Your Mindset is crucial…it determines how you filter the information coming into your life and business.
Too many people are waiting for something external to motivate them into action…YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOMETHING BAD TO HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE OR ANYONE ELSE’S LIFE IN ORDER TO GET YOURSELF INTO ACTION.
Recently, I wrote an article where I talked about the
concept of “employing yourself” which was about teaching you how to get stuff done in your business and life.
One of the major concepts was the following:
You either get to keep the reasons why you are NOT succeeding. Or, you get to keep the results that show you ARE succeeding.
You can have either the reasons or the results…but, you can’t have both. You must make the CHOICE…that means make the DECISION of which one do you want…do you want to keep the reasons (another word for that is the excuses) why you are not succeeding or do you want to keep the results that show you are succeeding?
Now, with your decision to make things happen, do you have the Champion’s Work Ethic?
I can’t tell you how many people I talk to and they seem to always come up “just short” of the results they want to achieve.
There is a question that people ask me all the time… “when do you go to sleep?” In fact, that question seems to be the question that is asked of many successful people. What is behind the question is the person asking the question is noticing that the person, to whom they are asking the question, seems to be accomplishing many things and it seems like there is a level of effort that is being accomplished where that person must be making the huge sacrifice of not getting sleep.
The person asking the question does not understand that the issue of sleep does not even cross the Champion’s mind, when they are trying to accomplish the tasks at hand to reach their goals. The Champion’s Work Ethic demands that she or he just keep on going until they are ready to stop.
That means they will just keep on working day-after-day and month-after-month until they accomplish what they have set out to accomplish. Now, along the way, they will have “all nighters” and days where they are just getting “a couple hours of sleep” a night…and they do this month-after-month.
So, some days they will work 10 to 12 hours…then, other days they will work 14 to 18 hours and then again, on other days they will work almost all night or all night. Regardless of the number of hours worked, the Champion’s Work Ethic demands a mindset of completing whatever they have decided to complete…period. They don’t complicate their lives by asking questions like…should they be going to sleep now? They get immersed in the things they are doing…so they WANT to keep going until they see themselves completing whatever it was that they set out to complete.
For example, I am typing this at 2 am and I will continue until I am done…whenever…that time ends. Earlier in the day…I was researching and studying a topic that when I looked back at the clock…it was 8 hours after I started studying the topic…I was so engrossed in the learning…that I never even noticed that 8 hours went by…I never got out of my chair to do anything…I just kept on studying. Now, I realize that I must also complete this project…so I just get started knowing I will go to completion and besides it is “turn the clock’s back one hour day”…so I should be able to get an extra hour of sleep … J
Even though the question being asked is about sleep…the real question the person wants to ask is… how come I keep falling short while other people keep on winning?
Now, even though I seem to be measuring things in terms of number of hours, that is not the measuring stick.
The measuring stick is doing whatever it takes, when you don’t know what the whatever it takes is, with a sense of urgency, with a commitment that you will “Get It” done, no matter what and you won’t quit until you “Get It” done and deep down inside, you believe you will triumph.
Each business or industry’s price to pay for success is different.
In the paragraph above, I underlined two critical components of work ethic that actually makes the difference in success or failure many times. Unfortunately, these are the two factors that stop most people because they don’t understand how these two things impact whether the project will succeed (and at what level)or fail or “just come short”.
No matter what type of project you are working on there is certain amount of things that have to be done. In putting up a business website, that could be 128 different things plus whatever technical problems that you have to overcome. In studying trading, that could be studying 2 hours a day until the information starts to repeat itself (by the way, it will take you years before the information starts to repeat itself, if you only study 2 hours a day). If you are sales person, it could mean doing 47 different tasks at different hours of the day.
For example, when I was selling real estate, over 15 years, I kept track of my income by different measuring sticks such as the number of hours worked, time of the day the business came to me, source of the business such as referrals, people contact, expired listing, etc. and style of business.
