How To Become Successful

All right. Hey, so here we are again. It’s another beautiful day, and I wanted to share with you a quote I read the other day. I went ahead and copied it down because, well, everybody knows I love quotes. Partially, it’s because they help my mind wrap around thought processes and remind me of things that are important.

It’s one of the reasons I like pithy quotes. This one says, “It’s not hard to become successful. What’s hard is letting go of everything that makes you average.”

Wow. That small little line helps bring into clarity my habits. The things that bring me down are not the market. It’s not my wife., it’s not my kids. Or it’s not my team. It’s not other people that are around me. It’s not the mayor, it’s not the city council. Those aren’t the things that keep me down.

Those things might become hurdles. They might become roadblocks that I have to drive around, metaphorically speaking. But the thing that really prevents me from true success and keeps me from getting to where I want to be going is the things that keep me average—my habits. The things I let myself get down, the things I don’t do.

“It’s not hard to become successful. What’s hard is letting go of everything that makes you average.”

If I’m not reading on a regular basis and expanding my mind and my intellect, my understanding… if I’m not growing, if I’m not staying close to the things in my core that matter, and focusing and staying on track—those things are what prevent me from success. It has nothing to do with the outside circumstances.

Those are just hurdles to jump over. Those are just roadblocks to drive around or get a bulldozer and plow over. I’m a bulldozer guy. Those of you who’ve been through leadership, you know what I’m talking about. Bulldozers are cool sometimes.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you guys a wonderful, beautiful day, and I wanted to thank you for being here on our team.

I just wanted to put into your mind: what are the things that are preventing you from success? What habits? What is making you average? How much time do you spend on YouTube or Facebook? Your phone kind of tells you. So, there’s ways to check. Think about it.

What are you doing? What can you shift and change?

I’ve talked to people about this, and I just want to share this with you. I talked to a couple of team members recently. I said, “How are you doing? What’s your struggle?” One team member said that their finances—actually, I’ve had two or three team members say their finances—are really hard. They feel like they’re underwater with debt, things like that.

I said, “Are you part of our Smart Dollar stuff?” Maybe we’re doing a bad job of explaining. I know that we had a really large group, and maybe you team members that are doing Smart Dollar right now, share it with others. Say, “Hey, I just paid off a bill.”

Make sure you’re letting us know. We have wheel spin and stuff for every time you pay off a bill. You’re making progress. You’re making your baby steps, getting your snowball rolling.

I’m using words that align with Smart Dollar. Some of those words might not make any sense to you, and that’s okay. Go get involved. You want to find out what the baby steps are? Go get involved. You want to find out what a snowball is?

Go get involved. It will help you.

I told these team members, “Karen and I got out of debt using Smart Dollar.” Well, it was not really Smart Dollar at the time. Dave Ramsey created Smart Dollar for this purpose—to make it online and accessible to everybody. But there’s so much content and so much help and so many avenues of information to help you get out of debt.

When you get out of debt and you don’t have a billion problems with your finances, all of a sudden, you start making progress.

What I’m talking about is those baby steps. You have to create some different habits. If you’re going to Starbucks and spending $5.60 or $6 and you’re doing that once a day—do the math on that. Even if it’s 15 or 20 days a month, how much money are you spending on a latte?

Maybe you’re doing the same thing, buying two or three $2 drinks. You’re spending three or four dollars on Monster Energy, Bang, and other stuff that’s out there and invisible. First of all, are they really great for your body? I don’t know.

But what I am saying is that if you’re spending $4 a day times 30 days, you could be spending north of $180–$200 every month just on frivolous drinks.

What can you do with $200 a month? What if you cut that budget even in half? Instead of two drinks, you bought one. What happens when you have, instead of $200, $100 to spend on a bill? In 9 to 12 months, that bill’s paid off.

Imagine what happens when that $100 goes to something else. Then 6 months later, that bill’s paid off. And then 3 months later, the next bill is paid off. Pretty soon, you’re debt free.

That’s what I’m talking about.

So what habits are keeping you mediocre? What is keeping you down? Keeping you from being successful?

Typically, it’s all about us. It has nothing to do with our external sources. Those are just things to jump over, to navigate around. We can work through that.

Invest in yourself. Spend time making yourself successful. Sometimes that requires both the habits and the things that you need to remember.

What is keeping me mediocre? What’s keeping me from accomplishing my goals?

Tackle those things and you’ll find yourself on top of the mountain.

All right, God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week.

Remember, let’s be valuable. Nothing less will do.

I hope today helped you think about what you can do to better yourself. Quit pointing fingers and worrying about everybody else that’s trying to keep you down. Cloud out the noise. Push the noise down and focus on what’s keeping you down.

It’s really mostly about us—not about our external sources. We can navigate around that. We slow ourselves down more than anybody else.

All right, God bless you guys. I’ll see you next week.