HL January 1,13

This transcription discusses seven great quotes about life from legendary football coaches. The main ideas are: 1. Preparation is more important than heart in achieving success. 2. Don't expect sympathy from others, focus on producing results. 3. Being prepared reduces anxiety and increases chances of success. 4. The importance of honor and integrity in leadership. 5. Find pleasure in your work by becoming really good at it. 6. Geniuses are not born, they work harder than others. 7. Find something you love and are willing to struggle to improve at for years. Hey, good day everybody. Listen, I want to talk to you about seven great quotes about life from legendary football coaches. There's a lot of incredible leadership stuff in this article here that I'm about to read to you and comment on, but it's been posted by a gentleman by the name of John Hawkins on PJmedia.com. That's where I got it from, but it's a while ago that I read this, but it's really great stuff and it's just so appropriate for our business. Number one, one of the most harmful myths spread by movies is that it's the person who wants it more who finds a way to win when the chips are down. That's actually very misleading. Heart might give you an edge versus an equally matched opponent, but preparation, let me repeat that, but preparation mows down heart 99 times out of 100. Let me repeat that because this is the theme of my business life. Preparation mows down heart 99 times out of 100, and this is the reason that I am such a broken record on training and preparing people and not motivating people. This heart motivation BS doesn't cut it when a person is more prepared than you. They're going to beat you like a redheaded stepchild every time. It's not who wants it more in the moment. It's wanting it bad enough to put in work day after day, week after week, year after year until you make yourself into a formidable opponent. Don't bet on heart. Bet on the one who's out there busting their behind to get better when there's no cheering crowd to spur them on or her on. That little thing that I just read, that section is like it. It's preparation, folks. You must prepare yourself because if you don't prepare yourself, you can't prepare anyone else. If you're not a great recruiter, a great at sales, great at training, great at the products, great at recruiting, great at training people, then you need to get great because anybody who does the work to do that is going to beat you again like crazy. Number two, the poor guy wants to be rich. The married guy with the unhappy relationship wants to be single. The lonely single guy wants to be married. The fat guy wants to be thin. The sick guy wants to be well. The skinny as a rail guy wants muscles. The bald guy wants hair. The mid-level manager who's going nowhere wishes he owned his own business. The entrepreneur with the failing business wishes he had a corporate job. Long story short, you're not the only special little flower out there with a problem. Moreover, people tend to care a lot more about their problems than your problems. If you're looking for sympathy, understanding, or special treatment by telling people how bad you got it, you're probably going to be disappointed by the reaction you receive because nobody cares. They only care that you produce results. You little pansies out there who don't like that, it's too damn bad because in the real world the only thing that gets paid is results. You better start preparing to get results which means recruiting and sales. Number three, you get anxious when you're unprepared. Like when you don't study for an exam when you're a kid, remember that? You get anxious when you're unprepared. Don't know what you're doing or don't have enough time to get the job done or flying by the seat of your pants which is the majority of people in this business unfortunately because the leadership doesn't train them. On the other hand, even difficult and complicated tasks don't make you nervous. If you have experience, plan ahead. Set aside the needed amount of time and do your homework. Put it another way, pressure is a message screamed from the recesses of your brain to your conscious mind. It's telling you you're not ready. Heeding that message early enough can be the difference between success and failure. You need to get in the habit of over-preparing, over-prepare for all your appointments whether recruiting or sales, over-prepare for sharing the information from the FNA, over-prepare for the next training meeting you're doing, over-prepare for everything if you're serious about winning big. Number four, after the horrific Penn State child molestation scandal, many people will object to putting this quote from Paterno on the list. However, that's actually why it needs to be here. He proved the worth of this quote with his own moral failure. He's an icon of Penn State, a man who was the winningest coach in Division I history, revered as one of the greatest football coaches of all time, yet and still because he turned a blind eye to one of his coaches who was a winner. Penn State lost 111 wins, his statue at the university removed, and a man once regarded as a hero for decades died in disgrace. Despite all his success, Paterno could not make up for his lack of honor when it mattered. There's a lesson there for all of us. Number five, a few days ago I learned that a friend of mine works in a comic book store. When I asked why she does that, since I know she doesn't need the money, she told me it relaxes her because she doesn't really have to think very much. That's the same reason I farm out everything from interview transcription to posting columns on my blog, but I don't hire someone to cut my lawn. For some odd reason, I find it to be relaxing work, and no, I won't come over and mow your yard next weekend. The same philosophy should apply to your profession if you can swing it. As the