You Owe You

As per the title of the book, you need to know that “You Owe You.”

And... As per the title of the first chapter, you need to know that “It’s You Versus You.”

As I mentioned in the introduction, Eric’s raw authenticity (goosebumps) is one of his most magnetically powerful qualities.

In the book, he tells us about his life as a young man and the choices he made that led him to be homeless—living in abandoned buildings and stealing food out of trash cans to feed himself.

His raw honesty and his extreme ownership of the victim mind-set with which he lived his life as a younger man adds an ineffable gravitas to his INTENSE demands that we STEP UP and quit showing up like a victim.

Of course, he also offers practical guidance on HOW to win the battle between the Victim and the Hero within.

He asks: “How do you do this in your own life? How do you cast off the character of the victim? How do you get out of your own way so you can move forward toward your purpose?”

In short…

“Number one: You have to take ownership of yourself. Number two: You have to own your decisions. Number three: Set a standard. Number four: No excuses.”

On that last point, he says: “Once you set a standard, there is no room for making excuses. If you say you’re going to do something, then do it. The mind never thinks of something that it is not capable of accomplishing. If you say you’re going to get up at 5 a.m. and you don’t, don’t make an excuse. Own up to it. And then tomorrow, set your alarm and get up at 5 a.m. If you say you’re going to do your homework, do the homework. Ain’t no excuse for not doing it.”

Amen.

Let’s move from Victim to Creator to Hero and give the world all we’ve got.

TODAY.

P.S. Eric also tells us about the fact that his mom was one of 14 children and that her entire family lived in an 800 square foot apartment on the South Side of Chicago. His great-grandparents were sharecroppers. Their parents were enslaved.

P.P.S. Eric and his story and energy reminds me of David Goggins. Check out our Notes on Can’t Hurt Me and Never Finished.

That’s from a chapter called “Put Yourself in Miracle Territory” in which Eric tells us about the story of the “Secret of Success” video that went viral that catalyzed Eric’s career and impact.

First, if you haven’t seen the video, here’s the original version of the first part of the talk he gave to students at Michigan State University. He and his team put that video up on YouTube back in 2008. The video basically sat there and got a modest number of videos for THREE YEARS.

Then one day...

An aspiring NFL walk-on hopeful named Giavanni Ruffin took the video, cut it up and created a workout montage. THAT video (goosebumps) blew up.

And...

Eric became an “overnight” success.

Only...

Eric tells us: “I was thirty-six, working on my PhD, and just grinding. I had been speaking for years. Motivational speaking wasn’t necessarily my bread and butter, as it is today, but I already knew it was my spiritual calling, and I was getting known for it around the MSU campus, too. I treated speaking the way an athlete treats practice: It’s about repetition. It’s about muscle memory. Doing something over and over and over again to get better and better. Even back then, I was speaking nearly ever day to some group somewhere. Every time I speak, it’s special. It’s new. It’s urgent. It’s never the same. That day was no different. I was doing what I do best. But it was also just another day in the life of ET.”

Which makes me think of Dave Ramsey and his “overnight’ success.

In EntreLeadership, Ramsey tells us: “If you can find someone who can stay on mission, on task, with focused intensity for an entire decade, I will show you someone who is world-class in their chosen area of endeavor. They are likely a national brand, or will be. In his great book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes that one of the keys to unusual heights of success is spending ten thousand hours of practice at your chosen craft. The Beatles spent countless hours playing at summer festivals before you ever heard of them; Peyton Manning, widely regarded as one of the best quarterbacks to ever play football, has been known for his work ethic since he was a child. I just won my first Marconi Award, which is essentially the Academy Award for radio, and afterward counted up that I have been on the air over ten thousand hours. Remember, you work your tail off for fifteen years and you are suddenly an overnight success.”

Before we move on, we should also talk about the INTENSITY with which Eric’s fictional guru tells him he needs to approach his quest for success.

Reminds me of Joseph Campbell who quoted a real guru to make the same point.

In A Joseph Campbell Companion, he tells us: “Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.’”

Spotlight on YOU...

What quest are you on? And, how bad do you want it?

Show up. Do the work. Put yourself in miracle territory. TODAY.

That’s from a chapter called “Become a Triple Threat.”

