Transcription
[Music] Everybody's got a list of shoulds. I should work out. I should spend more time with my kids. I should make more calls in my business. I should, I should, I should. You do your shoulds when it's easy. When it's not, you don't. You just should all over yourself about not doing it right.
So, what we want to do instead is get it to be a must. So when you see someone who's extraordinary at anything, they're not lucky. They're doing something different than you. If you see what they're doing and you do the same thing, if you plant the same seeds, you reap the same reward. Whether you do it or not will have to do with some of your beliefs. If you have a belief that says, "I should never earn more than my parents, it'll humiliate them," then every time you get close to doing really well, you'll sabotage it subconsciously. These stories get in our way.
If you're going to run a business or run your life, I said it the other day, you can't manage something if you don't measure it. And the more you measure it, the better it gets. Because where focus goes, energy. So the one thing we've got to start to measure is where we are around our standards. And I want to give you four ways to look at it, four standards to measure. Really simple. Think of it this way. These are the standards.
There is the first standard for somebody, which is poor. Poor standards are way down here. Somebody has poor standards, they're willing to do a lousy job. Now, when you have poor standards and you do a poor job, what kind of rewards would you expect? Poor rewards.
If you're in a relationship right now and you have lots of love but not enough passion, which is the most common relationship, see, it's not not because you don't have enough passion. It's because you have three kids and two soccer practices. The problem is, it's a must for you to be in love, but it's not a must to have passion.
If you're in a relationship where there's no love or passion, where you're not happy and you're staying there, you don't have love or passion, you're staying there, then what you really want is to be in a relationship, no matter what. Because being out of a relationship is too scary to you. If you're not in a relationship, you don't want to be in one because you've linked pain to your relationship. You want to avoid it. See, it's just a standard.
Your finances are no different. If you have enough money to pay your bills, it's probably a must for you to do that. Some people, that's not a must. It's a must to pay their bills most of the time, and that's what they do. Some people's must is to have more than they could spend, so they can do, share, give as much as they want to, as many people they want, as long as they want. That's a different experience, right? So your standard shapes everything. Michael, it shapes everything.
So here are the different standards. Poor is way down here. If you've got poor standards, you'll do a poor job in your relationship and be okay with it. You'll do a poor job with your kids. You'll do a poor job at your work. And it used to be, if you did a poor job, you got what rewards? Poor. But today, the world is so competitive in the last 15, 20 years because of the web, it's a different world. So today, when you do a poor job, it used to be a poor job in a relationship, people stayed together for 25 years even if they weren't happy. Today, people expect more. They leave. You do a poor job at work, you get let go. You do a poor job with your kids, used to be maybe they smoke cigarettes. Today, they've got more information through the web and the least amount of supervision anytime in history.
If this is poor down here, it's a giant jump to the next standard, which is good. Most people in Western cultures have been taught to be good. Be a good friend, be a good bloke, be a good mother, be a good father, you know, be good. And see, the thing is, good seems so wonderful because if you did a good job, you got what kind of rewards? Good. That's how it always was. Not anymore. Today, the world's so competitive. You do a really good job, you get poor rewards. If you do a good job at work, you're probably going to get canned, especially as the economy gets tightened. And and good people don't understand this. "I'm good, how can they fire me?" Because you're good, because that's not enough anymore. And they don't like that.
If you do a good job in your relationship, your partner will take their energy somewhere else as a minimum, or they may cheat on you, or they may leave you. Because people expect a lot more than good now. I remember, I get stopped in the street every day and people tell me the most beautiful stories or they ask me questions. And the most common question I'll get multiple times in a month, at least once or twice, I know when they're going to say it, almost because I can tell by the state someone's in. They say, "Hey, you're turn around, hey," and they'll eventually say, "Can I ask you a question?" I'll say, "Yeah." And they'll say something like this, "I'm really a good man, I'm really a good woman. How come my husband, how come my wife left me?" It's like, and I know the answer. I can't say it. It would sound terrible. It's because they're good. Because they'll say, "I'm a good person, I'm a good this, I'm a good that." It's not enough anymore.
Now, you may not like that, but you have to understand how life works. You may not like gravity, but you have to understand it, or you pay the price. See, the rewards for good is poor. Now, good people can't understand this. So what they try to do is do a better job of being good, and all they get is poor rewards. And then after a while, they get pissed off and say, "Well, why do I even bother being good? I'll do a poor job." And then they get pain. So it's not the answer.