saying goes, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Folks, I have never worked a day in my life. Almost all of us have to work for our daily bread, and since that's the case, you may as well find as many ways as possible to turn that work into a pleasure instead of a chore. Let me tell you one of the ways you can turn Primerica into a pleasure for you, by getting really, really, really good at it, because when you get really, really good at anything, that thing becomes fun. That's how it becomes fun. When things are difficult, they're not fun, right? When you're prepared, and you know what you're doing, and you're really, really, really good at what you do in every area, it becomes like a game, it becomes fun, it's effortless, making money is like falling off a log. It just keeps coming and flowing. That's how it works. That's how any great athlete, you know, I was watching this kid, Johnny, who won the Heisman Trophy, some highlights on YouTube, and that kid is incredible, right? You should see his highlight reel, go to YouTube, Johnny Heisman Trophy, I don't remember what his last name is. But the bottom line is, boy, that guy is having fun, because he's really, really good. You look at somebody who's a great golfer, a great basketball player, they're not working, they're having fun, right? When Kobe Bryant is out there doing his thing, having an amazing game, right? He's having a blast. He's not working, and the reason he's having a blast is because he's really, really good. That's just him. There's any number of people in any number of disciplines, if you will, right? Sometimes they're actors, you think they're working because they're really good, they're having a blast, or people that are singers, or musicians, or you name it, it doesn't matter what the field is. All I know is when you start getting really good at something, it starts getting more and more fun. Those of you who aren't really, really good in Primerica, you're not having fun, I know it. But when you start getting really good, and because you get really good, you start closing more transactions, closing more recruits, you're able to field train those people and get great results, the business all of a sudden becomes fun. But why does it become fun? Because you're really, really good, because you paid the price to get really, really good. I know I keep saying this over and over because I'm just hoping a couple of you will hear what I'm saying and actually do it. Number six, many people believe that geniuses are born, not made. You need to read the talent code by Coyle, the talent code, and you'll find out that geniuses are not born. For the most part, this is simply untrue, even when you're talking about athletes like Tiger Woods or child prodigies like Ludwig van Beethoven. Both Woods and Beethoven, for example, were relentlessly, I'm going to repeat that, were relentlessly trained by fathers who were talented in their areas of expertise from the time they started to walk. Most geniuses are better than everyone else at what they do, okay? They're better than everyone else at what they do because they constantly and persistently outwork and outpractice everyone else in their field. Let me repeat that, okay, because this is something that you must get if you want to become great. Everyone else, they outwork, they consistently and persistently outwork and outpractice everyone else in their field. It's not so much that they have gifts other people don't have, it's that they manage to find a way to utilize their potential to its fullest. The question becomes, what do you love to do so much that you'll happily struggle to improve at it for years at a time regardless of the difficulties you face in the process? Folks, I've said this before. When I made a decision that I wanted to become financially successful, I wanted to get financially independent, I wanted to become wealthy, when I was in college, that's when I made that decision. I was actually in college. I had two of my best friends in college. One of them I played on the tennis team with and the other one I played on the basketball team. I played two sports in college. One of them, the one on the basketball team was a guy named Kenji Sano, who was from Japan. His father owned a bunch of nightclubs and restaurants in Tokyo, very wealthy. He was one of my really, really good friends. The other was a guy named Drager. He was from South Africa. His family, basically in South Africa, they ran the entire meat business from butchering them to tail to everything, a huge business, and they were very wealthy. I was broke. I grew up broke, but these became really good friends because we had a mutual interest in sports, right? I spent a lot of time with these guys and in spring break they would go to Acapulco, Hawaii, skiing in Aspen. They drove Porsches. They had incredible lives, even in college. Their lives were like my kids' lives in college, but they were good people and great guys. The one thing I noticed is they weren't any smarter than me. They were nice people. They were smart guys, but not any smarter than I was. I said, I want to live that way. I mean, I could see how they were living and they were good guys. I decided that I wanted to be successful. When I made that decision, when I got out of college in 1979, I went into the jewelry business and that's when I started my personal development. I started reading everything I could get my hands on. I think I've read 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 books on Perelment since then, and that's a long time ago, 1979. I've read tons of books. I went to every seminar I could go to. