How To Master Success

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. Welcome back, everybody. I love doing the Max Out Program 2.0, and today I can't wait to share with you what I call the three steps of mastery. See, there's three stages that you have to go through in order to master something in life, and oftentimes we quit in the first stage because we don't realize it's just a natural progression to getting good at something. And so in any pursuit you have, if you want to start a new business, a new career, you want to learn to swim, like right now I've picked up the hobby of riding horses. and that's a unique thing to do at 50 years old and so I'm addicted to it but so it's kind of a new pursuit of mine so whether you started a new business or you're in the middle of a business you've got or you got people in your business who are newer or you're trying something new it's very easy to beat ourselves up or really not understand that there are three stages of mastery and and it's just mandatory you're going to go through them you can't cheat the system and so in the three stages of mastery let me tell you what they are and then I'll break them down for you.

1:05There's the awkward stage at anything you begin to do, the awkward stage. And if you do enough repetitions, you can move to what I call the mechanical stage. And then from the mechanical stage, eventually you move to what I call the natural stage. Everybody looks at you and goes, ah, man, you're incredible. You're a natural. Like whatever you do for a living right now, if you've been doing it for a long time, the first day on your job, I guarantee you, you were awkward. I guarantee you everything about it was awkward. Where to go with the people's names, what to call things, where to, all of it was completely awkward.

1:32Wasn't you probably even, A lot of people, their first night at their job, they'll have a nightmare that night. I remember my first job was I was a busboy at the whole enchilada restaurant. And I didn't know my bang job at the whole enchilada was really simple. I cleaned up your table and I brought you your chips and salsa. That's really the whole job. And for some reason at 17 years old, it freaked me out because I had to walk up to people's tables and say hello. And I'm a super introvert. And I remember going home that first night. I go, I can't do this. It's just too much. It's too much for me.

2:03Chips and salsa, cleaning up their table. It just overwhelmed me, which is pretty hilarious. And I had a nightmare that night, like a nightmare of the job. Like everyone wanted new chips. We need more salsa. We need more chips. And he was like, you got to clean up our table. You live. And I have this horrible nightmare of this very pretty simple job that I had. And so what I was, I was in the awkward stage of that job. And if you'd have come back about six weeks later, I'd bust a bunch of tables. Now I know where the salsa is. I know where to go in the back and get the chips. I know where they warmed them.

2:36I kind of got my little, how are you guys this evening? I'm Eddie. You know, I got my little wrap down. It was mechanical. I knew the mechanics of it, but still I was slower than most. I couldn't carry the drinks and the chips on the plate the right way. But you know what I mean? Like it was mechanical. I knew the mechanics. I knew where to clock in. But he came back a year later, man. I was natural. I'm flipping chips. I'm spinning them on my head. The difference, you know what I mean? Like the salsa. Hey, good morning. Good to see you. Good evening. Hey, Mr. Jones, welcome back. I had seen all the, I was natural.

3:08So you walked in there. It's like, this guy's a natural bus boy. Well, the truth is that's true in everything. Right now I started to learn to ride horses, right? First day out there. You don't think about these things. I'm like, what type of horse is it? I didn't even know the breed. I didn't even know there were, what do you call a female horse? What's a bridle? What's a halter? How do you put a saddle on them? What side do you get on the horse? The left or the right? How do you get off the reins are you riding western or english i'm like i have no idea i guess western i was totally awkward and people that are horse people they're just like it's all natural to them right they get on the horse they ride they saddle it up how do you back it up how do you stop it like it's crazy right but now i've been doing it for like i don't know six months i've ridden quite a bit and now i'm kind of mechanical i know how to put the bridle on i don't walk it with the halter i know how to put the bridle on the horse i know how to put the saddle on i know where to get on I know how to run.

3:59And I'm pretty good. But if you watch me and you were really experienced in riding horses, you go, he kind of gets it. He's mechanical. The mechanical stage is like this. You ever go to like a wedding or you're at a club or something and the person's got the dance moves down, but they kind of dance to the lyrics and not the beat. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, the guy's got the moves, but it's just, there's something, he's got the mechanics, but I think he's dancing to the words and not the beat. You know what I mean? That's the mechanical stage. But eventually you see somebody, they're like, oh, they got the rhythm and the beat.

