Raise the Bar by Not Accepting Mediocrity
Hi! My name is Coach Jimmy and we are talking about good enough. Is good enough good enough? And I have a lot of history, like a lot, like a big history of settling for good enough. You see before I got in business almost 9 years ago, I found myself as a 3 time college dropout, I was 100 pounds overweight, and drowning in over $60,000 in debt and living back at home with my parents. That obviously wasn’t good enough and in order to get out of that, in order to do that to where I’ve lost 100 pounds, I have kept it off for going on 10 years, building a seven figure online business, bringing my wife home from her job, living debt free, and living a life of really freedom to be able to spend time to do videos like this and train from the comfort of my home here in Dallas Texas.
It took me changing my standards. It took me changing my work ethics, because I don’t know if you ever felt this way, but when you try something and you put some effort in and you get close…so this morning I get up, I am not a runner. I will tell you that.
Yes I’ve lost 100 pounds. Yes, fitness is in my DNA now and it’s an important part of my day, but I don’t like to run. For whatever reason this morning, I got up super early at 4:30 to 4:40 in the morning. I was in the gym by 5:30. I was warmed up, getting my mind right, listening to something to really feed my mind and my spirit, and today was going to be shoulder day and I was going to go big. I haven’t had a good strong shoulder day in a while and decided to do Body Beach Bulk Shoulders. One of my favorite routines. I mean it’s just a rocker and I got to the end of that and I knew I wanted to do some business training today.
I had seen that Gary Vaynerchuck’s #AskGaryVee show, yesterday’s episode was about how to gain followers on Snapshot. I am spending a lot of time on Snapchat right now. If you are not following me, I am TheCoachJimmy on Snapchat. I have a ton of tips that I have already laid down this morning and so I was like, “Well, I want to watch that video. I’ll be proactive.” and so I was like I will go upstairs and jump on the treadmill. The DREADmill, and I will actually run.
Surround Yourself With Doers
It was funny because I went up there and I thought oh I’ll just put it on the incline and walk and cool down and watch thing. And I got up there and there were like three chicks, not walking on the treadmill, not trotting on the treadmill. These chicks were running and I was like, “Game on, chicks. Let’s go!”
And there was something about that, right? Surrounding yourself with a pusher. Surrounding yourself with somebody else that’s like, “My bar is here. I am not concerned about hurting your feelings if you want to walk on this thing. I am not concerned if you want to like play safe and play small.” This chick was going and I was like, “Shit! I got to go!”
So she was already like rocking and rolling and I so I grab my phone, I popped up the episode that I wanted to watch, and there was no like, “I am going to walk for two minutes,” I was like go! So I cranked that puppy and I started running and like I said running is not my bag.
I thought, “You know what? I am going to watch this and I am going to knock out two miles.” Two miles at the end of after a very like strenuous lift, seemed pretty good to me that seem pretty solid. So, I am trucking along because I don’t want these chicas to think you know I didn’t want them judging me or thinking, “Oh, this guy is playing soft or he can’t keep up with us,” and you know that ego pops in there, right?
You surround yourself of pushers and you surround yourself with doers, you better hope your ego pops in to play big because you are worth it. You are worth it to go play big with them.
Now whether or not I can run as long as they can or I can play up to their level, I don’t know, but I will tell you, I had a better run today because of those chicks up there that were blowing and going than I would have if I would have gone up there by myself and allowed myself to just walk at a four miles an hour on a 15% incline. That I got a better work out in.
Surround yourself with pushers and doers because you are worth it to go play big with them.
So I was getting towards the end of the run right and it was taking me a little bit longer to get my two miles than I thought, so I was like you know, “I will go up here and I will do…I’ll run for twenty minutes,” and it was taking me a little longer that to get to this two mile because I did stop. I was doing some intervals in the middle and the video that I was watching while I was running ended and it was almost at the twenty minute mark, but I hadn’t pass the two mile mark, and I was like, “Well, I got twenty minutes and that’s good enough.”
And right in that moment, when that thought went through my head, because I thought, “Look. I’ve already been up since 4:45. I’ve already listened to something that’s feeding my mind and my spirit. I’ve already lifted a lot of heavy weights and I had run for twenty minutes while doing business training on a treadmill.” If I kick off this thing before I technically get to two miles, would you know? No, because you weren’t up with me this morning.
Would anybody know?
Would anybody know that was really my goal was to run two miles before I got off?
