Unlock Business Success Now | Mind and Vision | 21 Minutes

If you're working really, really hard on your business and you are not seeing the results quite yet and you want to know, will that hard work pay off? Will you become a success? Then this video is for you. What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. And I want to see that amazing thing that you've got inside you burst out into the world to have a big impact for yourself, your family, your community, and the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're going to look at 10 signs that you're going to to be really successful, even if it doesn't feel like it. Enjoy. So kicking us off at number 1 is you have to have a vision for the kind of life that you want with Tony Robbins.

How do you create your life? You get hungry for something, don't you? Who has done something in your life that once seemed difficult or impossible, and now it's part of your life? Who's got something in your life in this area? Say aye. How did you do it? You created it 3 ways. Number 1, you decided there's something you wanted so bad that you unleashed all your desire. You became obsessed with it. If it was a business or a car or a relationship or a transformation in your body, if there's something you once envisioned and now it's real, it's 'cause you didn't just envision it, you brought so much emotion to it that now it's in your life. It was once a dream, it was once a goal, and now it's in your life. How many have something like that in your life now? Say it.

Aye!

You may take it for granted now, hopefully not, but it was once just a vision. It may have seemed impossible at one time. So how did you do it? You started with a concrete vision of what you wanted and you focused on it continuously, didn't you? Wherever focus goes, energy flows. You envisioned something, you got clear about it, and then you started thinking about all the reasons why you wanted it. You got excited about it. Said, "This is what's next for me now. I want this." You may have dreamed about it, thought about it, talked about it, but when you focus on something continuously, something magical happens. You get insights, don't you? You overhear a conversation and you hear something you wouldn't have heard if you didn't have that outcome or goal that you wanted so badly. Who's ever come up with something, obsessed about it, didn't even know how to do it, and it just happened and it came together? Who's had that experience? Say "I." So why don't we tap into that power now for your business and life?

I love Tony. That's a great high-energy clip to lead off this video. So far, that one's my favorite. Let's go to number 2, "You're Using Your Signature Strengths" with Mark Cuban.

I think the most important is knowing your strengths and weaknesses and knowing what you enjoy doing. You know, if you look at it as a job, you've already lost. It's not going to be your passion and you're going to count the hours. If you look at it as something you love to do and then you know what your strengths are, then you can leverage those strengths in your business and in helping others. And once you recognize your weaknesses, then you can work with people that complement you. I mean, every one of my businesses, I've had a partner who's very anal. Martin Woodall, Todd Wagner, incredibly anal people, perfectionists, because I'm a slob. I'm a big picture, think about what's around the corner, how is technology going to change things, how can I change this industry, and making sure that there's somebody there to dot the i's, cross the t's, and keep me in the baselines. Recognizing my weaknesses is just as important as recognizing my strengths, my core competencies. And, you know, having a passion to do.

I love it. So guys, if you're a slob, make sure you hire people that are anal. Focus on your core strengths. Okay, number 3 is you're always looking for a better way to do things. Steve Jobs.

You know, throughout the years in business, I found something, which was I always ask why you do things. And the answers you invariably get are, "Oh, that's just the way it's done." Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks about things very deeply in business. That's what I found. I'll give you an example. When we were building our Apple IIs in the garage, we knew exactly what they cost. When we got into a factory in the Apple II days, The accounting had this notion of a standard cost where you kind of set a standard cost and then at the end of a quarter you'd adjust it with a variance. And I kept asking, well, why do we do this? And the answer was, well, that's just the way it's done. And after about 6 months of digging into this, what I realized was the reason you do it is because you don't really have good enough controls to know how much it costs, so you guess. And then you fix your guess at the end of the quarter. And the reason you don't know how much it cost is because your information systems aren't good enough. So, but nobody said it that way. And so later on when we designed this automated factory for Macintosh, we were able to get rid of a lot of these antiquated concepts and know exactly what something cost to the second. So in business A lot of things are— I call it folklore. They're done because they were done yesterday and the day before. And so what that means is, is if you're willing to sort of ask a lot of questions and think about things and work really hard, you can learn business pretty fast. It's not the hardest thing in the world. It's not rocket science. It's not rocket science, no.

You can always count on Steve Jobs to— mm-hmm— help you think bigger, Shift your perspective, think outside the box of the norms. That's one of the reasons why he's up on my wall. Hopefully you guys took something from that too. Number 4 is You Are Willing to Take Calculated Risks with Jeff Bezos.

