Are you an entrepreneur, a leader, a wealth builder… how about married?
This is your gut check.
Note: This principle from today’s passage is from Darren Hardy’s “The Compound Effect.” It is essential for anyone embarking on the road of entrepreneurship. If you are uncertain about your purpose, do not have a clear vision of what you expect to achieve, uncertain of your reasons for attaining your goals or uncertain in your own ‘faith’ that you are the one who must step up to do the work, then you will have difficulty achieving what Darren points out.
The life of an entrepreneur is unlike any other, fate is in your hands like nothing else. You will not have a boss telling you what to do, a time card to punch, or always rely on an existing team when things get tough. As motivational trainer Eric Thomas points out, “In order to get what you want you have to be ready to give up what you have.” You’ll constantly be stretched out of your comfort zone, but you would be willing to do so because – it is in you. As Gary Vaynerchuk would say, “It’s in your DNA.”
Daily motivational training is an asset to remain in peak state, but without internalizing this prerequisite attribute, what you venture to create will stand on no reasonable foundation.
Let’s get on to Darren Hardy’s passage from “The Compound Effect”…
British Naval History Museum- Portsmouth, England. Engaging in Battle, requires 100 percent commitment (19889):Photo by Challen Yee
Owning 100 Percent
We are all self-made men and women, but only the successful take credit for it. I was eighteen when I was introduced to the idea of personal responsibility at a seminar, and the concept completely transformed my life. If you threw out the rest of this book and only practiced this one concept, within two to three years the changes in your life would be so great, your friends and family would have difficulty remembering the “old you.”
In that seminar I attended at eighteen, the speaker asked, “What percentage of shared responsibility do you have in making a relationship work?” I was a teenager, so wise in the
ways of true love. Of course I had all the answers.
“Fifty/fifty!” I blurted out. It was so obvious; both people must be willing to share the responsibility evenly or someone’s getting ripped off.
“Fifty-one/forty-nine,” yelled someone else, you’d have to be willing to do more than the other person. Aren’t relationships built on self-sacrifice and generosity?
“Eighty/twenty” yelled another.
The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters. “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always he vulnerable to disaster.”
Whoa. This wasn’t what I was expecting! But I quickly understood how this concept could transform every area of my life. If I always took 100 percent responsibility for everything I experienced — completely owning all of my choices and all the ways I responded to whatever happened to me — I held the power. Everything was up to me. I was responsible for everything I did, didn’t do, or how I responded to what was done to me.
I know you think you take responsibility for your life. I’ve yet to ask anybody who doesn’t say, “Of course, take responsibility for my life.” But then you look at how most people operate in the world; there’s a lot of finger pointing victimhood, blaming, and expecting someone else or government to solve their problems. If you’ve ever blamed traffic for being late, or decided you are in a bad mood because of something your kid, spouse, or co-worker did, you are not taking 100 percent personal responsibly. You arrived late because the printer was busy? Maybe you shouldn’t have waited until the last minute? Co-worker messed up the presentation? Shouldn’t you have double-checked it yourself before delivering it? Not getting along with your unreasonable teen? There are a countless fantastic books and classes to help you learn how to deal.
You alone are responsible for what you do, don’t do, or how you respond to what’s done to you. This empowering mindset revolutionized my life. Luck, circumstances, or the right
situation wasn’t what mattered. If it was to be, it was up to me. I was free to fly. No matter who was elected president, how badly the economy tanked, or what anybody said, did, or didn’t do, I was still 100 percent in control of me. Through choosing to be officially liberated from past, present, and future victimhood, I’d hit the jackpot. I had the unlimited power to control my destiny.
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I’ll see you… on the next page
Challen Yee