Let's Never Be "That Person" Again...

I was reminded recently of how important it is that we stick to our word. We hear cliches like, you know, your word is your bond. It's the most important thing that you can give someone. But it actually is. It's the thing that builds trust. It's the thing that builds credibility. It's the thing that makes people like us. It's the thing that makes people believe what we say to them. The. There was actually something that happened a couple of weeks ago to me that really stuck in my mind and gave me a reason to think that keeping your promises is so important. I'm going to tell you that story at the end of this video, but let's talk about this subject. Too often we tell people we're going to do things and then we don't do them. And I'm not coming to you on a pedestal with this. I'm as bad as anybody, I think, when it comes to this, you know, and I'm working on it, trying to be better at this. I know that in an average week I tell a lot of people I'm going to do a lot of things. You know, I'll say to someone, I'm going to get you that file by tomorrow. Or I'll send you that website or I'll get. Yeah, I'll get you that book name. Yeah, I'll sign that book for you. Yeah, well, you know, we'll do coffee. I make so many different promises. And, you know, people would say, oh, that's not a promise. That's just you saying that you will. But it's not the same as promising. Well, think of the things that you say you're gonna do. Even if you don't explicitly use the word promise, think of the things that you say you're gonna do as promises. Treat them as such, because they really are the only thing you have, and they're the only thing that people have to go on in order to judge how flaky you are, whether you really can and do deliver and whether they can trust you to deliver again in the future. When we flake on someone, once they get over it, when we flake on them two or three times, they can end up not believing us anymore when we say we're going to do something with them. And that's quite dangerous because there may come a time when you need them to believe you, where you need them to buy into your word because it's important. Now, part of the trick is being able to say no to things. That's something that not all of Us are very good at. Because saying no involves confrontation sometimes. Saying no sometimes involves annoying people. It sometimes involves making people feel like they're not all that important in that moment. Or what they want is not all that important to you in that moment. That is a symptom of saying no. And though we don't like the way that feels in the moment, many of us are people pleasers. So we don't like that feeling of saying no and creating awkwardness in the moment. But actually, what comes from saying yes and then not doing it is far worse. Because now, not only do you create someone who's pissed off, but you create someone who doesn't believe you. The next time you say yes. You want your words to mean something to somebody. The moment your language ceases to mean anything ceases to have any value. You have lost so much of your personal power and impact. And don't distinguish between the little stuff and the big stuff, because when it comes to the big stuff, and you want a big favor from somebody or you want to promise someone something big, they're gonna look to the little interactions you've had with them and the little promises that you've kept or didn't keep as some sort of measure as to whether you can live up to the big thing. So what was it that reminded me recently of how important promises are? Well, a few weeks ago, I was on my retreat in Florida. Five days, we had 150 women on this incredible program transforming their lives. On night five, we do this party and everyone gets together. All of my staff, my trainers, all of the women. And we just have the best time. And we all celebrate, you know, the new confidence we found and the goals that we've set for ourselves that we're going to achieve and the strategies we now have. At the beginning of the night, there was this one woman, Samantha, who came up to me and she said, I want to. I want a photo with you by the end of the night. I want a photo with you. And I said, great. And she kind of gave me this skeptical look. Are you sure? Like, are you going to do it? And I said, yeah, I'm going to do it. She said, you promise? I said, I promise. I said, pinky swear. Like, I said, I promise, like, I'm gonna do it. And she said, okay. She kind of gave me this look like she was testing me because she knows that there's gonna be 150 women there who all wanna have some sort of photo or something before the end of the night. And she was worried that she wasn't, it wasn't gonna happen. So the night goes on and I get to the last 30 minutes of the night and I'm thinking, all right, time for me to go to bed. I've just done, you know, nearly 10 hours on stage for the last five days. I need to go to bed. I went looking for Samantha and I couldn't find her. And I'm think I can't be that guy. Like, I can't go to bed having not taken this photo. So now I get four of my staff and I'm like, alright guys, you have that, you have to find Samantha. She has to be here somewhere. I want you to scour every inch of this room. She has to be here. They go looking for her. Ten minutes later, everyone comes back. I, she's nowhere to be seen. I don't know where she is. So I go back to my room in the hotel. We're all staying in this one hotel. I go back to my room and I go to bed thinking about this. Like I'm worrying. I'm like, I gotta find out a way to get in touch. So I call my assistant and I say to her, right, I want you to pull up Samantha's details. I want you to send her an email, I want you to send her a text. I want you to have the reception call her room first thing in the morning. I don't know if she's got an early flight or not, but I want them calling her first thing in the morning with a wake up call telling her that Matt wants to meet her at breakfast tomorrow morning. He's going to be sat at a table at the back of the room. You have to go over there and, and take a picture with him before you go. And I was sat at breakfast the next morning and she came walking up, big smile and looked at me. And I got up off the table and she said, I just, I just want to say that it's so great that you stuck to your word that you kept that promise. We took a picture together in that moment and she sent me this picture with the message. Hi, thank you for not sucking and keeping your promise. I was gonna send this earlier, but I've been too busy killing it since I got home. Take care and shine on, you crazy diamond Samantha. I am not a saint in this area. I'm really not. This was one of my good moments. In fact, the reason I remember it is because I'm proud of that one moment. But it's something I know I don't achieve every day. I'm trying to do better. I want you to do better as well because I know it will help your life too. So I want to urge you to think about the things that you say you'll do this week for other people and yourself and to honor as many of those things as you possibly can. And where you catch yourself saying yes to something or telling someone you're going to do something that you know even as you're saying it is either unrealistic or just you're not going to do it, don't say it. Even if you have to stop yourself mid sentence and say, you know what? Honestly, as I'm thinking about it, I don't think I'm gonna have time for this this week, but I will do it next week. Or you know what? I'll come back to you when I know I can do it. If you know that, if you don't even know you can do it next week, be realistic. And I think if we can achieve this together, we'll become better human beings and we'll become people that are more proud of ourselves and respect ourselves more and are more respected by other people. I'm happy with that video, Jameson. I'm happy with these videos right now. I feel like we're doing good work and I'm happy you're watching a little longer than normal these videos, but I'm proud of them. I hope you like them. I hope you're taking value from them and I love you for still watching if you got to the end of them. Tell us what you think in the comments. I'll see you soon.