Randy Cantrell

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Gender. Age. Geography. Education. There are so many variables that make us who we are, and how we view the world (and our place in it). This isn’t about figuring out if one way is right and another wrong. Culture is too busy doing that nasty work. No, this is about leveraging the power of perspective by understanding the power in our differences.

Safety In The Space

Nastiness is the order of the day because there are no safe spaces. Where do you feel safe to say exactly what you want? Where do you feel safe to express exactly how you feel?

Spaces aren’t safe because people aren’t listening. They’re not paying attention to anything other than headlines, which are mostly click-bait and often bold lies designed to deceive. Culture is fueled by our collective desire to spew venom from our mobile or computer keyboard. Anonymously.

Spaces aren’t safe because people aren’t open to understanding. It’s not so much a matter of being open to being converted to another point-of-view, it’s being open to just understand another point-of-view. Mostly, we don’t even care why people think or feel the way they do. We’re looking to render judgment in a nanosecond.

None of this is profitable in helping us grow and expand our business.

None of this is helpful as we pursue our own leadership growth.

None of this makes our lives better!

Understanding A Different Viewpoint Can Help Me

It’s not about changing your mind. This isn’t about converting you from one position to a different position.

It’s about expanding your mind so you can learn to understand how others can see things in a different way. Honestly, it’s about value to YOU.

Sure, it’s respectful and that’s helpful, but that’s not really the reason I’d urge you to consider surrounding yourself with people different from you. It’s because they will bring you the most value, provided the space is safe.

Let me paint a picture that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

You’re sitting with other entrepreneurs. There are men, women, young, old, grizzled veterans, newbies, northerners, southerners, easterners, westerners, highly educated, barely educated…it’s a very diverse group of people. Yet, in spite of all these differences, it’s a judgment-free zone. Nobody is allowed to be disrespectful or to express judgment by being combative. Everybody is free to fully express themselves. But everybody is also free to ask questions, but the questions must be aimed at trying to better understand. Not to fight, or argue, but to really understand what the person is saying. To make sure everybody gets it correctly.

That alone is expansive because it’s ridiculously unique. Such places don’t ordinarily exist.

For starters, we don’t organically find ourselves in such groups. Mostly, we find ourselves surrounded by people just like us. People who think like us, feel like us and agree with us. It’s comfortable. Often fun. It’s just not always profitable because we’re rarely pushed or challenged in positive ways by such groups. We’re there because it feels right, not because it’s profitable.

Additionally, we’re organically in such groups because it’s safe to express thoughts and feelings we know are shared by the group. We know nobody is going to disagree so we’re free to say whatever we please. It’s doesn’t provide us any opportunity to justify or explain how we feel or what we think though. Because nobody asks. They just nod in agreement. Lost is the debate that can foster growth or creativity or innovation.

Kindness. Gentleness. Safety.

Those are key, but something else is important.

Challenge. Disagreement. Alternative Viewpoints.

The dilemma is how to combine those. How can kindness, gentleness, safety be positively combined with challenge, disagreement, and alternative viewpoints?

The answer? When everybody is intent on one united goal, GROWTH. When every person sitting at the table is intentional in growing their business, their leadership and their lives, then it changes the game entirely. Because there is one central objective required and everybody knows it.

Understanding Fuels Growth

The power in the differences isn’t in venomous debate. It’s not in hatred. It’s not in railing back and forth at each other. It’s not in trying to decide who is right and who is wrong.

It’s in understanding.

A CEO business owner is considering buying another business. He has his reasons. He explains those reasons to the group. The group – individually and collectively – wants to better understand why he wants to make this acquisition. Some may have a knee-jerk reaction or judgment about it, but nobody displays that. Nobody’s questions belie any judgment.

Questions abound as the people attempt to understand where this CEO is coming from, and where he most wants to go. These questions, fueled largely by people who may have a different viewpoint, help everybody understand better. Mostly, they help the CEO business owner considering this important move. He’s faced with questions he’s never considered before. The process alone is expanding his mind on this potential move.

