by Tommy Baker
Using Fake Gratitude
“Well, I’ve got a good thing going, and I’ve got the benefits I need.” Fake gratitude is when we talk ourselves out of making a bold decision by masking our disdain with cheap and plastic gratitude. Instead of honoring ourselves with how we really feel, we say all the right things. We cling on to fake gratitude and use it as a reason to not act. We use it as a way to justify mediocrity, and we know it. We rationalize away our possibility in exchange for phrases such as:
“It’s not that bad.”
“Things could be worse.”
“There’s a lot of people who would love to be in my position.”
This is fake gratitude, and it’ll drink every last drop of your leap until it no longer exists, and you cling on to your current circumstances even though you hate them.
Instead Show Gratitude
Show real gratitude for what your life is giving you today. Use it to remind yourself how much you appreciate what’s part of your life today, while honoring your feelings about wanting to change. Often, people can get confused about gratitude and how to feel (authentically) grateful while deeply wanting to change their lives. I asked Mastin Kipp, author and creator of Functional Life Coaching, about this dilemma during an interview:5
People often think wanting more means negating what they currently have. You can simultaneously be grateful and dissatisfied. Whenever someone says you should be grateful for what they have, they’re afraid you’re going to change and leave them behind.
Next time you use fake gratitude, simply catch yourself. Remind yourself this is a mechanism designed to keep you in the same place. Instead, use real gratitude combined with ruthless honesty to compel you to step into your leap now.
Making Decisions Based On Who You’ve Been
Research has shown the average adult makes 35,000 decisions per day. Sure, some of these may be as trivial as what socks to wear, but these add up. And if the old adage of life being a bunch of decisions is true, this is a big deal.
However, how are we making decisions and what is our point of reference? This is what distinguishes those who stay stuck, and those who achieve exponential growth with their leap. The difference is most people make daily decisions based on who they are today, or worse—on who they’ve been. This creates a predictable future: one in which most things stay the same. Sure, incremental improvement can happen here, but it’s painfully slow.
Instead Look Toward the Future
Make decisions with your leap in mind. Take yourself to the place where not only your business leap has happened, but also where it’s been a success of astonishing proportions. Make decisions today based on what that version of yourself would do. Often, I’ll find when I do this with myself and with clients, what seem like big decisions today end up being matter-of-fact ones with the future version of ourselves. For example:
Instead of waiting to make the key hire in your business, you make it today.
Instead of waiting to launch the new product or service offering, you do it today.
Instead of waiting to invest in yourself through a coach or mentor, you do it today.
You can see where this goes. And while making these bold decisions will have a powerful effect on your life today, they’re also doing something else; they’re collapsing your future right in front of you.
This is the quantum model of decision-making: taking a future as a possibility and bringing it down to today. The old model, the Newtonian way, is one of cause and effect, and one of predictable, linear growth.
Business Is an Endless Series of Leaps
Although you will experience life-defining leaps in business and your purpose, they’ll never end. At each new level of growth, you’ll have an opportunity to take a new leap. This again, will require you to step into a new level of courage and self-trust.
Daunting? Not quite. If you’re simply getting started, it may feel that way: but don’t fret. Keep your focus on the leap in front of you, and then you’ll realize business is a series of leaps. They won’t always be massive leaps into the unknown, but they can feel as terrifying. But remember: you’re here to grow, and if you’re not growing, you’re going to slowly slide back to comfort.
The biggest killer of results and growth in business is complacency. The moment you and I decide we’re in a comfortable place is the moment we begin the slow slide back to mediocrity.
Your next leaps in business will come in all shapes and sizes, including the following
Making the Key Hire in Your Business
Early on as an entrepreneur, you operated out of blind passion and faith. It worked, and now you’re in a place where growth isn’t as fast as it used to be. Furthermore, you find yourself doing way too much. This is where the key hire becomes your leap. I’ve worked with countless entrepreneurs who’d taken the initial leap but were just as hesitant to make the key hire standing in their way.
Whether it was hiring their first full-time admin, operations person, CFO or anything in between, this key hire was the leap required not only to create massive growth but also to get back to a place of freedom and vitality in their business.
And yet, they waited and took way too long. They thought they’d need to add the key hire’s salary in new revenue, which is reverse thinking. It’s playing small, and relying on incremental growth, when the professional realizes the key hire is exactly the domino in the way to create an abundance of profits.
