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Below is a transcript of this video, modified for your reading pleasure. Have a question that you'd like answered? Drop us a line!
In this video, I want to describe something that I have learned from one of my favorite writers that has helped me immensely. His name is James Clear. I have been subscribed to his email list for a while. He has got over 400,000 people subscribed to a list, over two million people see his website every month, and I have learned a ton from him.
The first thing I learned from James is in an article he wrote. In this, he said, "The rewards of winning are really interesting. Almost all the rewards of winning something go to one person, one hundred percent, but that one person might only be 1/10th of 1% better than everybody else." Think about a simple Olympic event, the 400 meter dash. The winner that gets the gold medal in the Olympics might only be 2/100ths of a second better than the next person, but only one gets the gold medal. A hundred percent of the rewards go to people that are barely better than everybody else. I thought that was really interesting.
The second thing I learned from James is the way that you get just a little bit better than everybody else is just getting started. I think it can be human nature, myself included, to put things off to analyze. Instead of going on a run, we start analyzing what is the best running shoe. Instead of just eating a salad, we could spend hours trying to find the perfect dietary method. In business development, we could be worried about a client we have not talked to in two years, but we do not email now, because we have not talked to them in two years. Just getting started on something is where all the value is. I think that was really interesting insight that I got from James. When I think specifically about business development, maybe you are writing an article and you just do not get started, because you cannot think of the first line, just get started and start writing, the line will appear.
Maybe there is that client we talked about that you have not talked to in two years, you feel awkward about it. It is easy for another year to go by. No. Just get started, write him an email. They have not contacted you either. Send them an article, be proactively helpful. Do whatever you can. Maybe there is that conference you would really like to speak at. Call up the person who runs the conference, say, "Hey, I would love to speak. What do I do next?" A lot of times these just getting started things are just a few seconds and we stall out for all kinds of various reasons. But all the value is just getting started.
I will tell you what I am really excited about, as somebody who looks forward to every single one of James' articles that he emails me. I am really excited he has got a book coming out in October. It's called Atomic Habits. I cannot wait for it to land on my doorstep, because I know it is going to be chock-full of wisdom that I am going to use every single day.
As with all our videos, we hope this one helps you help your clients succeed.