Transcription
You know what separates the successful from everyone else? It's not talent. It's not luck. It's not even intelligence. The difference comes down to one simple truth that most people never learn.
Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. And they do it whether they feel like it or not. Let me tell you something that changed my life when I finally understood it. Your feelings are the worst possible guide for your actions. The worst. And here's why that matters more than anything else I could tell you today.
I learned this lesson the hard way. And it cost me years of my life. When I was 25 years old, I was broke. I mean, really broke. I had pennies in my pocket, nothing in the bank. And you know what my problem was? I was a slave to my moods. If I felt like making calls, I made calls. If I felt like going to see a prospect, I went. If I didn't feel like it, well, I found something else to do. I'd tell myself, "I'll do it tomorrow when I'm feeling better." "I'll do it when I'm more motivated." "I'll do it when the time is right." The time was never right because my feelings were never consistently right.
Here's what nobody tells you when you're starting out. Your emotions change like the weather. One day you're on top of the world, ready to conquer anything. The next day you wake up and you don't even want to get out of bed. And if you're letting those moods dictate your actions, you're going to have the results that match that inconsistency. You'll be up one month, down the next, one step forward, two steps back, and 5 years later, you'll still be in the same place wondering why nothing has changed.
The truth is, your emotions lie to you. They really do. They tell you that you can skip today because you're tired. They tell you that one day off won't matter. They tell you that you can start fresh on Monday or next month or next year. And every time you listen to that voice, you're making a deal with mediocrity. You're trading what you want most for what you want right now. And that's a trade that will bankrupt your future.
Let me share something with you. When I met my mentor, Mister Schaef, I was working as a stock clerk and I was barely making ends meet. One day he asked me, "Jim, how long have you been working at this company?" I told him, "About four years." He said, "And how much are you making?" I told him. Then he asked me the question that changed everything. "So in four years, that's the best you can do?" I made excuses. I told him about the economy, about my bad luck, about all the things that weren't my fault. And he listened patiently. Then he said something I'll never forget. "Jim, if you'll change, everything will change for you. But you've got to work on yourself harder than you work on your job."
That conversation woke me up. But here's the thing. Knowing isn't enough. I knew I needed to change. I knew I needed to do better. But I still didn't have the key ingredient. I was still waiting to feel like changing. I was waiting for motivation to strike me like lightning. I was waiting to wake up one morning transformed. And Mr. Schae saw right through that too. He told me, "Jim, stop waiting to feel like it. That day might never come."
Here's what you do instead. You make a plan and then you follow the plan whether you feel like it or not. That's the secret. That's what separates the amateurs from the professionals. And you know what? He was absolutely right. That one shift in thinking took me from being broke at 25 to becoming a millionaire by the time I was 31. Not because I was smarter than I was before. Not because I got lucky, but because I stopped letting my moods run my life.
Think about this for a moment. When you wake up in the morning and you don't feel like going to work, do you go anyway? There's a boss expecting them. There's a paycheck on the line. But when it comes to working on their dreams, working on their goals, working on becoming better, suddenly feelings matter. Suddenly, if they don't feel like it, they don't do it. And that's exactly backwards. Your job, the one that might not even fulfill you, you'll show up for that no matter how you feel. But your dreams, the life you say you want, you'll only work on those when the mood strikes you. That doesn't make any sense. And yet, that's exactly how most people operate. They give their best energy, their best discipline, their best consistency to someone else's dream, while their own dreams get whatever is left over. And what's usually left over is nothing.
Here's what I learned. Moods are just weather patterns passing through your mind. They come and they go. If you wait for the perfect mood to take action, you'll wait forever. But if you develop the habit of doing what needs to be done, regardless of how you feel, you'll accomplish more in one year than most people accomplish in 10. Because while everyone else is waiting to feel like it, you're already doing it. While everyone else is negotiating with themselves about whether today is the right day to start, you've already finished.
Let me tell you about a conversation I had with a young man who came to one of my seminars. He said, "Mr. Ran, I want to be successful, but I just can't seem to get motivated." I asked him, "Do you brush your teeth every day?" He looked confused and said, "Yes." I said, "Do you wait until you feel like brushing your teeth?" He laughed and said no. Then why? I asked, do you wait to feel like doing the things that would make you successful? He didn't have an answer. And that's because there is no good answer.