I needed to know exactly where and how my business was coming to me. Here were some startling facts that I discovered over the years… 50% of my income, each year, came during the hours of 9 pm to 1 am in the morning, 25% of my business came from expired listings, 65% of my business came from sellers and 35% of my business where buyers that came to me as a result of only focusing on seller leads.
Now, understand this point from a conceptual standpoint only – If I worked hard from 8 am to 8 pm, I would have earned half the income…than, if I worked hard from 1 pm to 1 am.
So part of having a Champion’s Work Ethic is not only to just go out and do something, but also, you must be measuring where and how to be effective and more efficient in what you are doing.
Another part of having a Champion’s Work Ethic is to understand that you must have a certain amount of progress…consistently… over a designated period of time. And, the only way to judge this consistency is to look at the results you are getting. Now, here’s the tricky part, most people put some false notion in their mind that it will ALWAYS take time before they can get any results…so they don’t pursue things with a sincere sense of urgency…and that’s where they fail…or fall “just short”.
They say things to themselves like…I am working hard every day 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week…and, I just keep missing the sale or I am not making enough sales.
Now, let’s say, they are making 10 calls a day and doing a lot of administrative type of work such as getting your file cabinets organized or “getting ready to get ready” type of projects or they are working the wrong hours based on when their clients need them to be working. That person, has no sense of urgency and they are doing the wrong things, most likely will come up “just short” even though they may be putting in the 12 to 14 hours a day.
You can’t be casual about your future, you have to hit things with a passion and a sense of urgency…or, you will become a casualty.
The Champion’s Work Ethic requires…
- Quality Effort with a sense of urgency every day
- Quantity of Effort with a “Get It” done today
- Speed of Effort relative to your competition
- Positive Expectancy of your efforts from the beginning
- Creative mind to solving problems when they arise
- Ability to be self-motivated every day
- Measuring your success against “high standards”
- Unrelenting “work when you are working” mindset
- Persistence to stick with things in spite of setbacks
My mindset every day was that I was going to do my tasks and projects every day with the sense of urgency that they had to be completed TODAY and at the end of the day, I just had the patience to know that I would complete it tomorrow.
A Champion’s Work Ethic is not about the time someone puts into a project but, it is about doing the right things consistently, with a sense of urgency, until you win…period. It is about knowing that it is better to get it done faster, rather than slower, without someone telling you to go faster. It is about knowing that when you don’t do what you should be doing, when you should be doing it, you are leaving room for your competition to take your business. It is about knowing that you could possibly lose or miss the opportunity…if you are not moving fast enough or if you are not holding yourself to a higher standard. It is about not comparing yourself to mediocrity.
Now, with that said, you must realize this…the odds of you having to put in more time and more quality time are EXTREMELY HIGH, if you want to succeed. The question that people have is how much more time? It is the wrong question to be asking.
You have to play the game “all in” and know, “anything short of ‘all in’ means you lose”. That is the Champion’s Work Ethic. You have to “sell out” to your dreams and goals.
The difference between winning and losing in a zero sum game does not matter. There is a winner and a loser…you get to choose which one you want to be.
Let’s go back to the concept of hours worked. If your competitors are putting in 14 hours a day with a certain standard, you may have to put in 15 hours a day with the same or better standard, IF YOU WANT TO SUCCEED. The problem is that your competitors are not going to tell you exactly what they are doing to achieve their success.
Consequently, if you have placed limitations on yourself which affect the quality or quantity of your work ethic, you could be working 12 to 13 hours a day…not knowing that you need to be doing 14 hours a day in your industry, relative to your competitors. You could be working hard…but, not knowing what is required in your field visa via your competitors can cause you to be the loser in a zero sum game, where there is a winner and a loser.
Now, let’s clarify another point, in most cases, you don’t know who are all of your competitors, so you can’t assume that all of them have “not sold out to their dreams”…meaning your BEST choice in the beginning of any business or venture is for you to go “all in” and get to the winners circle as fast as possible.
