One Bite at a Time

Hi, guys. Let me figure out how to switch this [i.e., the camera on my cell phone] around. Um, I’m looking for a— OK, hang on, so zoom . . . nope. How do I? Oh, this, right? There we go! Hi, everybody. Welcome to my Live video for today. I’m out and about, getting stuff done, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to talk to you guys briefly, though.

Earlier today, before I went out doing stuff, I was cleaning my house, and I’ve been so busy and gone so much, I’ve let my house — well, it’s an apartment, it’s not a house, sorry; I call it my “house” (it’s like, you know, “Home is where you put your hat”, but…).

So I was cleaning my place, and I have so much to do. I mean, it’s— it’s bad. It’s livable, it’s not like it’s, you know, really disgustingly dirty or anything, but I haven’t vacuumed for a while, and I need to clean my tub, and I need to move some things (put them in boxes, put them away), and reorganize some, and everything. I just looked at everything and almost got overwhelmed just thinking, “Oh, my gosh. I have *so* many things to do. How am I ever going to get this all done today?”

And then, I remembered a quote by Creighton Abrams. Now, if you don’t know who he is, he was a really skilled tank commander in World War II. They actually named the Abrams tank after him. And he said that— He’s the one who did the really famous quote that said (I’ll probably get it wrong, not verbatim, but basically he said), “You eat an elephant one bite at a time.”

Even monumental tasks can be managed if you tackle them a little at time.

Right? I thought about that, and cleaning my house (or, my apartment) is the same idea, but a bunch of things in life are that way. I, for instance, don’t want to stress about how much of my place still needs to be cleaned. I just do one room at a time or one chore at a time, and slowly but surely, after enough time passes, you’re going to accomplish what you’ve set out to accomplish, right?

[Hey, welcome to the live stream. I appreciate it.]

So, for example, if you think about buildings, great structures in history – the pyramids, for example – they didn’t just throw down a pyramid, right? They put one block at a time on the pyramid, and over time it eventually turned into this giant structure. If you think about the Chunnel (the tunnel that goes between England and France, under the English Channel), that was done (I don’t know exactly how) a little bit at a time, and eventually you end up with your task accomplished.

That happens with pretty much everything in life, I think. So it’s really easy- I come from a family where we kind of give pretty unrealistic expectations to ourselves sometimes. We have this tendency to think we can handle more than we can. But you can eat an elephant, regardless; you can eat an elephant if you do it one bite at a time. Likewise, you can do anything you set your mind to, but you have to do it a little bit at a time.

And part of that is being consistent. You have to do the same things over and over and over again. You have to work for sometimes years to get where you want to go. [You see this] if you look at a lot of the successful people.

A wealthy entrepreneur, Robert Kiyosaki
is also a sought-after speaker.

Robert Kiyosaki has a great story. If you’ve not read it, I highly recommend first Rich Dad, Poor Dad (it’s the beginning), and then read The Cash Flow Quadrant. In that book he talks about how he and his wife set out to start their own business. (This is the early 1980s or whatever.) And as he was-

[Hi, I’m just recording some Facebook Live and I just stopped for a second. I’ll be out of here in a minute. OK, thanks. (indecipherable) What’s that? (You’re not here for no one, then?) No,

no. No, I’m just- I didn’t want to drive while I’m doing it, right? (OK. I just had seen the lights on.) Yeah, sorry. I’ll turn the headlights off; maybe that’s less? (You’re totally fine, boss. That’s smart thinking.) OK, thanks. (Have a good night.) Yep, you too.]

Yeah, I kind of just had to stop so I wasn’t driving while I was doing this, right?
. . . So they were starting their own business, and they had a lot of ups and downs. They had a point where the business pretty much completely failed. But they didn’t give up, and they kept the same behaviors, the same effort over and over and over again, day after day, and eventually they became super rich. Like, he’s one of the most— well, he and his wife; they’re both brilliant business people, and they’re super successful today. But that wouldn’t have happened if they gave up because the task was so big.

And it’s the same thing with everything. So those have kind of been my thoughts today. The way may not be easy, and the way may not be clear. You may not sometimes know the exact, the very next step to take, but you may know where your final destination is. If you’ve got that in mind, you can just keep one foot in front of the other, until you eventually get where you need to go. To geek out a little bit here, you can think of The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam didn’t know how they were going to get to the volcano, where they were going to throw The One Ring and destroy Sauron, right? But they knew that they needed to head toward the volcano, and so even though they got lost a little bit sometimes, they kept marching forward.

So, I would encourage you all. This is kind of a shorter video today. Being out and about, of course, I haven’t really had a lot of time to prepare anything or be super polished, but I just wanted to let you guys know that I have faith in you guys, you guys will achieve your goals. Just keep working at it.

One of my mentors told me a very important phrase. He said, “Don’t focus on results, focus on behaviors”, because there are certain things people have to do to reach wherever it is that they’re going. And that will be different for every person, right? Maybe you’re trying to become a famous singer, and so maybe some part of your journey might be voice lessons — over and over and over and over and over again — and singing at concerts until you get really amazing.

A book will never write itself.

Maybe you’re an author and so you need to participate in things like National Novel-Writing Month (which I believe is in November), and just write every single day to get your novel banged out, and then after that you can edit it. You know, whatever it is. Maybe you want to become an amazing barber, so you go to salon school at first, and then you apprentice under a barber until you can get your own shop. Whatever your goal is, right? There’s a lot of stuff that happens in different ways, but there are certain steps to succeed in any pursuit.

Just find out what those steps are, talk to a mentor (somebody who’s been there, who knows what to do), and then follow what they’re doing. Why would you take advice from somebody who doesn’t have what you want? Right? If you want to become a famous singer, are you going to go talk to somebody who can’t carry a tune, or are you going to talk to somebody who has become famous themselves? So just focus on what steps you forward, one step at a time — one bite at a time — and eventually you’ll reach your goals.

Thanks for stopping by, everybody, and I will talk to you guys soon. My next Facebook Live should be Tuesday night at the same time as I started this one. I appreciate you guys for all your support, and for your patience as I found somewhere to park to do this, and I will talk to you guys soon. Bye-bye.