4:32That's the natural stage. So the question is, how do you move from awkward to mechanical? You ready? Repetitions and awareness. Repetitions and awareness. So no matter what you do, you got to do more and more reps at it, more and more experience. And as you're getting that experience, being aware of the things that worked and didn't, getting coaching, getting feedback, course correcting and improving success is not complicated so no matter what it is you're doing if you're an athlete and you're listening and you've had to switch positions you were on the offensive side now you're on the defensive side it's not the play and defense isn't for you it's that you better do a lot of reps you better have a lot of awareness you better watch a lot of film you better do a course correction so you do it through repetitions awkward enough reps and awareness and course corrections, you'll move to mechanical.

5:24And then from the mechanical phase, it's the same process. More and more and more repetitions, more and more course correction and awareness until you become natural. And in business, all the money's made at the natural phase. Oftentimes in business, the money is predicated upon your ability to get natural and your ability to train other people at their jobs or crafts to become natural as well. What's most incredible to me, if I can be candid with you, is there's an art and a science to being successful at anything. And most people love the art, the mindset, the thinking, the thought processes.

6:00They love the art form of it. What do I need to think? What do I need to vision? What do I need to dream? Subconscious mind, meditation, blah, blah, blah. Most people don't have a tolerance for the science part. The science part's real simple. It's math. You got to do more reps. If you're in business, you got to do more calls, more emails, more appointments, more meetings, more setbacks. You got to do the reps to move out of that awkward stage. The awareness, the course correction, now you're mechanical. You want to get from mechanical, if you're in business, you want to get great at business, you want to become the best ever, more reps.

6:33More course correction, more awareness, you become natural. You pick up golf. You want to play a great golf game? You better get out on the driving range and hit a bunch of balls and you better have someone videoing you and you better get course correction and have awareness. And if you do enough reps, hit enough balls with enough correction, with enough awareness, you'll become mechanical. When you start playing golf, it's real simple. How do you hold the club? Your baseball grip, overlap grip. What's the grip, right? How long should your clubs be? Where's your backswing? What's a swing plane?

7:00How do you come through the ball? What's your right hand do? Your left hand, your low? There's a lot to it. You watch someone start to play golf. It's crazy to watch, isn't it? But if they do enough reps, they do enough learning, they learn, they get enough coaching and correction, they can become mechanical. Then you watch people play mechanical golf. They got a good golf swing, but then eventually they become natural and they play their game. If you're going to play the game, you have to have a tolerance for the repetitions. So one of the reasons that we don't do the reps as we stop is because we don't give ourselves credit for what I call invisible progress.

7:29Invisible progress means this. There's such a thing as what I call compound pounding. Compound pounding means basically this, that as you're hitting an object over and over again, and you compound the hitting of that object, over time you break it down, right? But most of that progress is invisible. We don't see it. So as we're in the awkward stage and we're doing the reps, we're making progress, but it's usually not visible to us. Or if we're in the mechanical stage, we're doing the reps, the compound pounding of doing it over and over again is happening, but we can't see the progress. So what most people do is they quit before they get natural at anything because there doesn't appear to be physical, visible progress.

8:09Most of us want to see progress to believe it's happening. But the truth is in life, in most things, even in a loving relationship, a lot of the progress is happening invisibly. Certainly true in business. So let me give you the best example of it. I wrote about this in my first book, but a long time ago I was at a, I got invited to a birthday party for a young person. And I didn't really want to go to it because they were so young and my kids were grown. But I went to the birthday party because it was a friend of mine, and they had a pinata for the birthday boy. And so if you all know what a pinata is, it's very interesting.