Meet Your Goals Even When No One’s Watching
It would have been so easy to just go, “No. Twenty minutes. Good sweat. Done.” and in that moment I had to like physically, aggressively grab that thought, slam dunk that mofo, and said, “No. I set a goal. Good enough isn’t good enough right here. Close enough isn’t close enough.”
I want to use INSANITY as an example. I don’t know if you have ever done that program and maybe that’s how you know me. I had the privilege, guys, going on six years ago now of being a cast member in that program and what I find with any kind of Shaun T workout is, and when I am doing insanity with people and I am just as guilty (and let me know if you have done INSANITY, put it in the comments and let me know if this has been you).
Let’s say power knees, right? Boom, boom, boom, boom, and you’re going and you’re going and you’re going and he’s like, “Faster! Go as hard as you can. Go as hard as you can.” and then right towards the end, Shaun starts a countdown. Five four, so let me know is this you go go go go go five four three two one. Okay, next move.
Did you catch it? Did you catch it? Go go go go five four three two one. Okay. Where is the power jumps?
You cheated yourself! You cheated yourself right at the end of that move. You cheated because you were prepping for the next. “I am going to save a little energy here because I know those power jumps are coming next. I know that next move is coming next.”
Sprint Through the Finish Line
Think of the sprinter going across the finish line and if you have people on your shoulder, you see that time and time again, that person that lets up right before they cross the finish line and somebody else flies past them. Somebody else flies past them because they get right at the end, right that little leg, and said it…you see the really good sprinters, they speed up and dive for it. It’s that boom! It’s the pow! “I am going to finish this thing and I am going to get across it.”
So something I had to do in INSANITY, which is also bled over into every other piece of my life, was to go a second beyond. Boom boom boom boom five four three two one plus one go and finish strong.
So think about that in other areas of your life. Where else in your life have you got good enough on that email, good enough on that blog post, good enough putting together that social media post, or good enough you didn’t make that one more phone call to that prospect. You didn’t follow up with that one more person because you are like, “Oh, it’s five. This was good enough today.” And you’re wondering why your business or your endeavor or your goal or whatever it is that you are trying to achieve hasn’t come to fruition yet.
I am telling you. It’s in the details. It’s in the good enough.
I am going to go back and use another Shaun story, two more Shaun stories in fact, God bless Shaun T in my life.
You Are Capable of More Than You Know
I was on a Beachbody cruise and we were…Shaun T was on the cruise and we were doing INSANITY outside, this was probably this was five years ago, my son was just born. Five years ago and Shaun was doing INSANITY out on a basketball deck on the top of the cruise, on the top of the boat, and I am in the audience and I felt like it was as a cast member, as Shan’s friend, I felt like it was my job in the audience to bring as much energy as possible. We were doing high knees, so for those who are not familiar with the program which you can find that on my website TheCoachJimmy.com you will learn all about that in my experience with insanity.
We were doing high knees so like you are running your knees are coming up at least waist level and you are twisting. Boom boom boom boom and Shauwn picks that up and picks that up and picks that up and he looks at me…and even if you have ever worked out with Shaun T, what he will do is he is like, do you see that jungle book? I compare him to Sher Khan. He is that tiger, right? He will come off the stage and start coming through the crowd and you will get really nervous because you don’t want him to like call you out for slacking. Specifically if he knows you personally. And I am just going with these high knees and he comes and taps me and says, “Go on stage. Keep this going. I am going to go out here.”
Well, holy cow. The performer in me was like “Yes! I am going to do this! I am going to kick all these people’s ass! Let’s go!” And I jump on stage and I throw these high knees into turbo drive like I have never done high knees higher or faster in my life and Shaun is out there counting down and I finished. I finished strong and I see Shaun coming up so I assume, “Look, I am going to give everything I can up here because Shaun is going to come tap me on the shoulder and I am going to be able to go back down in the audience and slack off the next move a little bit. I am gonna, I am going to over exert here so I can slack down there.”
And he come back on stage and I go to leave and he goes, “Uh uh.” He is like, “One minute power jumps. Go!” and he started and the cadence was like go go go go.
He picked me up and challenged me to keep going. He didn’t play to my level. He didn’t let me slack because he knew my potential.
Well I had emptied my tank on the high knees so I am in panic. I have hundreds of people looking at me, I am up on stage, my big ego thought, “Oh, I am such a bad ass so I can take off the next move,” you know I showed them as I crawled off stage and go suck wind while all of them had to keep going. Then I start doing these power jumps and he is like, “You are going for a minute, Jimmy!”