The things that matter most in life, the things that will determine whether you succeed or fail, whether you thrive or just survive, these things can't be left up to your feelings. They're too important. You don't feel your way to success. You discipline your way there. You create habits. You make plans. You set standards for yourself and then you keep those standards even when especially when you don't feel like it. This is what I call the slight edge. It's the difference between those who make it and those who don't. It's not dramatic. It's not even noticeable at first. But someone who exercises when they don't feel like it, who makes the calls when they'd rather not, who studies when they're tired, who saves money when they want to spend it, that person is making deposits into their future. And over time, those deposits compound, they grow, they multiply, and one day that person wakes up and they're living a completely different life than the person who kept waiting to feel like it.
Your feelings will tell you to take the easy road. Your feelings will tell you to sleep in. Your feelings will tell you that one day off won't hurt. Your feelings will lie to you every single time. But your plan, your plan tells you the truth. Your plan knows where you want to go. Your plan knows what it takes to get there. And if you'll follow your plan instead of your mood, if you'll trust your vision instead of your emotions, you'll get there. I promise you that.
Now, let me tell you about the difference between wishful thinking and actual planning because most people confuse the two. They say they have a plan, but what they really have is a wish list. They say, "I want to make more money." That's not a plan. That's a wish. They say, "I want to lose weight." That's not a plan. That's a hulk. They say, "I want to be successful." That's not a plan. That's a fantasy. A real plan is something entirely different. And until you understand what a real plan looks like, you'll keep setting goals that disappear the moment your mood changes.
When Mister Schae taught me how to plan, he showed me something that revolutionized my entire life. He said, "Jim, success is not a mystery. It's a formula. And if you'll follow the formula, you'll get the results. It's as predictable as mathematics." Then he sat me down and we mapped out exactly what I needed to do. Not someday. Not when I felt ready, not when the timing was perfect. We mapped out what I needed to do starting that very day. He made me write it down. All of it. He said, "Jim, here's a secret that will save you years of wandering around hoping things will get better. Goals that are not in writing are not goals. They're just wishes. And wishes don't come true for adults. You want to turn your life around? Start by turning your wishes into plans. And you do that with a pen and paper."
So I wrote I wrote down exactly how much money I wanted to make. I wrote down exactly what I needed to do every single day to make that happen. I wrote down how many people I needed to talk to, how many presentations I needed to make, how many books I needed to read. Everything became specific. Everything became measurable. Everything became real. And here's what happened when I did that. Suddenly, my moods didn't matter as much. Why? Because I wasn't asking myself every morning, "What do I feel like doing today?" I was looking at my plan and saying, "This is what I committed to doing today." There's a massive difference between those two approaches. One leaves you at the mercy of your emotions. The other puts you in control of your life.
Let me break this down for you because this is critical. Your plan needs to have specific daily actions. Not weekly goals, not monthly targets, daily actions. Because you don't live your life in weeks or months. You live it one day at a time. And if you don't know what success looks like today, you'll never know what it looks like long term. So, you've got to ask yourself, "What are the handful of things that if I did them every single day would guarantee my success?" And once you know what those things are, those become nonnegotiable. Those become your daily disciplines.
I learned something else from Mr. Schae that most people never figure out. He said, "Jim, success is a few simple disciplines practiced every day. Failure is a few errors in judgment repeated every day." Think about that. The difference between success and failure isn't this huge canyon you have to leap across. It's tiny things done consistently over time. It's reading 10 pages of a good book every day instead of watching television. It's making five extra calls instead of making excuses. It's saving $5 instead of spending it on something you don't need. These things are easy to do, but they're also easy not to do. And that's the trap.
You know what most people do? They look for the big break. They look for the lucky moment. They look for the one thing that's going to change everything overnight. And while they're looking for that miracle, they're neglecting the simple daily disciplines that would actually transform their lives. They want the result without the process. They want the harvest without the planting. And life doesn't work that way. You've got to pay the price and you've got to pay it every single day.
Here's another thing I learned about planning. Keep it simple. Don't over complicate this. I've seen people create these elaborate, complex systems with 50 different goals and a hundred different action steps and you know what happens? They get overwhelmed and they quit. Your plan should be simple enough that you can remember it without looking at it. It should be clear enough that you could explain it to a child and it should be focused enough that you can execute it even on your worst day.
When I was building my business, my daily plan was simple. Talk to new people. Follow up with prospects. Study my craft. Take care of my health. That was it. Four things. But I did those four things whether I felt like it or not. Whether it was sunny or raining, whether I was excited or discouraged, whether I had a good day yesterday or a terrible one. The plan didn't change based on my circumstances. The plan didn't care about my mood. The plan was the plan. And I followed it.