How did you go through making the decision to drop what was a very good job and take it, take this chance? It all seems very obvious now, right? This many years later that it paid off, but At the time, it was not obvious. No, it wasn't. And I did do a lot of soul searching. I went to my boss at the time, and I really liked my job, and I told my boss I was going to go do this thing, start an internet bookstore. And my wife had— I'd already told my wife, and she was like, "Great, let's go." And I said to my boss, "I'm going to do this." He's like, "This is a good idea." He said, "I think this is a good idea, but it would be an even better idea." for somebody who didn't already have a good job. And that sort of made some logical sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for a couple days. So I went away, and I was really trying to get my head around how to think about this. And I think for me, the right way to make that kind of very personal decision, because those decisions are personal, they're not like data-driven business decisions. They are, you know, what does your heart say? And for me, It was— I could— the best way to think about it was to project myself forward to age 80 and say, "Look, when I'm 80 years old, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have. I don't want to be 80 years old in a quiet moment of reflection thinking back over my life and cataloging a bunch of major regrets." And I think that regrets, our biggest regrets, in most cases— you can murder somebody, OK, you'd regret that— but in most cases, our biggest regrets turn out to be acts of omission. It's paths not taken, and they haunt us. We wonder, "What would have happened? I loved that person, and I never told them, and then they married somebody else. I didn't do this." And so that's the frame of mind that I put myself in, and once I did that, once I thought about it that way, it was immediately obvious to me. I knew that when I'm 80, I would never regret trying this thing that I was super excited about and failing. If it failed, fine. I would be very proud of the fact when I'm 80 that I tried. And I also knew that it would always haunt me if I didn't try. And so that would be a regret. It would be a 100% chance of a regret if I didn't try, and basically a 0% chance of regret if I tried and failed. So I think that's a useful metric for any important life decision.

That's one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever heard and I've used in my life and saved me in my first business and gave me the motivation to go in and be an entrepreneur. That project yourself forward, 80 years old or maybe 200 years old by the time we guys, we get there and just minimizing regrets. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so important. Thank you, Jeff Bezos. My favorite clip so far. All right, number 5 is you're open to Failure with Kobe Bryant. When you think about your risk tolerance for failure, how far are you willing to fail?

Well, man, unfortunately and fortunately, I failed quite a bit.

Yeah.

You know, but I understand that's actually part of the process of succeeding. I'm not one that really believes in failure. I believe you have setbacks. And you have to learn from those. You have to learn what are those landmines that can be avoided the next time. What are those pitfalls? You have to learn from that stuff. And so, you know, I welcome those things.

It's a part of life.

But are you prepared to, like, really fail at something totally new?

Like, what if you're just a shitty VC?

Then I'm a shitty VC.

Yeah.

You know, then I work at it and then I'm not a shitty VC the next year, you know, whenever it happens.

Yeah.

Listen, my first year in the league on national TV, 18 years old, and I shot 5 straight air balls in the playoffs in front of millions of people.

Yeah.

I think my tolerance is pretty high.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I'm alright.

Right.

This is one of the most consistent messages for not just athletes but anybody who's had success. You're going to fail, you're going to fail, you're going to fail. The more you fail, the more you win. The people who succeed the most are the ones who had the most failure too.

I love it.

Alright, let's hit up number 6 is you are nice to people with Mark Zuckerberg.

How many of you remember your first lecture here at Harvard? Mine was Computer Science 121 with the incredible Harry Lewis.

Harry!

I was running late for class, so I threw on a t-shirt, and I didn't realize until afterwards that I put it on inside out and backwards. My tag was sticking out the I couldn't figure out why no one in class would talk to me. Except for this one guy, KX Jin. He just went with it. We started doing our problem sets together, and now he runs a big part of Facebook. And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be nice to people.

That's pretty awesome. I hadn't seen that clip before. I love it. I think, I think doing the right thing is always the right thing. Finding ways to be nice to people is super important. Thank you, Zucks, for the message. All right, number 7 is you make time every day to learn.

You went to Harvard and you dropped out.

Have you ever thought how your life could be better off if you had gotten your Harvard degree?

I'm a weird dropout because I take college courses all the time. I love, uh, Learning Company courses and things, so I love being a student, and there were smart people around, and they fed you and they gave you these nice grades that made you feel smart. So I feel it was unfortunate that I didn't get to stay there. But I don't think I missed any knowledge because whatever I needed to learn, I was still in a learning mode.

I think you see that a lot. Michael Dell dropped out. Steve Jobs dropped out. The people who dropped out, it's not just about dropping out just to go off and do your own thing. You continue to learn in that process and every single day you're learning. And so you don't learn just by going to university or just going to classes. You have to continually invest in yourself and I'm really glad Bill Gates brought up that message. All right, number 8 is you are self-aware with Gary Vaynerchuk.

