It's Not How Good You Are - It's How Good You Want to Be

The author argues that talent is not as important as ambition. If you want to succeed you must be ambitious. You must be clear about what you want to achieve.

And in order to get to the top, you must be willing to learn through experience and sacrifice. Be prepared to ignore your limitations and go after the thing you want, whether you believe you're equipped to do it or not. You will learn and grow as you go.

The author challenges you to defy the odds. If you think you incapable of achieving a certain result, then challenge yourself to go after that result. The growth you will experience from continuously challengeling yourself is immeasurable.

The most important component for your success is continually striving to be better than you are.

Highest energy always wins. If you’re a low energy person, then be nice.

The best way to improve is not to seek praise, but to seek criticism. Always ask, "How can I make it better?"

If you think the work you've done is the best, there's no incentive to improve. You've already put a cap on your potential. But when you seek ways to make it better, you unleash creativity you never knew you had.

Accept no excuses from yourself. Take total responsibility and accountability for your results. When you shift blame to external circumstances, you deny yourself opportunities to improve. But when you take full responsibility, you keep yourself alert to possible blunders that may embarrass you, and thus you avoid them and put yourself in a position to do your best work.

Always give your best. Stretch yourself beyond your limits. That way, you grow into new potential and new possibilities. In personal training we used to talk about progressive overload. If you only lift the weights you can comfortably manage, your muscles won't grow. You need to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone a little. You need to progressively overload your capacity. That's the only way to grow.

The best way to get promoted is to shine in whatever menial position you occupy. Don't hold back, thinking you'll do your best only when you get to the higher office. Do your best now, and the higher office will come as a result of the results you produce in the lower office.

And also, if you do less than your best, who are really cheating? Yourself, probably?

Focus on the core. Focus on solving a real problem. Function over form. Brains before beauty... or something of that sort.

It's a part of life. It's unavoidable. So, when you make plans, make provision for a possibly less than desirable outcome. If you can find a way to avoid it, great. If not, how do you minimize the damage?

People value status more than anything. If you make them look bad, they'll want to hurt you. If you make them look good, they'll keep you as a trusted ally. Learn the politics of life, and play to win.

Be open to experimentation and exploring new ideas. If you're not constantly reinventing yourself you're becoming stale and outdated. Learn new things. Keep up with the times.

Accept that experimentation comes with uncertainty and risk. It could lead to embarrassment and conflict. Or it could lead to amazing success.

Be remarkable. Do things that make you stand out. Don't be boring.

Get people involved. Make them feel like they contributed to the idea. Give them ownership of some sort so that they are invested in its success. Seek cooperation instead of competition.

Seek out the best, not the average. Average equals safe, which means boring and mundane. The best may stretch you beyond your comfort zone, but that's where your opportunity lies.

speak life into your life. Don't talk negatively about yourself, your company or anything at all if you can help it. Words have the power to create and the power to destroy, so use them wisely.

Communicate clearly. If you are the speaker, ask the listener for confirmation that they understand. Ask them to demonstrate their understanding by telling you what they think you meant. If you're the listener, repeat back to the speaker what you understood. Ask him to confirm if that's what he meant. Don't guess or make assumptions.

The book has magnificent gems of wisdom from which we could all benefit if we applied the teachings.

But it also has some wild fluff that makes no sense to me. Maybe I lack the author's creativity and imagination.

But nonetheless, it's worth a read.

It's nice and short. I read it in half a day.

Accept no excuses.

I wrote a similar article recently about making excuses

for the thing you want, versus making excuses

against the thing you want.

Maybe I'm just suffering from confirmation bias.

Nonetheless, the message is simple.

Stop playing small. Go after the thing you want.

 Do your best work every time.