Why do we want to succeed?

From a primal perspective, our goal is to survive and replicate. Pretty much everything can be reduced down to that. It’s really simple actually.

However, we aren’t cavemen, we live in an era where we can experience the quote-unquote “luxury” of an existential crisis. Because living in modern times, especially in the country we live in, we don’t need to worry about survival and replication on a daily basis. If we’re hungry, we can call pizza hut and have our sustenance delivered to our door in 30 minutes or less (or your money back.) If we’re horny, we can go on craigslist or match.com or call up Mystery from the “Pick-up Artist” and eventually we will find what we are looking for.

As modern day humans, we are living in the evolutionary lap of luxury. The trials and tribulations of our ancestors are really of little consequence to us. We as a people want to strive for something more, to create something bigger and better than ourselves, to leave our mark on this world. I gather that if you are satisfied sitting in front of the TV every night with a BIG Mac and a six pack of beer, you wouldn’t be here. You’re already several steps ahead of the pack just by consciously trying to improve yourself. So for that, you are to be congratulated.

So, What does success really mean?

Success means different things to different people. Some of you may hear the word “success” and think of a great job, a nice car, and a house in the burbs. Right? Some of you may think of it more on a personal development level. To be successful in life and to strive to better yourself to become a more well-rounded and ATTRACTIVE person.

We all have different meanings, but the one thing that we share is that we all need to reach a certain level of whatever we are doing. We can’t just start something, and then POOF we are successful.

[Johnny] “Personally, I define success as being an alpha male. Being someone who is loved, respected, and admired for who he is. To some degree, I have achieved this. I will tell you however; it wasn’t easy. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears, to get where I am and I am far from finished.”

[Kyle] “I’ve actually changed what I think success means in the past few years. When I first moved out here WAAAYYYY back in 98, I was right out of college, and I moved down here WITHOUT a job. My buddy had a job, and he somehow convinced me to move down here from Washington and live on his floor!!! Back then, I wanted to be successful and have a good job, a place to live, some money in savings and…. DUN DUN DUN…. maybe even a girlfriend.

Now, I’m a few years older, and I see success as really being excited about my life and always being in a position to evolve an improve myself. If I can always maintain that state of mind… while still making a living… I would call that a success. The last thing I want is to become stagnant… I know you’ve all been there… become stagnant and let time fly by.”

What exactly do WE (as a person) want to succeed at?

Everyone is different. We just talked about what we want, the only way you really know is to ask yourself this simple question…

“What do I want?”

Easy! Right?!? … maybe not. Have you ever just sat down for 15 minutes and written down everything you want? It’s probably harder than you think. We aren’t going to do this now, but after we are done, we’re going to give you a little homework assignment.

Seriously, what do you want? Now is the time to be selfish. A lot of things we think represent our success aren’t from our own definition of success. Society has a huge impact on what we deem ‘successful”. Go to college, get a job, make money, get married, buy a house, have children, retire, play with the grandchildren. I’m not saying this is bad or good. I’m just saying, now-a-days, there are people who follow this path only BECAUSE they think they are supposed to, and they think that if they do this they somehow will become successful, and more importantly, they think they will become HAPPY.

REALLY? Let me ask you this. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high?

I think it has to do with people not truly following their dreams. They are letting society push on them, what it means to be successful.

We want to be successful socially. We want a large group of trusted, caring friends… well maybe not large for some people, but a solid core group of friends. We want to build long lasting relationships with people. Remember, we as humans are pack animals. We don’t survive well in a vacuum.

This is what we are trying to achieve. This is what being successful socially means. Maybe even throw in there finding the “one”… your soul mate.

After having worked on ourselves for many years now and also having worked with many people towards achieving their goals, we believe that we’ve identified the two factors that hold people back and prevent them from succeeding.