So people laugh, I see people looking at me and I feel like I have to go so they don’t stop. So I start doing these power jumps and I have never been so tired in my life.
Have you ever get so tired and you work so hard that you get this…and maybe I am the only person, you get this weird tingle in your jaw and almost feels like you are going to vomit but it’s not quite that. It’s this weird…I get this weird numb tingle sensation like in the back of my…my saliva glands and in my jaw. I will be honest, I haven’t worked that hard in a long time, but I know when it happens and so I am doing these power jumps, bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and I literally collapse. I literally go to the ground and just…I had to take a break.
All I feel, as you can see Shaun is a very large human being, all I feel is his hand grab me by the back of my tank top and says, “You don’t stop,” and I keep jumping.
Somewhere in the middle of this, I hit this weird zone and I start crying like I am jumping my tail off. I have never been so exhausted in my life and I burst into tears. I can’t really explain it, it was just like breaking through this emotional barrier, breaking through somebody else setting what I could do higher than what I had told myself.
My body said, “You’re done, Nelson. You are done,” and he said, “No. You keep going. I know you’re further than this. I know you can do more than that.”
And he literally pick me up and challenged me to keep going. He didn’t play to my level. He didn’t understand that I was tired. He didn’t let me slack because he knew my potential. He knew where I wanted to go with things. He knew that he had put me on stage for a reason and in coming off that stage, I had never been on higher high, like completely spent. I am completely spent, but in this weird amazing mental zone.
And I am telling you right now, whatever it is that you are working on, whether it is physically, financially, in your relationships, to get a business off the ground, to launch that Ebook, or that product or you know whatever it is that you are working on, but you popped in here and you see entrepreneurial training and you are like I need to listen to this.
You are quitting before the finish line every day, and you are probably quitting before many finish lines within your day. If you go look at your to do list and the things you need to knock out of the highest quality every day, you are not doing it. You are going through the motions.
Don’t Settle for Being Part of the Pack
One more Shaun T story. A couple a years ago, I got to go audition for what they called his Master Trainer, which was when they were launching the INSANITY certification and Shaun was going to come in and handpick his very first INSANITY Master Trainers and I hadn’t work out with Shaun in a little while and we did a live INSANITY workout, one of the first INSANITY live workouts, and we were in the punches and the squats right bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and I was feeling pretty good that day and so the people around me were on this pace so I was like, “Oh, I can match them,” and I really wasn’t exhausted to be really honest with you. I was having a good day.
Shaun was at the front and I am going the same pace as everybody else in the class. I am just as low, but I settled in to kind of like cruise control. I had settled into a good zone where I wasn’t really exerting all of my energy, but I was like, “Oh, I’m with one with everybody else so it’s good,” and Shaun looked me right in the eye from the front of the class and goes, “Jimmy, quit being lazy. Go!”
Because he knew my potential. So that’s the other thing, when you are around other people is when you are around other people and they are doing just enough and you are like, “Oh, I can match them. I can match them without giving my full effort,” then you cheat yourself. You cheat yourself of your full potential because some people, some people don’t want to show off because they don’t want to feel like they are showing off. They don’t want to talk about what they accomplished because they are afraid they are going to make somebody else feel guilty.
Don’t play down to somebody else to spare their feelings.
Don’t worry about that! Don’t worry about that! That’s about that individual and that’s their own personal love and that’s their mental struggle.
People around you need to see you excel. People around you need to see you set the bar really high and you know why? Because they need to see what’s possible and if they choose to feel bad about themselves because they are not getting the same results or because they are not putting the same forth amount of effort that’s about them. Don’t play down to somebody else to spare their feelings. I am going to say that again, somebody please quote me on that one because that one I want to use later. Don’t play down to somebody else to spare their feelings.
That is not your job. That is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to play to your level and above. Your job is to play to your level and above to grow you as an individual and to show others what’s possible.
You heard the story about the four minute mile like nobody could run it. Rodger Bannister I think was his name and nobody could run the four minute mile. Nobody could run the four minute mile and people told him it was impossible and then once he finally did it, all these people started cranking out the four minute mile like it was nothing. Why? Because one individual chose not to play down to everybody else, show what was possible, and in everybody else’s mindset shifted and goes, “Oh, I guess that is possible.” And then they all did it because somebody else showed what was possible.
