“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” - Angela Duckworth
Championship football coach Nick Saban says every great team has three things: a vision, a plan, and discipline. Discipline is both doing what you are supposed to do when you don’t want to and not doing what you want to do when you know you aren’t supposed to do it.
How do we have the discipline to do the right thing all the time? Grit.
Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is sticking with your plan and having discipline no matter what tries to get in your way.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth says the number one indicator of success is grit. Grit can be the one characteristic that can help you overcome any obstacle you will have to face.
How do you build grit? It starts with having a growth mindset: the belief that you have the ability to get better at whatever you work at.
Nick Saban was from a small coal town in West Virginia where many people didn’t even think about going to college, and because he believed in himself and surrounded himself with the right people, he became a championship coach and taught hundreds of athletes how to be champions themselves.
He did it by having a vision, a plan, discipline, and the grit to fight through everything in his way. You can be what you want and do what you want, but you will have to go through difficult storms and circumstances to do so.
Reflection Questions: When the journey gets tough, what will you do? Will you quit, or will you have the grit to dig in, learn, grow, get better, and keep going?
"Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge; wish for more wisdom.” - Jim Rohn
What do you do when it gets hard? Do you put your head down, pout, make excuses, feel sorry for yourself, and run from the challenge?
Or do you put your head down and work, embrace the challenge, figure it out, and make yourself better?
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said, ‘Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge; wish for more wisdom.”
Easy keeps you stuck where you are; hard is how you elevate to new levels.
Everything you really want is on the other side of hard.
When Jim was first learning about success, he said he had no money and blamed everybody for his failures. One of his mentors told him you receive what you attract. If you qualify for more, you will receive more.
Pursuing your goals or greatness is supposed to be hard. Look around - it’s hard for everybody. The best just learn how to handle hard better by making themselves better, tougher, and more resilient. They don’t panic when it gets hard because they expect it. They know hard is how we grow.
What are you going to do when it gets hard?
Are you going to wish it were easier, or are you going to embrace the challenge and make yourself better?
Reflection Question: WHEN (not if) it gets hard, what are you going to do?
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” - Moliere
I once heard someone say life is all about battles and blessings. When we are in the middle of a battle, it can be hard to believe it will ever come to an end, and when we are in a season of blessings, we sometimes expect it will go forever.
But nothing lasts forever, and that is the message behind The Hero’s Journey, the stages of ups and downs we all go through.
The 5 stages of the hero’s journey:
The Honeymoon Stage: When you begin and everything is great.
The Pit Stage: When obstacles and battles knock you down.
The Climb Stage: When you are climbing out of The Pit.
The Flow Stage: When you are in the zone.
The Impact Stage: When you become a hero and help others through The Pit.
When you find yourself in the middle of battles and stuck in the pit, you have three options: Become a hero, a villain, or a victim.
Victims make excuses and stay stuck in The Pit, while heroes and villains grow out of The Pit and become stronger because of it. Heroes use their powers to build people up and make the world better, and villains use theirs to tear people down.
When you are in a battle, think about who you want to be. Do you want to be a victim and stay stuck, or fight and climb your way out of it? When you climb out of The Pit, will you be a hero who makes the world better or a villain who wants everyone to feel the same pain you had to feel?
Reflection Questions: Are you a hero, a villain, or a victim?
"We overestimate what we can do in one month, and we underestimate what we can do in 12 months, so resolutions often become a one-month thing." - Jay Shetty
365 days from now, who do you want to be, what do you want to be doing, and who do you want to be doing it with? These are questions author, podcaster, and influencer Jay Shetty says we should be asking to start a new year or season.
Research says 80% of people stop practicing their New Year’s Resolutions by the end of January, so how can we find a better way to reset and start a new year? By focusing on doing the things we need to do so we can become the people we want to become.
Jay says there are 4 types of seasons or years, and every year or season has a different feel and purpose:
1 - Learning
2 - Experimenting
3 - Performing
4 - Thriving
Is this a learning year or season where you need to take a step back to learn, grow, and get better, or is this an experimenting season where you are trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t? Is this a performing season where you feel confident in your abilities and ready to showcase your skills, or is this a thriving season where you are in your flow state doing what you do best and impacting people and the world around you?
Every new year is an opportunity to pause, reflect, and plan.
Reflection Question: 365 days from now, who do you want to be, what do you want to be doing, who do you want to be doing it with, and how do you want to feel? Also, what kind of season is this for you, and how will you maximize it?
Kenny Smith is best known for his work in the NBA on TNT, but he was also a great basketball player. He was a high school All-American, played for Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina, and won 2 championships with the Houston Rockets.
When Kenny was in high school, he said he went from not being recruited at all as a junior with 0 scholarship offers to being an All-American and having scholarship offers from every school in the country as a senior.
How did he do it? Work ethic and doing the ordinary things extra. He says, "Champions do daily what everyone else does occasionally. They aren’t extraordinary, they just do the ordinary extra."
A mindset shift changed his work ethic, and a change in work ethic changed his career and life in just 6 months. Make the next 6 months your best 6 months by committing to doing just a few things you already do better, more consistently, or extra.
Reflection Question: What are 1-3 things you can commit to doing extra or more consistently this year?
