Tag: mindset

Hey, everybody! I swear my time is off. I swear I push when it’s, like, 7:29pm, and then two minutes later it’s 7:31 and I’ve barely gotten into the video.

Anyway, welcome, welcome. I hope you guys have had a great day. You guys are awesome! I appreciate you all, and hopefully you guys get something out of this video. A lot of times these Facebook Lives that I’m going to do, I think, will be probably one of two things. They either are going to be something I’ve learned through experience, or through what I’ve read, or whatever; and a lot of times that means there’s been, kind of, some hardship, some difficulty that I’ve had to push through to learn the lessons. And then, of course, I’m just passing those on to you so you hopefully don’t have to repeat the stuff that I went through.

And then sometimes the Facebook Lives will be things that I am currently considering, things that I need to work on, that I probably would do well to mind my own advice, to take my own advice and use it, right? And, of course, not every Facebook Live video is going to be “A Lesson by Kevin” or something, but I’m just saying that in these kinds of videos, like today’s, there’s been something on my mind that I think has changed in my attitude, in my way of thinking recently.

A little “tweak” that happened that has really lit me up, gotten me on fire and excited about 2018 and getting after everything. Especially now is the time when people typically make New Year’s resolutions and so on. So I kind of wanted to share some of my thoughts about my approach to the coming year, and my attitude about the future based on the approach I’m going to be taking.

So, let me ask you a question. Picture in your mind, if you would, a scenario where you are about halfway up a mountainside. You’re standing there — you’ve got your backpack, your boots, you’ve sprayed so bugs don’t eat you, whatever — but you’ve made it (however that’s happened) to the middle of the mountain. Now, there’s the peak above you that you can see, way, way up there (it’s obviously going to take a bit, but you can get there). And then there is the bottom of the mountain, where, say, a bunch of other people are waiting, and they kind of look up at you and are waving, but they’re not really trying to climb the mountain or anything.

If you have some kind of natural disaster (lets say there’s an earthquake, or there’s a flood or something), and all of the sudden a bunch of mud starts sliding, is that mud going to take you up to the top of the mountain, or is that mud going to take you toward the bottom?

Naturally, we follow the path of least resistance, right? So if we’re letting something else control where we go, it’s going to take us down. And if our objective is the peak, we’re not going to get there. That’s true for everything in life, not just for some random scenario where you’re, say, halfway up the mountain, but in all aspects of our lives.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Michael Jordan became — now people may disagree with me on this because I know not everybody is a Michael Jordan fan. But in my mind, Michael Jordan became one of the best (if not the best) basketball players ever. Why? Why did he reach such heights of success? Did he just trip on day and fall and go flying and land with the ball through the hoop? Or, did he work at it, and practice, and sacrifice to get to where he could jump really far and make his shots?

Rachel Ray, a very well known chef (at least in America), has her own TV shows and stuff for cooking. Do you think one day she walked by a taco stand, smelled something nice, went over— Thanks! Thumbs up, guys. I appreciate the support. Did she just see something and

go, “Oh, that looks delicious!” and then go knock on a producer’s door and then get some TV show based on that? Or, did she see that, let it inspire her, and put in the work to become something great?

OK? It’s very important that we don’t just live on accident. We need to live on purpose. Now what do I mean by that? Well, let me give you an example of living on accident. I know a lot of people who will talk to me about what they want in life, and where they are, and how frustrated they are that they’re not in a different position. And I feel for them, and I say, “OK, well, let me know if I can help you out with that at all.” Right?

And then, when we talk about it, they decide, “Well, I’m going to need to do this.” You know, they set out goals: “I’m going to need to do the following things to get where I want to go.” Great, you’ve got a plan. But then when I talk to them, like, a week later, he’s talking to me about the latest show on Netflix that he caught up with, or he’s telling me about hanging out with friends at a bar or something.

OK, that’s fine. I mean, I’m not judging. You live your life how you want, right? But you have to ask yourself: Is doing that kind of thing moving you in the direction where you want to go? If I want to build a house, I have to put in the work. I have to build a foundation, then I have to lay up walls from there, and I have to plan things. Where’s the window? Where’s the door? I have to— Thanks, Zach, I appreciate it, man! I have to really work hard and plan well to get what I want, right?

There are a lot of things I’ve been thinking about that I’ve allowed, just myself (for example), in the past to get in the way. One of the biggest things (like I was just talking about) is distractions. It’s really, really easy to let other things come up and take priority.

