I have family, friends, and entrepreneurs I’m mentoring who are going to think this post was written specifically about them. Yes, it applies to you, but I didn’t write this just about you. I swear.
Do you want to be good at something? Cool. That’s simple. Not easy, but simple. Just work on it a little bit every day and in 6 months, a year, two years, you’ll be good at it. Being good at something is nice. The world is brimming with people who are good at stuff.
Do you want to be great at something? Great as in, “holy shit, that’s amazing” great? Great like knocking people’s socks off great? Great like there are few people in the world who can do what you can great?
That’s simple too. But it’s even harder than being good, and it requires doing something that most people just cannot bring themselves to do.
To be great at something, you have to give up being good at just about everything else. If you want to be great you have to focus on that one thing and nothing else for however long it takes.
You want your business to be great? Focus on your business. Don’t worry about getting better at billiards so you can beat your buddies at the pool hall on weekends, don’t try to improve your programming skills by working on Java in your down time.
You want to be a great athlete? Every minute of your day should be focused only on that. Don’t start new relationships, don’t seek out new hobbies. Don’t try your hand at acting or modeling or marketing yourself for post-athletics millions.
You want to be a great writer? Nothing else should matter. There should be no time in your day for improving anything else, for working on anything else, for building anything else.
Yes, most of us are family members, spouses, or parents. Those things are important, and you should do whatever necessary to make sure that you are a good wife, a good father, a good daughter or brother. But outside of that, nothing else should matter.
The hard truth is that it’s almost impossible to do more than one thing well. Everyone I’ve ever met is capable of doing multiple things decently enough to get by. Getting by is nice, and sometimes it’s the best we can do.
Sometimes, however, we want more. Sometimes we want to elevate ourselves. Sometimes we yearn to be great.
And to be great, you must sacrifice everything else and focus on just one thing.
You rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!