Aim for SUCCESS | Jordan B Peterson's Powerful Approach

You can't have everything. You can have what would be good for you, but you have to figure out what it is and then you have to aim at it.

This is where a lot of people fall down.

Define prosperity by your own terms.

Rise and shine. It's espresso time. Good morning, Believe Nation. It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's start your day off right together. Grab your coffee and sip on today's message: Set Up Criteria for Success. Over to you, Jordan B. Peterson.

I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. I wake up every morning. One of the main reasons that people don't get what they want is because they don't actually figure out what it is. And the probability that you're going to get what would be good for you, let's say, which would even be better than what you want, right? Because, you know, you might be wrong about what you want, easily. But maybe you could get what would really be good for you. Well, why don't you? Well, 'cause you don't try. You don't think, "Okay, here's what I would like if I could have it." And I don't mean, I don't mean in a way that you manipulate the world to force it to deliver you goods for status, or something like that. That isn't what I mean. I mean something like, imagine that you were taking care of yourself like you were someone you actually cared for. And then you thought, "Okay, I'm caring for this person, I would like things to go as well for them as possible. What would their life have to be like in order for that to be the case?" Well, people don't do that. They don't sit down and think, "Alright, you know, let's figure it out." You've got a life, it's hard. Obviously, it's like, 3 years from now you can have what you need. You gotta be careful about it. You can't have everything. You can have what would be good for you. But you have to figure out what it is. And then you have to aim at it. Well, my experience with people has been is, if they figure out what it is that would be good for them, and then they aim at it, then they get it. And it's strange because they don't necess— it's a strange thing, it's not quite that simple because You know, you may formulate an idea about what would be good for you, and then you take 10 steps towards that, and you find out that your formulation was a bit off. And so you have to reformulate your goal. You know, you're kind of going like this as you move towards the goal. But a huge part of the reason that people fail is because they don't ever set up the criteria for success. And so since success is a very narrow line and very unlikely, the probability that you're going to stumble on it randomly is zero. And so there's a proposition here, and the proposition is: if you actually want something, you can have it. Now the question then would be, well, what do you mean by "actually want"? And the answer is that you reorient your life in every possible way to make the probability that that will occur as certain as possible. And that's a sacrificial idea, right? It's like, you don't get everything. Obviously you— obviously. But maybe you can have what you need. And maybe all you have to do to get it is ask. But asking isn't a whim, or today's wish. It's like, you have to be deadly serious about it. You have to think, "Okay, like, I'm taking stock of myself." And if I was going to live properly in the world, and I was going to set myself up, such that being would justify itself in my estimation, and I don't mean as a harsh judge, exactly what is it that I would aim at? Sit on your bed one day and ask yourself, "Ah, what's— what remarkably stupid things am I doing on a regular basis to absolutely screw up my life?" And if you actually ask that question, but you have to want to know the answer, right? Because that's actually what asking the question means. It doesn't mean just mouthing the words. It means you have to decide that you want to know. You'll figure that out so fast it'll make your hair curl.