We have identified these two factors as the following:

Drum roll please…

EGO

and

LAZINESS

Now I know this is very vague, and doesn’t really give you any thing practical to work with, but please bear with me, we will get to that. Let’s first define what Ego and Laziness are:

Both ego and laziness are near the root of our problems when it comes to motivation and taking positive action toward our goals.

To really get successful, we constantly need to be pushing ourselves.

Laziness is the opposing force to pushing ourselves… the opposing force to Drive. Drive is what motivates us to move towards our goals with positive action. Drive is what keeps us going when we feel like quitting.

Laziness is what causes us to slow down. It makes us feel a false sense of accomplishment like… I’ve gone far enough, I don’t need to go any farther.

Ego is what makes us see ourselves in a more positive light than we actually are.

Ever hear yourself saying the following things??

“I don’t need that, I already know that”
“Oh, that’s not for me. That wouldn’t work for me”
“Oh, I know I could do it if I wanted to do it”
“Why would I need that?”

Really? We humans have become very adept at lying to ourselves about what we can actually do or WHO we actually are. I mean it’s good to think highly of yourself, but there is a point where it’s obvious we are just saying it to make ourselves feel better.

In order to really deal with your ego, you have to embrace yourself for who you really are… embrace your strengths and more importantly, seek to improve upon YOUR WEAKNESSES. To honestly be able to say, I suck at this, and I want to be better at this… That is the first step.

You may be asking yourself…

How does this apply to me?

Well, it applies to you because, I know for fact that every person on this call has made up an excuse at one time or another for not doing something… or to NOT do something.

We all have goals, or things we want. Whether it’s to eat better, work out more, get up earlier, read more books, talk to more girls, or talk to more guys!

And… I want to meet more people and make some new friends.

In this area, ego and laziness can be killers.

Let’s face it, in order to meet more people we have to… be AROUND more people! What does that mean? It means we need to be doing more things where we have the chance to interact with people like ourselves.

Not everyone wants to go to bars and get drunk to meet people. There are plenty of other options. Museums, concerts, wine tastings, sporting events, sporting leagues. The list goes on and on.

If you want to be more socially successful, you have to be able to kick yourself in the ass when you get that “I’m just going to stay home today or tonight” attitude. Just like working out more. You have to actually get out of the house and to the gym. Yup! Big surprise! You actually have to get out of the house to meet new people! Whoa. This is where laziness will hurt you. That little voice that says, I’m tired, or I need to do something else. I’ll go out tomorrow. I’ll get the next wine tasting. Stop it now and take action.

Also, that little voice in your head may be saying, “I know you want to be social, but that just isn’t me. I’m not that kind of person.” Bullshit. What did you know before you went to college? High school? You learned shit because you knew you had to go to school. It wasn’t even an option right? You learned how to drive! Who was born with the ability to drive? No one. The same principles apply towards meeting people. When you say to yourself, ‘I’m not that kind of person”. That is your EGO talking to you and encouraging your fear of change. Change isn’t bad, it’s evolution. You are evolving into a person you want to be.

So when you hear that little voice in your head say, ‘I’m not that kind of person”. Ignore it. You want to be better socially, you have to put yourself in a social environment and push your comfort level. Just like when you got in that car the first time. You wanted that drivers license.

With that, we’ve come up with a few practical tips to help you harness your ego and break through laziness. Some of these are general, and some of these you can implement right away in your daily routine. Apply these towards things you’ve been wanting to do and achieve.

Our top 5 tips to fight ego and laziness…

1) Make a schedule, and stick to it!

The easiest way to get things done is to plan it out before hand. That way, you won’t forget when the time comes. The one thing you have to do is accept your schedule as the FINAL word. You cannot deviate from it. A daily calendar is a must have for this. It can be a paper calendar or it can be an electronic calendar. People are busy and we need to let the world know that we mean business. There’s no better way to scare people off than to be flakey. A calendar will help you remain on task. Even if you only have one or two things on the calendar, sticking to the schedule will make you so much more productive than the next guy. A side note for the folks in LA: LA people are notoriously flakey. It’s almost like an accepted practice here. If you want to get ahead in life and achieve your goals, you cannot be flakey and more importantly, you can tolerate flakiness. As hard as it may be to be so steadfast in Los Angeles, the buck gas to stop with you. PERIOD.