And let me tell you what happened. In the beginning, it was hard. Some days I really didn't want to make those calls. Some days I really didn't want to talk to people. Some days I just wanted to stay home and feel sorry for myself. But I had made a commitment. I had written it down. I had looked at it every morning. And there was something about seeing it in writing that made it harder to quit. It's easy to break a promise you made in your head. It's harder to break a promise you made on paper.
The other thing about having a written plan is this. It removes the decision making from your daily routine. You know what exhausts people? Making decisions all day long. "Should I do this or should I do that?" "Should I work on this project or that one?" "Should I make calls today or wait until tomorrow?" Every decision takes energy. But when you have a plan, you don't have to decide. You already decided. You decided when you made the plan. Now you just have to execute. That's why successful people create routines. That's why they do the same things at the same time every day. Not because they're boring, not because they lack creativity, but because they understand that willpower is limited. Discipline is limited. And if you waste your discipline deciding what to do, you won't have any left to actually do it. So they automate the decision. They make it once and then they follow it forever.
Think about the most successful people you know. They have routines. They have systems. They have processes they follow. And they don't deviate from those processes just because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. They understand that the system is smarter than the mood. The plan is more reliable than the feeling. The commitment is stronger than the emotion.
Now, I'm not saying you can never adjust your plan. Life changes. Circumstances change. You learn new things. Of course, you can modify your plan. But you modify it deliberately, strategically. You don't change it every time you have a bad day. You don't abandon it every time something gets difficult. You stick with it long enough to see if it works. And here's the truth. Most plans work if you work them long enough. The problem isn't usually the plan. The problem is people quit before the plan has a chance to work.
I've watched thousands of people set goals over the years. I've seen people start businesses, start diet programs, start exercise routines, start educational courses. And you know what I've noticed? The ones who succeed aren't the ones with the best plans. They're the ones who stick with their plans. They're the ones who keep showing up. They're the ones who do the work when they don't feel like it. Who make the calls when they'd rather not. Who get up early when they'd rather sleep in. Your plan is your blueprint for success. But a blueprint doesn't build a house. You have to show up with your tools every single day and do the work. You have to lay one brick at a time. You have to trust the process. And most importantly, you have to keep working even when you can't see the progress yet because it's coming. If you're following a good plan consistently, the results are already on their way. You just can't see them yet.
Let me tell you something about moods that you need to understand if you're going to master this game called life. Your moods are going to fluctuate. That's normal. That's human. Some days you're going to wake up feeling like you can take on the world. Other days you're going to wake up feeling like you want to pull the covers back over your head. And here's what you need to know. Both of those feelings are temporary. Both of those moods will pass. And neither one of them should determine what you do with your day.
See, most people think that motivation comes first, then action follows. They think they need to feel motivated before they can do the work. But I'm going to tell you something that will change your life. If you really hear it, that's backwards. Action comes first, motivation follows. You don't wait until you feel like doing something. You start doing it and the feelings catch up. This is one of the most important lessons I ever learned and it took me years to figure it out.
When I was younger, I used to wait for inspiration to strike. I'd wait until I felt ready. I'd wait until I felt confident. I'd wait until I felt motivated. And you know what? I wasted years of my life waiting because those feelings didn't show up on their own. They showed up after I started moving, after I started doing the work, after I started taking action despite how I felt.
Here's what happens when you operate this way. You wake up in the morning and you don't feel like exercising, but you put on your shoes anyway. You start walking and 5 minutes in something shifts. Your body wakes up. Your mind clears and suddenly you feel good. You feel motivated. But that motivation didn't come before the action. It came because of the action. You created it by moving. The same thing happens with work. You don't feel like making calls. You don't feel like writing. You don't feel like studying. But you sit down and you start anyway. And 10 minutes in, you find your rhythm. You find your focus. The resistance melts away and before you know it, you've been working for an hour and you're making progress. But if you had waited to feel like it, you'd still be sitting on the couch making excuses.
This is what separates the adults from the children in this world. Children do what feels good. Adults do what needs to be done. Children wait for the right mood. Adults create the right mood through action. Children negotiate with themselves all day long. Adults make a decision and stick with it. And that difference, that simple difference in approach creates completely different lives.
