Everything Counts
“Until you learn how to predictably and consistently convert goals and intentions into successful outcomes and do it quickly ...you’re going to struggle all of your life.” — Gary Ryan Blair
Through his book Everything Counts! and his award-winning video coaching program 100 Days Challenge, my personal coach, Gary Ryan Blair, believes passionately in the enormous, untapped potential that resides within each person. He sees there is a worldwide chronic disconnect between the formulation and execution of people’s goals. Individuals can set great expectations for themselves that often bear little resemblance to the results they achieve. The root cause of the disconnect between idea and actual performance is that most people do not have a strategy execution process.
To experience quality in every aspect of our lives, we must do little things correctly so that each action produces a quality result. In Everything Counts! Blair explores 52 strategies and concepts that make ordinary life exceptional. From his book, he then expanded those into 100 five-to-eight-minute videos delivered over 100 days of the challenge. You can learn more about the 100 Days Challenge on Createyourself.com.
Below, we will explore only sixteen of them.
Leadership Counts
Leadership is all about one enduring quality: character. While many leaders possess the drive and competence necessary to lead, far too many lack a moral compass. These types of leaders tend to be self-serving and sabotage the spirit of a project. As these people assume greater power and authority, an Achilles heel of pride and arrogance is created, eroding followers' trust. True leadership is about choosing service to others over self-interest. Leaders exist to protect cherished values and core beliefs, sustain and inspire hopes, and help drive positive results for all.
Focus Counts
The guiding principle that should drive your every decision is the law of focus. Everything you think, say, and do is either taking you closer to or further away from it; therefore, it must be your key decision-making criterion. Focus can be defined as your ability to keep your thoughts and actions trained on achieving a goal; a picture in your mind’s eye of something you want to be, have, or do. Your focus captivates your attention and provokes an irresistible sense of optimism and faith for the future. Focus is a strategic asset that drives all results.
Quality Counts
To pursue quality is to aspire to perfection. While perfection is unattainable, the passionate pursuit of perfection is what drives quality and fosters ongoing improvement. True quality is only achieved through continuous improvement in performance that ensures the highest standards. If you intend to be competitive, then quality must become an obsession.
Planning Counts
A well-defined plan, properly executed, is your ticket to success. You significantly increase your odds of winning in any endeavor if you know who you are, what you want, where you are going, how you will get there, and what you will do when you arrive. Though it may seem like common sense, this fact is often overlooked. Your life will not go according to plan if you do not have a plan. As tedious as it may seem, effective planning ensures a greater sense of security in yourself and the actions necessary for success.
Vision Counts
You will never be greater than the vision that guides you. Vision is the capacity to see the invisible that inspires people to do the impossible. If compelling, that vision can change your life, family, business, community, and even humanity. In fact, vision is the only thing that has spurred major changes in the world. Throughout history, great accomplishments have begun as a single individual’s vision of what might be. Clear vision is an essential component of high performance. The more lucid the vision, the more power and confidence it generates.
Teamwork Counts
Teamwork is the ultimate competitive advantage, even for your personal development. It plays a determining role in the success of any process and is far more important to success than strategy, finance, and technology. Teamwork involves two or more people coordinating their activities to accomplish a common goal or purpose, a strong sense of interdependence, and shared accountability with certain qualities.
Innovation Counts
The essence of strategy lies in creating tomorrow’s competitive advantages faster than anyone can mimic today’s. The widespread adoption of networked technologies and open standards is removing barriers of geography and accessibility. Anyone and everyone can participate in the innovation economy. All genuinely great innovators share two common traits: They have an almost fanatical desire to get out front and stay there. They are determined that if anyone is going to render their products or services obsolete, it will be themselves.
Rewards and Recognition Count
The goal of rewards and recognition is to feed motivation and to define excellence. Those being recognized for excellence serve as models for their colleagues and leaders in their area of discipline. They also serve their customer, whether internal or external, to the best of their ability.
