Do EXTRA-ORDINARY - Bear Grylls (@BearGrylls) - #Entspresso

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is "Do Extraordinary." Over to you, Bear Grylls.

And it was something I was told on the first day of ever joining the Special Forces, and I remember at the end of this long selection process where 180 of us had been whittled down to 4 of us. And this guy who we had never seen before came in, stood in front of us, and said this: "The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is often just that little word 'extra.'" And the work I'm gonna now ask you to do is not gonna be ordinary. It's going to be extraordinary. But what's gonna make the difference is when not one ounce of you thinks you can. You're the people who over this last year have shown me you can turn around and give me that little bit extra, and it's that that's going to make your work here extraordinary.

To me, extraordinary is do you settle for good enough or not? I think in general in life we tend to settle for good. There's the book Good to Great that talks about the enemy of great is good. The enemy of great isn't terrible, because if something is really terrible, you're going to fix it. But if something is good, then you let it slide, you let it go through. You know it could be better, but you're like, ah, just, it's good, it's good enough, let's put it through. And that's how too many people live their lives. They've settled for a good life instead of going for a great one, instead of going for an extraordinary one. And so you can apply it to the work you're doing today. You can apply it to the videos you're making. You can apply it to your relationship at home with your wife, with your husband, with your kids, with your friends, with your parents, with the customers you're going to call tomorrow. You can apply it to everything that you do. Do you settle for good, or do you try to go that little bit extra to make it extraordinary? I think about the example of the 50 Cent video that we made, and I've told this story a couple times, but I think it really resonates here, where my team spent a lot of time making a video of 50 Cent's top 10 rules for success, and I watched it and it was, it was good. It was a good video. I liked it, but I felt it could be better. I felt 50 had more in him that we hadn't uncovered that we should be able to find and share. And so then I spent extra hours of my time putting together the research to make it happen. I was doing the job of somebody on my team because I thought it could be better. I didn't want to settle for having just a good enough video. And so it took a ton of man-hours to put this video together, and when we launched it, it had success, and somehow it got to 50 Cent. I don't know 50 Cent, but he saw it, he liked it, he shared it, he wrote a blog post about it, and he tweeted it, and I think he put it on his Facebook. He shared it. Now, would the first video have gotten to him and would he have shared it?

Maybe.

The one that was just good enough? Maybe. But he saw something extraordinary, that he loved and he wanted to share it. And that often is what makes a difference. And you know, you know when the thing you made was just good enough. You know when you're just skating by. And you know when you put everything you had into making this next thing that you're doing amazing. I want you to be proud of the work that you're doing. I want you to be able to show something that you made every day to want to give it to your grandkids. I want my grandkids to watch these videos and first say how young I looked, and then say, man, you really poured a lot of energy and love into it. We're proud of you. I want them to be inspired and learn from it. And it doesn't mean that I'm not still going to get better. What's extraordinary for me now won't be in a couple years. My best thing 2 years ago pales in comparison to what I can do now because I've worked harder, I've learned, I've built my muscles, I'm better, and I still strive to get better and better and better. There is no perfection. It's only something that we strive for. So I encourage you to stop settling for good enough. Look at what you've done today, depending on what time you're watching this video, look at what is on the schedule for today, and don't go to sleep tonight until you can say that you did something that was extraordinary. So the question today is, I'm curious, what have you done today that's extraordinary, or what are you going to do that's extraordinary where you will not settle for just being good enough? Leave it down in the comments below, super curious to find out what you have to say. I also wanna give a quick shout out to William Young. William, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me, and I hope you're enjoying the read. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, and I'll see you guys again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.

When you're chasing your dream and when you're working hard, chasing something you love and completely dedicated, it just happens. You can't really notice it, you know. Even still to this day, I'm in an amazing position in my life, but I'm still working like I'm not. I'm still working like I'm not in this position. I'm still working like none of this is even—

you know what I mean?

It's just something I love to do and I just keep pushing and keep working hard. I can't pinpoint an exact moment for you, but if anything, I always felt like it was happening way back then and now it is happening, but now I almost feel like it's not happening. You know what I mean? I want to push to something else.

Absolutely.

I'm always striving to push forward.

The idea of being super rich, the idea of operating from abundance, the idea of going out and making it work, your prayer, the idea of building something that no one else can believe in. That you can believe in. God gives you this vision. He gave it to you and you alone. You have to carry a cross for a little bit on your own.

People will watch you.

First they'll cheer, then they'll be upset with you, then they'll get real mad, and you'll be on their couch. Then you get off their couch and you'll be this hero. It's impossible, if God gave you that vision, for you to fail at it unless you quit.

Don't quit.

So that's a very important lesson, because it seems like in every business, everybody quits all the time. The success stories are the ones who went the extra mile.

You can be asking for assignments that are above your level. So there's work that you do at your level, and then there's work that you do above your level. And the only way that you're going to be promoted to do work above your level is A, if you can demonstrate that you're capable of doing the work at your level, and B, if you are proactive in seeking out opportunities that expand your capability and give you a chance to work above the level that you're at. Nothing's gonna happen unless you take that initial action. Nothing's gonna happen, nothing's gonna change unless you put down that pen in the meeting and you sit up and you pay attention and you listen for your opportunity to speak. Nothing's gonna happen unless you push yourself to go in and make the ask for that assignment that scares you to death.