8:40But like basically kids hitting the pinata with a bat, right? And it reminded me of business so much because you get there. What do they do? They blindfold this poor little kid and then spin him around and hand him a bat like a weapon, right? So the kid spun around. He has no idea where he's going. He's just kind of flailing away. Can't even find the pinata. That's how most people that start out in business feel, by the way. They're just flailing away. They don't even know where the target is. They're just swinging, right? Just like this little guy. And I'm watching him going. So there's an analogy here for sure.

9:08So finally, there's a course correction and an awareness, and the dad points the little guy at the pinata, even though the blindfold's still on. So he still can't see it, but now he's at least pointed in the right direction. That's what that awkward phase is like. And now he's wailing on the pinata, hitting it and hitting it and hitting it. He's getting more and more tired. This pinata is not breaking, right? So finally he goes, ah, I quit. Why? There was no visible progress. So then what they do, they take the blindfold off him. He goes and plays on the swing set. They grab the next little kid.

9:38It was a little girl. Same thing. They blindfold her. She's like a new person in business. She's flailing away, not even hitting the pinatas. She doesn't even know where the target is, right? Finally, she gets course correction, makes an adjustment, some awareness, and she's wailing on this pinata. No candy comes out. There's no progress. So she quits. You can picture it. You've seen this before. Next little guy gets up. He hits it five, six, ten times. He quits. Next person gets up. She quits. After about seven kids have hit in this pinata, the only person left is the little, young, little four-year-old little boy.

10:12And everyone's quit because there was no progress. But what was happening was all the reps were happening, even though there was no visible progress. So all the reps were happening. So this little four-year-old gets up. They put the blindfold on him, spin him around, and he takes one swing. Bam! Hits the pinata. All the candy comes out. and all the kids come running from the swing set back and everyone's celebrating and getting all the candy. Let me ask you a question. Who broke the pinata? Was it the final blow by the four-year-old, the one shot? Or was it the cumulative blows that everybody took hitting the pinata along the way that ended up eventually breaking it down?

10:56We all know the answer. It was the cumulative blows to that pinata, the cumulative repetitions that were breaking it down over and over, even though you couldn't visibly see the progress. And see, in life, most people will quit in their pursuit of their dream before the candy comes out because they don't see visible progress, even though the whole time compound pounding is happening as you're moving from the awkward stage, you're doing the reps, you're course correcting, you're aware. Now you're in the mechanical stage and you're course correcting and you're aware and you keep hitting the pinata and doing the reps of your life, of your dream.

11:33And then the natural stage, most people will quit on their dream before the candy comes out, even though progress is being made. Most people quit one blow away from getting all the candy in life. My recommendation to you is life is a lot like that pinata. You're making more progress than you think you are. Keep hitting the pinata of your life and know that as you do this, You're moving from stage to stage to stage. And if you do it long enough, the metaphorical candy of whatever that candy is for you, the money, the success, the award, the recognition, the acknowledgement, the emotion, the relationship, the candy eventually comes out.

12:11The question is, will you keep hitting the pinata of your life, doing the reps until the candy's there? And will you be there to collect the candy and celebrate? From now on, whatever you're doing, go, this is okay. It's where I'm supposed to be. I've only done 10 of these. Of course, I'm still awkward. or I've only done 45 of these. Hey, Ed, how many does it take? It's different for different people. The question is, do you have the determination, the relentlessness, the resiliency to stay long enough to move through all three stages until you get paid? So the question just becomes this. Are you determined enough to do the reps?

12:42Are you determined enough to do the course correction and have the awareness to move through the different stages? And my wish for you is that you become natural as soon as possible. The sooner you do the reps, the sooner you do the course corrections, the sooner you have the self-awareness, the sooner you become natural and we're off to the races and having blissful success in our life. So I hope this helped you today. This is the Max Out 2.0. Please share this episode with anybody that you think it would be valuable for. If you need help with any of the stuff that I'm teaching, go to growthday.com forward slash ed.

13:11There's a great app there. My friend Brendan Brouchard has, which I think could definitely help you in your life. It's just a recommendation from me. I just wanna say God bless you. Please subscribe and share the show. Take care. This is the Ed Milad Show.