193: You Are Entitled to Nothing

20:26Nick Bare:Two different areas and focuses of work. James Clear, entrepreneur, speaker, author. Highly influential. Nick Saban, coach. Highly influential.

20:44They're trying to inspire in different ways, but also similar at the same time.

20:54Nick Bare:Saban talks about how he doesn't focus on winning the game. He doesn't focus on championships. championships, he focuses on the individual play and that's it. Win the play and then win the next play and then win the next play. And before you know it, you win the game. You do that over and over and over again and you win enough games, you win a championship. Clear says the same thing. don't just focus on the goal focus on the daily habits systems and routines that get you towards that goal you might be hearing and listening to this thinking it's the same thing like what are we talking about it's not the same thing it's not when we break it down to these microscopic actions of execution from play to play, from system and habit to routine on a daily basis over and over and over again and being rigidly consistent with that.

22:03That gets you to where you want to be. One of the things I heard Saban talking about was how whether you win or lose, you succeed or fail,

22:22Nick Bare:you wake up that next morning, alarm clock goes off, same time as it normally does, and you get back to work. He talked about winning championships. And you win the championship, they hand you a trophy, you look at that trophy, you admire it, you hand it back and you get back to work to win another championship. You get back to the process. The most successful people, they are continuously successful. They don't just win once, they win over and over and over again. You can look at entrepreneurs, you can look at world leaders, you can look at athletes. The reason these people keep winning is not luck.

23:14Nick Bare:It's not by chance. It's because they have a system and a process that shows up every single day. They know that their inputs will determine the outputs and the outputs aren't guaranteed. They are not guaranteed any type of success. Just because you win once doesn't mean you are guaranteed another win, another achievement. You have to work just as hard, if not harder, to achieve the second win, another championship, another big business transaction in sale. Look at the most highly successful people. They've built multiple businesses. They've played on multiple different teams and won multiple different championships.

24:02Nick Bare:Their success is not by chance because they've accepted the responsibility that they aren't entitled to anything. They are inputs. Determine the outputs.

24:20Why are you not where you want to be? Why are we not where we want to be? We often think it's because of what we are not doing.

24:33Nick Bare:What do I have to add to my life that's going to help me get to where I want to be? What am I not doing? that's holding me back. But I believe the reality is it's likely not what we are not doing, but it's because of what we are doing that's holding us back from getting to where we want to be. We want to say, we want to achieve X or we want to be this type of person that does this type of thing. And you sit there and you audit your life It's like, what do I have to do? What do I have to add to get there? And I don't think it's an equation of addition. It's an equation of subtraction. What do we have to stop doing?

25:19Nick Bare:What do we have to take away that's going to allow me to get to where I want to be, to achieve the things I say I want to achieve? There's an equation that I've recently heard that I love. It's that performance. And you can exchange performance as achievement or outputs equals potential minus interferences.

25:49Nick Bare:What are the interferences that we have in our life? The addictions, the vices, the bad habits that are holding us back. Those are the things that we have to identify. this is what I'm doing that I have to remove, subtract to get to where I want to be. We all have interferences, everyone. We all have vices. It might be a routine and a habit you're doing on a daily basis that isn't inherently bad, but it's not serving you any longer. But you keep doing it because you've been doing it for so long that it's like second nature. But if that routine and habit isn't serving you anymore, it might have diminishing returns that you have to stop doing and eliminate.

26:43And interference might be an addiction that you have to food, to alcohol, to smoking, to video games. What is that thing? What is that interference that is holding your potential back from performing, from achieving?

27:06Steph recently was gifted this book.

27:09Nick Bare:I haven't read through the entire thing yet, but I've skimmed it. And she speaks very highly of it. It's called Change Your Words, Change Your Life by Dustin Barker. And the front of the book has a piece of scripture on it. Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21. The power of life and death is in the tongue. And that reminds me of something Chad Wright once told me. He said, your tongue is your rudder.

27:47The power of life and death is in the tongue and your tongue is your rudder.

