Yes You Can

It's important that you understand when you're starting anything new that, yes, you can do it. Now. It's important for you to be sure of that because you're going to have lots of doubts, especially at the beginning. So it's important for you to understand how success happens and that you can overcome, you can get past this thing of, am I good enough? Am I good enough? Do I have what it takes until you do it? It's a little hard to be sure of that. But actually, you need to know that winning, if you talk about winning, if you talk about developing skills, getting to where you can do something good enough to be successful at it, it is pretty much a statistical event. I was talking with Michael Coleman from out in Texas. We were at Pheasant Shoot over in Clovelly, England, and he was talking about the fact that he was the number one, I guess the Masters Sporting Clay champion in the world or something like that, of some kind of shooting champion. Big time, big time successful guy. And he said, he laughed. We were talking about it and he laughed and he said, well, he said getting good in this sport is a matter of time and money. If you'll take the time and spend enough money on the shelves and the equipment to. To put in the hours and the repetition, he said, you know, eventually you get good. And as we all know, there's a lot more to it than that, but that's a big piece of it. And maybe you can't be world champion, but you can get pretty darn good. You can certainly do it, have fun at it, be successful at pretty much anything you do, you want to do. If you put in the time and effort. Because here's how. Here's how the process of improvement works. If, if you start here and you are total dud, you've never done it before. If it's speaking a language, learning. Learning how to play basketball, tennis, swim, start a business, actually, it's supposed to be a straight line. So over here, you are a stud. I mean, you can do it. Everybody, when they see you in action, they know you are a pro. You've got it together, you know, put you in the spotlight and you deliver. So how do you go through these stages? The thing over here, a lot of wasted time and a lot of people quit. They never give themselves a chance to get over here. So it's a process, improvement, you know, and here's where you're, you know, you're. Well, let's just say you go over these stage. You go through stages, checklists, along the way. And this, this is like, this is zero percent. And then what happens is you develop and you got a 1% skill, 1% mastery of this thing. And at this point you're saying, oh, gracious, there's so much to learn. It was so hard for me to get this. Even the first 1% is going to be hard for you because you don't have all of these, the framework of the words and skills in your head. So to get the first, reorganize your thinking, your brain to where it'll start absorbing this information. It takes a while. So you say, oh, gracious, it took me this long to get the 1% and then 2%. I'll never, you know, I'll never get. I've got so far to go. So over here, you fully mastered your trait quiz. Really? No one ever gets to 100%, but you can get in the pretty much of here in the 90s. You know, we're always learning, always learning. But cut me a break. Work with me, team. Work with Larry. Let's just get the idea here that. Get over here. Do you have total confidence in your ability to do it? Solve problems? Still learning, but you have got it down. Say you can play the instrument. You could speak the language, you could run the business successfully. So how do you get your way over here? Time and effort and studying. And so you go forever. See, before you become excellent, before you ever get up to excellent, you're going to be at what you're going to be. You're going to be pretty darn great at it. Everyone say, this guy is great. Before that, you're going to get at the. That person is good. I mean, that person has got it down. Before you get to good, you're going to be mediocre. Mediocre. Let's see, you spell and write at the same time. Mediocre. And then before that, you're going to be, you know, this is mediocre. Average. Folks, don't be depressed about being average at something. It takes forever to get to where you're even average. You know, that means you come a long way. It's just no reason to stop. You got to keep on going if you want to get better. But so after you get where you're mediocre, you're average. And before that, you get where you're, you know, barely adequate, you know, adequate. Say you're adequate. You're not that great at it, but you kind of know what's going on. Before that, you get to where really you stink. You're just no good. And here, over here, you're clueless. When you start anything, you're clueless. Let's drop you out in Nicaragua. Let's drop you out in the Far east, drop you into Japan. Never spoke any of that language, heard it before. Let's just see how great you are at speaking the language. You're gonna be clueless. Sit you down at