In every case of working with someone who needed to make a key hire (including this guy), it came six months too late. Without a doubt, the number-one theme that came up time and time again was a variation of the following: “I wish I would have done this sooner, this is incredible.”
One of my clients, Jeff, realized he wasn’t making his key hire because he didn’t want to give up control of his baby. But his baby wasn’t growing, and it was keeping him up every single night riddled with stress. He’d been running successful financial planning firm yet felt stuck. We worked together, got him clear, and he pulled the trigger. We created a deadline for him, a two-week, European vacation. Upon arrival, we talked, and he had concern in his voice. I’d thought it hadn’t work out as well or there had been a crisis at home. He said:
“Tommy . . . I don’t know how to say this, but um, I realized I was barely missed. I expected to come home to endless emails and putting out fires, but she (the key hire) and the team not only handled it perfectly, we grew. I’ve realized I’m needed less than I thought.” For a moment, Jeff was a little down, until he realized this was his dream; he now had the freedom he had so long sought out and why he started the business in the first place. All it took was a little faith, trust, and deciding to use the quantum model. Jeff expands:
The results were so incredible, I’d started to beat myself up for not doing this at least 24 months sooner. What I realized was the future self, the Jeff five years down [the] line would make this hire in a moment’s notice. Once I recognized this, everything changed. We’ve grown more in the last 8 months than we did in the prior four years.6
This is the power of making the key hire your business leap and never looking back.
Stepping Away from the “in” to the “on”
Most entrepreneurs will experience a moment where they realize they’re spending too much time in the trenches. Because of the all-in approach of launching and growing, it’s easy to get stuck and comfortable working “in” the business, instead of “on” it.
In the business means spending your time on the fulfillment of your brand, product, or service. In other words, doing work employees can and should be doing, including details that make the business run but don’t necessarily make it grow. There comes a point when an entrepreneur must transition to working mostly on the business. This is where leverage is created—long-term strategy, planning, and the creation of new initiatives. Without the burden of always focusing on the micro, the entrepreneur is able to stay on the cutting edge.
This transition can
be incredibly difficult and is considered a leap. On the other side of it is growth, freedom, and powerful creative energy.
Investing in Marketing, Systems, and Infrastructure
With growth in any business, there comes a time when doing the same of what got us here won’t get us there. This is when leaps are required, and investments come in various forms: marketing, system, infrastructure, branding, and more.
Whether that’s upgrading from your home office in the basement to a real HQ or investing in a marketing firm to help you with the big launch, these leaps are essential to endure growth. Sure, it’s easier to make decisions once you have more cash to work with, but I’ve often found the following to be true: when you have something to lose, it can be much more tempting to play it safe.
These core pillars of your business are designed to build a foundation to stand the test of time. Most importantly, they provide stability as the business grows. There’s nothing worse than having a business hit it big, only to realize they don’t have any of the systems and infrastructure to support or fulfill the growth.
Launching a Brand-New Division, Product, or Service
Last, your business leap could come from launching a brand-new offering, product line, or service and further evolving in your marketplace. This is when creative energy thrives on how you stay on the cutting edge, for yourself and for your clients.
On paper, this may seem so apparent you may be rolling your eyes. But how many companies suffer a fall from grace because of their lack of innovation and keeping up with an ever-changing marketplace?
Kodak invented the world’s first digital camera in 1975 but were too hesitant to introduce anything except their core product with film.
Blockbuster was king of the mountain until they ignored where the consumer was headed (delivery and streaming) and stayed stubborn with the belief the consumer would come find them.
Borders Bookstores had a massive retail footprint, but failed to embrace the ever-changing landscape of books through the Internet and digital delivery.
I’d be able to fill the rest of this book with examples, but the point is simple: stay on the cutting edge or be left behind. As of 2014, 88% of Fortune 500 companies from 1955 were gone or no longer existed.7
And while you may be thinking you don’t have a multinational conglomerate with thousands of employees, stagnation and lack of innovation happens in every business.
It’s the local salon that doesn’t embrace online booking and loses market share to the audience that prefers to make appointments online.
It’s the teaching and education platform stuck on the traditional model instead of finding new ways to create experiences for people through digital distribution.
It’s the real estate business focusing on the same old referral techniques instead of embracing video marketing to attract high-end clients.
You get the drill: there’s always a leap you can create to reach the next level of growth and impact with your business.