Let me share a personal story with you. There was a period in my life when I was building my business and I went through a rough patch. Nothing seemed to be working. I was discouraged. I was tired. And every morning I'd wake up with this heavy feeling in my chest. This voice in my head would say, "What's the point? Nothing's working anyway. Just take the day off. You deserve a break." And let me tell you, that voice was convincing. But I had learned by then that you can't trust that voice. That voice is not your friend. That voice is trying to keep you comfortable. But comfort is the enemy of growth.
So here's what I did. Every morning, even when I felt terrible, I'd have a conversation with myself. I'd say, "Jim, you don't feel like it today. I know, but here's the deal. You're going to do it anyway. You made a commitment. You have a plan. And your feelings don't get to vote on this." And then I'd get up and I'd do the work. And you know what I noticed? The days I felt worst in the morning were often the days I accomplished the most. Why? Because I had to dig deeper. I had to use discipline instead of motivation. I had to prove to myself that I was stronger than my moods. And every time I did that, every time I kept my commitment, despite how I felt, I built something more valuable than success. I built self-respect.
That's what people don't understand. When you do what you said you were going to do, even when you don't feel like it, you're not just building your business or your body or your bank account. You're building your character. You're building trust with yourself. You're proving to yourself that you're reliable. And that self-rust, that self-respect becomes the foundation for everything else you accomplish.
Here's another thing about moods. They're contagious from yourself to yourself. What I mean is this. If you give into a bad mood once, it becomes easier to give in the next time. If you skip your workout today because you don't feel like it, you're more likely to skip it tomorrow. If you avoid making calls today because you're not in the mood, you're training yourself to avoid them whenever resistance shows up. You're teaching yourself that your feelings are in charge. And once you teach yourself that lesson, you're in trouble.
But it works the other way, too. Every time you push through resistance, every time you do what needs to be done despite your mood, you're training yourself in the opposite direction. You're teaching yourself that you're capable. You're teaching yourself that you're disciplined. You're teaching yourself that you're in control. And the more you practice that, the stronger you become. The resistance doesn't go away completely, but you get better at moving through it.
Let me tell you what I mean by the muscle of self- command. It's exactly like a physical muscle. If you've never exercised, lifting 50 lbs seems impossible. But if you start with five pounds and you work your way up consistently, eventually 50 lbs becomes easy. The same thing happens with discipline. If you've been following your mood your whole life, following a plan seems impossible at first. But if you start small and you build a habit, eventually it becomes second nature. The key is to start where you are. Don't try to transform your entire life overnight. Don't make 20 commitments you can't keep. Start with one. Make one promise to yourself and keep it no matter what. Maybe it's reading 10 pages every day. Maybe it's making five calls. Maybe it's exercising for 20 minutes. Pick one thing and do that one thing every single day for 30 days, regardless of how you feel. And watch what happens. You'll build the muscle. You'll build the habit. And more importantly, you'll build the belief that you can do this.
I've watched this transformation happen in thousands of people over the years. They start out as victims of their moods, blown around by every feeling that comes along. And then they learn this principle. They learn to separate themselves from their emotions. They learn to observe their feelings without obeying them. They learn to say, "I feel tired, but I'm going to work anyway. I feel discouraged, but I'm going to keep going anyway. I feel like quitting, but I'm going to persist anyway." And when they learn that skill, everything changes.
This is what I mean by mastering your internal weather. You can't control whether the storm comes. You can't control whether you wake up feeling great or terrible, but you can control what you do about it. You can control whether you let the weather determine your actions. And the people who master this skill, the people who learn to work regardless of their internal conditions, those are the people who accomplish extraordinary things.
Think about the best professionals in any field. The best athletes, the best business people, the best artists. You know what they all have in common? They all learn to perform regardless of how they feel. The professional basketball player makes his free throws whether he's having a good day or a bad day. The professional writer writes whether inspiration strikes or not. The professional salesperson makes calls whether they feel confident or nervous. That's what makes them professionals. Amateurs work when they feel like it. Professionals work whether they feel like it or not.
Now, let me ask you a question that I want you to really think about. Where will you be 5 years from now if you keep following your moods? If you keep doing only what you feel like doing, only when you feel like doing it, where does that road lead? I'll tell you where. It leads right back to where you are now. Maybe a little older, maybe a little more frustrated, but essentially the same place. Because mooddriven decisions don't compound into success, they compound into regret.
