On this episode of the Investing for Freedom podcast, Mike speaks about what is keeping you from moving from good to great. Mike shares some of his favorite quotes from different books that will motivate you and take you, your business or your relationships from good to great. Enjoy!
“Most of the time your circle isn’t pulling you down, it’s not pulling you up, it’s just keeping you where you’re at.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 – Intro
1:29 – Mike tells us about a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins that was incredibly pivotal during the time Mike launched his first business
2:12 – Text “BOOKS” to 480-531-7519 to get Mike’s top books to read
4:38 – Mike explains the hedgehog concept; what separates you from the competition
6:36 – “Good is the enemy of great” – Jim Collins
6:56 – Few people attain great lives in large part because it’s just so easy to settle for a good life
9:31 – Mike speaks about how his competitors at the time in 2004 when he started his business were comfortable and they moved from great companies to poor companies. They had a “take it or leave it” attitude
13:08 – Even if you were at the top of the market 10 years ago, someone else is going to come in and do it better
13:38 – “A good life is resistance to a great life.”
13:58 – Mike speaks about the book “Atomic Habits”
14:39 – What keeps us from being great?
16:36 – You need to be grateful for what you have, you don’t need to settle for what you have
18:45 – You need to do some deep work on your limiting beliefs in order to progress
30:03 – We don’t invest in ourselves because we’re scared of it, we have limiting beliefs
31:29 – The people you spend time with will either challenge you to be a better version of you or they will keep you where you’re at
33:01 – Mike encourages you to take notes from this episode and get into that thinking mode
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Thank you for joining me on the Investing for Freedom podcast. Recently, I’ve been thinking about one of the early books that I read that totally transformed my thinking. It really set us apart as a business. I don’t know how many of you know my story, but we launched a business myself and a partner in 2004. And, you know, went on this ride that was just crazy. And I look back and you know, some of it was luck. Some of it was timing, and some of it was just, you know, us digging in and hard work and just putting in the hours. So yeah, but anyway, this book was just pivotal in that time in that transformation for me, and it was a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. And you know, it’s just a classic, and not classic, like in terms of Think and Grow Rich, but in my mind, it’s a classic compared to today, I think it was probably written in early 2000s. I think I read it in 2004. And that’s probably, you know, it was probably a year or two old at that point in time. And he wrote some other books too called built to last. And he’s done some things since then.
But Good to Great totally transformed the way that I thought during that time, and there were several books back then. And I’ve mentioned some of them before, but there was some books that were just, you know, pivotal to me at that point in time. And by the way, if you text the word “BOOKS” to 480-531-7519, text, the word “BOOKS” 480-531-7519, I’ll send you a list of my top books, just for reading and things that have had an impact on me. But anyway, a couple of the other ones, what I’m going to focus on today is the hedgehog concept, and good to great, but a couple of other ones that I talk about a lot are The Richest Man in Babylon and Rich Dad, Poor Dad, those books were just transformational to me in my early career. But again, if you text the word “BOOKS” to that number, I’ll send you a list of my favorite books at this stage.
But anyway, Good to Great, just I don’t know, I’ve really just been, you know, thinking about it, and thinking back to what an impact it had on me. And the thing that I really want to say today. You know, there’s books that you pick up that you read that you just devour, and then there’s some periods of time and some books that you have to like force yourself through, you know, you have to like schedule out time to read and I think sometimes it has to do with seasons in life. And sometimes it has to do with just training yourself to get quiet. I think sometimes it has to do with how much noise we have going on in our world. But when I picked up good to great, it was so timely for me. It just changed my world. And I’m reading a book right now called the Almanack of Naval Ravikant. And he talks in there about, you know, if a book hasn’t really grabbed you by the first few chapters, you might want to try to find a different book and he said, that’s okay. And if you find yourself like you know, you’re that way with every book, and you’ve got to just push through it, do it. But at the same time with good degree, it was such a pivotal, transformational book to me, that I completely get what he was saying. I mean, the minute I grabbed that book, I said, you know what? Jim Collins wrote this book for me. And he wrote it for me like right now. And I’ve read that book or listen to that book on Audible I don’t even know how many times. But the single chapter in that book that changed me then was the hedgehog concept. And I remember so our first business was a plumbing and heating company, which ended up being a general contracting company, we had a kitchen and bathroom modeling division we did turn it into this big company is what it ended up being.