Remember, your business leap can and will transform every area of your life. But life is never linear, and it is impossible to fully compartmentalize. That’s exactly where the other leaps in your life may actually become the precursor or catalyst to creating a shift across all the others, including business.
Chapter 10 Key Takeaways
Your business leap will transform you. It will impact every area of your life, and you will never the same. But you must be willing to go all in, and double down on your vision.
Create courage (or it will be created for you.) Leverage your circumstances to create a decision today. But if you don’t, you may find yourself with your back up against the wall and have no other option.
Business leaps never end. Business is a series of leaps, and there will always be another micro-leap waiting for you. Embrace this, because business becomes a breeding ground for your personal growth.
CHAPTER 10 LEAP POWER STEP
What is the one decision you’ve been putting off in business, career, and your ability to produce meaning and results with your work?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
What’s been holding you back from making this decision and why?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
What are you committed to doing now?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Notes
1 http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/sites/default/files/Mind%20the%20Workplace%20-%20MHA%20Workplace%20Health%20Survey%202017%20FINAL.PDF.
2 https://www.cnbc.com/id/49918773.
3 https://80000hours.org/2016/02/what-the-literature-says-about-the-earnings -of-entrepreneurs/.
4 https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wwwstitchercompodcastresistaverage /resist-average-academy/e/53209400.
5 https://resistaverageacademy.com/95/.
6 Private interview, September 2018.
7 http://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-in-1955-vs-2014-89 -are-gone-and-were-all-better-off-because-of-that-dynamic-creative -destruction/.
CHAPTER 11
The Physical Leap (Vitality on Fire)
Rich was like most 40-year-olds: slightly overweight, but not enough to be considered a problem. Sluggish and drained, but that came with the territory, decades of obsessing over a career in law, waiting for a time he could truly rest. He was tired, but who wasn’t? At least that’s what he believed; life is supposed to feel this way, especially when you’re pushing to become partner at a prestigious law firm; 80-hour weeks become the norm.
One night after a particularly intense week, he found himself walking up the stairs to his bedroom to meet his wife who was already fast asleep. Not anywhere near the top, he had to rest: he was short of breath and gasping for air. He wiped off some sweat and thought he may be having the start of a heart attack. He looked down and realized he’d only gone a few steps up the stairs of his home.
What the hell, he thought to himself. The years of poor health, a shitty diet, and pursuing success at the expense of his physicality came to a screeching halt. He was not only disappointed but he was also disgusted and embarrassed at who and what he’d become. At age 39, he was staring into the abyss of a brand-new decade, and yet this number represented a special opportunity: the chance to change radically.
Otherwise, he was going to drive his entire life straight into the ground. Literally.
That evening, Rich made a decision and experienced his moment. He would never be the same, and there was a clear before and after. This was it for him. Rich explains, from his book, Finding Ultra:
Yet in that precise moment, I was overcome with the profound knowledge not just that I needed to change, but that I was willing to change. I’d learned that the trajectory of one’s life often boils down to a few identifiable moments—decisions that change everything. I knew all too well that moments like this were not to be squandered. Rather, they were to be respected and seized at all costs, for they just didn’t come around that often, if ever. Even if you expe
rienced only one powerful moment like this one, you were lucky. Blink or look away for even an instant and the door didn’t just close, it literally vanished.1
The next day, Rich didn’t simply commit to adding more vegetables to his diet and a new membership at the local Orange Theory Fitness. He became a new person. With no plan, blueprint or experience, within six months he’d signed up for a special endurance event called the Ultraman—a triathlon on steroids—a three-day event, spanning 320 miles on the big island of Hawaii. He finished 111th and began his quest to become one of the world’s fittest athletes. In 2009, Men’s Fitness named him “one of the 25 fittest men in the world.”2
Fast-forward to today and you can’t help but think of Rich Roll when discussing training, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle. He’s a pioneer as a vegan athlete, a household name in endurance training, and host of one of the most popular podcasts in the world. His physical leap lead to a complete transformation across all pillars of life: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
And you can do the same.
Who It’s For
We live in a world where we chase all types of success at the expense of our physical vitality, energy, health, and confidence. Then, one day, we wake up and realize what this Faustian tradeoff has done: left us broke. We’re forced to say no to the invite to hike the mountain. We’re unable to last playing in the yard with our kids. We lack the energy to do the things we love. But worst of all: or lack of physical vitality and health stops us from creating our dreams. Big dreams require big energy—often, they don’t come to life simply because we’re drained.