What’s a triple threat? Eric tells us: “You need to become a triple threat to get to number one. You need to educate yourself. You need to express yourself. And you need to be excellent.”

As I read that, I thought of two of Michael Jordan’s and Kobe Bryant’s coaches: Tim Grover and George Mumford. I also thought of J.J. Watt and Jerry Rice.

Grover wrote a great book called Relentless. The entire book is one long ode to this exact theme.

He tells us: “Being relentless means never being satisfied. It means creating new goals every time you reach your personal best. If you’re good, it means you don’t stop until you’re great. If you’re great, it means you fight until you’re unstoppable.”

Mumford wrote a great book called The Mindful Athlete. His story about Kobe makes the point.

He tells us: “Every high-performing mindful athlete knows that if you want to achieve something, there’s a good chance that you can, no matter what, if—and this is a big if—you’re willing to pay the price. You not only have to focus on your intention, but you also have to be willing to get up early in the morning and do the same thing thousands and thousands of times—and then another thousand times—with intention. Which leads me to deliberate practice. ... When I worked with Kobe Bryant, he was making about thirteen hundred three-pointers a day in the off-season when he was working on his three-point shot.”

In The Champion’s Comeback, Jim Afremow tells us about J.J. Watt’s work ethic and his fierce commitment to outperforming his contract.

He tells us: “J.J. Watt is an NFL All-Pro defensive end for the Houston Texans. His willingness to embrace the extra effort required for excellence is one of the main reasons for his success. Here’s what Watt says about working hard and representing yourself well: ‘I think no matter what job you do—I don’t care what job it is—you want to outperform your contract. I feel like that’s how everybody should attack their job, at least. You should want people to think you’re underpaid because of how hard you work, because of how well you do your job, because of how you go about your business.’”

In Go Long!, Jerry Rice tells us about HIS “insatiable, irrepressible, insane” work ethic.

He tells us: “As for me, if I was going to play, it wasn’t good enough just to be average. I had to be great. The only way I knew how to do anything was to outwork, outperform, and outplay everyone else.”

How about YOU?

Are YOU showing up day in and day out striving to give your best?

Remember: ‘The only way to get out of mediocrity is to keep shooting for excellence.”

P.S. Eric also tells us: “It’s not uncommon for people to slide backward after hitting peak performance. As I move through my own experiences of excellence, I constantly adjust and move the bar forward. Once I reach a benchmark, I look toward the next one. Once I had a bachelor’s degree, I looked forward to my master’s. Once I had the master’s, it was the PhD. Now I’m after the Nobel Prize.”

In his seminal book on Creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi echoes this wisdom when he tells us: “Like the climber who reaches the top of the mountain and, after looking around in wonder at the magnificent view, rejoices at the sight of an even taller neighboring peak, these people never run out of exciting goals.”

That’s from a chapter called “Sacrifice Good for Great.”

Notice the same themes coming up again and again?

Each of the chapters ends with a Challenge.

Here’s the Challenge from this chapter...

“Take one of the things in your life that is good. Imagine what it would take for that thing—a job, a relationship, a talent—to move from a place of good to great. What does that process look like and feel like? What does the greatness look like and feel like? What would it feel like to remain in a place of good after having imagined a place of great? What are the emotions surrounding good versus great? What will you lose in moving from one to the other? What will you gain? Compare those things. Imagine moving through the difficulty and fear. Make a list of steps for how you might begin to move this good thing or situation into a place of greatness.”

Pause.

Reflect on that.

How will YOU move from good to great... TODAY?

That’s from the final chapter called “You Owe You.” We finish where we started. YOU are the only person who can be accountable for your own happiness. The question is...

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Eric tells us that “Everything—everything—comes from knowing yourself.”

Then he tells us that “It’s difficult to be in control of your life or to live the life of your dreams if you don’t have an identity. ... Very few people who have self-respect and self-love don’t have values or identities.”

Then he walks us through a quick process to help us get clarity on our values and behaviors. That, of course, makes me think of our Heroic app.

Who are YOU at your Heroic best in your Energy, your Work, and your Love? What virtues do you embody? What, specifically (!), do you do when you’re living in integrity with that best version of yourself?

Today’s the day, Hero. You owe you (and us!) your best.

Day 1. All in. Let’s go!