But the hedgehog concept in the early days when we were, you know, just doing plumbing and heating the hedgehog concept really what that is, it was one of the chapters and there’s eight chapters in the book and the hedgehog concept was really about simplifying and paraphrasing. It was really about like, what separates you from the competition? What’s the one thing that makes you different than everyone else and I decided that as a plumbing and heating company, I was going to deliver the best service to my clients, I was going to take plumbing and heating and make it, I for lack of a better word, I was going to make it sexy, I was going to you know make it a customer service business. I was going to make it a customer-centric business, a customer-first business and I think a lot of service businesses you know, we just get in the routine of doing doing doing and you know, upset customers and you know, the guys are just running call after call after call and we’re beating down our technicians. And so the hedgehog concept really made me think about you know, how are we going to deliver the best service. And that meant that we had to build better processes. And that meant that we had to have better people. And that meant that our technicians had to think differently, and they had to show up a different way. I’m not going to go into all that today. But that was really what, you know, stuck out to me was the hedgehog concept. And there’s, you know, there’s eight, there’s eight points that he makes in good degree of things that need to separate you. And I highly encourage everyone to go get that book, you know, if you’re building a business or even in your personal life, and I’m actually going to bring this into my personal life right now. Because I’ve found over the last, you know, year or two, I’ve had some resistance in my life, my life has been good. And I can look backwards. And I can see certain points where good has kept me from getting too great in my life.
And so I highly encourage everyone to pick that book up and see if this book does for you what it did for me, one of the quotes that Jim Collins is known for, he says “good is the enemy of great.” And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have a great government, principally because we have a good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it’s just so easy to settle for a good life. Let me say that last part again, few people attain great lives in large part because it’s just so easy to settle for a good life. And that’s what I really want to talk about today. And by the way, as a side note, you know, this quote is quite old. And I found myself thinking when I read this quote again, you know, prepping for this podcast today. We don’t have great schools, principally, because we have good schools, we don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. And I would argue that if you don’t move from good to great, you’re eventually going to move from good to poor. And I, you know, would argue, unfortunately, I think our schools have gone from not good to great, but good to poor. And I would argue that our government has not gone from good to great, but good to poor. And so I would challenge you, and encourage you to really look and take inventory and listen to what I’m about to tell you. Because if you don’t figure out how to move from good to great, you’re going to start moving from good to poor.
I remember, a thought when we first launched our first business, and I looked around and one of the things that we were fortunate about was timing. There’s a lot of things that go into being a successful business owner. You know, and luck has something to do with it sometimes. But timing is super important too. Now, don’t get too stuck on timing, because I don’t think there’s just one theme like if you start a company, and it’s not necessarily the best timing, you can get through that. Some would argue that when we started our company, it wasn’t the best timing, it was 2004, early 2004 we were coming off of 2001 the economy still wasn’t you know, cruising, the place that we live was a gold mining community gold wasn’t doing great at that point in time, I think it was probably I’d have to look that year specifically. But you know, I think it was probably in the $400 or $500 at that point in time, maybe even lower. So you know, from the outside, it didn’t necessarily look like the best timing, but timing isn’t always what you see on the surface. I looked around and all of my competitors in this market, the majority of them that you know, had any kind of influence or large customer list or any level of success were started in the 70s and 80s. And so these guys, you know, back to the point of not moving from good to great most of these people had, they were comfortable. They were settled in, it was business as usual. And these were my competitors. They’d been around for heck 30 years at that point in time and they were just comfortable, and they had moved from good companies to poor companies. The way that they were doing things was kind of like a take it or leave it attitude, we’ll get there when we can.