As the conversation unfolds and the CEO answers the questions, sometimes stumbling because he’s not considered some of these questions – he has no answers for some of them – the conversation turns toward the big question, “What do you want to do?” As he considers what he most wants to accomplish more questions come as the group works to continue to understand what this CEO wants in his business and his life. It’s not about what they want, but rather about what he wants. They know their role is to help him get what he wants. But they all know that what they signed up for is GROWTH. Everybody in the room wants to get better, and they’re committed to helping each other get better.

Absent from the conversation are all the usual language bombs. Nobody has said, “I’ll tell you what you should do.” Or, “I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t do.” Or, “Why in the world would you want to do that?” Or, “You’re crazy, that’ll never work.”

Ask the CEO business owner. He’ll tell you. From his perspective it feels like…he can only think of one term for it, even though he admits he’s never been in one before, but it’s as he imagines. It’s like being in a THINK TANK, he says. A place where we’re just working together to think it through. Where every idea, question, thought and feeling are valid. Where nobody is making fun of any of it because everybody understands the power of the process of learning is UNDERSTANDING.

And everybody knows without the differences, none of this positive friction exists. None of these good ideas get to bubble up to the surface. None of this creative challenging happens. Remove the differences and it’s just a tank of people who agree with each other.

Now you may better understand the power in our differences as people.

Who you surround yourself with matters.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Here’s the thing about aiming higher. It’s always time. Why not? And why not now?

Over the holidays I was watching the grandkids running on a Florida beach while I was reading and listening to the waves. It dawned on me that I needed to aim higher. The question I asked myself was, “Why not?”

With those waves crashing in the background I worked on answering that question as I sat alone, a safe distance from the noise of beach play.

Why not?

I played through all the usual excuses. Being realistic. Being practical. Trying to avoid delusion. And wrestling with the ever-present question, “Who do you think you are?”

After some minutes I had to admit I was without excuse to aim higher. Not to dream bigger, or wish harder. Those aren’t nearly responsible enough to suit me. They’re too passive to boot. They seem too vague. Aiming has a sense of application. More purpose and intention than merely dreaming or wishing. It also seems much more practical to me. Taking aim means it’s up to me because I’m the one doing the aiming. It also signifies that I’m only likely to hit whatever I’m aiming at. Sure, I may miss it. But I may hit it. It sure beats some willy-nilly shooting from the hip hoping you hit something. I’d much rather pretend to be a sniper taking careful aim at a target of my choosing.

Over the holidays I watched for the umpteenth time that episode of Parks & Rec where the group when hunting and Ron got shot in the back of the head. Somebody commented about people who may present a threat to the group with the admonition, “Shoot above their head.” Tom, hollered out how he was planning to shot below their head. It always makes me laugh. It also made me think of the value of aiming higher. It’s all in where you aim, right?

Late last year I begin to stir up some interest in forming just one (possibly two) professional peer groups aimed at serving small business owners. I define small not by the employee headcount or the annual revenue, but mostly by the flatness of the organization. Namely, how close ownership is with the work. I’m mostly interested in working with small business owners who are close enough to the work to impact it. Owners committed to making a meaningful difference for their employees and customers.

That’s still the aim, but now I’m aiming higher. I want to build this first group, but I’ve reconsidered what I thought I wanted. I figured two groups would be great, allowing me to deliver high service (and a life-changing experience) for 14 small business owners. There on the beach, I started thinking about that number. Fourteen. Why do you want to limit it to 14? Again, I had no good answer. Why not more? No good answer to that either.

I started thinking of my coaching practice and what I most wanted to do. The answer was always the same – positively impact as many lives of small business owners as possible. Fourteen owners represent lots of other people. They each will have employees, customers, suppliers and other partners. Each of these will have families impacted by the owners’ business. That’s multiple ripples in the ocean of influence. A big impact.

What if I double it? I asked. That’d be 28 owners, four groups.

What if I double it again? I asked. That’d be 56, eight groups.

