Brian Gubernick argues that breakthrough growth comes from becoming a different person, not working harder. He shares how a business partner succeeded by thinking bigger than everyone else, then offers five questions to identify what you must learn, stop doing, and change to match your future self.
Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off Podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get a little bit better. Today I want to talk about a concept that I shared with a number of people that, that I work with. It's an idea, it's a thought I've had It's based off of some previous experience, an experience that I had, in fact, in a room with a bunch of pretty big thinkers. There's an individual, business partner of mine, as we were sitting in this room one day about a decade or so ago, that made a statement that he was not the hardest working individual in the room, which was absolutely true, and he was not the, the smartest individual in the room, and that was probably also true. But the reason that he was having more success than most everybody in the room was just that he thought a lot bigger than everybody else there. And I'll tell you what, and, and it doesn't sound like this guy was all that humble. He actually is very, very humble, a lot of humility. And so I didn't frame it up in that way, but know that it came from from a place of humility. When I thought about it that day and I looked at myself in the mirror, he was right because I was willing to work my butt off and I think I'm fairly bright and I was having some success, but not to the success, not to the level of success that he was describing. And the reality was that while I was trying to think about being the biggest in my city or my town or even my state, He was asking himself questions about how does he take over the country or the world. It was a really, really big moment for me, and it made me question my thinking in general. And so today I want to talk with you about thinking bigger, but not in a motivational sort of way, not in like a go set bigger goals sort of way, but, uh, but in a what I would say is a harder, more uncomfortable way. Because in my experience, most people do not fail. They don't, they don't quit, they don't give up. They just manage to, uh, agree or think through a smaller future than what they're truly capable, capable of. And that's, that was me at this point in time. Now, what makes that dangerous is that small thinking rarely feels small. It actually feels realistic. It feels responsible. It feels like you're, you're being calculated or prudent. So let me ask you, you know, No Days Off Nation, let me ask you, when you picture a good year for yourself, are you imagining something that's meaningfully different or just a slightly cleaner version of what you did last year? Because if you're, if you're honest, most people are not building the future they want. They're just extending the present that they're already familiar with, that they already know. And in my opinion, that's a real trap. Here's what I see over and over again, especially with high performers. They don't ask, hey, what's possible? Instead, what they ask is, what's reasonable based on my experience? What's reasonable based on last year? And in my opinion, that question is what locks the ceiling, the ceiling of achievement into place. When you use your past, as Dr. Benjamin Hardy explained in The Science of Scaling, when you use your past as the measuring stick for your future, you don't grow. What you do is just repeat. Your current results are not accidental. They are perfectly aligned with how you are operating right now. Now, I don't want that to sound like judgment. I think it's more awareness or more clarity. If nothing changes about you this year, your standards, your habits, the way you think, the conversations that you're willing to have, then why in the world would your results change? I don't think the bigger outcomes come from trying harder. They come from becoming someone different. And I think that leads to the real question, which is, what would you have to change about you for this year to demand more out of you? Not the market, not your company or your team, What would you change about you? Because small thinking doesn't show up as laziness, it shows up as delay. It sounds like statements such as, oh well, once things calm down, or after I feel more confident, or when the timing is better. And the truth is, those aren't strategies, they're postponements. They're postponements disguised as responsibility. And the longer you wait to grow into the person required, the longer the results stay exactly where they are. So here's the reframe for you to consider. Instead of asking, what can I reasonably accomplish this year? Maybe ask, what kind of person would I need to become for this year to stretch me? Because when you really, really get to the crux of all of this, Thinking bigger is not about the math or the numbers. It's about identity. What standards would you no longer tolerate? What excuses would you stop entertaining? What decisions would you finally make knowing that you may not be ready? What would you stop doing? What conversations would you start avoiding or stop avoiding for that matter? What got you to where you are today may not be the thing holding you back from where you want to go. It may be the habits, the routines, the relationships. It may be the way you think about risk. Success doesn't stall because you're bad. It stalls because you're probably pretty loyal to the old version of you. So I want to slow things down here, and I want to give you some questions to contemplate. If you're, if you're on a run right now, or you're walking somewhere, or you're driving in your car and you're listening to this podcast, I want you to think through these questions. Don't— I mean, and even write them down if you have the ability to do it. Write down your answers, but sit with these questions right now. Here's the first question I want you to ask yourself: What must I learn this year for my future to become possible? What must I learn? My next question: What must I stop doing, even if it's familiar or comfortable? The third question I'd ask myself— I want you to think through this right now— what new habits must I create to support the person I want to become? The fourth question: What relationships am I missing that I need to add? Think about Your environment, your mentors, your peers. And then finally, the last question, the fifth question: What got me to where I am today but won't get me to where I intend to go? Now, those questions— and, and rewind, listen to them again— those questions are not meant to motivate you. They're meant to really disrupt you, because the truth is that your future isn't capped by your industry's market. It's capped by what you're willing to let go of and who you're willing to become. It's, it's what this No Days Off movement is really about. It's not about grinding endlessly. Growth doesn't happen accidentally. Every day you're feeding one version of yourself. Make sure it's the one capable of the future that you want. Now remember, it starts with extending our thinking, thinking bigger than we did yesterday, and then asking ourselves the questions around our identity and making sure that we are willing and able to grow into the person that we must become to get to where we dream to get to. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
Ep 755 | Mack Newton's Words of Wisdom - "You Are Only as Big as Your Self-Concept" (REPLAY)