And so luck, timing all the above. Because most of my competitors had gone from good to poor. You know, we were able to come in and go from good to great. So some of that had to do with timing, but the thing that I really wanted to say I found myself thinking early on, you know about this principle of it’s just like the body, this is literally how I thought about it at that point in time. We reach an age where if the body isn’t growing when you’re no longer growing and rejuvenating, and cells are not reproducing and again just rejuvenating. We begin to die, and I found myself looking at my competitors and saying man the day you stop growing is the day and I actually used to tell my technicians this. The day you stopped growing. Is the day you get your ass handed to you and we always use that just kind of as a, guys, we’ve always got to keep getting better because sometimes they’d be like Mike when is good enough going to be good enough? It’s not, it’s not going to be good enough, we got to move from good to great and I would challenge you in your personal life. Let’s move over to the personal side of this, I wanted to set up the context and tell you why this was so powerful for me. But also, I want to bring it into my personal level, because really, you know, I’ve got a good life, I have a really good life. Kara and I have done a lot of, you know, amazing things, we’ve traveled the world, our kids have seen the world. You know, my oldest is 20, almost 21, my middle son is 18, almost 19, my youngest is 17. She’s, you know, getting ready to graduate school next year. They’re all happy kids. We have a really good life. And I found myself to last couple of years just getting kind of settled into that.
And there’s been this like fire lit under me the last you know, this didn’t happen overnight. I mean, going through COVID was actually, 2020 was actually one of the best years of our lives. Because it really showed that, it has a lot to do with this concept. I mean, we can sit back, and we can take what life gives us or we can decide, no, I’m not going to have a good life, I’m going to have a great life. And so there’s some principles that I learned that I’ll share with you. But the day that you stopped growing is the day you start dying. And so I would encourage you to get your ass off the couch, figure out what’s got you held back, figure out what has you comfortable, figure out what has you settling for a good life. And let’s figure out how to make that a great life. So here’s a couple of things. And just to wrap this up, too, with the Jim Collins quote, because the school system or because the government or because whatever it is your business is not moving from good to great, you will start dying, you will start moving from good to poor, you will start losing your edge, you will start losing your resistance. And even if you maintain the same level for 20-30 years, somebody else is going to come in and progress that’s going to set the bar higher. And so even if something was good 10 years ago, the new good is a higher benchmark, and so your level of good has dropped down. And so even if you didn’t do anything different, you didn’t change anything. And you could say that 10 years from now your life was exactly the same or your business was exactly the same or your level of service was exactly the same, the measurements going to move. The measurements going to get higher, humans are going to progress and somebody’s going to come in and figure out a hedgehog concept. They’re going to figure out how to move from good to great and become better than what you, even if you were at the top of the market, you were the number one you set the benchmark for great 10 years ago, somebody else is going to come in and do it better. That’s just what humans do. We’re progressive, we just keep moving, we keep getting better. And in this day and age, you know, when artificial intelligence and technology and as fast as we’re progressing, we got to keep up with this stuff. So you know, in the instance of schools and governments or businesses or whatever, if you don’t move from good to great, you’re going to get your ass handed to you. I already said that, but it’s important.
So here’s a couple things. A good life is resistance to a great life. It can be resistance to a great business. A good relationship could be resistance to a great relationship, what are the little things, we have to keep getting incrementally better, I love the book, Atomic Habits, you’re not going to have to text me because I’m going to just end up sharing you all the books, but the book Atomic Habits, it’s just talking about, you know, just adding these little incremental habits just getting incrementally better to begin compounding, it’s like compound interest, I think a lot of you will understand that. So a good life is resistance to a great life, it’s resistance to great business, it’s resistance to great relationships. So what keeps us from being great? First off, read the book. And you’ll see the eight things that the great companies did to separate themselves from good companies, and you can probably apply those to your business, you could apply it even if you’re an intrapreneur, or you’re a manager leading a team, or you’re an engineer, you’re an employee or whatever it is that you are, you can apply those principles to your career. But also you can apply these principles to your personal life. So what keeps us from being great? So, I’ll give you a few points. We got comfortable. And that’s what I kept saying, you know, I found myself at a point where I was comfortable. I don’t know if it was probably you know, maybe well actually, I know exactly when it was, December of 2019 Kara and I went to a Tony Robbins event in Miami, and I’m so glad that we did that, because you know the way the world’s changed, I mean we don’t even know when we’re going to be able to go back in person and you know, I don’t want to go off on a tangent here. But I’m still going to events, I’m still going to meetings. I’m not doing this. In fact, all through COVID I went to meetings I went to events I traveled, I got on airplanes, I’m not doing this, and I think You know, if we’re not careful, we’re going to get comfortable with this new normal. And I’m not here to get political and Corona is absolutely a real thing. My parents got it, they were sick as hell. But I’m not going to be locked down, I’m not going to live a good life. Because I want a great life. And to me, you know, there’s things that matter to me and being with people and traveling and all that is important.
