Life is a series of Challenges where we are attempting to Accomplish and Achieve Goals that are very important to us.
These Challenges can potentially include doing well on a test and graduating from school, or making a sports team, or trying to compete in a competition, or applying for a job and going for an interview, or proposing to our partner, or trying to be the very best parent that we can be, or trying to build a Wonderful Life for Our Family.
But the key point for us to remember is that whether we are successful with our attempts toward each of these individual goals is not primarily based upon the work we put in on the day of our attempt, but instead our success on the day of the attempt is dependent upon the work we have put in during the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to our attempt.
The Achievement of Every Goal in our Lives is accomplished by us working Every Day as hard as we can to achieve Self-Improvement and Self-Development.
There is a very true saying that people overestimate how much they can accomplish in a day, but they underestimate how much they can accomplish in a few months or a few years.
I always say to my players and to my students that if you work the very hardest you can in any given Day, then the most you can improve that Day is just a tiny bit. Such a small amount that your improvement that Day is almost too small to measure.
However, if you work as hard as you can Every Day for a period of months and years, then all these tiny amounts will add up on top of each other.
As a result, when you look back many months and years from now, then you will be absolutely Amazed at where you are and how far you have come.
We can visualize and appreciate this most important point by comparing it to the physical growth of a child.
If you see a child every Day, then you do not notice that the child is growing taller because although a child is growing a tiny bit every Day, the amount of the child’s growth in a Day is too small for you to be able to notice or measure.
However, if you do not see a child for several months, or for a few years, then you will be amazed at how much the child has grown.
Throughout my career as a college professor and coach, I have always emphasized this philosophy of working as hard as you can Every Day so you can grow, improve, and develop a tiny, almost immeasurable amount Every Day.
I said this to my students so often that this philosophy became the mantra and call to arms of my college students who I Loved, large numbers of whom have gone on to become very successful coaches, athletes, and business professionals.
This Philosophy and Principle works exactly the same way with your own personal development.
Therefore, the key points that we all need to realize are:
1) If we work as hard as we absolutely can for a given Day, then it is only possible for us to achieve a very small amount of improvement and development.
2) But if we work as hard as we absolutely can Every Day for a period of months and years, then we will be able to look back and be Amazed at where we are and how far we have come.
3) For you to accomplish this Tremendous personal growth that is going to Amaze you, then it is necessary for you to work this hard Every Single Day because the principle of compounding can only take effect when you do it Every Single Day.
4) The mistake that most people make is that they only put the work in once or twice each week, or maybe even a few times each week. As a result, when they do not follow the required Every Day frequency then they often become discouraged because they are not seeing the positive results as quickly as they want or expect.
5) The reason that putting in the work only once or twice each week, or even a few times each week, does not work is because although you are improving and developing the same tiny bit on the days you work, you are slipping backwards on the days you are not working. Therefore, you get caught in a one step forward and one step back trap.
6) This limited amount of forward movement is not powerful enough to create the Energy potential and the Power synergy for you to explode upwards.
7) But if you put in this work Every Day, then on the first Day you will improve a tiny amount from the work you do on that first Day.
8) As a result, when you begin your second Day, then you will be starting from a very slightly higher position that is the combination of where you began your first Day, added to the tiny amount of improvement you made from the work you did that first Day.
9) Therefore, you will improve a tiny percentage from the work you do on the second Day, and you will also improve by a tiny percentage on the very small amount of improvement you made from your first Day’s work.
10) As a result, on your third Day you will again be starting from a very slightly higher position that is the combination of where you began your first Day, added to the tiny amount of improvement you made from your first Day’s work, added to the tiny amount of improvement you made from your second Day’s work.
11) Therefore, on your third Day, you will improve a tiny percentage from the work you do on the third Day, you will improve by a tiny percentage on the improvement you made on the first Day you worked, and you will improve by a tiny percentage on the improvement you made on the second Day you worked.
12) Therefore, your improvement becomes like compound interest on money in a bank.
13) If you deposit $100 into a bank at 5% interest, and if the bank pays you your interest once per year at the end of the year, then the bank will pay you $5 at the end of the year so that you have $105 in the bank.
14) But if the bank pays you 5% interest compounded daily, then at the end of the year you are going to have significantly more than $105 because throughout the year you will be getting paid interest on the interest money that the bank has already put into your account.
15) Mathematically, 5% interest compounded daily is equal to 6.168% compounded annually. Therefore, by working hard every single Day, then you are creating an extra 1.168% compound interest on your work. This is an extra 23.4% more improvement because of the compound interest factor, and in the world of Achievement and Greatness, an extra 23.4% improvement is the difference that brings about Great Success.
16) This concept is like rolling snow into a ball to make a snowman. You start by making a small snowball, and as you roll it in the snow then the snowball picks up a little snow from the ground as you roll it. When the snowball is small, then it takes several full rolls in the snow to get noticeably bigger. However, when the snowball gets larger, then it seems to almost double in size with every roll you make because there is so much more surface area picking up additional snow from the ground.
17) When any of us lift weights, then we understand and accept this principle automatically because we have all seen that when we are dedicated to a weight training program, then over time we are going to see that we are gradually putting more weight on the bar, and that we are gradually getting stronger little by little. This improvement in what we can lift is just the way that it works.
18) However, when we are taking on different self-development challenges that are not as easy to objectively measure as an exact amount of weight on a weightlifting bar, then it becomes more difficult for us to subjectively measure our improvement.
