Posts tagged 'What Extraordinary People Know'

There are a lot of things you can do this coming year. This could be the year in your life where everything changed, because you finally got clarity and put in the work. However, there are certain things you must let go of to start having a better future. Once you give up these 5 things, everything in your life could change.

1. Other People’s Definition of Success

In the words of Srinivas Rao, host of The Unmistakable Creative podcast:

“At some point, I realized that I had to give up other people’s definition of success. This is one of the most difficult things to give up because it is so deeply embedded in our cultural narratives that it becomes the standard by which we measure our lives. Even as entrepreneurs we have collectively agreed that fame and fortune are the markers of success.

But, giving up other people’s definition of success is incredibly liberating and ultimately leads to the fullest expression of who you are and what matters to you. It’s not a one-time thing. It’s a daily habit of comparing less and creating more.”

“Success” doesn’t just mean what the larger mob of society says it means: lots of money, fame, and fortune. Many people with fame, fortune, and money have terribly empty, imbalanced lives.

Your success isn’t defined by what other people say.

No one can define your success but you. If you continue to let others tell you what success is, you’ll never reach it. Even if you did, it wouldn’t be a true success, because it’s not what you really valued.

No, living an extraordinary life means defining your own version of what success is. You can begin to spend your time on what really matters to you.

• Do you really want 1,000,000 Twitter followers?
• Do you really need to be in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list?
• Do you really want to be a New York Times best-selling author?

Or is your version of success more nuanced, more narrowed, more focused, more specific?

If you want to live an extraordinary life, your definition of success must be your own. If we are always chasing what other people tell us to, we’ll never experience true success.

Let go of other people’s versions of success. Define your own success, and achieve it.

That is true success.

2. Looking Good

Here’s an old parable:

“Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. People traveled from far away to seek his help. In return, he would teach them and show them the way to enlightenment.

On this particular day, a scholar came to visit the master for advice. “I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen,” the scholar said.

Soon, it became obvious that the scholar was full of his own opinions and knowledge. He interrupted the master repeatedly with his own stories and failed to listen to what the master had to say. The master calmly suggested that they should have tea.

So the master poured his guest a cup. The cup was filled, yet he kept pouring until the cup overflowed onto the table, onto the floor, and finally onto the scholar’s robes. The scholar cried “Stop! The cup is full already. Can’t you see?”

“Exactly,” the Zen master replied with a smile. “You are like this cup — so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup.”

Most people believe they already have it all figured out, yet wonder why opportunities, luck, and success continues to elude them.

Choose to become a student first, and success will find you.

If you want to look good — if you want everyone to think you have all the answers — then you’re fooling all of them and yourself.

True success comes from knowledge, humility, and becoming a student of your craft. You can’t have that if you insist on looking like you have all the answers.

3. Busyness

“The most successful people I know are not busy. They’re focused.” -Jeff Goins, best-selling author

How you spend your days is how you spend your life.

A lot of people love being “busy.” They wear it as a badge of honor. When you ask them how they’ve been, what’s the response? “I’m so busy,” they lament. But it’s a subtle brag. They like the feeling.

But when you’re busy, you don’t really do anything — just because your calendar is full of meetings, appointments, and commutes doesn’t mean you’re actually making any progress towards your true goals.

Are you focused, making tangible action steps towards what truly matters?

…Or are you just “busy?”

When you’re busy, you are on autopilot. You can’t see the hours slipping away, time you’ll never get back.

But when you choose to be focused — to spend your time and energy on achieving your true goals — that’s where the magic happens. That’s where focus turns into flow states, hyper-focused mental efforts to make fast progress.

Most people prefer the emotional boost of bragging about how “busy” they are, instead of actually doing the real hard work. Choose focus, not busyness.

4. Entertainment and Distraction

“Successful people don’t see it as ‘free time.’ They see it as the only time they have to do the things they really want to do in life and they don’t take a minute for granted.” -Nicolas Cole

Reinvesting your free time is one of the most important ingredients to your success.

If you’re working a full-time job, with a commute and family and bills, you don’t have a lot of free time. If you’re like most people, the precious little free time you do have is spent on entertainment and distraction, not learning and growing.

This is low-level thinking, and it will lead you to a, frankly, low-level life.

But true success requires sacrifice. A common misconception many of those sleep-when-you’re-dead hustle-entrepreneurs claim is that you need be working all the time.

The truth is, you need to work your butt off — for a time. After you’ve spent the time creating your life, you can sit back and enjoy the work you’ve done.

I like aimless free time, and it’s important no matter who you are or where you’re at.