But here's the flip side. Where will you be 5 years from now if you follow your plan? If you do what needs to be done every single day, regardless of how you feel, if you make those calls, read those books, save that money, build those relationships, work on your skills, I'll tell you where you'll be. You'll be somewhere you can't even imagine right now because disciplined decisions compound into extraordinary results.
I've lived both sides of this equation. I know what it's like to follow my feelings and I know what it's like to follow my plan. And I can tell you without any hesitation, following the plan is harder in the moment, but easier in the long run. Following your moods is easier in the moment, but devastating in the long run. You get to choose your hard. You can have the hard of discipline or the hard of regret. But you don't get to avoid hard. That's not one of the options.
Let me tell you what I've seen over the decades I've spent studying success and teaching these principles. The people who follow their plans, who stick to their commitments, who do the work regardless of their feelings. These people create lives that most people only dream about. Not because they're smarter, not because they're luckier, but because they understand something fundamental. Success is the natural consequence of consistent action over time.
On the other hand, the people who follow their moods, who wait for inspiration, who work only when they feel like it, these people end up 5, 10, 20 years down the road wondering what happened. They had dreams, too. They had goals, too. They had potential, too. But they made the fatal mistake of letting their feelings guide their actions. And feelings, as we've established, are terrible guides.
Here's something else you need to understand. Life is going to test you. It's going to throw you curveballs. Things are going to happen that you didn't plan for. You're going to have bad days. You're going to have bad weeks. You might even have bad months. And during those times, your feelings are going to scream at you, to quit, to give up, to abandon your plan. And this is where you find out who you really are.
When everything's going well, it's easy to follow a plan. When you're feeling good, motivated, excited, anybody can work hard under those conditions. But when things get tough, when you're tired, when you're discouraged, when nothing seems to be working, that's when following your plan matters most. That's when the rubber meets the road. That's when you separate yourself from the crowd.
I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it's easy. It's not. There will be days when every fiber of your being wants to quit. There will be mornings when the alarm goes off and you want to throw it across the room. There will be moments when you question everything. And in those moments, you need to remember why you started. You need to remember what you're building. You need to remember that this temporary discomfort is the price of your future freedom.
But let me also tell you about the flip side of this discipline. Yes, it's hard sometimes. Yes, it requires sacrifice. But you know what else it creates? It creates unshakable self-respect. It creates confidence that can't be faked. It creates a sense of pride in yourself that nothing else can give you. When you look in the mirror and you know you've kept your promises to yourself. When you know you've done what you said you do, regardless of how you felt, that's a feeling that money can't buy. And here's the beautiful thing. The more you do this, the easier it becomes. Not because the work gets easier, but because you get stronger.
Remember what I said about building the muscle of self- command? Well, five years of following your plan makes you a completely different person than you are today. You become someone who doesn't need to negotiate with yourself every morning. You become someone who just does what needs to be done. It becomes part of who you are.
Now, I want to address something before I finish. Some people hear this message and they think I'm saying you should never be flexible. They think I'm saying you should never adjust your plan or take a day off or listen to your body. That's not what I'm saying. There's a difference between being flexible and being weak. There's a difference between adjusting your plan based on new information and abandoning it because you don't feel like working today. Here's the test. Are you changing your plan for a good reason, or are you changing it to avoid discomfort? Are you being strategic or are you making excuses? Are you adjusting your approach while keeping your commitment or are you just quitting? You know the answer to these questions. You might fool other people, but you can't fool yourself.
Let me leave you with this. You're standing at a crossroads right now. One road is familiar. It's the road of following your feelings, waiting for motivation, working when you feel like it. You know where that road goes because you've been on it. The other road is different. It's the road of discipline, of commitment, of following your plan regardless of your mood. And this road, this road leads somewhere new. The choice is yours. But I want you to understand something. This isn't just about money or success or achievement. This is about who you become. This is about looking back on your life without regret. This is about knowing that you gave it everything you had.
Make a plan. Write it down. Make it simple. Make it clear. And then follow that plan for the next 90 days, regardless of how you feel. Don't negotiate. Don't make excuses. Don't wait for the perfect mood. Just do it. And 90 days from now, you'll be a different person. You'll have different results. You'll have different confidence. You'll have proven to yourself that you're capable of more than you thought. Your life is waiting for you. But it's not waiting on the road of least resistance. It's not waiting in your comfort zone. It's waiting on the other side of discipline, on the other side of commitment, on the other side of doing what needs to be done whether you feel like it or not. So stop following your mood, start following your plan and watch what happens to your life.