Whenever you set a goal for yourself, you have to look at your calendar and see if your actions, see if what you've allotted time for matches up with your goals. You have to make sure that the actions that you take on a consistent basis map to your ambition. So many times people go off and set these crazy goals for themselves, which is awesome. You want to have a big goal that inspires you. But then if you look at their day-to-day actions, you look at their calendar, you look at their schedule, nothing, almost nothing of what they're doing will actually lead them to becoming successful. And so whatever big goal you have, you then have to reverse engineer it to your calendar and look at, are the things that I'm doing on a daily basis, will those actions lead me towards my goals? And for most people, it's a big no. I went to a Tony Robbins event last year, which was awesome. I brought Alex and Lily and Edwin from my team here at TDS. And everybody's getting all riled up and excited and rah-rah and motivated, and it was a party and it's amazing. The thing that's going through my head is, okay, Tony is challenging me to become a better version of myself. Tony's challenging me to create a better life for myself. The immediate way for me to figure that out is I need to look at my calendar. This better me that I want to create in anything from being an entrepreneur, from being a better husband, from being a better father, all of these goals that I have for myself, then boom, look at my calendar. Are the things in my calendar allowing me to be that better entrepreneur, that better husband, that better son? Because if you are not making the time for it, guess what? It's not going to happen because life will get in the way. And so you have to set boundaries and you have to create it so it'll allow you to go off and accomplish your goals. If you're doing multiple things at the same time, you have to realize that your path might be a little bit slower. I had a great conversation with Lily last week from the Unlocking Lily series, an entrepreneur I've invested in, and she was frustrated with the pace of growth of her business. She wanted to grow faster. And, you know, first off, welcome to the world. You know, like, we all want our businesses to grow faster. That's life as an entrepreneur. When we first started together, Her challenge was to become a speaker. That's what she wanted to do. She wanted to be a speaker. She wanted to take my methodology of your one word and go off and be a speaker. Since then, it's evolved where one, she wants to keep being a speaker. Two, she wants to develop her own material, her own thought process, her own unique content instead of only using one word content from me. And three, she wants to be a coach. She likes the one-on-one interaction and coaching people and helping guide them through their process, their issues. And so when you're trying to tackle 3 things at the same time— a speaker, a thought leader, and a coach— she's working really, really, really hard. If you look at Lily's schedule, you'll see that it's jam-packed full to make her better and pursue her business. But it's hard doing 3 things at the same time. It's great to go off and do it, but recognize that your path is going to be a little bit slower because instead of doing one thing and going all in on it, you're doing 3 things and trying to be the best at all of them. And so the path will be a little bit slower to reach it. And so whenever you set a goal for yourself, whether it's the beginning of the year, whether you just get inspired by this video, whether it's a Monday morning, you know, whenever it is that you're sitting down and you're setting goals for yourself, it's great to get lost in that world of, I feel so good about this new future I'm going to create for myself. But then you have to actually do the work, and the work will not just magically happen. You've got to factor it into your schedule, whether it's once a week, once a day, whatever makes sense for you. That should be the biggest battle that you face of all, is how are you going to spend your time. And every time you add something in new, that takes away from something else. There's always an opportunity cost to your time. And so just make sure, I really, really, really, really implore you, because I think this is where a lot of people fall down. They have the one-off motivation, they have these big goals and ambitions and desires and dreams of what they want to do, but they never follow through on it because they don't have the schedule that allows them to, because they're doing a lot of activities that don't map to their ambition. So if you look at your schedule, you look at where you're spending your time, and put in your family and put in all of the personal stuff you want to do as well. Look at how you're spending your time in your calendar. If you keep doing these actions, will it take you to where you want to go? And if not, you have to start adjusting those actions and make your calendar better. Now I've got a special bonus clip for you guys, but before that, the question of the day I have for you is, what is one immediate change that you need to make to your calendar so that it will better map to your ambitions? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to hear from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of inspresso, and enjoy the bonus.

I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.

So when you ask the question, or when you look at the question, how do I create a life of prosperity when I haven't known it, when my family hasn't known it, when it's not what we're, uh, it's not what I was born into. You know, there are many people who were born into prosperity. I wasn't one, and you may or may not be one. But how you transform a life or create a life of prosperity is, number one, you identify what does prosperity look like to you. Define prosperity by your own terms and don't make it a global, universal answer. You want to just define prosperity in each area of your life. I know that sounds like it's really detailed, but you cannot hit a moving target. You won't ever hit a moving target. So the more detail you get, the more the target slows down and you hit it.

The sponsors of Robert Smith's career only did so after I demonstrated that I'm willing to make the commitment to my career. It's a two-way street. It's not just, oh, here's, you know, the person you're going to sponsor. Make sure that they get on good deals. No, it is they see you in the office, you're grinding 100 hours, you're getting it done, you know, you're making sure there's no mistakes, and if there is a mistake, you correct it. You're following up, you're reaching outside of your knowledge to go learn more. When you do that, sponsors are more than happy to then take credit for you. Okay? And that has been my experience, but it has all come through— you gotta demonstrate that that's who you are and that's your priority. If it's Friday night and it's 5 o'clock, your sponsor seeing you leaving because you got, you know, happy hour with your boys, well, guess what? I mean, and they're there. You know, you got to be conscious of that sort of stuff. OK? I like when they come back in on Saturday because they did come back in, I'm wearing the same thing I wore Friday night, right? OK, this guy is dedicated to his craft. And so when this deal happens, they're— happy to stand up in front of the managing principal of the firm at that time to say, "Hey, you know, Robert did this work." You see what I mean? So it's a two-way street. And sponsors, you know, again, I have the opportunity and I do in my firm and build and develop people, but we have— when we do our reviews, part of what we're looking at, do you have that kind of grit? Are you dedicated to this career? This is not a lifestyle business. And if you want to make it a lifestyle business, this is the wrong business to be in. Okay, so that's in the world I live in. That's something we think about and we talk about in that context. That's just day trip. So we look for, you know, again, I will sponsor those and even my folks now who have not grown up with me in this business, I sponsored them because I saw them putting that level of effort and energy in 15 years ago. And guess what? They still do it today.

Raise your standard.

Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.

I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.