Success Finds People Who Keep Showing Up
Hi! My name is Coach Jimmy and welcome to my streaming series where I talk about the things that I’ve learned as an entrepreneur that has allowed me to build a seven figure business online over the last 9 years or almost or coming up on 9 years right now. Today we are talking about showing up and what does it mean to ‘show up’? Maybe you even saw the title as you know like, “The Power of Showing up? I don’t even get that Jimmy.”
Well let me tell you a little bit about myself. So before getting into business or any of these things, before becoming ‘Coach Jimmy’ or being featured in DVD’s like Insanity, I found myself in my early 20s as 100lbs overweight, 3 time college dropout, living back at home with my parents. I had ‘loser’ written all over me and I quit a bunch of stuff. I want to let you know where I came from and so and that’s going to go right into the power of showing up.
I’ve committed to doing these Scopes, these live streams, on a daily basis on week days and this morning, I had nothing. I was like, “What’s my topic of the day?” Sometimes I wake up and I am really inspired or during my workout this morning I am like, “Oh! This is what I am going to talk about and this is what I am super passionate about.”
Show up when no one’s watching
I went through my workout this morning and nothing. I just didn’t have anything and I went and kind of started a journal, and I was like, “Gosh, today would just be an easy day to go, ‘Hey guys. Got busy not doing the scope,'” but I have teammates and business partners of mine and people that I mentor on the west coast that literally tell me, “I set my alarm, no matter how late in the evening that I go to bed, I set my alarm to wake to up to make sure I don’t miss your training.”
That just meant a lot to me because yes, these are recorded. Yes, you could go to my YouTube channel and watch the replay of this and the fact that I’ve had 2 or 3 people say, “I literally set my alarm to get up and start my day with you.” I was like well shit, I got to show up now. It’s the same thing as having an accountability partner when you are doing a fitness routine or when you are eating cleaner, anything! Whatever that is that you are like, “Oh, these people show up. So what happens if I don’t show up?”
So it’s funny, last Saturday I did a live training, a live three hour training for a lot of home business entrepreneurs, and that morning I knew I needed to get up and get my body moving. I am always better if I get up and that’s why I get up at 4:40 in the morning. I am in the gym usually by 5:30 and usually it’s kind of a long session 5:30 to 7:00 and it gives me time to reflect and think and you know just get moving and that morning I could have gone upstairs and popped in a DVD. I have an entire library of home fitness DVD’s and the gym wasn’t open and I am like, “I am going to go for a run.”
Even though I have lost a hundred pounds, even though fitness is a big part of my life, I hate running. It’s just I don’t enjoy it at all, but for some reason, I do know though when I run that my brain like…I don’t know what it is about the secret of running that I’ll have ideas or whatever so I am like, “Damn it, I am going to go.” It was probably like 45 degrees out, so my Northeastern people you are probably say well that’s a really warm balmy day. To this Texan, that’s kind of cold outside. I hate running and the thing I hate more than just running is running in the cold.
I remember when I lived in New York City I used to try to go run in Central Park and my jaw would block up on me and my ears would burn like in the winter time and I was like “F this, people that run in the cold.” But I thew on some sweat pants and I found like a really great playlist and it was playlist of like this epic music with like motivational speeches over the top of it and I popped that in and I was like feeling good, took my pre-workout, and I literally like zipped out of my door.
So there is a running trail here in uptown area of Dallas called the Katy trail that pro athletes go run and in like the afternoon it’s just packed with runners. It’s really inspiring to go run there because there are all these people all shapes and sizes and ages running around you and it’s one of these places that it’s really super easy to be motivated.
Motivation is overrated
Well I zipped out and my playlist is going and I am just…I am going and I get over there, run up and actually get on to the trail and I don’t care how good your playlist is, after about the first five minutes it’s not as inspiring as that first song or that first hype or that first whatever.
So I get up on this trail and it’s probably like 5:30ish and the playlist is no longer like my secret sauce and there is nobody on this trail and I am running so low, and it kind of have this like overhang of three and so you feel like you are a little bit like in a tunnel and I am running. About at that moment I was like, “Okay, my playlist is no longer motivating me.” There is nobody on this flipping trail to like gain energy from or to be inspired by or go, ‘Oh, that guy’s going, I am going to go. I am going to go race this person,’ there was no competitor, there was nothing.
