Comparing Yourself to Your Highest Potential
Download MP3Good afternoon, and welcome to the Dead 3 Coaching Show. I'm your host, George Evian, and appreciate all the support that people have been giving me, but actually this new kind of format that we're doing with our podcast where we're actually going over quotes from books and ideas from books, that I read in 2024, and that are relevant to what I'm dealing with, what I'm working on, the conversations I'm having, the things I'm trying to implement with the people I work with, and the teams that I'm a part of. So hopefully, this hits you much like what it does for me in this next episode to start your Monday morning. Hopefully, it's really impactful for you. It's a great, great book that I read last year, and he's got a number of books out that I'm working my way through.
Speaker 1:I've read 2 of them. 1 is called, and it was right here next to me at some point, Stillness is the Key. And then his most famous book, or what I believe his most famous book is, is called Ego is the Enemy. And that book, written by Ryan Holiday, he's got these great, you know, quick read books. And the 2 I read last year, again, were ego is the enemy and stillness is the key.
Speaker 1:And very deep thinker, but does a great job of making things simple, actionable. And really, as you read a paragraph, you can almost step away from the book and just reflect on what you just read, how it impacts you, what he's trying to get across, how you can get better, almost in every paragraph. He's a great author, great thinker, and does an amazing job of having you think and reflect on what he is talking about. But the book Ego is the Enemy is just like that. That really getting into what your ego is, how you think about your ego, how it limits you, how to get rid of it, and strategies and tactics to consider, to lower your ego and to think more about others and their impact and what they may have to offer and your improvement and all that.
Speaker 1:But here's the quote, and I love this, and I need this, as I navigate my day, my week, and the work that I do, with the teams that I'm a part of. And the quote is this, your potential, the absolute best that you are capable of, that is the metric to measure yourself against. And as I read through my notes this morning, and as I reflect on that quote, I do think of his book, Ego is the Enemy, where the quote came from, but I also think about a book that we'll get into here in our podcast as we navigate this year, but it is Doctor. Benjamin Hardy's book, Gap in the Gain. But so, I will get into both of those here as we go through the next 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:But let me just say this quote again, your potential, the absolute best that you are capable of, of becoming and of doing, that is the metric to measure yourself against. So, as you think about that quote and how that might intersect you and how it intersects me, It immediately cuts off the idea of measuring your potential against others and what others may have and what others may be able to do and what others' responsibilities they may have or the recognition that they may have. It is not that. It is not that measurable. But we live in a world that is just absolutely saturated with comparisons.
Speaker 1:And we have said with athletes that we work with, with teams we work with, with professional organizations that we're a part of, and public speaking that we have done, where we talk about comparison is the thief of joy, if you are always in this comparison mindset of look at them, look at that person, look what they have, look what they're doing, look what they're accomplishing, it will steal the joy that you may have in your own personal journey. So we live in that world of just comparison. And whether it's social media highlights, or the success of your peers and the people that you work with, or the people that you are trying to be like, or the people you are chasing, it is easily to fall into the trap of gauging and measuring your worth based on others. But what is true success? It's not about keeping it's not about keeping up with anybody else.
Speaker 1:It's about striving to figure out what your own potential is, what you are capable of, the goals that you have. And to go, I can't quote Benjamin Hardy. I do have the book here in front of me, but I can't flip to any sort of quote that he has in that book. But ultimately, we spend so much time thinking about the gap between us and others and comparison and other organizations and teams that are, as my notes say here, that we are comparing ourself, engaging ourself on the worth of others. And that is the gap.
Speaker 1:Man, look at how far away I am from them. Look at how far we have to go. We will never do that. Why am I doing this? Why am I waking up early?
Speaker 1:Why am I reading this material? Why am I going to these seminars, and why am I engaged in these activities when I'll never be able to catch those people? And you measure the gap instead of waking up every day inspired, motivated on the gain, the gain of progress, the gain of where you were 6 months ago, 12 months ago, to where you are now. There was a story there is a story that we tell. For those that listen to the podcast, I may I I help out a little bit with a local area basketball team.