So anyway, back to the Tony Robbins event. One of the things you know, through that process, and if you’ve ever been to EPW or any of his events, you’ll know that it’s really some deep work and you’re going through limiting beliefs and one of my limiting beliefs at that point in time. And this never ends, by the way, so just get comfortable being uncomfortable and moving through this, that’s what will keep you moving from good to great. So one of my limiting beliefs at that point in time is that I just need to be happy with what I have. And I do need to be happy, I need to be grateful for what I have. I don’t need to be happy with what I have. I need to be grateful for what I have. I don’t need to be happy or settle with what I have. And that’s what I had to work through. And you might say, well, Mike, that’s semantics. No, it’s not. Being grateful, there’s these little, you might say it’s semantics, but there’s these little things that really matter. And it’s not so much the words that matter. It’s the context and how we feel about it. A lot of people say money is the root of all evil, money is not evil. Money is energy. It’s an exchange. It’s a scorecard that we use to determine what value do I have versus what you’re trading me for. There is nothing evil in us trading energy for another. You would never hear somebody say, oh well, I’m really good at you know, making horseshoes and putting horseshoes on. I don’t know why I came up with that. But you’ll never hear you know, somebody saying I’m really good at putting horseshoes on, I’ll put horseshoes on your horses once a year or every six months. I’ll change them out as they grow. And you’re really good at you know, raising sheep. So you trade me half a sheep every year and I’ll take care of your 10 horses, I’ll shoe your horses. Would anybody ever say that that exchange is evil. That’s just crazy. Nobody would ever say that. But then we say money is the root of all evil. Well, what the context in that Bible actually says is that the love of money is the root of all evil. So okay, semantics, it might be semantics. No, it’s not. It’s the context of where it’s coming from. And people just don’t get that.
And so anyway, I was at a point. And this all came out when I was at Tony Robbins, like I said, I was at a point where I said, you know what, you just need to be comfortable with what you have you know, what you’ve got is good enough, you have more than a lot of people do. I found myself getting comfortable. And this wasn’t so much like a thought that just hit me one day where it’s like, Mike, you just need to be happy, you’ve got enough, you’re done. You know, you’re looking at your financial statement, and you’re happy with it, I wasn’t making a conscious decision that I was happy with it, I had these limiting beliefs that had come in and kept me comfortable and was keeping me from going to my next level. So that’s the first thing, let’s make sure we’re not getting comfortable.
I already touched on this, but the limiting beliefs, you really need to do some deep work around that. And that could be things that you know you grew up with, it could be things that your parents told you, it could be things that you know, even your spouse, possibly puts in your head, it could be like a competition thing, like somebody has, you know, whether it’s parents or you know, people at work, like you’ve been pushed down for being competitive, that could keep you from, like wanting to excel in life, I’m not going to really spend a lot of time on the limiting beliefs. But this is something that will really keep you back and you just need to dig into what that is.