Why can’t you do that? I asked. As with all the other question, I didn’t have a good answer against it. Rather, there was every answer to go for it. That’s when the aiming higher demon spoke up.

What if you fail?

I looked out over the ocean, taking in scenes not common to my everyday life in north central Texas. I looked at the horizon, scanning it closely. Watching the birds hover closely to the surface looking for fish to pluck and eat.

What if you fail?

I might, I thought. So what if I do. So what if it’s even probable?

I smiled at the thought that raced to the front of my mind. Who do you think you are? What makes you think anybody anywhere cares if you make it, or if you fail? You don’t honestly think people are paying any attention do you?

I knew the answer. Truth is the people who are paying attention to you, or to me don’t represent anything that really matters much. We’ve all got friends and foes. Friends may want us to succeed. Or fail. Foes, too. So what? We both know how long it’ll last. Not long at all. Whatever happens in our life will be over so fast nobody will remember what we were even trying to do.

All the more reason to aim higher. If I’m going to fail I may as well fail at trying to do something bigger than I first intended. Besides, it’s much easier to get stoked to aim higher. It elevates energy, marshalls more positive emotion and engages more wisdom. There just is no downside to aiming higher.

So I’m pushing hard now to get 7 owners compiled into the first group of The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. Then I’m going to push to form the second group. Then the third, Then the fourth. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, or how I’m going to do it. But I now want to work my way toward having 8 groups of seven owners. That’s 56 business owners from around the United States who see what I see, who want what I want and are determined as I’m determined to grow as owners, leaders, and people. It’s a big goal, a much higher aim.

But how can I do anything else as the guy who produces a podcast titled GROW GREAT? We’d better get busy aiming higher or we’ll have to start a new podcast GROW MEDIOCRE, or GROW AVERAGE. See? It doesn’t quite have the ring, does it? So find some place of your choosing to do your own thinking and questioning. Ponder what you can do – what you know you should do – to aim higher. Let me know how it goes.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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In 2004 a little book was published that captured my attention as I strolled through the bookstore on my weekly pilgrimage. The book was entitled, “Good Luck: Creating the Conditions for Success in Life and Business” by Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes. In spite of the fact that I’m not terribly fond of the business fable, I bought it. It’s a quick read. But the lessons are powerful, especially in a culture where it’s easy for people to feel entitled or victimized.

Over the holidays I spotted it sitting on the shelf, so I grabbed it and read it again while my wife was cooking Christmas day dinner. I hadn’t read it since I first bought it, but it quickly came back to me. The book makes a distinction between Good Luck and luck. Good Luck is intentional involving preparation and work, as opposed to the passive nature of generic luck where we just hope to stumble onto it, or hope it’ll magically find us.

Let me share some of the key principles of the book without giving away the story, but first, let me share a rather famous quote that I’ve posted on my office walls since I was in my 20’s. As a teenager when I first saw it, it was attributed to Goethe, the German philosopher, but who knows? Since then it’s most commonly been attributed to Scottish mountaineer and writer William Hutchison Murray. It speaks to the nature of Good Luck being impacted by human decision, preparation, effort, and determination.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

It’s easily in my three of all-time favorite quotes. Enjoying it and liking it are much easier than living by it. The difficulty is in the first four words – “until one is committed.” You wouldn’t think commitment would be so tough, but it often is.

The book covers 10 rules that are worthy of your deeper consideration.

Rule 1 – Luck doesn’t last long, because it doesn’t depend on you. Good Luck is created by each of us: that’s why it lasts. The authors make a distinction between luck with a lower case L and Good Luck with an uppercase G and L. 

Random or lower case L luck may be more like serendipity than anything else. It can happen. But it can be elusive, too. Mostly, you don’t have any impact on it. So perhaps serendipity isn’t the best term for it because I think we can influence that, although it’s not fully in our control. Lowercase luck is likely more like that phrase we use when we say, “A blind pig can find one every now and again.” It can happen, even if we’re dumb as a sack of rocks.

