It’s actually pretty easy to get ahead of 99% of people. | Farrah Gray

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Show Up. Over to you, Farrah Gray. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.

Most people say you have to be at the right place at the right time. I always say no, you have to be everywhere all the time because your visibility is just as important as your ability. So I think you have to show up, and I find a lot of times, even personally, people are are just not showing up anymore. You can't win if you don't play, so we have to show up. Explain that. For example, right now I find that people aren't showing up for their opportunities. You know, people believe that opportunity knocks, you know, once or twice or annually. I would say opportunity never knocks. It's something you have to go after with a vengeance. Living in Las Vegas, I even give credit to people who, you know, hit the jackpot there because at least they showed up and put that dollar into the machine for a chance. So I think you have to give yourself a chance and show up in your relationship, show up on your job, show up in life?

I don't think most people show up, just in general. I think people want something, but as soon as you ask them to do just a little bit, a tiny bit of work, they fall apart. They disappear. They don't show up for the simple things. Forget about the big things that they say that they want to accomplish. And that's maybe less so for entrepreneurs, but there's still a lot of you guys out there who talk a big game but never follow through on the things that you say you're going to do. As an example, I was recently co-hosting an event with our mayor here in Toronto, Ent City, John Tory, where we were talking about mentoring. Mentorship. And at the end of it, a bunch of the people in the audience came up to me and said, "Hey, can we meet for coffee? Will you be my mentor? Can we have half an hour and talk about my business?" And this is always a scary thing because I love giving back, but the worst thing for any mentor-mentee relationship is when the person doesn't follow through. Like, the worst thing for a mentor is having a mentee who sucks, who does not follow through, who you've just wasted your time on, right? Time is my most valuable asset, and if you are wasting my time, I feel terrible about myself, about that decision, right? And so I don't want to do it again. And so what I do is make people jump through a couple hoops. And the first one was, I'd be happy to connect with you, send me an email, you can look me up, send me an email, and let's set up a time. Of the people who came up to me and asked to do some kind of mentorship coffee or whatever, only half of them then went home and actually looked me up and sent an email. Half, like how long does that take? 5 minutes to type in my name, find my website, find my contact, and send me an email? Half of the people didn't follow through. So I'm supposed to follow up with you when you want something from me, you're not willing to even do one step that takes 5 minutes? It's crazy. From there, the people who did email me, I suggested, hey, why don't we do it as a YouTube Hangout? Because I'd love to answer your questions live, hopefully we can help some other entrepreneurs who are going through the same issues as you, and whatever your business is, we can promote it to my audience. Understand that a lot of the times you do this on purpose. A lot of the times the opportunity is different than what you first think it's gonna be. You're trying to bang on the door, but maybe the way through is the window. Right, if you just keep trying to bang on the door, you're not gonna get through. When you have an opportunity, often it's not the one you expect. So I wanted to purposely shift to a Hangout instead of a coffee meeting. So then we lost a whole bunch of people who just never responded to the email. I write back to you and say, hey, let's do something, and you don't even respond. The people who did respond, then I said, okay, great, let's set up a time. Here's the email from my assistant. Email her and let's set up a time to be able to do it. I didn't copy her on that. I wanted them to take the extra step to email her, introduce themselves, and ask to set up a time. One person did it out of all the people came up. And said, "I desperately want you to mentor me, can we do something?" One person followed through to the end. I set up the hoops on purpose because again, I don't wanna waste my time and I know this isn't gonna happen. I know that most people will never show up. I just assume that it's not gonna happen so I need to design these hoops that take, what, 20 minutes of work combined to do, maybe? Probably 10 or 15 minutes total that people are unwilling to do and I'm supposed to spend my time with you and help you out when you won't even invest 15 minutes in the relationship to move it forward, right? I just expect people not to show up, and that's the problem. And so when you do show up, you immediately separate yourself from most people because 99% of the world isn't showing up. So be that person. When you say you're gonna do something, do it. When somebody gives you an opportunity, even though it may not be the one that you had in your mind, but it moves you forward, it moves you closer to your goal, do it. And the way to achieve and advance is to overdeliver, right? Whatever task you're given, whatever immediate opportunity you're given, no matter how small it is, overdeliver. Give them way more than they thought they were gonna get. Show your value, show your worth. And that small opportunity becomes something bigger, becomes something bigger, becomes something bigger. When I meet with people who want to be mentored and I give them feedback, say, "Hey, here's what I think you should do," go home and do it. Like, try it. The same people come to me a month later and say, "Hey, I'm stuck on the same problem." I was like, "Okay, well, I gave you advice. What did you do?" "Oh, I haven't done that yet." Go do the work, right? What do you expect me to do when you're not investing the time in yourself? Like, people are expecting somebody to save them. To do the work for them, to give them all the answers and then execute, you need to invest in yourself. You need to show up and do the work. And again, when you do that, you're separating yourself from most of the world because nobody else is showing up. And the ones that do just do the bare minimum. Where if you go above and beyond, deliver an amazing experience, something awesome, something excellent, something different, something unique, That's how you become successful. So the question of the day today is, when was the last time you really showed up? Tell me the story. Leave in the comments below. I'm gonna join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.