19) Because it is more difficult for us to measure our exact improvement, then it is easy for us to forget about the factual Principle of Self-Improvement that applies to All Goals. We talk ourselves into thinking that one missed Day of work is not going to matter much, and our incorrect thinking makes it is easy for us to get off course and make the mistake of allowing ourselves to skip Days.
20) We rationalize by telling ourselves that we will skip today, but we will work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for the missed Day.
21) To which I would say, if it is possible for you to work twice as hard tomorrow, then you should have worked twice as hard today and twice as hard tomorrow.
22) Skipping days is not effective in the same way because it causes you to take partial steps backward on the Days you skip, and it also causes you not to gain the benefit of compound interest on your work for those Days you skipped. Therefore, missing a Day can never be made up.
That is why the most important factor in reaching any Goal is for You to be there working Every Day.
By You working Every Day then many Great things will happen that cannot be anticipated, expected, or imagined.
One of the reasons that many people do not work as hard as they need to work is because we only see the great athletes, the great entertainers, the great musicians, the great speakers, the great singers, the great actors and actresses, the great businessmen, the great politicians, and people who are great at anything, after they have already become great.
We do not get to see these great people when they were not as good, when they were cut from the team on sports try-outs, when they sat on the bench after they were on a team, when they were trying to learn the guitar and their fingers were raw and bleeding, when they were the smallest person on their team, when they were taking badly needed singing lessons, when they were struggling with grades in school that threatened them being able to graduate, when their first few businesses failed and each time they had to start over again from scratch, when they went through a period where they had to live out of their car or had to sleep on a friend’s couch, when as a coach they had two losing seasons in a row and they got fired early in their career, when they had to transfer colleges because they were not getting any playing time where they were, when they were acting in the very small play in the local corner theater and not in the Oscar-winning movie they are in now, when they lost the first three elections they ran in for political office, and when they were homeless because they had lost all that they had and they needed to start all over again.
Because we do not get to see these people before they were great, then we make the mistake of thinking that these people who are great successes were always great.
We make the mistake of thinking that all of these people have had a fairly smooth and easy path to the heights of greatness they have achieved today.
When the reality is that each of these great people had to overcome challenges and adversities to Achieve Greatness, and every one of these great people had to work very hard to get to where they are now.
No one achieves Greatness at anything without working very hard.
All of us go through our Lives facing difficult challenges and adversities that we need to overcome. Some people have to overcome more things than other people, but everyone has had to overcome difficult challenges and adversities.
We all see our own challenges and adversities because we are living through them, but we do not usually get the opportunity to see the challenges, difficulties, and adversities that other people have faced and overcome to Achieve their Greatness.
The fact is that everyone has his or her own personal story of overcoming challenges and adversities, just like you have your own personal story of the challenges, difficulties, and adversities that you have overcome.
The key point for you to always remember is that you are very capable of overcoming every challenge, every difficulty, and every adversity that you ever face.
You can overcome all of these by following this Philosophy and Principle that I have described, where you work as hard as you can Every Single Day to improve a tiny amount Every Day.
By you working as hard as you can Every Day, then all these tiny amounts of improvement and development you gain will add up on top of each other until you become Amazed at Where You Are and How Far You Have Come.
As a society, we have been forgetting this Philosophy and Principle, and we need to re-emphasize it again.
Because this Philosophy and Principle is what the American Dream is.
The American Dream was never about being easy to achieve.
It was about being given an Opportunity to work hard to Achieve our American Dream.
70% of our immigrants to America in the 1800’s came as indentured servants who had to work for free for seven or more years just to pay for their ship transportation from their home country.
Therefore, all of us have Ancestors who were indentured servants.
Entire families, including the children, had to work for seven or more years for free as indentured servants.
Then, after the seven or more years of working for free, they had to begin their Lives in America on their own without having any money or belongings to begin their Lives with.
In addition, many of our forefathers, such as mine, were slaves who had to work even longer than the indentured servants did, often for a lifetime.
However, all of our Ancestors were able to overcome their challenges, difficulties, and adversities to ultimately Achieve their American Dream for Themselves and for their Future Families.
Every one of our Ancestors may not have achieved their American Dream within their own Lifetime, but all of our Ancestors Achieved their American Dream for Us their Future Families.
And so all of our Ancestors were Heroes and Champions, and all of our Ancestors are still Our Heroes and Our Champions.
If any of Our Heroes and Our Champions had been able to see into the future to today, if they had been able to see the Opportunities that they have created for You and for Us as their Descendants and as their Future Family, then Every One of Our Heroes and Our Champions would have been very happy to go through all those hardships and adversities again that they endured for You and for me and for All of Us.
Because we are all a part of their American Dream that Our Ancestors Achieved.
We all stand on the very broad shoulders of Our Ancestors.
Everything that Our Ancestors overcame has put each of us where we are today, which is on the threshold of You being able to Achieve Your Personal Greatness and You being able to Achieve Your American Dream For You and For Your Family.
The 65 Policies we have created, designed, and written on our webpages and in this book have created the Infrastructure and the Opportunity for You to Achieve Your American Dream.
For the very first time, You will have people in the White House who are on your side fighting For You and fighting With You.
Through Your willingness to work as hard as You can Every Day to improve a tiny amount Every Day, and by You working this hard Every Day, then all these tiny amounts of improvement and development You make will add up on top of each other until You become Amazed at Where You Are and How Far You Have Come.
With our 65 Policies as the Foundation and with Your Willingness to Work Hard Every Day, then You are going to Achieve Incredible Personal Greatness and You are going to Achieve Your American Dream For You and For Your Family.
Let Us All Be Heroes and Champions For Our Future Families, just like Our Ancestors were Heroes and Champions For Us.