2) Make weekly goals, daily, if you cannot think that far ahead.

By making goals, it’s easier for you to put actions in the schedule. Also, I don’t agree with the yearly resolution bullshit. It’s much easier to start small. One week at a time. Get that handled. Then, when you are successful with your weekly goals, you feel better about yourself, and are MORE motivated to continue on to the next week. Make your life a series of small successes, which lead towards bigger successes. Meeting your daily goals is a victory unto itself. After, you’ve developed a pattern of success, stretch your daily goals a bit to make your day more challenging. You’ll be amazed what you can achieve when you set your mind to it.

3) Be accountable for your actions. Go public with your goals.

By being accountable to other people, we feel a sense of responsibility to get things done. We don’t want to let them down. If you are the type of person that is negatively motivated (meaning you are more motivated by the fear of loss vs. the prospect of gaining, then give a friend of yours $100 or $500 and tell them not to give it back to you if you don’t accomplish what you set out to accomplish by a given time. This works especially well for goals surrounding social activity. An example would be that you give a friend $100 and he gets to keep it if you don’t exercise at least 3x this week for a minimum of 30 minutes each session. The prospect of losing the $100 will surely keep you on track.

4) If you hear your inner monologue say, “I’ll do it next time”, IGNORE IT. Then… do it NOW!

What are the real reasons you say that? “I’ll do it next time.” ??? Is it because you don’t want to look stupid in front of your friends? Is it because you don’t want to fail? Both of those reasons are your EGO trying to rear it’s ugly head. You don’t want to risk people thinking badly of you.

But honestly ask yourself this…

If they knew I was going outside my comfort zone to pursue what makes me happy, would they pass judgement on me? or would they stand up and support me with what I was striving towards?

I would say they would probably support you, and if they didn’t, they don’t deserve to be your friends!

5) Don’t say “That’s not who I am”

This may be an uncomfortable topic, but even I find myself saying sometimes… “That’s not who I am.. I can’t do that”. Why do I say that? Because at some level deep inside, I FEAR CHANGE. We all fear change. We fear the unknown.

Go back to your goals. What do you want? If the change you are considering aligns with your goals, then FEARING CHANGE is just your EGO trying to prevent you from moving past your comfort zone. Fear is alright, but we also want ACTION to accompany fear. There is a great book called “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways”, by Susan Jeffers. I suggest you get it and read it and reread it until the concepts sink in.

Those are some great things to think about. Now, on to the….

HOMEWORK!

Just like the teleseminar, we’re giving you a homework assignment.

I want you to spend 10 minutes and answer each of these questions truthfully and honestly. You don’t’ have to send any answers to us, you don’t have to save it. You can even tear up the sheet when you are done. The purpose of this is to just see what you want, and how are laziness and ego affecting you taking action.

Really quick the questions are…

1. What do I want?

When you write down your “want” list, do not filter or edit your thoughts. Just put whatever you think of in your head down on that piece of paper. Just flow…

2. What is preventing me from taking action? Time wise? Money wise?

We all have our reasons for not doing something. Some of them are completely valid. Write them all down. Then look at them from a fresh perspective and see which ones are valid… and which ones are lame.

3. What are things you get defensive about? Think hard on this one.

Ego could be the cause of your defensiveness. This goes along with not saying… “That’s just how I am.” Why are you being defensive? Maybe someone could just be trying to help you. Our EGOs are what makes us see ourselves in a different light. Sometimes the picture we paint of ourselves, is completely different than reality. Deep huh?

If you would like to discuss this topic, please post your comments. We’d love to hear anything you have to say.

Thanks you for your time again.

Late.

-Kyle and Johnny