Transcription
And this brings me to the final tactic I want to share with you in terms of really calibrating your mindset to absolute world-class your performances. So here's what the science of self-discipline has taught us: when you raise one area of your life, you automatically improve every other area. And that's why I'm such a a huge fanatic around the 5 a.m. Club. It's not that I teach get into the 5 a.m. Club to make me happy. Getting into the 5 a.m. Club and forcing yourself over those 66 days to install the habit of rising with the sun raises every other area of your willpower. It will help you do the exercise when you don't feel like doing the exercise. It will give you more power to be kind to a difficult customer. It will give you the self-control not to reach for the junk food at 10:00 at night when your willpower batteries are depleted.
So the final tactic I want you to think about is simply this: doing what you don't feel like doing when you know you should do it is an absolute game-changer. There was an insurance salesman, I think his name was A.E. Gray. I know his last name was Gray, and he wrote or he gave a speech at an insurance conference to all these insurance salespeople. And the speech was made into a pamphlet that was circulated through the entire insurance industry. And the pamphlet had this title: "The Common Denominator of Success." And if you were to read that brochure, here's the common denominator of success: successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don't like doing, even though they don't like doing them either.
I'm going to repeat that again because it's it's really so fundamentally important for you rising to your Mountaintop as an elite producer, a player, and history maker: successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don't like doing, even though they don't like doing them either. Most people don't. Most people who exercise every morning, they don't love it, but they love the results. Most people who study on their craft and practice their art so they go to work and exemplify mastery, you know, it's it's hard work sometimes. Of course, we all want the pleasure rush, watching TV, hanging out with our friends, doing fun things. And there's a place for that, of course. But if you want world-class, then you've got to be committed to world-class.
Here's a brain tattoo I want you to write down: part-time commitment will always yield part-time results. So the final tactic is: when you do something, follow through. I want you to, when you when you play, come to play. When you do something, go all in. And this is what I call a GCA: a gargantuan competitive advantage. You look at most people at work, whether it's a coffee shop, whether it's a store, you see people in restaurants, you see people at the gym, you see people in, you know, their businesses. How many people do you know come to play? How many people, when you go through your day and you do business with people and you watch people, how many people have a sparkle in their eye and are operating at absolutely world-class? How many people do you see practice what I call OAD: obsessive attention to detail? How many people do you know, whether they're taxi drivers, whether they are bread makers, whether they're managers, whether they're entrepreneurs, filmmakers, you watch them and you say, "There is a professional versus an amateur in action."
So if you really want to improve your mindset, if you really want to improve your confidence, if you really want to improve your self-identity, do the things you don't feel like doing, but you know if you did them would make you great. Really, really important point. How do we grow into heroes? We do the things that make us feel uncomfortable. You see the opportunity that you are most resisting is the opportunity that carries your greatest growth. So that project at work, to be very specific for you, that project at work that you know that if you did it, if you followed it through to the level of almost a Sistine Chapel ceiling, if you did it, if you put in the sweat equity, even though it scares you and you have other things to do and you're resisting it, that project, if you do it, contains your greatest growth. Do that project.
There might be a ritual that you want to install. Maybe it's the 5 a.m. Club. Maybe it's the spending some time, you know, for 60 minutes every day learning. Doing it will build your self-resolve. There might be someone in your social circle, like I've talked about, who you just know, maybe it was a friend who worked for you five years ago, meaning a friend who fit in your life five years ago. Well, maybe they no longer fit in your life right now. You know, one thing I've learned is the people who were perfect for you at one part of your journey might not be people who fit at this part of your journey. And so saying, you know what, that person really does deplete my joy. That person doesn't understand me. That person isn't supporting me on my rise to world-class in my work life, and personal life, and spiritual life, and physical life. So I I need to say goodbye.
Doing the thing you know is right, even though it frightens you at your core, is how you become bigger. That's how you get strong. People say, "Robin, how can I build it up?" Well, this is a process, and it comes by doing the performances that frighten you and that are hard. I'll put it to you this way: hard is amazing. Difficulty is a doorway into your greatness. You know, society says do the things that fill you with pleasure. Society says play games. Society says have easy conversations. Society says don't read War and Peace. Society says go have fun on your digital device. Society says eat too much. Society says don't rise to mastery. Don't dig deep.
I was walking through Piazza Navona in Rome a few weeks ago, and I looked at Bernini's sculpture, and I just studied it for about an hour. And I thought, you know, that must have taken him years to get the details right, to get the proportions right, to get the craft right. So mastery takes patience. Virtuosos suffer. All artists suffer for their craft. It wasn't easy, but that's what allowed them to enter the Hall of Fame of elite productivity.
So to wrap this up on performances, think through the performances you do every day and start doing more difficult things because that's how you're going to build self-confidence, and that's how you're literally going to hardwire in a new way of being. And of course, all change is hard at first. It's messy in the middle, and it's beautiful at the end. Of course, when you start getting up at 5:00 a.m. or maybe even 4:00 a.m., it's going to be hard, but that's where your payoff is. Of course, when you don't exercise, the first few exercises, you're going to feel cranky. It's going to feel difficult, but this is how you build yourself. Of course, when you start reading when usually you watch videos or play video games, the first month, two months, 66 days are going to feel uncomfortable, but that's how you grow. I I hope I'm making sense. Doing difficult things is how you battle-proof and build an amazing interior life, and how you grow in your primal power. Get this done. Do difficult things. Huge payoff in this.