the piano for the first time. Clueless. But you get better. And so as you move through, the more time and effort you put in this thing. See, it's a progression and it's the process you've got to go through. It's the journey to greatness. Goes through all of these stages. Mozart did not. Now, he might have got it at 2 years old, but Mozart, there was a time where he stunk, maybe when he was born, but it went through the average state. Good. And they played and he was great. Excellent. He's a star, you know, prodigy or something, you know, unbelievable prodigy if you get it early in life. So. But this process everybody's got to go through because nobody comes out of the womb and sits down at the piano and plays a symphony. Nobody fought. Nobody falls out of the womb and can even walk. You know, nobody's bo. Everybody's got to learn how to walk and talk and speak. I don't care what language, what country you're born in, you got to learn that language. Because in the beginning is I got to do. You know, mama, you know that. You know, it takes you forever to go through and you got to learn the language. Now you might see a little five year old from Japan and they're rattling off the language like crazy. Well, that kid had to learn it too. So these are stuff. So give yourself a break. Don't get impatient. Hang with a process. Realize some things. Realize this. No matter how bad you are, you can always improve. And you will improve. Realize this. It will only get better. When I was in my mid-30s, kids came along, everybody wanted to ride horses. We started riding horses, competing the hunter jumpers. And I wasn't going to be one of those dads who sat out there and held the horse and washed the horse off while the kids got in the ring and had the great time. I was going to ride too, so got all my stuff, started taking lessons. You know how hard it is to ride a horse over a fence? Well, I got pretty good at it over a period of time. But in the beginning I was falling off. I was looking like a jack leg up there. Laughing stock of everybody all the other parents used to video me with their cameras, falling down on the ground in hysterics. But you know what? I knew. I knew that I would get better. I knew it was a process. I knew I had to go through this stage. And one of the most encouraging things happened to me when a kid. One of the writers, I think he was like only 16 years old at the time, but he's a great writer. And he rode out of the same barn. I came out after one particularly embarrassing fiasco. And the show ring, he said, a big smile on his face. He said, don't let it get to you. He said, it's only. He said, you're only gonna get better. And I said, michael, you're right. I'm only gonna get better. And I did. And so the other people in the ring, if they're not competing, they're not improving, and eventually all of the things that are hard for you now will become easy. It's just through repetition. It's hard now because you haven't done it before. But eventually some of the things. Remember when you started driving your car, when you start the first time you got, you know, they give you the keys and your, you know, your hand, your fingers don't even know how to hold the key. And now we got the door openers, but, you know, you had to stick your key in the lock to unlock the car and that you didn't want to scratch anything. And then you get in and put the key and cranking. Everything was a crisis. You didn't want anybody messing with you, you know, and then put it in gear and drive and everything. And then, oh, my goodness. If you had to get into traffic, come up to a stop sign, that was traumatic. Then if you had to do the parallel parking, that was another heart attack there. But two weeks later, you're running up, getting in the car, eating a sandwich, talking to your friend. Hopefully you're not texting or talking on a cell phone, but you're thinking about this, and you're thinking. You're turning on the radio. In the beginning, don't want any radio, don't want any noise, don't want anyone to talk to me. I'm going to panic. But a week or two later, it becomes natural. That's the way so many things in life go. D be put off because something is hard now. It will get easier later. It's just a matter of time. Just a matter of time. And I'm going to leave you with this thought right here. If you can do it one time, you can do it 10 times. If you can do it once. I don't care how you got it done, whatever it is, you do it once, you can do it 10 times. Because it's just a matter of time. And if you can do it 10 times, you can do it a hundred times. It's just a matter of time. And if you can do it 100, you can do it a thousand. It's just a matter of time. And through this repetition, you're going to get better and better and better. See, there's only one question. Are you going to stay with it long enough to get good? Well, if you make that decision, I am not going to quit. You're going to get good. So, yes, you can do it. Don't let anybody tell you you can't.