All of us want to live our best life.
We want the best for ourselves.
Best for our kids.
Families.
Friends.
The best for the world around us.
So why do so few of us live it?
What holds us back from living our best lives?
“Giving up”
You know the phrase—
“Giving up” the good to go for the great.
On the surface it can be inspirational.
But do you see why it holds people back?
What’s implied in this?
Do you see why I’m calling out the words “giving up?”
It’s an ambiguity of course, equating to quitting.
Coz that’s true.
That’s why so many people live a shadow of the life they TRULY want.
But it’s another definition of “giving up” I’m pointing out here.
“Leveraging”
You see why I’m using this word instead?
“Leveraging the great to go for the best” is VERY different to “giving up” something good “hoping” for something great.
Do you see my point?
That the limiting phrase “Giving up the good to go for the great” implies something TERRIBLE, doesn’t it?
The one thing perhaps us humans despise more than anything…
Giving up something!
Having something taken away.
And, ultimately, the ONE thing so many of us seek to forever avoid…
Taking risk
I’m doing some deep work on Elon Musk.
Going deep into the way his mind ticks I’m building a method to use with certain clients.
One principle you see, and this is common for ALL people who do massive things is—
They take risk.
In his case, he bets the farm.
He’s risked it all (well, kindof) time and time again.
The guy doesn’t operate like even most the Silicon Valley billionaires.
Nearly all of them gave up.
Once they “won,” they settled for success.
Rather than risking putting their money and reputation on the line…
They play easier games that they can never lose.
Hence, they’ll never win.
And I’m not talking about money, fame, building things that are ACTUALLY valuable to our world.
I’m referring to something FAR MORE important.
Leveraging your great to reach YOUR best
I heard of a marketer writing about being 1% better.
Who cares?
Reaching that next station in life.
Going for the great.
Whatever.
None of us want things to be a little better.
To reach the next level.
We want it ALL!
To ascend ALL the levels.
Like a parent wants for their kids, you want the best.
Including, being your best.
Only giving up mediocrity
See the problem with the phrase “Giving up the good to go for the great…”
Isn’t just that it implies great is the most spectacular level you can ever reach.
It’s that when viewed through the lens of “giving up…”
Or taking risk.
It becomes a hard choice.
An unappealing thing.
And it’s a FALSE PARADIGM.
It implies that growing, reaching, striving higher and higher requires giving something up.
When other than giving up mediocrity, you ONLY gain.
Building on your greatness
This is how reaching for your best REALLY works.
You never give up all the things you’ve accumulated, but build on top.
Like a computer game, everything you accumulate you leverage to reach a higher level.
That’s not just wealth, relationships, reputation, etc.
It’s your capabilities that you keep leveraging higher and higher.
I see this ALL the time with clients who are leveraging what they’ve built to take massive leaps.
But you also see it in regular careers and businesses.
It’s called a career track!
In business it’s called scaling!
A business is never giving up what they’ve done good to “hopefully” reach great.
Even when the business model is fundamentally shifting like Netflix, you are leveraging all you’ve built.
Continuously improving blows out “giving up”
That’s all we’re talking about here, right?
Continuously improving your business, career, life.
But through that old paradigm of “giving up” it’s hard to see this way.
That old paradigm is more like the kids game snakes and ladders.
It implies that you can keep climbing, but you risk sliding all the way back down.
So rather than risk sliding back down from good to OK, many people never go for great.
And certainly, even fewer ever push from great to best.
Whereas if you see the TRUTH of this idea.
That at every level you only become more capable of building higher and higher…
You see that you can never slide back down.
Even if you put it ALL on the line.
Heck, even if you “lose” it all, have you lost?
Or have you won?
Because no matter what happened, who did you become going for your best?
The definition of “success” in our world is measured by results.
No-one would give a crap about Elon Musk if he had failed by now.
Yet truly aspiring people never measure their life that way, but by who in this lifetime you became.
You never reach your best by stopping where you are.
Fearing “giving up” the whatever to go for what you TRULY want.
It comes because you keep striving, challenging, evolving, getting better and better and better…
Constantly leveraging your greatest to go for your best!