The bottom line is this…the Champion’s Work Ethic is truly about “selling out to your dreams and goals in life” and then, going “all in” on everything that you are doing with the sense of urgency that it has to be done today…every day!
You judge your quantity and quality of effort by your results. If you don’t have the results you want, you must ratchet things up…and go “all in”.
“All in” means getting focused on your project or task period. That means canceling all meetings, conferences and task that take away from getting your project done. It means getting the people around you to respect your time and not distract you. It means you must control your activities and develop success habits that move you closer to reaching your goals.
All DISTRACTIONS ARE EQUAL!
When you get committed to a project or a task, it does NOT matter what the distraction is… it takes you off task when you let the distraction DISRUPT your work habits and your actions. Results don’t wait for the world or circumstances to get cleared up first…the results come when they come…so you either get the results or the results pass you by and go on to someone else.
Let’s say there are 1500 real estate agents selling real estate in a certain geographical area and that 3000 homes in that area will sell in the course of a year’s time. That means there are a total of 6000 transaction sides to be split among the 1500 agents. That would be an average of 4 sides for each agent if everything was split evenly among all 1500 agents.
The truth of the matter is that about 20% of the agents will do 80% of the business. So, that means these 300 agents have a work ethic that allows them, as a group, to capture 4800 transaction sides. These agents are leaving 1200 sides for the remaining 1200 agents in that particular area. If these 300 agents are averaging 65 to 70 hours a week to obtain, on average, about 16 transaction sides per year, you can clearly see that, if hours per week was the only measuring criteria and all skills are perceived to be equal…that if you were only putting in 55 hours per week, your work ethic has put yourself in the second group that is scrambling to get ONE transaction per year.
So, how does someone, who says they want to succeed, let themselves get distracted so that they keep falling “just short” of the results they desire?
They have “fooled themselves” into believing that each distraction is NOT equal. When I decided to go on an intense period of immersion into studying, researching and learning how to trade…I told my friends that I had to focus and that I was going into hiding and that I would not talk to them again for one year. I didn’t want the distraction of talking to anyone about anything other than trading…I lived, ate and breathed trading for 15 months…I virtually never got out of my chair…I stayed focused…I did not allow myself the “luxury” of getting distracted. If someone called me on the phone, I told them I have 10 minutes on this conversation and then, I didn’t want to talk to them again until the end of my one year.
You might say…that is a bit much and that it is not necessary to do that…and you would be right if the results tell you that is the right thing…but, if the results are not there, you may have to step it up. The difference in my thinking and your thinking may be… “what does it mean to say you are going ‘all in’?”
Now, I’d like to take the above example one level deeper. You now have 300 agents in the pool to get 4800 of the transactions. The next truth is that about 30% of these agents will get 75% of 4800 transactions. That means 90 agents are getting 3600 transactions or about 40 transactions per year and the other 210 agents are averaging about 6 transactions a year.
As you go up the ladder so to speak, there are levels within each level…now here’s the tough part to handle…at this next level, you have everyone working 65 to 70 hours per week…but, get this point…it is possible that the people working 65 hours per week are the ones averaging 6 transactions a year, while the people averaging 40 transactions, nearly 7 times as many deals, are working just an additional 5 hours a week to get that big difference in pay.
Remember, nobody makes an announcement to the world saying, “I am going to work 70 hours a week.” But, what if you knew that that was the edge that you had to achieve, when you are already putting in 65 hours a week, would you put in the extra 5 hours a week to get 7 times the pay?
When I have coached clients, they all answer the question immediately…they would put in the extra 5 hours. So, why don’t they just do it…right from the beginning?
Honestly, most human beings have a tendency to look for the short cut…I tell all my clients… “the short cut is the long cut…meaning there is no short cut…you just got to ‘do the deal’ and keep on doing it…until you get what you want.”
