Brant Phillips Show 11: It Doesn’t Suck, You Suck
[powerpress]
Welcome my friends to The Brant Phillips Show where we are all about creating results in life and business. I’m going to share a little story with you today. You’re probably wondering what the intent of the title of this podcast is. I’m going to explain that very, very quickly and with some really, I feel like some really good takeaways that you can hopefully gain from today. That’s the lesson I’m hoping that you extract and the result that you extract from today.
A friend of mine who was in a business Mastermind that I was in, he was in the Mastermind with me, actually played in the NFL and actually won a Super Bowl ring, played for the New England Patriots. We’re all working out one day and he was leading one of the workouts. He was like a trainer, assuming a trainer type role.
He said something during a workout to a guy. I didn’t hear what the guy was saying but I think he was complaining or whining or groaning, crying whatever he was doing during the workout. What he said to this guy has stuck with me ever since. What he said was and I’ll just get to the point was, “It doesn’t suck, you suck.” As this guy is like moaning and groaning and crying or whatever he’s saying and I forget what he said but he probably said something to the extent that, “Oh, this sucks.” My friend’s like, my boy is like, “It doesn’t suck, you suck. It doesn’t suck, you suck.”
Think about this. This is a really, really profound statement. Think about that a lot of things in life, a lot of things in business, we’ll say like, “Oh God, this sucks. This sucks. This is so hard. This is so bad.” The fact of the matter is, the truth most often times is that that situation doesn’t suck. It’s that we in our current capacity are not able to elevate ourselves above that situation. We are actually the one that sucks whenever you turn that statement around.
You see, you have to first be real enough to admit that you suck at something before you can ever expect to be successful. It’s definitely like this in life and in business and the real estate games and a real estate game quite frequently is that if we look that hey, we all start out with zero experience when we’re doing something for the first time in business. We all start out at some point in time where we have zero knowledge and/or zero experience when we start out. That’s just where we all start out at. A learning curve is to be expected. Then there’s just some things that even if it’s not a learning curve, even it’s something that we already knew about or something that we’ve done, there are certain things that we are just, that we suck at or that we’re not really good at. That’s just what it is.
I’m going through the CrossFit Open as we speak. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the CrossFit Open is a time annually, it’s about five weeks long. Worldwide people compete to earn a chance at the regionals and the finals, the CrossFit finals. Basically they have a global workout where everyone does the same workout every single week and everyone records their scores. You have to have a trainer there to record your score and all this kind of stuff. You see where you rank at locally, in your region, in your country and worldwide.
I’m pretty good at CrossFit I would say but comparatively speaking worldwide and even just others in my region and even other people in my gym, I suck compared to some of these other people. That’s a choice where I can blame the workouts when things get really hard and these workouts get really hard or I can just blame myself. That’s my capacity. I don’t beat myself up. That’s not the purpose of this message for you to beat yourself up like, “Oh God, I suck. Oh, I suck. I’m so bad.” No, that’s not the point. The point is just to acknowledge and be real.
One of the ways that we create results and we create results in life and that we create results in business is just being really honest with ourselves because if we can’t be honest and we can’t be real with where we are at and what our current capacity is, we’re never going to turn that corner to begin creating results.
Whenever something is in your life or your business and you are not achieving the way that you want to be achieving, something that you feel like you suck at or something that you’re not producing results, just consider to stop blaming it, whatever it is. If you’re still stuck in your job and you’re investing business is not where it needs to be, maybe your marriage, maybe whatever your health and fitness like I just mentioned with CrossFit or whatever it is with your business, stop blaming outside factors. Stop blaming your lack of time. Stop blaming the economy, stop blaming blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blame yourself. It doesn’t suck, your current capacity sucks. Your lack of training, whatever but stop playing this victim role and blaming it.
Just understand that whenever “It” whatever that is in your life, it’s going to hit the fan. Your business, it’s going to hit the fan. This is a choice that you have. You can be like the masses and simply say like this guy in the workout like, “Oh, this sucks.” Or you can begin to just admit that your current capacity is not where it needs to be and that is the only reason why you’re in that situation.