Lead By Example
So don’t play down because, “Oh, my business partner you know feels bad or my team is going to feel bad if I continue to…” Let’s say you are in a, let’s say like you are in like a network marketing situation where you are recruiting customers, you are asking people to join your business. Don’t ever…if you’re like if you are a really good recruiter and you are recruiting, I don’t know 10 to 20 people a month, but your success partner or your team feels guilty or feels bad because they can’t match it. Damn it! Don’t stop!
Just say, “Hey, look, I’ll show you.” Come on! Lead by example and show them what’s possible. Share with them what you are doing because more than likely, it’s not that…you’re just not finishing early like right. You chose to run through the finish line. You chose that good enough wasn’t good enough for you. Somewhere along the way you said, my effort needs to do up.
Everybody else hasn’t made that decision with you. Sometimes it’s the people closest to you that you expect to support you don’t. And that hurts. I have seen this a lot of times in relationships. One person decided to take control of their health and fitness and they’re married or they are in a relationship and instead of being happy for that individual, that their spouses starting to look smoking hot and they have more energy and they have a lot more confidence, they get bitter and resentful.
I have seen marriages like literally go away because one person decided to take control of their health and fitness. While the end of that marriage or the end of that relationship is tragic, would it have been better for the person to play down and just live a miserable unhealthy lifestyle so they had a companion? The companion to be miserable with?
That’s a tough question but my gut says no. Specifically if the spouse is willing to help the other person. “Come do this with me. I want you to do this with me.” We talked about this yesterday about sharing the vision with other people. In order to get people on your side, like the recognition stuff right, that sometimes you need to share your vision on why you are doing something with that business partner, with that spouse, with your team.
You Deserve Success
So that goes back to you know because you will hear stuff like, “Oh, are you just too good for us now? You’re trying to be better? We’re not good enough for you?” And it’s just like no. That’s where I go, “I wasn’t good enough for me. I was playing small. I deserve better. I deserve…good enough is no longer good enough for me. I would love for you to come along with me. I would love for you to come along with me, but regardless if you do or not, I am not going to lower my standards anymore. I get one life, I get one body, I get one time around this you know on this planet, I am ready to play big and let’s…come play big with me. Come play big with me.”
That’s my mantra for 2016 is I am looking for people that want to join my team and work with me. I am looking for busy people that are already in other businesses that want to live a healthier lifestyle.
One of my mantras this year is if you are already in a business and you are already an entrepreneur, great! Improve your health and fitness and it’s going to improve your bottom line. Improve your waistline; improve your bottom line, right? Boom boom! Healthy body, healthy business. That’s what I am looking for this year and one of the things that I can let you know that if you are interested in learning how to work with me, I just opened up a four day Sneak Peak where people can…over four days I did a video series that show what I am doing, where I am going, and the people I am going with and whether or not you can jump on board.
You can go to JoinCoachJimmy.com and check it out. You can find out really passively if that’s for you or not. You go to JoinCoachJimmy.com and check it out because we are going places. We are building something big. We are building something big and massive and I need people to help me build this. I need people that are already entrepreneurs, that are already hard workers, I need busy people that don’t have time to do this. That’s who I need. That’s who I need. So if that’s you, go to JoinCoachJimmy.com. See what we’re building. See what this amazing movement is all about.
And it is about building entrepreneurs, it is about building lives of freedom, it is about impacting others lives, and how do we start that? We start that by raising the bar for everybody and that happens within our group. That happens within our team.
We raise the bar for everyone around us because when we raise the bar, other people are going to raise the bar with us. There’s going to be certain people that just dismiss themselves. It’s not the right timing for them and it’s not for them right now and that’s okay! No judgment on them, but we’re going places and we are raising the bar and with us raising the bar, that person next to you, that person at your shoulder, is going to go, “Oh, if they can, I can.”
But you playing safe doesn’t serve anybody. You playing safe doesn’t serve anyone. I am excited for 2016; I am excited for what we are building. I am excited for the lives we are setting free. I am excited about playing big, making people uncomfortable, getting out of that comfort zone. Man, let’s sprint out of the comfort zone. Let’s sprint out of the comfort zone and I need you to come along with me. So thank you for taking the time, good enough isn’t good enough.
I want to hear from you tell me what it is that you are raising the bar in right now in 2016 and I look forward to hearing from you and responding and let’s get in this thing together. Until next time, my name is coach Jimmy I will talk to you really soon.