Fear of the unknown. This is another thing that will really keep you from being productive and growing in life. Like we don’t know what’s on the other side of it. What’s it going to take? What am I going to have to give up? I’ll tell you honestly, one of the things that I have been really concerned with and living with just, you know, even as of the last year that I’ve had to process through, we’re getting ready to launch a new fund in a company called velocity venture partners, and we’re getting ready to buy HVAC companies. And one of the, back to the fear of the unknown, and limiting beliefs and being comfortable by the way. I’ve done, this is called investing for freedom. I’ve done a really good job. Kara and I have done a really good job of, you know, building a lifestyle to where, you know, I’m not working 90 or 100 or 110 hours a week as I did early in my career, which is the reason why I started my business. I have my freedom, I have my time freedom. And so one of the things you know, getting comfortable and again, limiting beliefs and fear of the unknown. I don’t want to lose my freedom. That’s a real problem for me and what I have to do is address that because that philosophy, that mentality of thinking so I don’t Want to lose my freedom, Let’s get that really clear. I don’t want to lose my freedom. But what the limiting belief or the fear of the unknown is, you have to shift that. And so I have to say to myself, okay, what do I have to do? Can I launch this business? Can I go buy 60 HVAC companies and roll this up and not lose my freedom? And the answer is yes. So then the next question is how? And this is where the fear of the unknown comes in. Because I didn’t, we don’t necessarily know-how, we have to get into movement, we have to get into momentum in order to figure out, you know, what are the next steps that we need to do. We can’t sit at our desk Contrary to popular belief, and 30-page business plans, we can’t sit at our desk and figure everything out, we have to get into movement, we have to get into momentum.
So it’s the fear of the unknown. And what’s on the other side, that keeps us from getting into momentum. But here’s the thing. I actually had a good buddy of mine, Aaron West from GoBundance. You know, and this was man, this was almost probably a year ago. No, it was like August or September of 2020. And we’re at an event in Austin. And I’m really struggling at this point in time, you know, whether I was going to launch the HVAC business or not. And he’s like, why? Like, you’re so passionate about it, you’re good at it. And you’ve got this idea, this hedgehog concept right back too Good to Great. He’s like, you got this. He didn’t say hedgehog concept. But I have this hedgehog concept within the HVAC industry that’s going to take it to the next level, and really revolutionize the way we do business. And he’s like, well, what’s the main reason why you don’t want to do this. And I found myself saying, you know what, I don’t want to lose my freedom. I don’t want to go back to working 90 or 100 hours a week. And he looked at me and he laughed, and he said, Mike, when is the last time you work 90 or 100 hours. He’s like, you’re very in line with you know, your goals and what you want out of life and your values. One of my main values is time freedom. He said, you’re very in line with that. I just can’t see you letting that happen. And I’m like, Aaron, you nailed it. But see, it was a limiting belief. It was me being comfortable. It was the fear of the unknown. Like, here’s the thing on the fear of the unknown, it was literally the question, how am I going to launch this $200 million a year business and not lose my time freedom. And so what we have to do is get into movement and momentum, and we have to kill those limiting beliefs. And the thing that I really worked through just to give you some context, what I figured out is okay, I started asking myself the question, okay, once I identified the real problem, what’s the fear of the unknown? What’s the limiting belief that’s keeping me from launching this? Well, the limiting belief is, and the fear is, how do I, the limiting belief is I will lose my time freedom.