I wish that I could win on my looks, but I don't, right? Like, you have to know what you're gonna win on. And too many people want to be a pop singer or a comedian or a pretty face model, and it's just not who they are. And too many of you are leaving enormous upside on the table by trying to force a narrative that's romantic in your mind versus what you actually have. I could do so many more things to build up my following, but it's not who I am. I know the hacking ways to get more followers, to get more people to know who I am, but I'm a businessman that happens to like understand content a little bit. So I'm never gonna be followed by the most, but I'm also, that means not gonna sell things I don't believe in. So if you follow all the other entrepreneurs on Instagram, they're selling watches and cash on bed and models and bottles and private planes, and I don't sell that. Because I don't wanna get the cheap followers or the cheap engagement. And so when you really are self-aware, when you really know who you are, what it allows you to do is stay in your lanes, not do other things, I can't produce the kind of videos that my buddy Casey can. Right, I can't. Like, it's just not who I am. And so you stay in your lane. My daily vlog, it's just one exhausting episode of me hustling 24 hours a day. And honestly, eventually it's gonna be very repetitive, but I don't care, that's my reality. My reality is I'm a workaholic who has some talents but wants to show people that if you work really hard, if you want it, then at least you can get the most out of yourself. Not that you're gonna make a billion if you work hard, but the most out of yourself. So, I think self-awareness is imperative. It's why I put it in the new book.

Yeah. Super important message, guys. Obviously one I believe in. It's why I wrote Your One Word. Figure out your most important core value. Go all in on that. It's where you're gonna have success. Alright, number 9 is, you are self-compassionate with me.

So entrepreneurs are some of the most stressed out and most pressured people that I've ever met. And you know, you're out there trying to chase your dreams, trying to accomplish your goals. You put a lot of pressure on yourself to make that happen, and I know there's a lot of external pressures on you too. You've got your family, you've got your friends, you've got society, you've got the little man who told you you couldn't do it. All these external pressure sources on you to make it happen, and to some extent, a little bit of pressure is good, right? If you have zero pressure, then you're likely to be lazy. With fire drinking. There's nothing holding your feet to the fire. There's nothing to kick you into that extra gear. You have to raise the stakes enough so that you want to go out and do work, but too much pressure as well is a bad thing. Too much pressure will cause you to break down. Too much pressure will cause you massive amounts of stress. Too much pressure will make your business suffer, will make the quality of your product or service suffer. And I know what you're thinking, you say, well, that's easy for you to say, Evan. You know, I've got bills to pay, I've got mouths to feed, I've got to make some money so that I can keep my business going. And I get that. And that might mean that you take on a part-time job just to keep your dreams going. That might mean that you slow down on your goals, on your dreams, because you realize that this is a marathon and it's not a sprint. And if you continue putting massive amounts of pressure on yourself, then you're going to run yourself into the grave. Because it has an impact not just on your business being able to be successful, but it'll cascade to every area of your life, and you'll start to feel it in your health, you'll start to feel it in your relationships. When you are too stressed out, good stuff does not happen. So ease up a little bit on the pressure and let things unfold.

I like that clip. That's from, that's from what, 2 years ago? I thought I did pretty well. I lost a little bit of, uh, sleep there too, feeling good. So be self-compassionate, guys. Now last up, number 10 is you show gratitude with Oprah Winfrey.

Close your eyes for a moment, will you please? And breathe with me. Just close your eyes. And if you will, put your thumb to your middle finger and gather your other fingers around and let's feel the vibration and pulse of your personal energy as you take 3 deep breaths with me. Inhale. And as you exhale, just feel the vibration, energy, blood pulsating through your body, through you. And another inhale.

Ah.

And another inhale.

Ah.

And keep your eyes closed. And let's just think about this day. This day that you have been graced to breathe in and out thousands of times. This day where many of those breaths were taken for granted. You just expected the next one to come. But the truth is there's no guarantee that the next one comes. This day, how you started your day, what your thoughts were this morning, how you've carried yourself through this day, how you've been allowed to have encounters and experiences, some challenging, some more life-enhancing, that pushed you forward another day. Of being here on the planet Earth as a human being. Let's just think about that. After all you've been through in this day alone and the many days and years past, how you got here to this prestigious, esteemed at university, the choices you made that have brought you to this day. Open your heart and quietly to yourself say the only prayer that's ever needed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're still here and you get another chance this day to do better and be better. Another chance to become more of who you were created and what you were created to fulfill. Thank you.

I love that little guided gratitude meditation with Oprah Winfrey. That might be a standalone clip. She could sell that stuff. I think that's a Fantastic way to end it. We had some good high-energy points and end on a moment of gratitude, saying thank you. So that's it, guys. That's my take on the 10 signs that you will succeed even if it doesn't feel like it. I think my favorite clip was the Jeff Bezos one because that, that one really resonated with me, not living with regret. I'd love to know which one did you guys like the best and why. Leave your thoughts down in the comments below. I'm really looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. See you soon.

So 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.