"Sometimes YOU are the PROBLEM!" - Simon Sinek (@simonsinek) - #Entspresso

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 into the world. So grab your coffee and sip on today's message: take accountability. Over to you, Simon Sinek.

Mm.

In the 18th century, there was something that spread across Europe and eventually made its way to America called puerperal fever, also known as the Black Death of childbed. Basically what was happening is women were giving birth and they would die within 48 hours after giving birth. This Black Death of childbirth was the ravage of Europe, and it got worse and worse and worse over the course of over a century. In some hospitals, it was as high as 70% of women who gave birth who would die as a result of giving birth. But this was the Renaissance. This was the time of empirical data and science, and we had thrown away things like tradition and mysticism. These were men of science. These were doctors. And these doctors and men of science wanted to study and try and find the reason for this Black Death of childbed. And so they got to work studying, and they would study the corpses of the, of the women who had died. And in the morning they would conduct autopsies, and then in the afternoon they would go and deliver babies and finish their rounds. And it wasn't until somewhere in the mid-1800s that Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, realized that all of these doctors who were conducting autopsies in the morning weren't washing their hands before they delivered babies in the afternoon. And he pointed it out and said, "Guys, you're the problem." And they ignored him and called him crazy for 30 years until finally somebody realized that if they simply washed their hands, it would go away. And that's exactly what happened. When they started sterilizing their instruments and washing their hands, the Black Death of childbed disappeared. My point is, the lesson here is, Sometimes you're the problem. We've seen this happen all too recently with our new men of science and empirical studiers and these men of finance who are smarter than the rest of us until the thing collapsed. And they blamed everything else except themselves. And my point is, is take accountability for your actions. You can take all the credit in the world for the things that you do right, as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong. It must be a balanced equation. You don't get it one way and not the other. You get to take credit when you also take accountability. That's lesson 2.

You will make significant progress towards your goals when you realize that it's not just sometimes you're the problem, All the time you're the problem. Take extreme accountability and ownership for where you are in your life right now. It's nobody else's fault but your own. When I was setting up this morning, I was talking to Jason, my cameraman, and he was talking about how he first joined me when he was— when we were under 100,000 subscribers. Now we're over a million, and that's amazing. We've been able to touch so many lives, and I deserve to be at a million. With the team that I have, with you guys supporting, with the quality of videos that we're putting out, we deserve to have 1 million subscribers. But we don't deserve to have 10 million subscribers. That's the next goal. That's where I'm going. And that's entirely my fault. I'm the reason why we're not at 10 million subscribers. It's not the YouTube algorithm's fault, it's not a lack of resources, it's me. It's me and understanding that I need to get better on film, I need to get my team pulling up their straps and getting better. Everything that is wrong with my business, with my channel, is because of me. And when you take that kind of accountability, first off, it sucks, 'cause it's nice to have somebody to blame, right? It'd be great to be able to blame the YouTube algorithm. It'd be great to be able to blame my parents, or education system, or the president, or the government. That's the reason why I'm not more successful, right? That's the reason why I'm not able to— I can't achieve my big goals. It's somebody else's fault. As long as we can place that blame on somebody else, then we feel great about ourselves because it's not our fault, and we can just sit back and complain. It's your fault that I'm not achieving my goals. So as soon as you realize that it's entirely your fault, it sucks, but it's also liberating because it's within your control. Because you can't change your upbringing, you can't change who your parents are, you can't change the education you had, You can't change a lot of things in your environment. You can't change the YouTube algorithm or whatever else you think is causing a problem. But you can change yourself. You can change what you do every day. And when you stop blaming other people and circumstances and start taking personal accountability for where you are in life, and you take the responsibility to make it better for yourself and the people around you, that's when things start to change. And you may say, "Well, that's not fair. It's not fair that—" my employee walked out on me, or this huge collapse happened in the market. It's not fair. But if you can say, that's my fault, it's my fault for not recognizing that was going to happen, it's my fault for not working harder, it's my fault for complaining all the way through it instead of finding a solution. Everything is your fault. When you start from that position and you take that accountability and ownership, that's when things really start to take off for your business and your goals. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what is one thing you've been blaming somebody else for that now you are gonna take personal responsibility for? Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Tuan Nguyen from Dude Buddha. He picked up 10 copies of my first book, Your One Word, and now 55 copies of my next book, The Top 10 Rules of Success. Tuan, thank you so much for all the love and support, man. He's buying them as gifts for his clients, and I really appreciate it. I hope they have a fantastic holiday season. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. And I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of Enespresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.