The fear of the unknown is, I don’t know how I’m going to launch this company without losing my time freedom, so that you sit with that. And one of the things that I really love, and this will be a nugget for you, Keith Cunningham, he talks about thinking time, so you sit down with your thinking time and your thinking pen and your thinking chair, and he does it for 45 minutes, every single day, you can do it for 5 or 10. But if you literally take a limiting belief, or where you’re comfortable or fear of the unknown, and you invest some time in yourself, and you sit down and you flip the question, so the limiting belief and the fear of the unknown for me was limiting belief is can’t launch this company, going to lose my freedom. Fear of the unknown is, how do I launch and do all this without losing, I don’t know how I’m going to do that without losing my freedom. So you just start thinking around it. And I went on this journey of trying to find the right people surround myself with the right people, which is just naturally what I do. But even if it’s not natural to you, you have to go out there, you have to find that leverage. We’ve talked about leverage so many times. Leverage can be money, leverage can be other people’s time, it could be other people’s money, it could be leveraging technology, AI. In this case, for me, it was leveraging other people. And so I’ve, you know, spent the last few months behind the scenes, negotiating with a major major consulting company in the industry that’s worked with all of the best of the best when it comes to, you know, train carrier, the big boys in the HVAC company, they’re on the front edge of all this stuff. And we literally just finally landed after months of talking and negotiations and communications to see if it’s the right fit, finally came to, you know, an agreement last week and they’re excited and I’m excited and we’re going to move forward and literally have eliminated all this fear of the unknown because I got into movement and momentum. And I’ve teamed up with this company that’s going to help us eliminate you know, probably 70% of what I would have had to have done and really narrow it down to the 1233 things just like Jeff woods and the one thing and Gary Keller and Jay [24:56 inaudible], what’s the one thing that I really, I have to do, I’ve got this narrowed down to 1,2,3 things that I’m really going to have to do in order to make this company not good, but great. Take it from good to great. And it was just because I got moving through all that. And you might say, Mike, you’re really good at like, you know, just compartmentalizing and being able to look backwards and set these benchmarks. Yeah, I would say that I am. But it’s because I spend a lot of time thinking backwards, I spend more time thinking about my strengths, my weaknesses, where did I go wrong, this is what’s made me a good leader. This is what’s made me a better investor. This is what’s made me a better business owner. I’m constantly taking inventory, I’m doing the deep work to see where I’ve done things wrong. And when I look at this, so I guess my point in that is, you can do that, too. You just got to slow down and really want to start making yourself better. How do we go from good to great, and that’s one of the things take inventory, we don’t invest, I’m going to move off of the fear of the unknown. We don’t invest enough in ourselves.
You’ll give time to everyone else around you, but not yourself. And whether this comes to health, whether this comes to mental health, whether it’s meditation, whether it’s that thinking time that we’re talking about whatever it is, you have got to spend more time, more energy, working on yourself. We spend time working on everybody else’s business, everybody else’s problems. And I’ll tell you what, a lot of this, a lot of times that I’ve seen this, with some people around me that I’m you know, really close to, and know really well. A lot of this is ego-driven. There’s a great book by Ryan Holiday, I’m still giving away my books. So you might not even need to text me by the time we’re done with this episode. I didn’t mean to do that, by the way. But there’s a great book by Ryan Holiday called ego is the enemy. And the thing about it is like not investing, a lot of times when we’re you know, we spend so much time trying to help other people and point out other people’s problems and everything else that we don’t do the internal stock. And really what that is, is ego, we want to spend a bunch of time trying to fix everyone else. And not ourselves because we’re egocentric, and it makes us feel better about ourselves. And all these reasons. I’ve really learned and here’s a like, as john Lee Dumas would say, a value bomb, if you really get a hold of this, I’ve really, really tried. In fact, my whole theme this year is lean into it, meaning lean further into my intuition. I want to speak less. But more, I guess, important, speak more powerful speaker and I don’t mean like powerful words or whatever. But if we just slow down a little bit, and this is the opposite of you know, just be egocentric and in wanting to help everybody else. If you only speak, if you can really get in touch with yourself, and take time and invest with yourself and really lean into your intuition. We are energy, just like I was talking about the money exchange we are energy. And if you really just slow down and set the ego aside and only speak when you, I’m not talking about when we’re out just having a great conversation. But you know, when something’s going on, and somebody really needs help, or they’re sharing a problem, or you just feel like you know, they’re down or whatever. If you are just slow down and not be too quick to speak, you’re going to get the right words because we’re energy. And we connect. And I know that sounds kind of crazy and woo-woo. But just test it out. Don’t be so quick to just give advice. We don’t need to be advice machines, like advice vending machines, slow down a little bit. 5, or 10 of the right words will be so much more important than 100 words, not led by your intuition. So anyway, that was a little tangent.
