How To Be More Successful Than 99% of Other People
Omar Zenhom argues that doing what you say you will do is the single best way to outperform most people. He breaks down public, private, and team commitments, showing how consistency builds trust and reputation through examples like Webinar Ninja's pre-sale and his own podcast publishing schedule.
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Do you want to be more successful than 99% of other people? Here's the secret. Just do what you said you're going to do. That's it. Do what you said you're going to do. As you get older, as you live life, you learn that most people don't follow through. Most people, they say they're going to launch a website, they say they're going to ship a product, they say they're going to show up on time, they say they're going to deliver the work, they say they're going to start a business. And they don't. But when they do, they become the person who follows through. It becomes their reputation. You become somebody that's trusted, that's respected, that gets opportunities, that gets sales, that gets all of it. But the opposite is also true. All those wonderful positive attributes that I just mentioned, think of the opposite of those attributes. You become those things. You become known for those things. You become unreliable. Somebody that can't be counted on, somebody that can't be trusted, somebody that doesn't deliver, somebody that is just not respected amongst your peers because you just don't do what you say you're going to do. Now, I'm here to tell you why this happens and why this habit applies in every corner of your life and your business. Number one thing you need to remember, it's not just any promises, but it's all the promises you make in life. The first type of promise is your public promises. If you told your audience that you are launching in 30 days, you need to launch in 30 days under any circumstance, right? You need to make sure it happens, even if it's not perfect. You need to launch because you said you're going to launch in 30 days. And if you don't launch in 30 days, it means that you can't be trusted. Why would I buy from you if you can't even stick to a deadline? The second type of private commitments, this second one might be more important in my opinion, than the first one, but I wanted to ease you into it. When you tell yourself anything, when you tell yourself, for example, I'm going to send 20 cold emails today, you need to do it, even if no one's watching. Why? Because when you break promises to yourself, you erode your confidence. The opposite is also true when you constantly fulfill your promises to yourself. When you tell yourself, hey, I need to write this blog post by the end of the day. And you don't end the day. You don't go to bed until that blog post is Written, you build, like, a little higher percentage of confidence inside of you. All of a sudden, you start to believe that you can do things. This starts to stack. This starts to compound. Every time you tell yourself you're going to do something and you do it. This builds unstoppable confidence over time because you believe in yourself. Because when you say you're going to do something, you do it. Listen, I told myself, today I'm going to do three podcast episodes. This is my third podcast episode, okay? I could have easily said, hey, two's enough. I'm five weeks ahead in the publishing schedule. It's totally fine. No. Yes, it's totally fine. But what's not totally fine is me telling myself that I'm going to do three episodes and not fulfill that commitment. You need to make sure that what you say to yourself actually happens. So this also means you gotta be careful about what promises you tell yourself, because you want to keep your promises. And this applies to everything in life. If you're at the gym and you got to do four sets of 10 reps, you got to do four sets of 10 repsS, not four sets of eight reps, not three sets of 10 reps. It doesn't matter. You. You need to fulfill your obligation to yourself. And the more you let that kind of slide, even in other parts of your life, you start to tell yourself it's okay to break promises. It's okay for me not to fulfill my agreement with myself. And that is not on. Okay? This is one of the cases where how you do anything is how you do everything. So keep your private commitments. Keep your private, by any means possible. Number three, your promises to your team. If you said to the team, hey, we have two weeks to finish this project. And when the two weeks is up, you just extended to three weeks. That means your deadlines mean nothing. That means that whenever you say two weeks, it doesn't really mean two weeks. It means whenever the project gets done, you need to make sure that you wrap up that project whenever you said you were going to wrap up. No rescheduling. You have to make it happen. Listen, people remember who delivers, and they also remember who doesn't deliver, especially your team. Listen, I'm going to share a very vulnerable story. We'd like to do team retreats, right, with our team. We like to get on site, go to a nice location, nice hotel, three, four, five days, and a beautiful beach, and do team building activities, get to know each other, have some fun. And one year in particular, we were not making as much Profit as we'd like. And we were thinking about, oh, maybe we should cancel the retreat. There was no way possible. I was canceling the retreat because we already told the team we're going to have this retreat. We already booked the dates or we already told them the dates and the location. So this retreat is going to happen, even if it meant pulling money out of our own pockets, Nicole and I. And that's exactly what happened. Why? Because I said to the team, this is going to happen. I got to keep my promises, I got to keep my commitments. Because I know in my core that when I do this, always consistently in my life, in my business, with my customers, with myself, with my team, that's the recipe of success. Let me give you some more examples. When we pre