Speaker 1:And we were playing a game on the road a year ago, and this player had really gotten good, really gotten better, and was really contributing to what was really a great season. And we played on the road, and this player didn't play to the level that we thought he was capable of playing to. And I remember we lost that game. And I remember the coaching staff being in the hallway really trying to figure out why we lost, what to say to the team, what to and we were maybe getting after that player, that he didn't perform well, he didn't do well. And the only thing I mentioned, and it was what came into my mind that day and at that moment, was we're comparing this kid to what we think he should be, and we're comparing this athlete to somebody that he is not.
Speaker 1:And we're putting so much pressure on him to try to play to that level when he is not at that level. Is he significantly better than he was? Yes. But we can't see, we can't we can't get after him in such a way where we're just amplifying the gap of where we think he should be. And the reality is we were comparing him to a gap and to a potential that he wasn't capable of being in that moment, maybe potentially down the road, but not in that moment, as opposed to really acknowledging the gain that he went from somebody that we never thought would play high school basketball at a high level, to now contributing at a very high level.
Speaker 1:Maybe not at the level that we had hoped, but definitely so we went into the locker room and talked about the gain of how much better he's gotten in that we were maybe putting too much pressure on him to perform at a level maybe he wasn't capable of at that time, but we were comparing him. As leaders, we were. And maybe he was also as an individual, which ultimately puts you into a situation where it's just hard to stay motivated and inspired, and you feel like you are always less than. But this book really challenges us to focus inward and really to measure ourselves against the only metric that should matter. And that measure that measurement, that metric to really look at should be and should always be the best version that we are capable of becoming.
Speaker 1:Measure yourself there. Measure yourself against that metric. That way we can embrace the perspective and shift our focus towards growth and being really self aware of the gains that we have had. To go back to the gap and gain book. All that's so important.
Speaker 1:And I maybe I'm just speaking to myself. This comparison game and being the thief of joy and being truly present and self aware of the gains that I have had and the happiness and joy that I should have in the progress and growth and development and the added contributions that I have as a person to my family, to my community, to my kids, to my teams, to my friends instead of the comparison game. But the thing about comparison, and here it is, the thing about comparison is it's just flat out 100% of distraction from your progress and your growth. It pulls you away from the journey that really matters. And that's your own journey, your own path, your own progress, your own goal setting, your own accomplishments, and it's gonna pull you away from that.
Speaker 1:And instead of comparing against your progress, you know, you start comparing yourself against others, and then you fall in the trap of not good enough, not worthy enough. What would your life look like? I guess here's the questions. We'll slowly get into these actions that we have every week, but what would your life look like if you stop just chasing those external external? You stop chasing external validation and approval, and really just started to focus on, again, talking to myself maybe more than you, but you really just started to focus on maximizing your own strengths, your own unique strengths, your own greatness that we've talked about, and your own capabilities.
Speaker 1:That is the foundation for growth is your own self awareness and your own self evaluation of where you're at, what you're doing, where you want to be, how you need to get there, measuring the progress, recognizing the gains that you have every single day, being grateful and writing down your wins, writing down your gratitude, your gratitude journal of things that you're thankful for, and just being excited about that on February 1st, on a Saturday, that you are much further along and have progressed more than you did on January 1st, 31 days ago. That's what we have to do. We have to take the time to reflect on what we're capable of, where we need to improve, and how we can improve and what we need to do to get there, what habits, routines, rituals, and strategies we need to have to improve, and start moving with absolute intentional focus and intention to achieve those things. So we we circle back to really about self assessment, self awareness, self discipline. And I'll tell you, let's just be honest.
Speaker 1:Self assessment is not easy. And that's when you get into your ego. Not my issue. I'm doing my part. Somebody else has fallen short.
Speaker 1:It's the whole thing that we've talked about in other podcasts of extreme ownership and owning the outcomes and owning process so you can own solutions. But you can't do that unless you really are self aware of what's going on and you do this full inventory of self assessment. That requires what? The bubble word. If you've listened to this podcast, if you listen to it on our release on on Friday, we talked about the bubble words for me this year that just continue to be thrown in front of me.