27:56Nick Bare:change your words change your life says many of the problems we face in life are caused by the words that come out of our own mouth our words are the steering wheel of life that contain the power of life and death

28:15Nick Bare:what's potentially holding you back from achieving the things you say you want to achieve are your words. When you say things internally or you speak them into existence, your tongue is your rudder. The things that we say about our ability, the things we say about our environment, the things we say about our family, the things we say about our work, the things that we say about ourselves are the rudder. They guide. They are the steering wheel of our life. If we tell ourselves we can't, we won't, we shouldn't, we never could, that will steer our life in that direction. We have to limit negative self-talk.

29:04Self-talk limits self-belief.

29:12I hear so many people, and I do it myself sometimes, speak words into existence that shape our environment. They shape our ability. They shape our perspective of ourselves and what we can do, but it also shapes the perspective of other people about what we think, what we believe,

29:36about ourselves, our ability, our lives as a whole. I think a lot of people fear failure, but at the same time, they fear success and achievement.

29:56This goes back to entitlement.

30:03The fear of failure and the fear of success and achievement, it's a personal responsibility. I think people fear failure because they think, what will people think if I fail? I'm afraid to fail because of what people will say about me or what I'll say about myself. It paints a narrative.

30:30Nick Bare:But even more importantly, I think a lot of people are fearful of success and achievement. and I've talked about this in a recent episode, but the more I've allowed it to marinate and sit on it, I believe it even more. I think people are afraid to do the thing, take the action, take responsibility. And when you lack responsibility, you own entitlement. People are afraid of success and achievement because it sets a new expectation and standard of yourself. And they ask themselves the question, How can I sustain this new expectation and standard if I succeed? If I succeed, if I achieve, if I accomplish, if I win, now people expect me to keep succeeding and winning and achieving.

31:21Think of professional athletes.

31:26Nick Bare:Someone becomes the MVP, most valuable player, or wins a championship, especially a quarterback who has led a team to a championship. That next season, there's a lot of pressure to do just as well, if not better, to win another championship. Because everything after that, if you don't achieve the same thing or greater, there's a fear that you look like a failure. People were afraid to set a new standard for themselves, a new expectation because if you don't continuously meet that standard and expectation, the perspective from yourself and others is that you are a failure. I would encourage you, don't be afraid to succeed and achieve.

32:24Nick Bare:And that sounds ridiculous. And I'm sure a lot of people are listening to this thinking, dude, why would I be afraid to succeed and achieve? But if you really take inventory of your life and some of the decisions you've made, I bet you it has had some type of influence over your choices.

32:48Nick Bare:I've met people before and I've had people who worked for me before who I've presented an opportunity for a new job within the business that was a promotion that came with a higher pay raise

33:06became with a greater title, more responsibility,

33:11Nick Bare:but greater expectations. And they've turned down, I've had people turn down those opportunities because there's a fear of what if I don't meet those new standards and expectations. In my current role, I'm comfortable. And I look like an A player because I am an A player, but what if I fail in this next role? that comes with greater expectations and responsibility. I don't want that. That's something that people experience and do on a daily basis all around the world. They turn down opportunities because they are afraid. There's a fear to be held to a greater, higher standard and expectation. So they turn it down.

33:56And oftentimes they become resentful of the person who takes that position because they had the courage to step up and to own it, to take on more responsibility.

34:16Nick Bare:As I was doing research for this episode, I came across this concept called the locus of control. Talks about how entitlement is a lack of personal responsibility. And this concept, locus of control, was first introduced in 1954 by psychologist Julian Rotter. The locus of control describes how much you believe you control the events in your life. People with an internal locus of control believe their own actions drive their outcomes. But those with an external locus of control attribute outcomes to luck, fate, and or other people instead. So if you have an internal locus of control, you take personal responsibility for the things you achieve or fail to achieve.

35:18Nick Bare:But if you have an external locus of control, you don't take personal responsibility. You put the blame on someone else, luck, and or fate. Having a characteristic of entitlement, being an entitled individual, is driven by a lack of personal responsibility, a lack of internal locus of control.