To make the process manageable for my clients, I teach a concept of 90 day plans… “do the deal” for 90 days and then, keep putting several 90 day plans of action…back-to-back…until you get what you want. Now, to keep it simple, what is a 90 day plan?…it is a 1 day plan done the same way 90 days in a row.
The first major goal everyone has to accomplish is the GET YOUR PLANE OFF THE GROUND…whenever you are starting a business the FIRST 90 day plan is the most critical because that is where you are setting the tone for how you want your business to be. You have to “sell out” to your plan and let nothing distract you.
Take a serious look at everything you are doing and get rid of ALL the things that don’t move your direct business actions forward…you must think…what do I have to do TODAY to keep moving the business forward…you have to eliminate ALL activities that take you away from that mental mindset. The hardest decisions you have to make usually involve your family and friends. People love to bring other people into “their drama” into other people’s lives. Don’t let them get you off track.
It is not your fault, nor is it your responsibility to be involved in “their drama”…so let them wallow in their own misery. If it is cold and your 90 day plan requires that you put out fliers when it is freezing cold…just go put out the fliers, you can warm your hands up later.
I know of a woman that was putting out fliers in the snow in the Seattle area, for an International nutritional product, and she put out a flier in one of the pay phones. Today, that woman, from that one flier that was put out while it was cold and snowing, has a huge sales organization in Europe and she has made millions of dollars…from that one flier. She was playing the game “all in” and she “sold out” to her dreams and she made millions. How many of you would not be putting out fliers in the cold and snowy weather conditions? And, that’s why she got the millions and you didn’t. That’s what a Champion’s Work Ethic looks like. She did the work, in extreme conditions, without the guarantee that she would get paid for her efforts…she just did the deal and then, she got paid.
Always remember you get to keep your reasons why you didn’t succeed or results, not both.
Only YOU can determine if you are playing the game at the “all in” level. For your own sake, stopping playing the game “partial in”…that leads to coming up “just short” almost all the time… step it up…play the game “all in” and you may never have to be at that level in your life ever again.
At least give yourself a fighting chance, play the game “all in” with no excuses and no distractions for the first 90 days of whatever you decide you are going to pursue…you may be surprised because most people NEVER play the game “all in”. You have to “sell out” to your dreams and goals and GO TO WORK…period.
As part of the Traders Advantage Methodology mentoring program I include a 30 day program where you must email me exactly what I request from you every day. My goal is to teach you how to become an Independent Thinker and Trader, who makes a lot of money…and you will know exactly how to employ yourself and you’ll also know where the edge is (the edge…the exact level of discipline that is required to propel yourself into a lifetime of wealth and self confidence and quite frankly, happiness as well). Allow me to mentor you…ENROLL on the home page for your private mentoring session or call me at 512-748-4237.
Always remember, if you know how to day trade, you just need to put a little money into an account and you can pull yourself out of ANY financial hole fairly quickly…so even if you have to buy a new computer and start from scratch…you can regroup. There is no better business in the world… because the opportunities for your upside possibilities are unlimited. With the right trading setups, proper money management procedures and solid discipline you can change your financial future, in a short period of time.
Whether or not you are currently trading, as a part of taking control of your financial future, you should learn how to do it so you can invest your own money properly in your own Self Directed 401 K Plan.
It takes courage to get started and do whatever is necessary to learn how to trade. Call me if you want to talk to me at 512-748-4237 and I will help you get pointed in the right direction.
One of my early motivational sayings when I got started selling real estate in a down cycling market, when we were in a recession, was, “There’s a recession out there and I am choosing NOT to participate.”
I may have to change the saying a little to “There’s a Depression out there and I am choosing NOT to participate.” Just go to work and just kept your mindset right and you will achieve immediate success because you believe you will succeed when you follow your disciplines and keep learning new skills.
My personal commitment to entrepreneurs wanting to grow their businesses is to teach them exactly how to WIN regardless of the economic climate and regardless of whether or not anyone else wants your business to succeed… Life is full of possibilities when you learn the proper skills… Make that commitment to yourself… right now… this very moment!