Good Luck doesn’t work that way. It’s more lasting and powerful because we absolutely can influence it.

This is the first rule because so many people don’t believe this rule. Those who struggle think those who don’t “are lucky” while they often see themselves as “unlucky.” It’s their reality, but they’re deluded.

Rule 2 – Many want Good Luck, but few are willing to fully pursue it.

The pursuit requires strong intentions, effort, and determination. It also requires being more open-minded than most of us may be willing to be. It’s easier to just conclude, “We’re not lucky” and embrace feeling like a victim. To take personal responsibility and understand that our pursuit can impact it…well, that can make us feel more vulnerable perhaps. Accountability is hard. Victim thinking is easy.

Rule 3 – If you have no Good Luck right now, it might be because you’re under the usual conditions. To have Good Luck you must create new conditions. 

The simple explanation of this rule is that “what got you here, won’t get you there.” This is a major stumbling block. We tend to do what we’ve always done, but we’re often dissatisfied with the same results. We want better, but we don’t create new conditions. It’s the epitome of being stuck!

Rule 4 – Finding new conditions for Good Luck doesn’t mean looking only for our benefit. Creating conditions, helping others, makes Good Luck more likely to appear.

Givers get. It’s that simple. But more importantly, giving to others, serving others is the right thing to do. It needs to be character though, not a tactic. Too many people I suspect are willing to give because they’ve got high expectations to get. It’s a tactic. Instead, you need to make up your mind that you’re going to work harder to become a better human being, a person willing and able to serve others.

Rule 5 – If you postpone the creation of new conditions, Good Luck never arrives. Creating new conditions is sometimes hard work, but you have to do it today. Right now! 

Procrastinators don’t often find Good Luck. They’re too late to the party.

It may have something to do with the energy and drive to get it done now – a sense of urgency that’s required if you’re going to find Good Luck. Procrastinators lack the sense of urgency for finding or creating Good Luck.

Rule 6 – Sometimes, even under the seemingly right conditions, Good Luck doesn’t arrive.

Look for the seemingly unnecessary but indispensable conditions in the small details. Details matter.

The key word here is “seemingly.” Conditions may seem right, but perhaps they’re off just a little bit. Take a closer look to make sure. Where things are off a little bit, improve them.

Rule 7 – To those who only believe in chance, creating conditions seems absurd.

Those who create the conditions are not worried about chance. People committed to Good Luck don’t spend any time thinking about or worrying about chance. They’re too busy – and too devoted t0 – Good Luck.

Rule 8 – Nobody can sell Good Luck. 

Good Luck can’t be sold. Don’t trust those who sell luck.

It’s big business to sell luck. There is no business in selling Good Luck because it’s impossible to buy it or sell it. You have to find it yourself, but others can (and will) help you. Nobody finds it alone and nobody sells it.

Rule 9 – After creating all the conditions, be patient, don’t quit. 

For Good Luck to arrive, have faith. Stay the course.

Resilience, determination, and commitment. These are all major factors in your ability to find Good Luck.

Losing faith is a culprit that afflicts people, ruining their opportunities to find Good Luck. Have faith. Keep it. Increase it.

Rule 10 – Creating Good Luck consists of preparing conditions for opportunity. 

But opportunity has nothing to do with luck or chance: it’s always there.

This is where that 5-day series I produced on improving our way of thinking enters the picture. It’s all about Abundance. Opportunity. Don’t ever believe your lack of success is because there’s a lack of opportunity.

Your life will never lack for opportunity. What is most often lacking is our own willingness to commit to it, to see it for what it is, and to pursue Good Luck with full belief.

Good Luck is waiting for you. It needs your hard work and contributions.

Good Luck hinges on YOU.

Nothing else. That may be your first chore – to embrace that belief. To really understand it’s true, and to understand how true it is.

Good Luck can be found as soon as you’re ready. Remember, it never comes to you by chance. Good Luck doesn’t work that way because it’s not chance or random luck. It’s deeper and longer lasting.

