Anybody that tells you success is easy is lying to you… And anybody that tells you success is complicated has something to sell you…
Success isn’t easy. It’s hard.
But it’s not complicated. It’s simple.
An analogy…
Imagine that we rewound the clock by 200 years. It’s the year 1818. And you’re an eager-eyed pioneer, looking to head to the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
You’ve made it to St. Louis, the gateway to the West. And Oregon is a 2,170-mile trail away, through a largely “wild” unknown.
(And yeah, this is a very European perspective on what was going on there, but let’s go with it.)
Getting to Oregon, at this point, was a fairly simple proposition.
Stay on the trail.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Keep going until you get there.
Simple, but hard. Because many dangers awaited…
Wikipedia lists these as the most common causes of death: disease, attack by Native Americans, freezing, run-overs, drownings, shootings, scurvy, death by childbirth, falling trees, flash floods, homicides, kicks by animals, lighting strikes, snake bites, and stampedes.
In fact, it was so hard that 1 in 25 people would die before they got to Oregon.
Simple, but hard.
Stay on the trail, keep going. That’s simple.
1-in-25 odds of survival probably minimizes just how hard that journey was.
My guess is that for the average person who took that journey, it was the hardest thing you’d ever do in your life, all the way up until your death bed.
Not that complicated, but also not easy, by any stretch of the imagination.
Another more modern example…
I was just listening to Mark Bell’s interview on The MFCEO podcast (and yes, it’s as NSFW as it sounds).
Mark and Andy Frisella, the host of the show, are both successful entrepreneurs. But both are also weightlifting nuts.
Mark was a champion power lifter, and now his business is helping other lifters increase their strength.
Mark compared business to lifting and strength building. Andy agreed, and so do I. (Although I’ve never been able to lift as much as either of them, I’m currently probably in the best shape of my life.)
You want to build strength?
It’s simple. But also incredibly hard.
You have to “get under the bar.” Over and over again. Doing the same lifts. Working until it hurts. Giving it your all. Pushing yourself to the brink of failure — and sometimes past.
You have to feel the pain, the agony, and the suffering — over and over again.
You have to feel the hurt.
And then, for your next workout, when your muscles still ache and every fiber of your body is telling you no, you have to get back under the bar.
It’s simple. All you have to do is get under the bar.
But it’s also freaking hard. Because the more you push yourself to success, the more resistance you’ll have to face, and ultimately overcome.
You will experience failure.
You will experience fatigue.
You will experience setbacks.
There will be moments — sometimes lasting days and months — where you wonder if you should give it up.
Your potential is not met by your ability to show up when it’s easy. Your potential is not met because you can knock out that first workout, when your body is well-rested.
Your potential is met by your decision to do what you need to do, even when it’s hard.
A revelation from my webinar for The Client-Getting Blueprint today…
(And side note: The course page is kind of in between right now, because it still includes the pre-registration page for the webinar, even though it just happened. The recording should be live within the next couple days, and available for all BTMSinsiders members.)
One of the things I covered was the fact that you’re going to have to get on the phone with your prospective clients, and have a sales conversation with them.
This is NOT easy.
For most folks, there’s as much resistance to doing this as there is to getting under the bar as a power lifter when your body feels flat exhausted, or knocking out an extra rep at your training max when your muscles are screaming that they can’t do it.
But if you want high-ticket clients, you have to be able to get on the phone with them, offer them a solution, and close the deal.
This is getting under the bar, as a power lifter.
This is putting on foot in front of the other, as an explorer heading West on the Oregon Trail.
It’s not hard. You pick up the phone, and call them. Or you get on the scheduled Zoom meeting, if you’re following my process.
Then, you have the conversation you need to have. You follow the steps.
If this is something that makes you uncomfortable, know you’re in good company. There’s very few people who wake up in the morning looking forward to their first sales call. And most people who are that way didn’t start that way — they started the same as you, and trained themselves through experience to embrace the difficulty.
Just like an explorer heading West on the Oregon Trail.
Just like that power lifter.
Those who do the hard work are the ones who make it to their destination…
For most folks who wanted to take the Oregon Trail, it took four to six months of putting one foot in front of the other to make it to the Pacific. (And that was just the journey itself — most had been developing the survival skills for life.)
Mark Bell says he can make you into a world-class power lifter if you’re willing to devote the next 10 years of your life to getting under the bar and facing that resistance.
And if you’re an entrepreneur or you want to build a successful career at anything, some estimates are that you have to dedicate at least 10,000 hours of focused effort and improvement.
There will be victories along the way. There will be reasons to celebrate.
And, if you’re ambitious, there will be many, many days where you look at the horizon, and are frustrated with how far away it still seems, and how slowly you’re getting there.
Remember it will be hard. But it’s also simple.
Here’s the simplest thing you can do TODAY to achieve success, by whatever measure…
I borrowed my current approach to this from Andy on MFCEO. Although I’ve been doing a variation of this for much longer.
You know where you’re going. You know what you’re looking for.
If we’re talking health, it could be a strength, fitness, or weight loss goal.
In relationships, maybe it’s a specific outcome or general way of being.
In business or your career, maybe it’s a financial metric or measure of impact that defines success for you.
Whatever that big destination is, that’s your Oregon. That’s your championship power lifting trophy.
Just imagining getting to Oregon didn’t get anybody to the end of the Oregon trail. Just imagining standing on the platform and holding that trophy never led to anyone lifting the hundreds upon hundreds of pounds it takes.
Yes, having a clear picture in your mind of where you want to go is critical, but you also have to get under the bar. You also have to take the next step, and the next.
Know where you want to go. But today, you have to take a step.
So, grab a piece of paper.
Or, do what I did, and grab a 12-pack of these mini-composition notebooks from Amazon, because this is a serious habit you’re going to cultivate. (You could also get this really cool leather cover — which I’m totally eying right now!)
Or grab the Moleskine equivalent.
And write down today’s date at the top of the page, and make a list, from one to five.
Then, write down five tiny steps you can take today that will move you closer to whatever destination or success you’re aiming for.
Don’t make them too big. (A mistake I’ve made in the past.)
You want to win this list every day. You don’t want to lose.
You want it to be a list of five things you will accomplish without fail. Five steps you will take. Five tiny action items in pursuit of your biggest goals.
Do those, and you “win the day” — great language from the MFCEO, Andy.
Win all the days for the week, and you win the week. Win the weeks for the month, and you win the month. Win all the months of the year, and you win the year. And pile winning year on top of winning year, taking step after step closer to your goals, and you will achieve absolutely freaking amazing things.
But it’s not about that destination. It’s not about where you’re going to be in the future.
It’s about where you are right now. And what single little step you can take right now that will move you toward that vision for the future.
So: what are you going to do to win the day?
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
PS: Here’s the link again to The Client-Getting Blueprint. If you register today, at that link, you’ll get an email (probably tomorrow) when the recording of today’s webinar is available. It’s press time so I don’t have time to dig them out of Zoom right now, but I will tell you it was met with rave reviews.