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars on personal development over the years. Starting in 1979, I just spent a lot of money on that and a lot of energy and a lot of time on growing me. I started this process in 1979 and I was looking because I knew that if I ever found the right vehicle, I needed to be prepared for that when it happened. That's why I was doing this. My wife, Jen, used to get mad at me all the time because we didn't have a lot of money back then, but I was always buying books. I was always buying audio programs. I was always going to seminars. I was just into, why are you spending all that money? We can't afford that. I don't know, but I just know that there's going to be some opportunity that's going to present itself to me at some point, and I want to be ready when that opportunity presents itself. I know that's weird, but from the books I was reading, I knew that that was critical. I just kept on investing that money, even to the chagrin of my wife, and then in 1984, I found Primerica. I started doing it in January of 1984. That first year, I was trying to learn how to do the business. I made $18,000 part-time that year, and then the next year, I made $35,000. I was full-time, and then the next year, I made $86,000 and went RVP. Actually, at the end of 1985, I went RVP, then I made $86,000, then I made $409,000 the next year. See, from 1979 to 1987, which is eight years, that period of time, I was working like crazy on myself, struggling to improve for years, from 1979 to 1987, eight years. My average income during that time period was probably about $40,000 a year that whole time, but all through that time, even though my income wasn't exploding, I was preparing. I was getting better. Then all of a sudden, eight years later, eight-year overnight success, things took off. I became really good at teaching. My leadership skill improved dramatically. All of a sudden, because I got so much better, I started attracting better and better people because you're attracting people like yourself. For you to attract better people, you've got to get a lot better than you are. If you want better people, then you've got to do the work to get better so that those better people see value in associating with you, doing business with you, or going in business with you. If you don't get better, they're not going to see any value in associating with you. That's why it's so important for you to get better because you start attracting all the right kinds of people into your life. That's what started happening after eight years, after eight short years of being super ultra focused on it every day. What do you love so much that you'll happily struggle to improve at it for years at a time regardless of the difficulties you face in the process? That's an important question for you to ask yourself. I don't know what that is. Most people give up way, way too soon. Every one of you, if you're able to read and write and speak, you can get good enough to have huge success if you're willing to improve at it for years. Most of you won't be. Most of the people you recruit won't be, but you've got to do it yourself so you can get some people. I didn't get everybody to do it, but I got a lot to do it because I was so focused on personal development. I was constantly sharing the information I was learning and giving it to the people that were motivated in my business. I got a lot of people to start working and growing themselves. Those people that grew themselves, that's why my business exploded. It wasn't just me. It was those people that were around me that I was constantly sharing and infusing them with great information and getting them motivated to grow themselves, and they did. Some of them did. That's what caused my business to explode. Those of you who are just at the same place and your business doesn't seem to grow, I'm telling you it's because you're not growing, and you're not motivating, you're not moving, you're not inspiring your people to improve, so therefore nothing really ever gets better. It just kind of languishes there. If your income has been the same for a long time or you're just stuck at a place, I guarantee it. You need to grow. You need to grow your leadership, your sales skills, your training skills, your knowledge base, and you need to get your people excited about doing the same thing. If you don't do that, it's never going to be great for you. Number seven, last but not least, he says, I've actually had this quote on the wall of my office so that every time I sit down to work, it's right there in my peripheral vision. That's because this quote cuts to the essence of what separates champions from also rams. A lot of people want credit for doing something right, but doing something right every once in a while isn't impressive. After all, you're supposed to do things right. In fact, the best of the best don't do the right thing sometimes or three times out of five. They do it all the time, day in and day out, until it's ingrained into their heads and they do it without even thinking about it. That's where you want to get, where you start having great results day in and day out, and then you teach other people how to get those same results. You have a level of clarity in your relating how to do it that allows that person to take what you've taught them and to go get the same kind of results that you get. If you're not having people getting the kind of results you're getting, you're not as good as you need to be at transferring the information that you've learned and the skill sets that you've acquired. You need to get better at that. You need to make this. It's a very long-term process, folks. This becoming super successful isn't a 90-day sprint, okay? It's a lifelong commitment, and it takes time. It takes time, but if you're willing to do that, if you'll happily struggle to improve at it for years at a time, regardless of the difficulties you face in the process, folks, nothing can stop you from having an amazing, incredible life. Believe me, it is so worth it. I wish that I could convey to you how worth it it is. It's amazing. Don't settle for anything less. Talk to you guys next week.