Speaker 1:It is humility. It is continuing to be self aware and self assessment. It is focus are the bubble words that I have had. It is action, intentional focus. Like, boy, that stuff bubbles up.
Speaker 1:But self assessment, without question is going to require humility and the courage to really face the truths, maybe the, and the uncomfortable truths about where you are and what you need to do to grow and be better and provide more and to provide more value and to get your wins. But that's exactly why this is absolutely 100% so powerful. You have to regularly check-in with yourself and you've got to close the gap between your reality of where you are and your highest potential and fully figuring out what you're capable of. I hope this is hitting you like it's hitting me today. I hope you're sitting there driving, listening to this, working out, on a walk, whatever it might be, and you're sitting there and you need to tell yourself, I am capable of more.
Speaker 1:I am capable of better. I am capable of more value. I am capable of absolute greatness. But if I measure myself against others and their greatness and their journey and their progress, my self worth will go down. My my inspiration, my motivation, everything will go down.
Speaker 1:But if I give an honest evaluation and self assessment of myself and I sit here and say those things and I can take the courage to face those fears of my truth, of where I'm at and what I'm doing and what I need to grow, man, I could I think I can reach those levels of greatness that are out there. So ask yourself these questions, and then we'll also get into these action items that we give you every week. And I write I'm telling you. I write these action items down in my planner. I have reworked how I use my planner.
Speaker 1:It is very chat GPT focused because chat GPT knows all my goals. It knows what I wanna do this year. It is keeping me honest. I talk into chat GPT every morning about what I'm doing, my goals this week, you know, these action items. And I and I write down a very detailed gratitude journal because Chat GPT knows exactly what I should be grateful for.
Speaker 1:And I've got a full page in my planner of everything that I may not think about, that I may not be thankful for in the moment. But as I tell and have a conversation with Chad GPT actually about my day, it reminds me exactly what I should be thankful for. So I am always in this state of thankfulness and gratitude for what is going on around me. But I do write these down in my planner, but these aren't the action items. But these are just questions for yourself, for me.
Speaker 1:Are you truly living up to all your capabilities? Absolutely not. Not even close. But I'm not gonna get wrapped up in the the in in in the gap there. I'm not gonna be losing my self worth.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna do a self assessment. I do know that I'm much further along in fulfilling, realizing, and moving towards my capabilities than I did on January 1st, compared to February 1st. And I'm super excited about that. Chapter 1 of 2025 was amazing. Question 2 for you to consider is are there habits, beliefs, and distractions that are holding you back?
Speaker 1:What are you doing to distract you? What mindsets do you have that are distracting you and pulling you back and holding you back? What beliefs do you have that you may need to change? You could write down I I mean, I I'm sorry that I'm so bent on this Chatt GPT stuff, but it it just helps me to have a conversation to really get things out of my head and to really read it and kind of get a perspective on it. But you could go to chat gpt or whatever and sit there or just a pen and paper and talk about, hey.
Speaker 1:This these are the goals that I have. These are the habits that I'm currently doing. And why you know, what do I need to focus on? What do I need to break? What habits?
Speaker 1:Who am I not and who am I trying to become? And what habits do I need to create? We told athletes the other day that the dreams you have, and I heard this in a podcast somewhere, the dreams you had are on the other side of the things you're not doing. So the habits, the beliefs, the mindsets, the actions, that's where your dreams lie and they lie in the things you're not doing. Not you, but yes, you, but definitely me.
Speaker 1:What steps can you take today to align more closely with your goals? Every single day with how I'm using Chat GPT, I continue to scrub and clean and expand on all of my goals for 2025. And they're and they were okay goals. And I told chat GPT with conversations from me to expand them, to make them outrageous, to make them unreasonable, to make them embarrassing, which it has done. Then I told it to take those goals and break them down into 4 chunks, meaning 4 quarters.