We don’t invest in ourselves. Again, we spend all this time investing in everybody else. I’ve found myself having this conversation a lot lately. Not only do we not invest in ourselves, we don’t invest in people. And it’s interesting because, you know, most of my audience and listeners are probably investors to some degree. And so we’re always talking about houses and return on investment and all that kind of stuff. So it’s easy for us to say, Well, I’m going to spend $200,000 or $300,000 or $500,000 on a piece of real estate that’s going to bring me x return. And so we’re going to spend the money. But what we have a hard time calculating is what’s the return on investment for myself, whether it be masterminds, whether it be coaching programs, whether it be educational programs, whether it be you know, the couple’s mastermind that Kara and I are doing shameless plug, it’s actually not even open right now. You can’t get into it till 2022. People will not invest in themselves. And the reason why is number one, the fear of the unknown, all these comes back to the same stuff, limiting beliefs. We’re comfortable being uncomfortable, it’s all the same stuff. But so many times people I think subconsciously we realized that we have to do the work. And so we don’t invest in ourselves because number one, we’re scared of it. We don’t know what the ROI is going to look like, we’ve never done a mastermind before. We have these limiting beliefs around what a guru is. We grew up probably around poor-minded people that are, you know, basically saying, oh, that guru is just going to steal your money, that kind of stuff. Well, you know what? If you want to argue for those limiting beliefs, just keep them, because the reality is the people that go to masterminds and work on themselves and take the risk, and sure, will you waste some money sometimes, yeah maybe, you know, you’re going to join a program or something that maybe isn’t for you, but maybe not, if you’re not, you know, if you’re being led by your intuition. Just go for it. We don’t invest enough in ourselves. And to get you unstuck from where you’re at today, you’ve got to find a mentor. I could give you, I’m not going to, because this is a long one. But I could give you a list of so many people, so many things that have changed my life. So many programs, Kara and I invest a lot of money in ourselves, but I have to show up and do the work. And I have to take that first step. And I have to get over the fear of, you know, spending that money, that money is not going to come back as a return and back to the, you know, investing. It’s easy for us to take that leap when it comes to a house. But it’s really hard for us to invest in ourselves.
And the last thing that I’ll say, and I’ll wrap it up with this, the thing that keeps us from good to great, moving from good to great is your circle. You might have heard me say this 100 times, but who’s around you? The people you spend time with will either energize you, pick you up, challenge you to be a better version of you. Or they will keep you where you’re at. They’ll hold you where you’re at, you’ll stay in the same concept mindset, etc. Or worst-case scenario, they’re going to pull you down. Most of the time we talked about the extremes, on the average of the five people I spend the most time with, I got to find people that are going to meet me amazing, or my circles pulling me down. But just as bad. And I would say where most people are your circle is probably not pulling you down. Your circles probably not pulling you up, it’s probably just keeping you where you’re at. I was just having this conversation with one of my kids the other day. And, you know, just thinking back to high school. One of my kids made a comment about not their friends, but somebody else was talking about how that group of friends is pulling them down. And I brought up the point when I was in high school, you know, my parents thought that all my friends were pulling me down. And I was actually the instigator. But you know, my parents couldn’t see that. And so I would, again, just kind of leave you with this. Most of the time your circle isn’t pulling you down, it’s not pulling you up. It’s just keeping you where you’re at. You’re part of the problem.
And so anyway, that was a lot. But I’d encourage you to, you know, if you weren’t taking notes, go back and listen to this again and take some notes down and get into that thinking time and just figure out you know, what’s keeping you from going from good to great. Because we all deserve a great life. And we’ve only got one shot at this. And you’re the only one that can get you there. Well, Mike, I’m married. Yeah, well, no, you’re the only one because your wife can’t do it for you. Your spouse can’t do it for you. Now, do you need to be connected together to move together? Yeah. Should we leave each other behind? No. We should, you know, try to pull each other along. I mean, worst-case scenario, I’m not advocating for divorce or anything, but if it’s just a dead-end street and there’s just absolutely no way you guys are going to make it, figure that out. But the reality is, you know, Kara and I always talk about this, this is one of Kara’s lines, but she said as long as one of us is always on, we’re going to make it and so you know, be patient. But anyway, at the end of the day, what’s keeping you from going from good to great?