It’s not the most talented person that ends up having a career. It’s not the most talented person that ends up having longevity. It’s the person who is just stubborn enough not to quit and just continue to show up.
And I had a decision right there and I was like, “Well, Nelson. You can keep going or you can turn around and get back. I mean you literally got your body moving it was a little bit of a run to get over there you could turn around and run back. And nobody knows. You didn’t tell anybody that your goal was to run all the way to the Katy trail to the American Airline Center and run home which is about four and a quarter mile.”
So I am running over a 5k for a guy for a guy that doesn’t run that morning, because I wanted to be better for the people I was teaching. And right then it was just like, “Well, you got nothing.” It’s easy to run and it’s easy to move when you are inspired, when you are motivated, when you have a topic that you want to do it, and I hit that exact same moment this morning. It was, I didn’t know what I was going to talk to you about, but I made a commitment to doing a live stream and a live teaching every weekday morning at 9 and I just got to thinking about just my journey and my life. Whether it was losing a 100lbs, whether it was starting a home business with no…I didn’t have any…there was nothing in my history that said I was going to be a successful business person, or an entrepreneur of any kind.
Just show up
And so this morning when I was like I don’t have a topic, I was like, “Well, Jimmy you just need to show up and you’ll figure it out,” and I was like, “Well, that’s the topic,” is about showing up and the power of showing up and you hear all this all the time that showing up really is 80% of the fight.
I remember when I moved to New York City to pursue my acting career, I lost some weight using programs like Power 90 and P90X and I’d done a musical here and I gained some confidence, I was like, “Okay, this is it. This is where I am going to make this move if I am going to try to do this.” And I had a mentor told me that in a city like New York or in something like acting, a pursuit like that is super competitive, they said, “Hey, it’s not the most talented person that ends up having a career. It’s not the most talented person that ends up having longevity. It’s the person who is just stubborn enough not to quit and just continue to show up.”
You know, there’s days I don’t feel like working out but walking in the gym, I beat 80% of the people that didn’t even show up. I beat like the 80%, it’s probably higher than that but 95% that hit snooze, that 95% that had an excuse like, “Oh, my kids needed this. Oh, my husband did this. Oh, I got to sleep the night before.”
I showed up.
I have been showing up for 9 years.
Be Consistent
It’s just the power of showing up and I talked about this yesterday that success isn’t this magic thing or like one day you show up where success is on the calendar. You are like, “Oh, Thursday. That’s when I will be successful.”
None of that happens. Success isn’t an event.
Success happens because you showed up every day and you did a little something and you did a little something and then eventually, at one point, you are going to look over your shoulder…and in my case, I showed up every day and even if I don’t see a tangible result or I post a video and nobody watches or I don’t have the likes that I want or I invite somebody to join my business and they don’t show up or I put on some weight and I lose some weight. I don’t know what your situation is.
I eat clean for a few days and then I binge or I go get drunk and I feel guilty the next day because I said something stupid in my drunkenness that night before. I don’t know if any of this resonates with you, but it’s just showing up the next day anyway when you don’t feel like it, when you feel guilty, when you want to beat yourself up that you’ve just taken that step forward.
Don’t Quit
Because in my situation, I get this all the time, you know like, “Jimmy, what was the thing that launched your business?” Somebody asked me this, we used to do a Coach Summit in Vegas and I was a part of a fashion show couple of years ago, it was really cool and I am sitting back stage with this guy and he is like, “Jimmy, I just got to ask you a question,” and he is like, “You really seem to have blown up this year.” He is like, “What was it? What was the turning point like what was it that…what was the magic sauce? What was the thing? What was the thing that set your…you know that launched it?”
And I sat back and I was like, “Oh, that’s a good question,” and I started thinking about it and I was like, “Nothing.” There wasn’t the event, that training, the secret. It was learning something every day and applying it. It was showing up, I was doing all these non-sexy things every damn day whether I felt like or not. And you know what, there’s people that have had more success in less time as I have in my business. They make more money. Maybe they are fitter. Maybe they got awesome abs 365. I don’t.