You may think, “Oh, I don’t want to.” A lot of people they want to live a lie. Quite frankly, they want to live a lie because they don’t want to admit that they’ve currently failed. It doesn’t mean they’re a lifetime failure just because where they’re at isn’t where they want to be but they don’t want to admit that they suck at something, that they have this imperfection, they have this flaw, that they’re not good at something when there’s actually nothing wrong with that. Actually, there is a tremendous amount of dignity in just acknowledging like, “Hey, I’m not where I need to be because of me,” and just taking it, owning responsibility for it.
Like I said, it’s like we’re all going to start from a place that we know little or nothing about and we have no experience in a certain area, and so we don’t really know how to create results in that area of our life. That’s when the work comes in. That’s where the practice comes in. That’s where the study comes in. That’s where the failing comes in. That’s where this sucking comes in before we will ever get to the success.
Like I said, a lot of people are just willing to admit this but then the even sadder part of this is, is that quite frankly a lot of people are unwilling to fail. A lot of people are unwilling to suck at something. What do they do? They stay on the sidelines. They stay in this, oh so comfortable comfort zone which if you’ve heard me talk about the comfort zone, there’s nothing comfortable about it at all. Whenever you begin really, really, really looking at who you are and who you want to become, the comfort zone is one of the most uncomfortable places to be really especially days are numbered on your life. It is not a place to be.
This is my perspective but look, just make no mistake about it. In order to succeed at something, we must acknowledge that we all start from this place where we’re not good at it. Rather than me just talking and it’s easy for me to sit on my pedestal and say what I’m saying right now but look, I admit. I will eat my own cooking here and say that I admit that I’ve sucked a lot, at a lot of different times in my life. I’ve had to admit that I’ve sucked.
There’s probably like 1,000 different ways and times that I’ve bought something in business or in the real estate world in running my real estate business and I’ve sucked, a lot of times. Probably 1,000 times more. I will probably suck 1,000 times more in the future because as I level up in business and as I expand to new levels and new capacities I acknowledge and understand that before I can have success at another level, there is a period of this suckage I’ll call it that I have to go through.
This lesson, it applies to all areas of my life. I’m [inaudible 00:10:52] guy because there’s been times when I’ve sucked at my marriage. I’ve been really, really bad. There’s been times when I’ve sucked with my self-control, my eating and drinking habits. I even sucked at being a dad sometimes. I’m not a perfect father. There’s times I’ve been really bad at that.
Like I said, times in business and real estate, more times than I can remember that I’ve been really bad. In a lot of situations, it didn’t suck, I sucked but I own it. I take responsibility and that is the critical piece of today’s message because when I acknowledge that it was me, only me that’s responsible for my results and not outside factors, guess what? That’s when things begin to change. That’s whenever things that I get back on track to creating results by just being real with myself, just being real with myself.
My friends, I turn this back to you. I want you to consider that the problems that you may be experiencing with your life and your real estate business or your business in general, it’s not the economy, it’s not your wife, it’s not your spouse, it’s not your market, it’s not your lack of time or your lack of money. It has nothing to do with any of those things. The real culprit, you guessed it. You sucking.
Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. You have the choice to make. You can continue to be in this place that you’re at or simply just make the choice. Make the choice, make the commitment to change and that’s up to you.
I’m going to leave you with some homework today my friends. Just spend a little time and just ask yourself what is something in your life or business that your current capacity is far from where you desire to be? What is something in your life or your business where your current capacity is far from where you desire to be? In other words, what is something in your life or business that you currently suck at that you’re willing to acknowledge that but commit to do something about it? Think of it like three actions that you can take to immediately begin to create change and to create a new result in that area of your life and/or in your business.
My friends, that’s all I have for today. I just want to once again say I love and appreciate each and every one of you. I thank you for listening to the show. Until next time, I look forward to helping you create results in your life and your business.