35:50Sigmund Freud says,

35:53Nick Bare:most people do not really want freedom because freedom involves responsibility. And most people are frightened of responsibility. That's the truth. Entitled people are frightened of personal responsibility. An internal locus of control. Ownership. Owning the outputs, the outcomes of what they achieve or fail to achieve. The win or the loss.

36:34So here's some tactical takeaways. This is the entitlement detox. Three parts. Audit, shift, respond.

36:45Nick Bare:like what we have to do is audit our actions our lives our choices our perspectives our mindset what do we expect from our life right now our work our relationships it will be show up on a daily basis what do we just expect that's going to happen on its own? What am I entitled to? What do we feel like we are owed? This audit is tough because many people, most people lack this level of self-awareness to sit with yourself, maybe a friend and audit your life and be very honest with yourself. what do I feel like I'm owed? Like where do I feel in my life that I deserve, I'm entitled to an outcome or an output without my inputs being considered for those outputs?

37:56What do I feel like I'm owed in life? We're not owed anything. We earn everything. But in order to detox your entitlement,

38:13Nick Bare:you have to be able to audit and have real, honest, humble conversations with yourself or have a peer that you trust to sit down with you and help you audit your life. Part two is shift from outcome-based thinking to process-based thinking. just like James Clear and Nick Saban talk about. It's not the outcome. It's not the championship game. It's not the goal that is the main focus. It is the systems, the processes, the routines, the habits that we put into practice that get us to where we want to be. And it's shifting our locus of control from external to internal. and then we respond.

39:10Just like Saban talks about, we have to handle success and failure the same way.

39:17Nick Bare:Whether you experience a big win or a big loss, you go back to the process the next day. If you had a really bad day, so what? It happens. You got really bad news, I'm sorry. It's tough, but we have to continue on the process the next day. It's going to make us stronger. It's going to improve our resilience. It's going to get us to where we want to be. Whether you had a big win or a big loss, you go back to the process the next day, the next morning. If you were going to wake up at 5 a.m., wake up at 5 a.m. If you were going to run 10 miles, run 10 miles. Stick to the process.

40:10Handle success and failure the same way. Take responsibility.

40:15Nick Bare:You must take 100 % responsibility for whatever you're experiencing. I heard Tony Robbins say, you don't have to take 100 % responsibility of what happens to you, but you have to take responsibility of how you experience it. Bad things happen to us. Bad things happen to a lot of people. They get hurt. They get sick.

40:51Nick Bare:And it's not necessarily your responsibility to own that. There are some very unfortunate circumstances that happen. that aren't your fault, but you have to take 100 % responsibility of how you experience it, your perspective, the way that you respond. And the last part of responding is embracing uncertainty.

41:23Nick Bare:Going back to that podcast, I was referencing between Chris Williamson and Alex Formozzi.

41:31Chris asked Alex what's something that he wants his son

41:40Nick Bare:to learn from him as he gets older. And Alex said, courage. And Chris asked, how would you describe and define courage? And I remember what Alex said exactly. word for word, but I'll boil it down to, it was all about being able to manage and handle high levels of uncertainty. Tony Robbins also talks about this and what he calls the hero's call. We have to embrace uncertainty.

42:23if you live a life of wanting and expecting certainty

42:29Nick Bare:those expectations come from a lack of personal responsibility ultimately entitlement embracing uncertainty it's taking what you are used to and getting out of your comfort zone and entering a world of uncertainty there is no growth none in certainty there is only growth in uncertainty. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with. You see, certainty is a basic human survival need. Uncertainty unlocks growth. Uncertainty is courage. And courage is one of the most powerful traits you can learn to embrace and harness. Courage requires really hard decisions.

43:26Nick Bare:It requires personal responsibility. And it spits in the face of entitlement. Expecting.

43:40So those are some thoughts on my mind lately.

43:44Nick Bare:All about entitlement. and inspired by Nick Saban's speech, The Importance of Nothing. Hope you guys enjoyed this one. Love you guys. And as always, go on one.