It's take no less than 100% responsibility for your life. You know, one of the greatest myths that's pervasive in our culture today is that you're entitled to a great life and that somehow, somewhere, someone is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness and exciting career options, a nurturing family, and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist. But the real truth is that there's only one person responsible for the quality of your life, and that person is you. You see, everything about you is a result of your doing or not doing. Your income, your debt, your relationships, your health, your fitness level, your attitudes and behaviors Everything. That person you see when you look in the mirror is the chief architect in your life. You know, I think everybody knows this in their heart of hearts, but the mind can play games, tricking us into thinking that there are external factors that are the source of our failures, our disappointments, and our unhappiness. But the truth of the matter is that external factors don't determine how you live. You You and only you are in complete control of the quality of your life experience. Successful people take full responsibility for the thoughts they think, the images they visualize, and the actions they take. They don't waste their time and energy on blaming and complaining. They evaluate their experiences and decide if they need to change them or not. They face the uncomfortable and they take risks in order to create the life that they want to live.

There is no such thing as complete control, nothing. No one has complete control in any situation. People that are leading organizations in some ways have less because not only do they have to control what they do, they have to help persuade everyone else what they do. But if you are able to take responsibility, I'm not late because there was traffic, I'm late because I didn't leave early enough to account for the fact that there was traffic. The project didn't get finished not because my friend— my partner didn't do it, my colleague didn't do his part. The project didn't get finished because I didn't set up a team where my colleague wanted to do his part. When you take responsibility and you take full responsibility, that is the most empowering thing, and you can do it at any stage. You have to do it if you're raising money as an entrepreneur. You have to do it if you're trying to persuade people to work with you. You have to do it at all stages. In the home or out of the home, we all work.

So if we all have 24 hours in a day, we all live on planet Earth, and we all work, what are you doing with your time? Because people like Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs, they had lived on planet Earth, they had 24 hours in a day, and they worked. Why is it that they made so much more money than the rest of us? Because there is a variable in the equation of success, and that variable is You. It's you. Not your government that you're working under. Not the boss. Not the business. Not the manufacturing. Not the product. Not the service. You and what you do with what you have. You see, when I first got started in business, you know, as a homeless, broke, fat cocktail waitress, well, the business that kind of presented itself to me, if you will. It was actually sitting in my back seat. It was not something that I wanted to do, but as a cocktail waitress, I knew that I'd be homeless for another 3 months, and I knew it— I would never pay off my $35,000 in debt making the amount that I was making as a cocktail waitress. So I came to that conclusion. Hopefully you're coming to the same conclusion. This is not going to work. I have to find a way to generate more income. Well, That business that was in the back seat of my car really wasn't a business, it was a product. It was a product that I wasn't interested in. It was a product that didn't work for me. It was a product that I had no credibility in. It was in the weight loss industry. I was fat. Who was gonna listen to me? I'm fat. Who's gonna listen to me? I didn't even like this product. That's how come it was sitting in the back of my car instead of actually me using it. Well, I didn't believe in it. I didn't like it. It wasn't my lifelong dream and passion. It wasn't the right business in my opinion at that time, but I had to step up and become the right person in order to get out of debt, to make more money, and to make a change in my life rather than waiting around for someone to sail in and save the day. Yeah, I had to make some serious changes, you know, and that's unfortunate because people who are struggling right now, they're waiting for someone to take the problems away. They're waiting for someone to change the circumstances. They're waiting to be found. They're waiting for somebody to make all the difference for them. There is no somebody. Actually, I have to correct myself. You are the somebody. It's you.

Let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word.

This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation. If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.