In the interview below, he talks about what it takes to be a champion, why he doesn’t sleep in planes, baking vs microwaving, and how to change your life in 6 months.
What it Takes to Win (1:00)
To win a championship, you have to have the 1 and 2 guys to get you there, but you win it because of 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. The Lakers had Magic and Kareem, but they wouldn’t have won without James Worthy, Byron Scott, Cooper, and Thompson. Without the right pieces around them, you are stuck with talented guys who can’t get it done.
Be a Plumber First (21:10)
Kenny’s college teammate was David Kohler from the Kohler plumbing family, a multi-million dollar business. When Kenny asked why his father made him an executive, he said, “I have to be a plumber first.” He said he had to learn everything about the business first, and when his kids ask him for stuff, he tells them, “You have to be a plumber first.”
Don’t Sleep on Planes (34:50)
Kenny said one time on a plane, he sat next to a psychologist who told him to not go to sleep on the plane because when you are in the air, your brain thinks better. Instead of watching a movie or working, do something creative because your creative juices are higher. You can get so much work done being in the air.
What Champions Do Differently (40:00)
Champions do daily what everyone else does occasionally. You aren’t extraordinary, you just do the ordinary extra. It’s simple, but it’s not.
The Process to Greatness: Microwave vs Bake (1:01:00)
The world is about baking; it’s not about microwaving. And food that’s baked tastes better, but if you check on it every 5 minutes, it looks like it’s not done.
There is a process to greatness.
Change Your Life in 6 Months (1:05:00)
Kenny said he went from not being recruited at all with 0 scholarship offers as a junior to being a top 5 player in the country as a senior in just 6 months because of his work ethic.
He said that summer he started doing the ordinary things extra. He did extra things all summer and by the end of his senior year, he was a first-team All-American, and a McDonald’s All-American, and every school in the country offered him a full scholarship.
He said he didn’t grow, he just did the ordinary things extra and that changed the direction of his life.
Failure is a part of everyone’s journey. The most successful people have a vision, create a plan, and stick to it no matter how much fear or failure they have or experience.
Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, started with $5,000 and a dream and turned it into a billion-dollar business while balancing family and friends.
In an interview with her husband, Jesse Itzler, Sara shared some of the keys to her success.
Lemons Out of Lemonade
Sara said she grew up wanting to be a lawyer because her dad was a trial attorney, but she was a terrible test-taker and after she bombed the LSAT twice, she changed the trajectory of her life. She said when bad things happen, they often feel like the worst thing ever but they often push us to our true purpose.
Sara went to work at Disney for 3 months before taking a job selling fax machines for 7 years. She said she was kicked out of business every day, and one day decided she was in the wrong movie and wanted to do something different.
Self-Discovery
Sara said she asked herself what she was good at, and when she decided on sales, she asked herself why - Why did she like sales? She said she likes giving something to someone that they didn’t know they needed or improved their life.
Sara then wrote, “I want to invent something that I can sell to millions of people that will make them feel good.” She then said to the universe, “If you give me the idea, I won’t squander it,” and two years later, she found the idea of Spanx.
Sara said she was ready for it because she had set the intention prior, and she spent the next 2 years working nights and weekends building Spanx while still selling fax machines to keep her income coming in.
She said some of the best inventions come from everyday problems and asks why we have them and how we can fix them.
Sara also said entrepreneurs do one of 2 things:
They invent something new
They find new, better ways of doing something.
When Sara was asked whether or not she thought it was going to work, she said she knew it would because it not working wasn’t an option, but she felt a lot of internal and external validation.
After inventing Spanx, she was quickly chosen as Oprah’s favorite product of the year which was great validation for her and free advertising.
She said she knew she would be on Oprah in college, and manifestation has been an important part of her journey. She can see her success so clearly that she just has to figure out how to fill in the blanks.
Sara spends a lot of time daydreaming and letting her mind wander. She finds time on her calendar to daydream and let her mind wander.
She says it’s important to find ways to capture your ideas because ideas are gifts from the universe.
When she was 16, her dad gave her a tape from Wayne Dyer titled How to Be a No Limit Person. He was a psychologist who put all of his work and observations into teaching mindset and becoming a motivational speaker.
It came during a tough time in her life, and she said the dark times in our lives are where growth happens. She said those dark times created the space where she was willing to less to Wayne, and if she wasn’t in a tough place, she probably wouldn’t have been open to listening to tapes like that.
Purpose: Make it Bigger Thank Yourself
Sara says she always makes what she is doing bigger than herself because that is how you find the courage than you ever had and you will stick with something longer and go through more.
She said supporting and uplifting women are the purposes that are bigger than yourself.
Be a Pole Vaulter
My biggest takeaway from this entire interview came from Sara’s dad. He said as a trial lawyer, he learned about how important it is to learn how to fail.
He said pole vaulters don’t know their limits until they fail. They keep raising the bar higher and higher until they reach their limits by hitting and knocking down the bar three times in a row, but they don’t stop raising the bar until they do.
If they fail and hit the bar once or twice, they don’t quit, they just try again and keep raising the bar.
That is what we need to do in life - keep raising the bar until we fail multiple times, then reset, see what we need to learn, get better, then try again.
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