The authors, two Spaniards who operate in the world of marketing and higher education wrote a short little postscript in the book that is worth nothing.

They write that the book took them 3 years to create, but it was written in 8 hours straight. They correctly state that some people will only remember the 8 hours. Others will remember the 3 years. Those who focus on the 8 hours are the people who believe the authors were lucky. Those who understand the 3 years believe the writers created the conditions for Good Luck.

What do you believe? That’s what matters!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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It’s here. The last day of the year for the GROW GREAT PODCAST. I hope you’ve found this 5-day journey a profitable way to end the year. I knew of no more powerful way to end the year.

You’re now in the Grand Ballroom of Abundance. You were outside with the masses who lamented all the bad things that happen to them. Pessimism and despair rule their lives. Until you entered the room, you didn’t know there was another way to live. You just supposed you were not among the anointed lucky people who achieve great things. You now know you were wrong.

One of the most important things you learned in this journey is that entrance into the room has NO prerequisites. You wrongly thought you needed permission, some personal invitation to enter. Mostly, you thought you needed to achieve something first, then you’d be allowed inside. Until you started to talking to people who all shared with you the same truth – high achievement happens only once you’re inside the Grand Ballroom of Abundance. It was a big epiphany for you…something you wish you’d known much earlier.

There’s no time to waste.

The Grand Ballroom of Abundance doesn’t care who you are or where you came from. Mostly because everybody inside came in from outside at some point. History is important because every citizen in the room has a context largely determined by their past, but they all realize life happens in the present and future.

Some walked into this room when they were young. Others were old. Some are highly educated. Others never made it past elementary school. There are engineers and scientists and salespeople and clerks. Men, women. People from wealthy families and people who don’t even know who their biological families are. The Grand Ballroom of Abundance respects everybody, discriminates against nobody inside. Nobody INSIDE.

There is only discrimination against people outside. Those folks who refuse to enter. The ones who want to beckon people inside to leave. The Ballroom has no tolerance for them because those people are the enemies of high growth and high achievement. The discrimination isn’t based on anything else.

Now it’s time to get busy. It’s urgent for you to start doing the work as soon as possible because there’s no time to waste. You’re on a new clock now. The past is the past. You’re thankful for what you learned in the past. You’re thankful for everything. You came to understand the Ballroom when you did, and you’re good with it. Now that you’re inside you realize there’s no time to waste wishing you’d found your way inside sooner. That won’t accomplish anything and you know it. Now it’s time to focus on the very reason you wanted to figure out how to get in here – to grow great!

It’s time to GROW GREAT.

The fun begins now. Creativity. Innovation. Improvement. These are now daily activities where you spend all your time. The room will help. It’s an environment that favors growth. The Grand Ballroom of Abundance fosters everything you’ve longed for. Growth and expansion happen because you’re now where you belong AND you’re committed to the work. Both are necessary. For the first time in your life, you have both properly aligned.

The voices and the pull of the outside world is never going to leave you alone. Never.

The abundance they seek is company. They want more people willing to chime in and be negative. Daily you have to make the choice to remain devoted to the abundance of high growth. More and more you have to lower the volume of the distracting voices. Eliminate the ones you can. Suppress the rest. Then turn up the volume of the solid citizens in the room, the ones who help you, encourage you and support your visions.

The Power Of Peers

Peer pressure is a good thing. You’re feeling it. The collective inside the room wants you to stay here, and achieve what you most desire. They don’t want you to fail. They know that doesn’t help you, or anybody else. Or the room. Everybody benefits when you do well. When you’re achieving the things you’re capable of, the room expands. Opportunities do, too. It’s just how this ecosystem works. You all know it.

There’s now a positive pressure to stay here inside this Grand Ballroom of Abundance. And you don’t want to leave. You don’t want to disappoint yourself. Or the collective in the room. It’s a feeling you’ve never had before and you don’t ever want to lose it.

