’s life, and the way you reacted the first time is often how you will respond when it arises again. Success builds upon success and always put yourself in the position to make these big bets when the time is right.
This leads us into the area you’re at today; It is not indicative of where you’ll end up in four years. Like in the previous example of gambling, you might be down, but you are by no means out of the game. What would you pay or do if you had a 100% guarantee that four years from now, you’d be living the life of your dreams? The answer is you would probably pay any amount, suffer long work hours, and go through hell to get to this spot. The good thing is, you can. For most of us, its only halftime and you still have another half to play.
Remember the Buffalo Bills vs. the Houston Oilers comeback in the NFL playoffs in 1993? Buffalo was down 32 points at halftime and came back to beat Houston 41 to 38. Now that’s an incredible turnaround, and you can do it too if you apply yourself. (Wow, I sound like a high school guidance counselor now.) Just a huge warning here, DO NOT try and do this turnaround at the casinos. I used this example as an analogy only and not a roadmap to self-destruction. Dooming yourself to a life of Beanie Weenies or ramen is no way to live out your Golden Years.
The concept I’m trying to relay to you is don’t base your life or business decisions on present-day emotions for future outcomes, even though we make these decisions specifically for these future outcomes. Directing yourself to focus your attention on these decisions is the secret to guaranteeing yourself the success you are looking for. Letting your present-day emotions, from where you’re sitting now, to make decisions for our future outcomes can paralyze us into making no choice at all if you’re not careful.
As most people get older, one would hope that their decision-making ability for future outcomes has gotten better. This is simply because of having more practice at this, and that’s a crucial factor. Practice does make perfect, and the more of this you do, the better and easier it becomes.
Success isn’t something you gamble on and possibly get or don’t get, because success is not just one thing or one moment in time. Success is showing up every day consistently, day in and day out. Success is building your abilities, skills, values, and beliefs for tomorrow’s opportunities. Success is being that person, that anyone can call and depend on for getting work done accurately and fast. And finally, if you do all of this, you might get some lucky breaks, because luck is created by being prepared and being prepared will create success. It’s funny how all these things are interlinked.
Out of all this information that I’ve collected over my career, the best advice isn’t advice at all. It’s a way of looking at life and the possibilities. Mindset or mind change must be accomplished before anything can change in your life.
People who have a weight problem must change their mindset on how they perceive food before any weight loss can permanently take place. I’ve known many people who’ve lost a large amount of weight, but they put it all back on because of their mindset within a couple of years. The ones that kept it off I’ve asked how, and they said something just clicked in their head. Food is seen as fuel to propel your body and nothing more. The better the fuel, the better the body and mind, I feel that one is a catalyst for the other and hence the mind change or recalibrating. Kind of like success builds upon success. Don’t get me wrong, these successful weight loss people still enjoy a tasty snack or meal from time to time, but it’s only once and a while and not an everyday habit.
So how do you get that click in your mind to take hold permanently? As I said before, “practice makes perfect.” Keeping your mind open, continually learning, and wondering is a great place to start. Don’t accept the status quo and always look for areas to improve upon in your business and personal life. Most importantly, don’t try to impress people with your “fake knowledge.” One day you might have some co-worker come up to you looking for advice when in reality they are testing you to see if you are truly a successful person.
“When You Come to A Fork in The Road, Take It.”
– Yogi Berra