But I will tell you, those people there is a much smaller margin for those people that have had more success faster than me, than the buckets of people that quit.
There wasn’t an event, training, or secret. It was learning something new every day and applying it. It was showing up.
I can tell you time after time after time after time after time after time of people that quit, they didn’t show up. Yesterday on my Facebook page I talked about…so my background in musical theater and I am heading to New York the end of next month and I really wanted to see the musical Hamilton just because I just think this revolutionary awesome new way of doing musical theater and it’s going to sweep the Tony awards and it’s been sold out for like ever.
So I jumped on Stub Hub and I paid a lot of money to go sit in the mezzanine to watch this show. More than I spend on any sporting event, for those of you who knows me that’s a big deal. And I posted about it and every time we post anything that’s like an income, like we talk about how much money we made or, “Oh, we were able to pay off this with our business,” Our legal department with the company that I partnered with always says, “Oh, you got to put a disclaimer.” And I did, I wrote my own disclaimer.
Do the work
I said, “This is the part where I am supposed to tell you that income is not guaranteed that no level of success is guaranteed in my business.” And then I said, “No shit Sherlock, because you have to do the work,” And I said “That’s why most of you won’t get involved with me. That’s why most of you started and quit. That’s why most people aren’t in this for the long haul with me because you don’t have the stomach for the fight to just simply show up.”
Not, ‘I have a plan.’ Not, ‘I know exactly what I am going to do.’ Not, ‘I have it all in a fucking flow chart and stuff.’ Just show up that day. It will reveal itself. I didn’t know what I was going to talk to you about today, but I made a commitment that I was going to be here and talk to you and you know what? It reveals itself. The how, reveals itself, but just quit not showing up. Quit hitting the snooze. Quit saying, “Oh, it’s not that big a deal,” because this is the other thing. So back to the running story. The running story.
Right then when the playlist was no longer sexy and it was super dark and it started to get cold and my ears were burning and there was nobody else there and that was the time when it would be really easy to turn around and just call it a day I said, “No, keep going.”
My knee kind of hurt. I mean…I was just not a runner and I kept going. I was just like bom bom step, I can do another step, I can do another step, I can do another step, waiting for maybe something else in the playlist would eventually spark me. I didn’t know. I just knew if I kept going, something else would carry me.
So we have these spurts of motivation or inspiration where it almost feels like something is carrying us. Momentum, right? And there’s other times…but that’s always temporary. So you have these little times of like you hit you know it’s like Super Mario brothers like you found the warp level right? You went from level 2 to level 8 because you jumped up above. Gosh I probably lost half the audience here who never remember Super Mario brothers, but you jumped up above you went brrr and you went from level 2 to level 8 because you knew that little secret sauce, but that didn’t happen all the time. You just keep running.
Build Momentum
And what happened is I got to the bottom to the AAC and I turned around, so that’s in the middle of downtown Dallas, and I turned around and you’ve got to come up hill the other way and I was just not feeling it. Out of nowhere, this other runner, this little chick was hauling ass coming this way to pass me and we just caught eyes for a second because there was nobody else to look out there and she just kind of looked at me and didn’t even stop. I was like, “Yeah,” and I was right back in the game. I was right back in the game and my pace picked up and I was excited and I was going, but I never would have been given that gift of that other runner had I stopped when I first wanted to stop.
When I wasn’t inspired anymore.
When I wasn’t motivated anymore.
The other day, I totally didn’t feel like getting my work out and then I showed up at the gym and my work out partner didn’t show that day and I even though I was already there, I was going to leave. I honestly was going to leave and I am like, “Just pick up a weight and start moving.”
Quit saying, “Once I am motivated I’ll do this. When I have the idea then I will show up.” It just doesn’t work that way. Show up when you feel like it and when you don’t.
So I did and in the middle of that I had a business idea, I had…like all of a sudden, you do the work, you just show up, and really the Universe or your muse or God or whatever it is that you believe in is going to gift you, but it’s not going to give you the good stuff until you show up. Until you show up whether or not you feel like it.
