Becoming A Top Leader Series - Part 2 - Focused Work And Motivation

Welcome to part two of the Becoming a Leader series. I've got a list of the top 10 things that I've noticed the big hitters do. And these are the things that cause them to rise to the top. And chances are there might be a secret or two in here for you because it's never one thing. It's kind of a long title here. You can do odds and ends. They're going to help you and get you moving up. But in if you want to go all the way to the top, there's a bunch of things that you want to do. And so as I was thinking about this, the first thing that came in my mind is their hard work. And the thing about their hard work, you can say, oh boy, here we go again. The thing about their hard work is that don't be offended, but their hard work is different. It's different than yours. Now I'm sure you work hard, but their hard work is different. And if I had to put a finger on it, it's the fact that in their, their hard work is that they're always moving forward. They never look at where they are. They're always looking up either to break their own record or to see who's in front of them and how they can catch them and compete with them. It's not because they have to, but they're always looking up because that's where they want to go. And they also are smart enough to realize if they want their income to go up, they're going to have to go up. So they're always moving forward. Their hard work isn't not just going through the motion type, you know, I'm sweating so I must be working hard. It's aggressive, trying new think. One of the marks of a fast growing organization. You'll know you hit your stride. Bob Turley and I used to laugh about this in our office. As I was coming up is like if I didn't show up with a new dumb idea, he would. Because we were always trying new ideas. We were very aggressive. But Bob was running the number one bay shop inside Primerica and he wanted to stay on top of the. He knew others were coming after him. And I eventually ran the number one base shot. And because they've got their eye, the big hitter, because they're always looking on the aggressive, they're always, when most people would rest, they don't rest. Or if they rest, they take a quick break or they'll take a break that still serves to help them to move closer to where they want to go where it's refreshing, it's energizing. But they keep their mind on business. It's reinvigorating. But they never get off track. When I say they don't rest, it's not like they work hard sometimes and they go home and do other things and they come back. No, they're always thinking about it. That's why they come up with new ideas. They're always looking up, they're always looking for improvement. They know the way you get better, you're never going to get more than 24 hours in the day. Once you start working hard in terms as at a rate of work, you're going to reach your maximum rate of work. So then how can you get more done improvement. And they don't necessarily have to have something where two or three times more productivity. They're just looking for little edges. They're constantly looking at every single thing they do for an ed. And it would be provide a better training experience for their people to make things simpler, to make it more personalized, to get quicker help, to make sure like phone calls. Make sure that phone calls are not lost, that they're returned on time. Even their office staff. I used to work in an office when I was a part time job at Georgia Tech with a manager. Even if he was not in the office, he would always call at nine, straight up and five. He would always want to make sure the people in charge of running that office were picking up those phones. And he never wanted it to get past the second ring. See, he made sure looking for a little edge. That's somebody who's constantly trying to improve. Also working. How can they get better attitude, better activity. How can you simplify things? Because when you simplify, you can speed up. That's the kind of hard work that you find from the people that are at the top and are headed to the top. They have a different kind of hard work. Okay, I would say the second thing I notice they're motivated by big things. When I say motivated by bigger things, you'll find that the normal goals just getting by the average thing what holds no interest. The smaller goals are great, but the smaller goals bore them. They want to do big things. So smaller things just doesn't attract their attention. See, if you have something big, something you love, something that excites you, it's almost scary to think that it would happen. And you believe you can do it because you see other people doing it well, then what happens is you wind up spending lots of time on it, Lots of time and thought. And because of that, you expect to win. They would not be putting that kind of time, energy and effort into small goals. Now, I'm not talking about your daily goals and your small targets, milestones along the way. Of course you need to have millions of small daily goals to keep yourself focused. But where are you ultimately headed? The people at the top have planet in their mind. It's like a North Star that they are moving forward mentally at all times because it's exciting to them. It's just thrilling to think they could pull that off. And they're going for it because of that. They put the time and energy into it and they don't give up. You don't give up when you have something that big and that important to you. For example, let's just look at this, another example. Switch gears. Let's just say you had a young daughter and she's a beauty and you spend time with her, you pay her all kind of attention. You want the best for her. What is your hopes and dreams for her future? If, if you're a parent, you're thinking, you're thinking past tomorrow or past next year. Don't you want great things to happen to that daughter? Maybe go to school, maybe become a doctor or an attorney yourself? Maybe have a career, maybe just spend her life satisfied, raising a family, but have a great, wonderful family with wonderful kids and a wonderful husband. You know you want the best. You want her to be trained for that, to do well with society, be able to have good values, good morals, to select good friends. You want the best, nothing but the best. What you don't want is just to get by. You have no desire inside. What you want to turn out has nothing to do with, with her growing up and becoming the wife of some redneck living in a trailer in southern Iowa, smoking cigarettes, watching Jerry Springer and hey, guess what? Next month she's going to be on Jerry Springer. She's a TV star. That's not what you want for your young daughter. You want the best. That's the same thing. The big hitters, that's the approach to their business, to their career, to their life. They want big things, exciting things, and they're going to do whatever it takes to get there. If you have passion for what you do in your career, you take yourself seriously, then you want to see something significant happen. It doesn't matter if that is something that would be big to somebody else, it'd be big for you. It's a goal that matters to you. You're not trying to Compare. Your life is not comparison. It's being fulfilled. See, the big hitters are people who get heads over heels into what they're doing because they take it so serious and they want nothing but the best. Just like what they would want for their wife or their husband or their any of their kids or anything they're involved in. It's like we've talked before, they bring a certain magic, a certain expectation, a certain energy level to it and that's what motivates them. It's hard to get motivated. Well, it's impossible to get motivated by small things. That's why you see the people who move up, move up because they have a different fire fever burning inside of them. They've got something that drives them. You can tell what is it that drives them. Well, they're motivated by big things. They want to have a special kind of life and they want to have that for the people around them. I know I'm beating that to death, but if you don't have that, you're not going to be doing the hard work, are you? You're going to want to do the hard work. You're going to think about the hard work, but you're not going to find yourself doing it if you're not motivated about going for the top. You're not going to make that big effort. And once you get in that frame of mind, you're not going to be too concerned about other people's opinion, what other people have done, what other people may or may not be able to do. You're locked in on what you can do. And it's when you find that thing and you go for it that you become a different person. The whole idea is, how can you become a different person if you want to have a different life, more success, make bigger income? All of these things come from again, you releasing the magic in you. And the magic didn't get released. If it's over something that's boring to you, you're not going to have magic. A magic feel, especially excitement will not ooze out of you for something that you know, like filling out your tax returns on April 15. It's got to be something that you aspire to. Now here's something for you to look at. Here's another viral video. You've got a guy who is in Norway or someplace, one of those Danish, Norwegian places. It's amazing how popular the NFL is around the world. He sees American football, he sees the field goal kickers, looks at that on TV and says, I can do that, see, where does that come from? That, that spark that jumps inside you. Jumps inside. Some kid looks at people swimming and say, that's what I want to do with my life. Or see soccer and says, you know, I just love it. Or see a little girl who sees gymnastics and that's what she wants to do, or ballerina or whatever, or singing or anything. What is it? Well, he, this is a guy plays soccer, he sees kickers on TV and says, hey, I can do that. Now they don't play American football. He has to get on the Internet and order some American footballs before he can get started. He just has something inside him that says, yes, that's for me. See, that's what you're looking for in yourself. Let's look at this, let's take a quick look at this video. Because see, it all starts with how you see yourself, what role you think you've been called to play in life. And then when you get involved in it, then you start to find out exactly what level of success and achievement and how big of a hurry you're in to make that dream realized. Well, that's a great indicator of how important this is to you and how much this is supposed to be a centerpiece of your life. And you know, you can't have any illusion. It's going to take a lot of hard work, but so will mediocrity and failure. And just in a matter of months. Look, with this kid turned into.