sold our software, Webinar Ninja back in 2014, we had nothing but mockups, a landing page and a buy button. But I said to them that in four months we're going to deliver the software. And guess what? We did. We built instant trust with our early adopters. Hey, they trusted me in buying the software before it was ready. And then I had to make sure that they can trust me again when I said four months. And if I broke that promise, I'm going to be starting on a wrong foot and there's a really low chance they're ever going to trust me again and buy anything from me again. But because I did fulfill my promise, I did deliver that user base became a multimillion dollar SaaS. And I truly believe if I missed that deadline, I don't think the business would have grown the way it grew. I don't think it would have been a multimillion dollar business that got acquired by Proprofs. None of that would have happened. Another example, this podcast, a hundred dollar MBA show we publish three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, rain or shine. If I feel like it, if I don't feel like it, if I'm busy, if I get sick, if I'm tired, if I'm traveling, if I'm not, all that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's what I'm trying to say to you. Like all the stuff I just mentioned, the consumer, the listener, the customer of yours, they have nothing to do with that. If you said you're going to do something, you got to do it. So you got to plan accordingly. This is why I batch my episodes. This is why I like to have a lead time of five, six, seven weeks so that I can travel or I can make sure that it gets Published even when I'm six, because we have some lead time, you know, or my voice goes away because I went to some, you know, crazy fun concert or whatever it might be. And that consistency of publishing regularly day after day, week after week, you know, for 2,600 plus episodes, that built our loyal audience. And that's frankly why we won Best of Itunes. This is why we grew to millions of downloads. This is why we have any audience at all. Because we showed up, we did what we said we're going to do. Another example before all that, back when I was the head of department at the high school I was working at, when I was an educator, I built a reputation for one thing. When Omar says he's going to do something, it gets done right. You know that old saying, if you want to get something done, give it to somebody who's busy. I was like the poster child for that, to a fault. I know people abuse that, but I'm okay with that because it allowed me to become who I am today. But anything the institution needed, curriculum design, staff support, parent communications, I was known for following through, for getting things done. And that's really honestly why I got promoted in my career. That's what got me trust. And I wasn't like incredibly talented, but I was incredibly reliable. And that's why people actually trusted me enough with responsibility, with position, with the ability to manage other people. And I used that experience in my career as an entrepreneur later on. But forget about me. Let's talk about some famous brands, like Apple. When Apple says the iPhone ships on September 22, it ships on September 22, not in October, not when they feel like it, not when they get around to it. It ships on September 22nd. That's what professionals do. That's why they have raving fans, because their delivery is part of their brand. Amazon Prime Shipping, two days. Done. Say what you want to say about Amazon, but they built an empire on doing what they said they're going to do again and again. Most people won't do this because it's uncomfortable, because life gets in the way, because they let themself off the hook. Because, because, because, because I can go on and on, but if you don't let yourself off the hook, you will pass 99% of people around you quietly, steadily, relentlessly. So right now, make a commitment to yourself right now. I'm serious. Say it out loud if you want to make a commitment. I will do what I say I'm going to do. Every single time, in every aspect of my life, my business, my work, my relationships. I will become that person. Your life will change forever from this moment forward. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. This isn't about hustle, culture, or never missing a beat. It's about becoming the kind of person you can trust. Say what you'll do and do it. No drama, no flair. Just action. And over time, you'll build a life, a business, and a reputation that speaks for itself. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show for tuning in. If you love this podcast, if you want to support us, the biggest thank you you can give me is by subscribing or hitting that follow button on whatever you use to consume this podcast, whether it's Spotify or Apple or or YouTube or whatever you're using. To listen to this podcast, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. Thank you in advance for doing that. Now, if you want to go deeper with me, if you want to continue to learn from me, you should join my three Things newsletter. It's absolutely free. Every week I send you three things. Something to think about to grow your mindset. Number two, something to do so you're getting traction week after week. And number three, something to learn so you're skilling up every single week. It's absolutely free. Just go to 100mba.net sign up for any of our guides and you'll be a part of our newsletter automatically. Thanks again. I know that today was a little bit of tough love and maybe I was a little bit over passionate, but I really believe in what I shared with you today. It's really something that changed my life. Once I got this, once I took responsibility, once I owned this, I realized I need to start fulfilling my own promises. To myself, to others, and never back down, never compromise, never say, oh, it's okay, whatever. Next time, treat yourself with dignity, okay? Treat yourself better than that because you are better than that. Thanks again. I'll check you next time.