But if you want to make great strides and achieve a truly extraordinary life, you need to reinvest your free time into learning new skills, putting in the work, and being productive.

It won’t last forever. But you need to put in the time now, so later, you can have the life you want.

5. “Kinda-Good” Opportunities

You can do amazing things with your life — but only if you have the time to do them.

When my wife and I moved to South Korea for a year to teach English, my #1 goal was to become a full-time writer by the end of the 12 months.

During that year, I was offered several high-paying, interesting jobs:

• Youth basketball coach
• Career coach
• Private tutor
• Remote data analyst
• Musician for a church worship group

But in the end, none of these kinda-cool opportunities would help me achieve my #1 goal. On the contrary, they’d take up what little free time I had.

I said no to all of them. By the end of 12 months, I was making a full-time income as a writer. I had a signed book deal, tens of thousands of new followers, and I was getting hundreds of thousands of views each month.

There’s great power in saying no to kinda-good opportunities. There’s also great consequences if you spend all your time on the merely “good” opportunities — it means you won’t have time for the truly great ones when they come.

In Conclusion

Good things come from sacrifice.

If you want what you’ve never had, you must do what you’ve never done. It’s to start sacrificing the right things so you can have a better future.

Don’t let anyone define success but you. Stop being “busy,” and start being focused. Don’t worry about looking good, concentrate on learning all you can from everywhere you can. Spend your time wisely, because many things want your attention and energy. Make sure they’re the right things.

-Anthony Moore, author of What Extraordinary People Know

For more on living your best life, check out What Extraordinary People Know>>

Years ago, I was working as a telemarketer. There were about 100 of us, all making 250+ calls a day to angry people, trying to get the sale.

But after 14 months of telemarketing, my 99 other coworkers were still stuck at their job. On the other hand, I was offered a high salary, a huge promotion, and an enormous network of top-tier company executives.

When I told people how I did it, they didn’t believe me. They thought I was making it up.

“No,” I insisted. “I’m telling you — I just bought coffee and lunch for anyone willing to sit down and chat with me about their job. And it worked.”

If you want to get a raise, promotion, or build your network — especially in your company — the secret is simple: informational interviews. Because once you start to build relationships with the higher-ups (something any employee can do, using this method), you can expect to move up quickly in the company while the rest of your coworkers look on with confusion, jealousy, and awe.

In the meantime — because frankly, just because you start meeting people doesn’t magically create job openings, these things take time — start asking people what skills you should be learning. Then, start practicing those things.

For me, I learned the Career Services department wanted leadership and project management skills. It was really hard to be motivated in my telemarketing job, and there were lots of committees, projects, and leadership roles I could’ve been doing. So, that’s where I started. I became a team lead. I helped with the Title IX committee. I offered to volunteer to help with the sexual harassment training program. Anything to learn the skills my new job would want.

As for raises and promotions, those come with the territory for new jobs. Still, I’ve had several high-stakes salary negotiations (the conversations that determine how much money you get), and the most helpful strategy I learned was simple: know your stuff, and know the people. If you can present who you are, the skills you learned for that exact role, and how that will benefit the company, the rest of the conversation swings heavily in your favor. Compare that with the random employee with the short resume who has no idea what the company wants.

In short: focus on learning and creating. It’s easy to take the minimum-amount-of-work road at your job — frankly, most people do. But spend your free time becoming the person your next job wants you to be. As Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert once wrote, “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.”

Take it From a Hardcore Introvert - Meeting People Can Actually Be Fun

I’m a soft-spoken introvert. I don’t excel at talking to new people. (Why do you think I’m writing this??) But I managed to build tight relationships with some of the most senior-level executives at my company, many of whom were 10-20 years older than me, which I used to get a huge raise, promotion, and great network I still use to this day.

Take the first step — send an email to the person in your company you want to meet. Start with the people/department you want to work with. They’re going to be the key to finding the shortcut past all the job postings, hiring managers, and timetables.

I used to work at an online university. I wanted to switch from telemarketing to Career Services. So I began systematically reaching out to every single employee in that department. I took over a dozen of them out to coffee and lunch. By the 8th or 9th person, I began hearing the same thing: “I’ve heard about you. It’s Anthony, right? You took Sharon out to lunch!” They were talking about me. And guess who’s name came up when the new job opened?

The truth is, this is fun. It’s not about all work-related stuff — my coworkers-to-be and I talked about sports, current events, hobbies, anything fun. People are going to pick the nice guy who bought them lunch instead of the other just-as-qualified guy 9 times out of 10. Build relationships, and have fun doing it.

-Anthony Moore, author of What Extraordinary People Know

For more on living your best life, check out What Extraordinary People Know>>