We're going to turn now to the video we've been showing you this morning. A kicker behind it. Well, posting a video of himself doing this rather remarkable things with a football at his foot. The video has gone viral now and however stunningly, has gotten him a tryout with an NFL team. And here's why. Believe what you are seeing. A normal guy just kicking a football with the precision that makes you think.

It'S gotta be fake.

But no, it's real. And his name, Hovar rugland. And this 28 year old from Norway has become a veritable Internet sensation.

We started this summer vacation and we made a trick shot video of me kicking a football.

And now at least a million people have seen the video.

I think it's around 1.1 actually now.

Well, among those 1.1 million hits, the New York jets of the NFL, a franchise looking for headlines, found the wrong ones with Tim Tebow. So why not look overseas to Norway for an answer.

They had watched the video and they liked what they saw and they wanted me to go do a tryout.

Pretty heady stuff for a guy who may have been kicking a soccer ball his whole life, but only started kicking a football well a year and a half ago. Hovard said the tryout went well.

Out of 20 kicks I made 16, 17. I think what you can see in.

The video is that he's got ability.

And he's able to do some things.

Or have some traits that you want to look at further.

But we wondered, back to all those trick kicks, how many times did it take to get some of them right?

Some kicks went really fast, some on the first try. Some others I had to work a little bit on.

Absolutely amazing. It's viral. Not because of just the quality of the kicks and how unbelievable, but it's just how inspiring it is. It's a matter of months. You know, this. This goes back to a theory I've got that in night you get infatuated with something, you pour yourself into it. In 90 days, you can get as good as the top 1% of the people in the world doing it. And if you stay with it, in another, you know, 90, 180 days, you can probably get into the top 1% of. Of 1% of the people in the world. You can get good at things real quick with a concentrated effort. That's what he did with the kicking. Guess where he is now. He's not with the Jets. I think he had three or four tryouts. But it looks like he's got a great shot. He's with the Detroit Lions, and he looks pretty good. He looks like he's going to got a real solid shot of making the team. Now, wouldn't that be unbelievable to go into the NFL in essentially one year from the idea popping in your head? But see, that's where that actually happens, folks. In all walks of life, where people come out of nowhere and do great things, that could be you. That's why you absolutely cannot allow yourself to be limited in your thinking.