It’s like the muse, like the creative angel is waiting. They have the greatest stuff for you. They have that business break through for you. They have that motivation to stay on your fitness routine. They have whatever it is that you are trying to build…you’re trying to make that eBook, you want to start that podcast, you just not quite sure what you want to do, and that idea is there, but the Universe is not going to give it to you to make it your own until it knows it can trust you with it.
Stop lying to yourself
If you are not somebody that shows up every day, why in the world would the Universe share it with you and trust you with an amazing million dollar idea to somebody that it can’t trust if they are going to have any follow through? And don’t say, “Oh, once I have the idea. Once I am motivated I am going to follow through Jimmy,” because that’s bullshit.
Because you won’t.
Because you are not motivated every day.
I’m not. Nobody is.
So quit flipping it. Quit saying, “Once I am motivated I’ll do this. When I have the idea then I will show up.” It just doesn’t work that way. Show up when you feel like it and when you don’t.
And then that, “Jimmy how did you do this show? How did you make that amazing video? The key note speaker video? How do you know what you are going to say every day?” I don’t. I show up and it’s literally gifted to me. I don’t know. I don’t plan things out. I don’t script any of this. This is my to do list for the day. There are no notes before I jump on here.
Just show up. Show up every day. It’s like digging for oil. The oil is there, but you got to drill the ways and what happens is too many of you start drilling and you get a little ways in and you are like, “Nope, this doesn’t work,” and you take the drill out and you go somewhere else and you got to start all over again. You got to start all over again because the minute you stop, it’s right before your breakthough.
When nobody liked the video and nobody watched something and nobody like…that’s when you got to go, “I am showing up anyway.” It really is that whole, “It’s darkest before the dawn.” Right when you think nobody is watching your post, nobody cares about your story, I am not losing any weight, it’s the next day. It’s the next workout. It’s the next food choice. It’s the next video. It’s the next share. It’s the next whatever where that person who has been watching in silence, and they are, that’s really…they want to latch on to you.
They want to work with you, but they just want to know are you really going to be there long term for them. And right when you quit they are like, “Ah, that sucks. I really wanted to work with her. What happened to that daily thing she used to do every day? It really did help me.”
Ignore the Haters
And the people that you are going to help the most aren’t the vocal ones. 9 times out of 10, the vocal ones are the ones that are going to bitch a complain and then we assume, “Oh, everybody hates what I did because this one chick, who had nothing better to do, wrote me an ugly message.”
We let the vocal minority skew our vision of reality, and that’s the prime…as much as I love social media, it’s also the jacked up thing about it. 3 people say some negative comment and you think that, “Everybody hated that post. I am never going to be that bold again, I am never going to be that forthright again.”
I talked about this yesterday, one of my mentoring calls. One of my newer coaches was like, “Well, you know, I don’t want to lose my audience and I don’t want to talk too much about this, that, and the other,” and I am like, “You are going to lose some people.”
Any time you do something big and you are building something, you are going to lose some audience and you are going to have a vocal minority that rolls their eyes, “Oh, you’re involved with that. You’re doing this thing.” And yes, those 3 people don’t like that you are doing something positive and building something with your life. You know why? Because they are not showing up.
It’s so easy to sit in the stands and tell the players what they are doing wrong than to get your ass on the field and play.
Be a player.
If you’re not on the field with me, I don’t give a shit what you’re saying on the stands.
I’m not going to respect somebody in the stands. It’s easy up there. You’re not sweating. You are not bleeding with me on the field. You’re not getting pummeled. Get on the field with me and then maybe I will respect some of the feedback you give me, but if you’re not in the arena with me, getting punched in the face daily, telling me why my business is bullshit or why are you involved in that thing or I can’t afford it or I don’t have time.
I get this everyday guys for nine years. Show up. Be a player. Don’t be a critic.
That’s what I got for you today. So I don’t care if you feel like it today, go show up, and tell me about it. Tell me in the comments how you are showing up today so I can root you on as we are in the field in the game together. Because that means more, right? That means more when one of your team mates smash you on the ass and says, “Good play,” than somebody in the stands saying good or bad.
Thank you for being here with me today. My name is Coach Jimmy and until next time show up and get it done.