Speaker 1:And then take those 4 quarters, and let's focus on what the wins are in 12 weeks from January, February, March, and then chunk them into just January and just February. And now I have a very detailed plan through a conversation with AI about what February looks like. So what steps can I take today to more align closely with my goals? I just gotta have a checklist. I gotta create habits.
Speaker 1:What do I need to be doing today? What did I what did I do better? What am I gonna challenge myself in February for 29 days to to do? And what do I need to do? When we take responsibility for our growth, we're gonna create so much momentum.
Speaker 1:And we're gonna stop drifting back and forth and let the sea just beat our boat down, and we're gonna start moving towards the direction we need to go or the harbor that we're trying to get to. And sometimes if we don't have that, if we're in the gap, if we're in the world of of comparison, we're just gonna be at sea just getting our asses handed to us. So here are the 3 actions, we'll wrap it up. Here are the 3 actions that we've gotta figure out how to measure our success by our potential, and not by comparison. But we've already talked about this, and this is the idea of self assessment.
Speaker 1:We have to reflect honestly. And I would encourage us just to identify one area, one area for February, one area this week, one area this quarter if you can't you can't crush it like that. Identify one area where you can improve and take an honest look at how to make progress on that one thing, one thing for February. Jesse Itzel has got one habit a month, one habit a month. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:What did you do in January? And what did you crush? Because he says at the end of your your book of 2025, you have 12 new habits, 12 new things that you're crushing. But you have to reflect honestly. Identify one area where you can improve, and take an honest look at how you can make progress on that one area.
Speaker 1:Number 2 is just set set a goal. And I'm telling you, just go into chat GPT and set a goal, discuss the goal, stretch the goal, and then figure out like, it's not I'm gonna tell you right now, it's just not enough to set a goal. Everybody on January 1st said, I'm gonna not everybody. You understand my point here. Many people on January 1st said, I'm gonna lose £20, £30, £50.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna eat this and be better, etcetera. I'm gonna run 2 miles a day. Cool. Those are goals and a lot of people set them. The people that truly accomplish those goals have systems, and they execute on those systems.
Speaker 1:So not only do you need to set a goal, but you got to develop the systems, the habits, the routines, and stick to those systems because everybody has a goal on January 1st of health. And that's why those health clubs make so much money in January. But we have to define one specific step that's gonna bring us closer to our highest potential, the highest capabilities, our highest level of greatness. Just one in February. Eliminate action 3.
Speaker 1:Eliminate all the distractions that you can that take you away from reaching your full potential. Let go of comparison and focus entirely on your unique journey and growth and just be locked in on you. I gotta be locked in on me. Had a great January, as good a January as I've had other than the the year a few years ago when my wife and I were doing the hard seventy five, where we were doing all this stuff, but we were also exercising, and doing a number of different things with that workout program. So that's it.
Speaker 1:Just reflect honestly, set a goal, eliminate distraction, Ask yourself 3 powerful question of, man, am I truly living up to these capabilities? What are the habits or beliefs or distractions that are holding me back? What steps do I need to take today to align closer to these goals? And and then I'd encourage you to really think about your goals and the systems that you have to create to achieve those things. I hope this hits you somehow, that it bookends the start of your week with excitement, with some intention, with some focus, with some inspiration, with some action.
Speaker 1:Write down today. Reflect honestly about how you can improve and make progress. Write down a goal, and write down 3 different systems that you may need to do to achieve that goal. And let go of your comparisons and focus on you and your journey and not others. And just have like, if you can't do that, like, just have one good day.
Speaker 1:Let's just have one great week. We're on week 5, I believe. I call them rounds. We're on round 6 of 2025. You are starting round 6 of 2025.
Speaker 1:It's a 12 round fight. And I hope that after 4 or 5 rounds that you're still throwing punches. But I'm on to round 6, and I'm gonna crush it. And I'm gonna I'm gonna reflect on what's going on honestly. I'm gonna set some and continue to refine my goals for 2025.
Speaker 1:And I'm gonna figure out how to not compare and to focus on me and to eliminate any distractions that are out there that are holding me back. Have a great, great start to your week.