People care. They’re willing to help. They won’t put up with your bull or excuses because they know how destructive that is to the Abundance. It’s not because they’re picking on you. It’s because they care about high growth and achievement. The collective is devoted – individually and together – to eliminating the destructive forces of pessimism and excuse-making. Here in this room challenges are meant to be overcome if possible. Endured if not. Opportunities are meant to be seized. And created. You love this way of life and you never want to go back now that you’ve tasted it.

The Key To Staying In The Room Is OTHERS

I owe you one final secret. A secret the most solid citizens in the room know. It’s not really a secret, but too many people fail to see it for the power it really is.

People. The power is in people. Your associations’ matter. Now it’s time to make sure you’re very intentional and purposeful about the people who surround you. Nothing will elevate your growth and protect you from leaving this room more. Nothing.

A big driver for your own high growth and achievement is your ability to improve the people around you. Remember, nobody in the room discriminates against others inside the room, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have preferences. They all have preferences. The super achievers in the room seek out other super achievers, or those they think are working hard to become super achievers.

The room isn’t cliquish, but it can seem like it. Only because birds of a feather are flocking together. The door you walked through to get inside this room is gone, but now inside the room, there may seem to be some invisible walls. You’re going to have to resist your old way of thinking, feeling like you need permission to join this group or that group. You don’t need permission. You simply need to make up your mind you want to join the group, but – and it’s a big but – you must be committed to the work necessary to join some particular group inside the room. Some groups are super achievers and they’ll hold you to an even higher standard. But that’s great. I encourage you to seek such peer pressure.

Well, that about does it. 2018 is a wrap here at the GROW GREAT PODCAST. Lord willing 2019 is going to be our greatest year ever. There are some exciting things happening around here. Leo Bottary and I have some big plans to deliver superior results to companies who want to really move the needle in building high growth cultures and employee engagement. The Peer Advantage by Bula Network is my effort to build just 2 groups of seven entrepreneurs in each group – peer advantage groups who will do for each other everything I’ve described today. Lord willing, we’ll put in the work, grow and achieve big results.

Permit me to end with one favor. Let me know how it’s going for you. I want to hear from you. I’m not fishing for compliments, but if the GROW GREAT PODCAST has provided value, let me know how. More importantly, let me know how I can grow greater. How can this podcast provide even more value? Use the contact page and let me know. I’d like to hear from many of you. I’ll take the holiday break to listen and refine things so 2019 will be even better.

Thank you for giving me your time and attention. You’re very important.

Be well. Do good. Grow great! And have a safe, happy holiday season. Lord willing, I’ll talk to you next year as we get another year of Grow Great underway.

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You’re inside the grand ballroom of abundance, right? You should have entered yesterday, but if you’re still outside, then you need to go back to day 1, 2 and 3. You think you need courage, but you really don’t. Courage is required when fear is present. Well, I suppose there is fear present. That’s why you’re not going inside. But you’re not fearing anything real. You’re only fearful of the boogie man that doesn’t exist. Seems ridiculous that you were once young and naive and thought the boogie man was in your closet or under your bed, right? But you once thought so. This boogie man is no more real than that one.

As much as I wish I could tell you that you’re out of the woods once you enter this grand ballroom of abundance, you’re not. You’re still vulnerable to your old way of thinking even once inside. Like any new environment, it takes a while to get acclimated. So it’s important that you protect yourself from the pull of the old crowd. It’s only natural because you spent so much time outside with the herd – the masses of people too afraid to enter the grand ballroom. You’ll need some time to get adjusted and that’s what we want to focus on today.

Making the decision to leave the masses outside is uncomfortable. Being inside the grand ballroom of abundance is uncomfortable, at first. But it’s only natural. And if you’ll resist the urge to retreat, the reward that awaits is insanely high. It’s beyond anything you’ve ever achieved before. That’s the fear you’re feeling. Fearing the unknown. I want to focus you on what that unknown is really all about though. It’s all about growth, improvement, transformation. It’s unknown GOOD. No, it’s unknown GREATNESS. That crowd outside wants you to be afraid of failing, but that’s all happening outside where they are – where you just came from. They just don’t see it accurately.

