Champions do what others can’t or won’t do daily and make it look easy. There’s a lot to unpack in this statement.
Building the discipline to fulfill your potential at anything takes work. It starts with uncovering the building blocks of the role, the task or the skill and then mastering the foundation.
They say that it takes 10,000 hours to master — and maybe that’s true, but 10,000 hours doing the right things. For instance, if you have a bad golf swing and go to the range for 10,000 hours, you’re just grooving a lousy swing. It’s the same in business.
So many business owners worked so hard for so many years just to groove a lousy swing. In business, the basics are command, business planning, execution and accountability. Until you master these things, you’ll never fulfill your potential, no matter how smart you are or how hard you work.
I hate to admit this, but I’ve sometimes grown frustrated with some of our TruMethods members over the years. They claim they want more success and have potential, but they never really put first things first. Over the years, I’ve softened my view of this by saying that not everybody wants the same things out of life. But in the end, I struggle with this logic.
You don’t have to choose between quality of life and doing real work. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’ve watched many business leaders grow, change and achieve great things, but when I think about the most significant impact that TruMethods has made, I think about the team members who work with the business leaders. The managers and the individual contributors I’ve seen fulfill their potential that they didn’t even know they had. This is why I tend to get frustrated with some business owners because you have a choice. However, your team only gets the opportunity if you can do what others can’t or won’t do daily and make it look easy.
So, for example, for our TruPeer members, I ask them to do four things 100% of the time consistently: register and attend our quarterly meetings, enter their smart numbers and understand them, put the time and effort to complete a quality business update for your peer meetings, and attend and be prepared for your accountability calls.
Now, there are many more things you can and need to do, but this is where champions start. This is the core; make these four things non-negotiable. You can apply the same logic to every role, every task or every skill.