How Successful People Think // When you think about your business, career, or personal life recently, where are you winning or losing lately? Well, whether you think of the pursuit of success as a game or not, success always leaves clues. In this video, peak performance expert and coach Eric Partaker, outlines the traits of successful people and how their mindset can play a crucial role in their pursuit of greatness.
KEY POINTS
A Goal Without A Plan Is Just A Wish – Create goals which pull you into action, that allow you to dream big. Then take those goals and break them down into attainable chunks. So that you know precisely what you should be doing to keep yourself on the path to success.
Are You Getting Enough Sleep? – Create a shutdown ritual. Before you go to bed, ensure you have made a plan for the next day. Decide on three tasks you want to prioritize to get done. Then one hour before bed, shut off all electronics to maximise the melatonin which will allow you to get 8 hours of sleep.
Optimize Your Mornings! – Start your day with some exercise to build your energy levels ready for the day ahead. Don’t sit on social media or read all your emails. Get up and get active!
Could Your Work Day Be More Efficient? – Divide your day into Maker vs. Manager time. Manager time perhaps in the afternoon where you attend meetings, and maker time is protected time when you work on your top three tasks which you decided on the night before.
Leap And The Net Will Appear – Gather the people, the resources and knowledge you need and believe in yourself. Take the dive. There will never be a perfect time to start your journey, figure it out along the way.
Hold Yourself Responsible – Think constantly about accountability. Accountability for yourself, and for the people you’re working with. Every time you make a promise, ensure you deliver on that commitment.
Embrace Failure – Anticipate it. When you fail, you don’t lose, you learn. The combination of winning and learning will enable you to succeed bigger, better and quicker in the future.
Perfection Is Impossible – Instead focus on progress. It is through taking action and progress that you become closer to the ideal you’re seeking. Ask yourself “What should I be doing right now that I am not? What action will get me one step closer to achieving my goals?”
TRANSCRIPT
Today, I’m going to share with you a handful of things shared by successful people so that you can outperform the competition, outperform who you were yesterday, and achieved the level of success that you’re seeking in your working life.
Hi, my name is Eric Partaker, and I’ve been recognized as the CEO of the Year. And I’m also the author of two best-selling books, including, The Three Alarms. So one of the first things that successful people do is that they create magnetic goals. Goals that magnetizes you. Goals that pull you into action. They set goals that allow them to dare and to dream big again. And they take those goals and they break them down.
They break them down from a 10-year vision, down to a five-year, down to one year, down to a single calendar quarter of three months, and then within the quarter, down to a monthly achievement level, and then down to a weekly, and even down to a daily. All the way down to the very moment that they’re sat in, that they’re standing in. So that they know precisely what they should be doing or not doing, that keeps them in alignment of achieving their goal.
Recognize that at the same time, that the path won’t be linear, that there’ll be ups and there will be downs. But knowing where they’re going, having that goal that inspires them, having that goal that gets them to dream big again, keeps magnetizing them into action and keeps them on the path so that eventually their success becomes inevitable.
Number two, successful people think about their days in terms of structures and routines. How can they bring structure and more routine to their days? And I’ll give you three quick examples. And one of the most powerful things you can do is start with an evening routine. So break down your evening into three simple things. SD8, S-D-8, a shutdown ritual. A static time at the end of your day when you’re going to choose what are the top three things that you’re going to work on the next day. Program them into your calendar and then stop your work for the day.
The D stands for digital sunset. One hour before your bedtime, such that you can get eight hours of sleep, shut off all of the electronics so that you maximize the melatonin in your brain so that you can induce as deep and restorative sleep as possible. And then the eight stands for simply getting those eight hours of sleep so that you could start your day productively as possible, feeling refreshed, full of energy, and ready to weather the ups and downs of any given day.
The morning routine, next routine to install. Highly recommend that you start your day creative before reactive. Don’t start in your inbox. Don’t start on social media and also start with some exercise to get your energy up to the level that it needs to be. And last but not least, you need a solid workday routine. And one of the simplest things that I do is I take my day and I divided it up into maker time versus manager time. Manager time being that time in the afternoon when I’m going to be meeting with other people internally or externally, and maker time is my protected time in the morning when I’m working on one of those top three tasks that I decided the night before, in my evening routine as part of that shutdown ritual.