Character Counts
There is no higher praise than to say a person shows good character. Your own character is comprised of those principles and values that give your life meaning, direction, and depth. They constitute your inner sense of right and wrong. Character functions as a moral compass: unshakable, rock-solid principles that define beliefs, specify the dos and don’ts of behavior, and that point the way to excellence. Character is not something you can fake; you either have it, or you don’t. People will forgive a great deal: incompetence, insecurity, or even bad manners, but they will not forgive a lack of character.
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Excellence Counts
Excellence never occurs by accident. To become the person you were meant to be, everything you do must be done with the single purpose of achieving excellence. What exactly is excellence? It is the process of continually growing and improving yourself and your life. Everyone has the potential to achieve excellence, but it requires that a price be paid.
Passion Counts
Far too many people act as though comfort and luxury are the chief requirements for a successful life, when all they really require for happiness is something that makes them feel passionate. Passion is hard-core devotion to a person or cause; it infuses life with meaning, joy, and unbridled enthusiasm.
Perseverance Counts
Growth of any type requires personal struggle. In the face of stern obstacles and setbacks, you need to keep going, however tempting it might be, to give up and let go of your dreams. Perseverance is a force that keeps you moving toward your goals. It doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop. As long as you are willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes, no one will be able to keep you from reaching your goal.
Personal Development Counts
Every morning when you wake up, you should embrace the idea that there is something about you, your life, or your business that could be improved. Each day offers an opportunity for improvement, and each moment serves as an opportunity to advance or to retreat in the pursuit of your goals. Personal development is a lifelong pursuit because your life is a work in progress. You never totally arrive; there is always another way you could become better. The process ends only when you run out of time.
Simplicity Counts
Complexity is the curse of the digital age; it interferes with clear thoughts and gets in the way of any attempt to achieve personal productivity, customer delight, or corporate profitability. On the other hand, simplicity is associated with beauty, elegance, purity, and clarity. Simplicity is a virtue worth striving for, but it is hard to attain. In fact, without conscious, sustained effort focused on simplicity, increased complexity is almost certain to manifest itself.
Joy Counts
An essential part of your journey is the pursuit of happiness, but happiness does not mean you have joy! You are accountable for all that you do and the pleasures you fail to enjoy in your lifetime. Contrary to popular opinion, having fun in everything you do is perfectly okay. It’s not selfish, insensitive, or self-centered to want a joyful life. Joyful living is truly the good life. Your work, along with the things you do in your personal life, should be done because they bring you joy, not because they serve some serious purpose. If you are not doing something that is enjoyable, you should look for something that is.
Failure Counts
Success depends on a constant stream of small and occasionally large failures. Failure is not merely the output of an unsuccessful activity; it is also the input for a successful one. Failure is a temporary condition that applies to a particular situation, time, or place. If you don’t let it devastate you, it can be an opportunity for learning, recovery, and character demonstration.
Unfortunately, when most people encounter failure, they tend to concentrate on the pain that this failure has caused instead of examining the reasons why it has occurred. The most dynamic and progressive people make productive use of failures. These people view specific failures as the unavoidable consequences of both action and change. They see failure as essential to success.
Finally, Ryan wants us to never forget the golden rule of excellence:
Everything you say, every thought you have, and everything you do either brings you closer to your ultimate goal of excellence or it pushes you further away from that goal. Everything has bottom-line consequences. Because everything counts, start focusing today on the little things that lead to big results tomorrow.
If you'd like to use the 100 Days Challenge to get ready for the New Year (yes, its only about 65 days away), I encourage you to do so. Just click the link here.
When you want to speak with me about your ideas or needs, just reach out via LinkedIn or through our mobile community app, Createyourself.com
Have a great weekend, Gordon
PS - Feel free to buy our Kindle version of How to Createyourself
PPS - you are welcome to share this newsletter with others you feel may benefit!