So I need to, when I’m working on a goal, decide, “What is the most important thing right now? What is something I cannot do without?” And then, from there, work down in my list of priorities. So the things I decide I must do always come before anything else. And there might be an order of priorities in that, too. For example, my family is always more important than work, work is always more important than play.

What is your order of priorities? Do you follow it?

Now, I would obviously encourage you to take breaks, but in talking about these distractions, it’s easy to take a vacation and let that become a detour. OK? Take breaks, not detours. If you burn yourself out, of course, you’re not going to be good to anybody. You’ll lose motivation potentially, right? So breaks are important, but don’t let your break turn into a sabbatical. This is a big problem that a lot of people have.

Years ago, I was starting a business with some friends. There were three of us, and we were all excited about the idea of this business. It was going to be entertainment — not “entertainment” (haha), but entertainment like games and things like that. We would get these published, and then we would put them in stores, or have them sold online, and so on.

All three of us were going to be presidents, like co-presidents* of the company. And each of us had a different responsibility. Well, as time went on, it became increasingly frustrating for me. Now, this is not to rag on those friends, but I’m just giving you, as an example, something that can happen. It was really easy to let those friends talk me into doing extra work and relieving them of some of their responsibilities. They would let things distract them, And as (as they would put it) “life happened”, they stopped doing their part. Pretty soon, I was looking up copyright laws, and finding out pricing to get games created at factories, and developing the website, and—[the list goes on].

I’m not going to keep going on. I’m not trying to talk about anything as far as what I did, except [to say] that it was the result of other areas falling behind. They let themselves get distracted. They had this really burning desire for this company, but when it came down to it, they weren’t willing to give up movies, or video games, or TV.

So, when you’re considering what your priorities are, don’t just say something that you think sounds good to other people. Really spend some time and think about what it is you want, and put those things that have to happen to get where you want to be as your top priorities. Otherwise, you’re never going to get there. There’s not enough time in a day to do everything that you would like to do plus everything that you feel you have to do. So, start with the have-tos, and then [go on to like-to-dos] if there’s time left over.

I would say it’s important to act with a purpose, rather than out of boredom. If you are building a business (let’s say you’re an entrepreneur, you’re building your business), if you get to a certain point where things kind of have to wait on some other component, are you planning and preparing for more work that will have to be done later on, or are you letting that give you an excuse to fall down the endless, bottomless hole of YouTube videos online? What are you spending your time doing? How important is getting where you want to be?

I would say just— These are a few little phrases I came up with, all kind of saying the same thing. Take breaks, not detours. Act with purpose, not to escape boredom. Fill time with progress, not with regrets. Don’t set goals, set priorities. And don’t start on your journey without preparing yourself for success. Have a very clear vision of where you want to be. I have several mentors who’ve taught me this: Have a very, very vivid representation of where you want to be.

Imagine yourself, if this is your goal — I’m not saying this is your goal, and this isn’t exactly my goal. It would be nice, but — imagine yourself, say, in a hammock, a super comfortable hammock, hanging between a couple of palm trees on the beach. It’s a little bit before twilight, it’s nice and cool (so it’s no longer hot). The moon is just starting to show itself in the sky, and the sun is thinking about quitting for the day, and you’re just there with a good book.

If that’s what your vision is, what book are you reading? How cool is it? Do you need a sweater or not? How is the beach? Is it near a resort? Is it your own private beach? And a lot of these seem like silly details, but the more you can specify, “This is where I am; this is how I will be”, the more power it will have in driving you forward.

So, I’d love to hear you guys’ thoughts on that too. If you guys set goals for the new year, I’d encourage you to live with intention, rather than by accident. Have a purpose, have a goal, but each day when you get up and you’re going to start doing your stuff for the day, what needs to happen to get to your goal? Find those things that are absolute musts, and do those before anything else.

I promise you, if you will do that consistently — all of the mentors I’ve read, all these brilliant, brilliant, successful people in business and in finance say the same thing — if you will do that, if you will intentionally do things, and not just happen to slide down the mountain with the mudslide, you’ll guarantee yourself success. It will be a slow progression to get there, of course, but you will get there.

Thanks for joining me, everybody, today. I didn’t want to take too much of your time. Thanks for joining me: I appreciate your support. If you have comments, anything specific you’d like to say about this video or about anything related to this, let me know in the comments below. And I will see you guys in two days, where once again, [at the] same time (so starting fifteen minutes ago for those of you who just recently joined) on Saturday night I’ll be going live again. In the mean time, God bless you, I love you guys, I appreciate you, and I’ll talk to you next time. Peace.

*Editor’s note: We were actually going to be presidents, like a three-president group, each over a different part of the company.