So it's a giant jump from way down here, from poor, giant jump to good. Now, you wouldn't be with me here three days later with the kind of intensity you have today, with little sleep, if good was your standard. If you're an overachiever, you've jumped to that higher level called excellent. And when you're excellent, you won't settle for good. You work your ass off. When everybody goes home, you go for more. You go to the class. You make it happen. You push through. You do what's necessary. When you're really excellent, you're one of the very best. And when you're really, really excellent, you would expect what kind of rewards? Excellent rewards. And that's how it used to be.
But today, when you're really excellent, you get good rewards. And this pisses off excellent people. "I know I should be grateful. I have a great family and a great this and a great income, but but I want more." So then people go, "But I can't do anymore. I can't push anymore." Well, if this is poor way down here, it's a giant jump to good. It's a giant jump to excellent. And people at excellent go, "But I'm doing everything I can do. There's no more of me. I have nothing left." Don't lie to your creator. Don't slap the face of your creator by saying that's all you got. There's another level in you.
But I know it seems insane to make another giant jump. But you don't have to. The level you're looking for, with all the rewards, is just two millionths of me above all the others. Ladies and gentlemen, and it's called outstanding. Ladies and gentlemen, you're not one of the best. You are the best. You have gone through where nothing worked. You push and push and push and you're not getting what you want, and you keep pushing. And it's almost like the universe of God's testing you. How hard will you go? How long will you go? And once the universe of God knows you will never give up, the door opens. You step up and you have it all. The joy, the love, the economics, the freedom. What Jerry Maguire called the Quan. You get it all. Because you stand out from all the rest by just a little bit. It's just not a giant jump. It's just when everybody else says, "That's all I got," you're not one of those. You find another level.
And the people that find another level have all the rewards. They get the joy, the happiness, the love, the economics. And by the way, it's totally unfair. And I, I love it. Do you know why I love it? Because in every culture in the world, we reward people disproportionately for being outstanding. Think about it. Even horse races. There's a horse race. 12 of the fastest horses in the world race, and one wins by a nose hair, by a little nose hair, a millisecond. What do we give that first horse? Everything. What do we give the second horse? Little bit. Third horse? What? Nothing. Not a squat. Zip. And they're the fourth fastest horse in the world. Not very fair.
But when someone does something no one else has done before, it changes everyone. It's like Roger Bannister when he ran the four-minute mile. No one in history had done it. Within three months, three people did. Within three years, 22 people have now. High school students run a four-minute mile. Every four years, we have an Olympics. Did you get the Olympics by being good? Can you get there by being excellent? What do you have to be to get the Olympics? Totally, completely. What? But by how much? Just the littlest much. Just the littlest bit. Few seconds.
By the way, amongst the most outstanding, some are more outstanding. Amongst them, 12 of the fastest runners in the world run. Everybody on Earth watches it. Billion and a half people watch the Olympics. And they run as hard as they can run. And one person wins by a hundredth of a second. What do we give them? The gold medal. What else do we give them? When they're number one, endorsements. But what we really give them is a status called hero for life. That's pretty wild. And they're one 100th of a second faster than someone whose name you'll never know. What do you give the second person? Silver. What do you give the third? Bronze. What do you give the fourth? What do we give them? Nothing. Not a squat. Zip. Zil. And they're the fourth fastest human on Earth. Earth. No one's even going to remember they're there. No one else will remember. That's so unfair.
But it's amazing because every four years, as a result of that, human beings jump higher, they run further, they break their new records every four years. How's that possible? Because that standard gets set higher and higher. And then somebody else believes it. Someone else experienced it. Now. So you go, "Well, I'm screwed then, because I'm not fast." Well, here's the good news. Life is not, not a sport. It's not a win-lose. Could every person in this room be an outstanding friend? Yes or no? Could you have an outstanding family? Could you have an outstanding economic world? Yes or no? Could you be an outstanding lover? How do you know? Because you know inherently, outstanding is not just skill.
When there's something inside you that will not give up, when there's something inside you that values something more than yourself, and you want to serve it, superhuman energy comes into your nervous system. So decide now. Decide now not to settle. No matter what the hour, no matter how tired, we jump higher. We use our voice more when we're exhausted and think there's nothing left. We go, "There's more in me." You push through and you find your second win. You do that enough times, it's like lifting that weight that's so hard and you think, "Oh, I can't do one more."
But what's more important is your example for yourself. So from this moment on, make that choice. Nothing I'm going to do tonight's going to be good or excellent. I'm going to give that extra ounce when there's nothing left. There's still more. And the muscles will expand. Not just the physical muscles, the more important muscles, the emotional and spiritual muscles. Courage unused does not expand. It shrinks. Passion unexpressed does not expand. It shrinks. Love unshared does not grow. It shrinks. You don't use it, you, you use more of it, you get more of it because it's already in you. All we're doing is waking it and unleashing your true self.