Surround Yourself With The Right People

Problem: “I know I have potential, I’m not as insanely successful as I want to be.” - You

Solution: “I am not the smartest, but I surround myself with competent people.” - Henry Ford

I think it’s safe to say that Henry Ford had more than a mild degree of success. Love him or hate him, he rocked his work.

Can You Say The Same?
It’s 100% normal to hit those spots where you realize that you just haven’t done the “be all that you can be” part of your have-a-successful-life strategy. But it’s 0% acceptable to let that continue (if you want to rock your work like Henry Ford did).

So what do you do to turn things around in a hurry (and keep going in that upward direction)? You re-evaluate who you’re hanging out with, and choose those people wisely.

If your burning desire is to build a self-sustaining business, and you’re not there yet, don’t primarily hang around people who aren’t there yet either. Chill with people who are. Make sure you’re regularly talking to (and getting advice from) people who are a couple rungs up the ladder from you.

You get a double-whammy of goodness from this, because:

1. Your need to look great in front of these people who have been more successful than you will drive you to work harder than you would if you were just hanging with people at your level, and
2. Your strategic thinking will get a makeover as you discover the difference between what you’re trying to do to succeed and what these more-successful people actually did to make it happen.

Constant Source of Motivation + Better Strategies = You-Know-D***-Well-What-It-Equals.
Sometimes You Gotta Let Go
So am I telling you that you need to ditch all your friends who are at the same level of success as you are? Hell, no. But you gotta make sure you have the right balance. If certain people are bringing you down, then you need to spend less time with them and more time with people who will help you stay “up.”

Side Effect: You might just start bringing that other person up with you, and that ain’t too shabby.

But I’m dead serious about the balance. You might have people who seem like good people to hang around with, but who have no ambition to rock like you want to rock. And while it’s totally fine to be social with these people when you want to be, you can’t let their desire not to do too much poison your desire to do a whole hell of a lot.

In other words,

• don’t drop your chillin’ friends, but
• do make sure you’re spending more time with people who take action.

Take It From The (Formerly) Fat Guy
Years ago, when I joined a gym to lose some major weight (taking my body fat down from 24% to 11% in 10 weeks), I came to a realization: I was hanging out with a lot of fat people, and that’s why I let my standards slip to the point I gained dozens of un-muscle-y pounds.

I was told by one person at the gym that I needed to “stop hanging around with fat people.” But I didn’t buy that (some of my best friends were overweight). I didn’t want to ditch the people I cared about. But I did realize something - that some of those friends were content being fat, and some weren’t. Some were taking action. So I spent more time around the second group, and as you can guess, the story had a very happy ending.

• Bad advice to fat people: “Stop hanging around fat people.”
• Better advice: “Start hanging around fat people who are working hard to lose weight.”

The same goes for your business. Don’t ditch the people who are at your “peer level” or lower. Just concentrate on spending time with the ones who are really taking action to move up.

’nuff said. Time to take some more action …

- Dave Navarro

How Bad Do You Want It?

If you’re suffering from I-Just-Haven’t-Gotten-Around-To-Taking-Action-itis, and your business is stagnant, then you need to ask yourself a question:

How bad do you want it?

No, better yet:

How bad do you really want it?

If you’re really serious, there’s only one answer:

I want it so bad, I’ll make it happen, no matter what.

Trading Excuses for Action
C.S. Lewis rocked it when he said:

The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

In other words, achievers are people who finish the job even if they have to work overtime (or get in early). Even if they have to sacrifice. Even if they don’t have ‘enough’ resources, ‘enough’ time/money, ‘enough’ talent/connections.

Whatever the obstacle or lack is, achievers say, “Screw it,” and take action anyway.

If you haven’t seen The Pursuit of Happyness, you need to get your *** in gear and do so. It will make any obstacle you have to face seem pretty simplistic to overcome. Granted, there are some differences between the movie and reality (which is a given when you try to fit a multi-year story into two hours), but you have to hand it to Chris Gardner - the man knows how to take action. He wanted success - and he wanted it bad.

Check out the movie, and get inspired to overcome your excuses and limiting beliefs. Focus on how bad you want your idea to work, and then hammer at it, no matter what.

If you don’t know where to start, leave a comment and tell me what you want and why you want it and I’ll give you a big fat kick in your *** to get you started.

Get started now and grab hold of your “no-matter-what” moment. Do it now. You’ll thank yourself for it.

- Dave Navarro

Email Hack: Make Your Email Motivate You

Short post today, but useful if you put it into practice.

It’s pretty likely your inbox/folders/(labels?) are hiding some pretty great emails in there …

• Emails where people have gushed about how you’ve helped them/the great job you did/how much they value you
• Emails telling a story that really inspires you or motivates you to take action
• Emails chock-full-o’ wins and victories (awards won, major sales, your first ‘You’ve got cash!’ from paypal

Those emails are probably just buried and doing you no good at the moment, buried under 100 urgencies that threaten to dominate your thinking.

So why not apply a label to them (or put them in a folder, if you don’t have labels) like “MOTIVATION”, or “INSPIRATION”, or “KICK-ME-IN-THE-ASS” so that when you need a boost, you can jump right to them and spend 5 minutes reminding yourself why you rock (and you should know how important that is by now).

Don’t be cynical and dismiss this - you know how insanely powerful those emails made you feel in the past. Don’t leave that emotional money on the table. Spend 5 minutes slappin’ some labels, or re-foldering, and the next time you feel like it would be a good idea to wallow in feeling less than badass, you know just where to go.

Until next time, remember: It’s your life, so take total control of it!

- Dave Navarro

(PS - Don’t forget to leave a comment with your take on this, and pass the word to those who rock with you)