When you walk out of a dark room into a room filled with light, your eyes need a moment to adjust. Same thing here. You’ve left the throngs devoted to blaming anything and anybody for failure. You’re now in the bright, optimistic company of high achievers. It’s gonna take a moment to get adjusted. It’s perfectly fine. Don’t panic. And whatever you do, stay away from the door back outside. Get as far from those voices urging you to “Come back!” They’ve got enough company. They don’t need you. Trust me, they’ll never be lonely without you.

Commit To The Fight

I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a fight to enter the grand ballroom and it’s a fight to stay there when you first enter. Totally worthwhile, but still a fight.

Slap those noise canceling headphones on. Shut out all the noise from the people you’ve been surrounded by. They’re not bad people, but they don’t believe in what you’re now seeing. The abundance inside this new space is foreign to them, just like it was for you before you walked in. You now know something they don’t. They’ll work very hard to get you back into the land of ignorance. Refuse.

Going back to them won’t help them. And if you’re ever going to help them you must remain solidly inside the room. It’s the only way you’ll ever influence the people you care about to join you. Only the people who have been inside and become permanent citizens can help those outside come inside. That’s now your goal. To remain firmly inside and fight through the discomfort until being here feels natural.

Everything is hard until it’s easy.

This is my all-time favorite quote, but I have no idea who first said it or wrote it. I wish I had.

It’s completely true. Think back through everything you’ve ever learned. From the alphabet to basic math to geography to public speaking or riding a bike or anything else. That quote applies to everything. And it applies to you being comfortable in being in this new grand ballroom of abundance!

At first, you’ll feel like you belong here. You’ll feel like everybody else does, but not you. You’re wrong. Truth is, everybody deserves to be in that room if they believe they do. That’s the only requirement. All those people outside belong in the room, but they’re not inside because they don’t think they belong. So they don’t.

You’ve had the cart before the horse all this time. 

You wrongly believed that only people who had achieved things belonged in this room. You falsely assumed that the prerequisite for going into the room was restricted to people who had actually done something notable. Now that you’re inside people are telling you time and time again that they didn’t achieve big things until they were first inside this grand ballroom of abundance. The more you hear their stories, the stupider you feel for staying outside so long. That’s good. Embrace it. This is one time when feeling stupid will fuel your determination to belong. To get increasingly more comfortable being inside.

First, you enter the room. Then you achieve big things. Not the other way around.

As you walk around the room and listen to everybody share their experiences you find they’re much like you. They weren’t always in this room. None of them achieved much outside this room. And nobody is judging you or anybody else. They all know how open the secret really is. That anybody can join the party. That newcomers often feel like they don’t belong because the adjustment period is required for everybody. Some take longer than others. Some struggle to shut out the noise of their past surroundings. And the people who beckon them to come back.

But you notice that nobody wants you to leave. They’re all trying to help you figure out that you belong because they know your high achievements will just make the ballroom grow even bigger, making it capable of accommodating more and more people. It’s a completely different way of thinking. And it dawns on you that I’m right. That high growth is a way of thinking.

All kinds of things will enter your head to make you think you don’t belong here. Thoughts of not deserving it. Questions of how you’ll ever belong. It’s very important that you do nothing except look around and bask in the glow of knowing how welcomed you are. Give yourself permission to feel uncomfortable while you adjust, but refuse to leave. There’s no going back…not if you want to grow.

Jack Nicholas talked about owning your own outcomes. Owning your own game. He talks of owning each shot you make, or joining the masses who just swing, then look up to see it went. It’s a lesson of responsibility and ownership.

Today is the day to forget about feeling like an imposter because you’re not. This is your life. You alone own your life. You alone can determine where you’re going to live your life. Outside with those masses who just swing, then look up to see where it went. Or inside this grand ballroom where people are behaving with greater intent and purpose. Where everybody is owning their own game and urging you to do the same. It’s time to let your eyes get adjusted to the new, brighter lights of high achievement.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!