And by having these three routines installed in my day, my evening routine, my morning routine, and my workday routine. I’m programming my day for success. I’m putting structure in my day so that I can achieve the things that I look to achieve.
Number three, successful people have incredible self-belief. They know that they will figure it out along the way if they have to if they need to. One of the most beautiful quotes I’ve ever come across is a quote from John Burroughs that says, “Leap and the net will appear.” There’s been so many times professionally and personally when I’ve been out of the edge and not sure whether I should do something when I’ve been holding myself back, because I don’t feel ready yet, or I don’t feel like I know enough. And every single time that I’ve leaped every single time that I just take that plunge, I’ve realized that it’s not as scary as I thought it was going to be.
And that once I’ve done that, I figure it out along the way. I gathered the people I need, the resources I need, the knowledge that I need, and I apply it to ensure that I build and create that net which softens my landing. But that’s only possible by having the self-belief that, if you go ahead and take that dive, and if you try, you will figure out along the way.
Next up, accountability. Successful people think constantly about accountability. Accountability for themselves, accountability for the people that they’re working in. You need to hold yourself to account. Every time that you say you’re going to do something and don’t deliver on that, you’ve made a withdrawal from your personal integrity bank account. And soon enough, that balance will be so low that you have no personal integrity to the point where you can’t even believe what you’re saying anymore.
You can’t even trust that the words that come out of your mouth will actually be actioned in the way that you’re saying to others. You can’t even trust that you’ll do the things that you say that you’re going to do, and you don’t want to reach that point. And if you are at that point already, well, you need to rebuild your balance. And how do you do that? You do that through accountability. You do that by taking small steps. You do that by at the start of the day saying, “No matter what. Today, I will do X, Y, and Z.” And make it so small that it’s impossible for you to fail. Make small deposits back into that personal integrity bank account. One penny here, two pennies there, eventually getting it up to a dollar again. And then soon the dollar becomes five, 10, a hundred, a thousand.
You get the point, but you rebuild that balance. And as the balance grows, so does your confidence, so does your strength, so does your personal integrity once again, but it all revolves around accountability and it starts with being able to hold yourself accountable.
Next up, embracing failure. Successful people, don’t just think that failure might come. They expect it to come. They anticipate it and they run towards it. They embrace it. Now, look, I’m not saying that you should deliberately try to fail, but what I am saying is that you should expect to both succeed and to fail. And that that’s part of the game because when you succeed, you win. And when you fail, you learn. You don’t lose. You learn. And it’s that combination of winning and learning so that you can win bigger, better, more quickly in the future. And constantly going through that cycle, that’s what breeds success. And that’s how successful people think.
When I make mistakes, when I screw up and I’ve had some huge screw-ups and I have small screw-ups, every single day, every time that happens, I just asked myself, “What can I learn?” As a matter of fact, when I get to the end of my day, I just have a simple calendar up on the wall. And I put either a W or an L in the day, in the calendar box. And the W is for a win. And I give myself that W if I did my best in the context of the day, and I give myself an L for learn, not for lose, if I don’t feel like I did my best in the context of that day, if I thought that I could have shown up a little bit better, somehow in some way, place, shape, or form. And my game is simple, never two L’s in a row and never more than six L’s in a month. So that 80% of the time, I feel like I’m winning.
And last but not least, and this relates to the previous point. Successful people focus on progress, not perfection. Perfection is impossible. It’s the act of doing, it’s the act of trying that you perfect things, that you improve things, and you make them better. But we have to continually focus on progress. And what is a good way, or how do you focus in the right place when it comes to progress? Well, ask yourself, what are the things that you should be doing but that you’re not, or what are the things that you are slightly afraid to do or scared to do that you’ve been putting off that you could be doing more quickly?
And then don’t just rely on yourself. Ask yourself, “How can I bring some accountability into this? How can I bring in some extra help or support to help me achieve this? Is there something that I can learn or do?” But don’t take too long, because as said earlier, “You need to leap and the net will appear.” And I’d love to hear from you. So don’t forget to leave a comment and a rating as well. And if you’d like to get a copy of my new book, The Three Alarms, please head over to my website ericpartaker.com. That’s E-R-I-C, ericpartaker.com, where you could pick up a free digital copy of my new best-selling book, The Three Alarms.
