Start With A Win - The secrets to commitment (Part 1 of 2)

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

Show Notes:On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, Adam describes the first aspect of commitment: attitude. Commitment paves the road to success and happiness, transforming promise into reality and building character, and just as an attitude of commitment helps you start with a win, it enables you to continue winning.A lot of what goes into the attitude of commitment is the decision to do something and overcoming the fear of failure, because failure is just the beginning. By establishing why you are doing something or reaching for a certain goal, you are able to cultivate the willpower you will need to see it through. This mindset shift opens the door to small changes and improvements that can help you fulfill your purpose and master the task at hand. Adam challenges listeners to sit down and write your “why” for the main things they are focused on. Then take each of those “whys” and ask yourself “why” 6 times until you get down to the true motivation or emotion that is propelling your decisions and actions. This ultimate “why” transcends logic and helps you understand more about yourself and your purpose.Links:Urban Dictionary definition of “commitment”: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=commitment“Start with Why” by Simon Sinek: https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550070277&sr=8-1&keywords=the+power+of+why Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

At top of the 12th floor of the Remax World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With a Win with CEO Adam Kantos. Boom, and hello, everybody. This is Adam Kantos, top of the 12th floor at Remax World Headquarters, and we are at Start With a Win. Here we got with us, Producer Mark. How you doing, Producer Mark? I have never been better. Oh my gosh. I love it. Yeah, it's a beautiful day, and we're here recording more episodes to inspire and encourage people. So what's better than that? And we are super inspired and encouraged in doing so. Exactly. Well, it's been great. I mean, we've just heard so much feedback of how the show's

just been impacting people and encouraging them. And I know you've been getting a lot of direct messages and people hitting you up at different conferences and events being like, this show's great. It's pretty cool. So I mean, everybody out there in listener land, hey, if you have not shared our show yet with some of the people that you know, like your family, your friends, whatever, if this is for them, let them know, you know, and also give us a rating, hit the subscribe button and share this out there. We try to include some things that will help people just these little mind shifts, these little mind changes, as well as a few life hacks here and there, some business hacks, some fun stuff. So Mark, we got some good stuff coming

up though, don't we? Yeah. I mean, we got a lot of great episodes on the docket. And then today, we're talking about an amazing thing that is difficult for a lot of people, but also very easy. Yeah, totally. It really is hard for a lot of people when you think about this. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about commitment. We got these commitment phobes out there in the world, but I don't think you can really truly find success or happiness if you can't find commitment and understand how to create commitment. I think that's so true.

So you and I have been kind of talking about this really cool definition that we found. The Urban Dictionary's got a really neat reference. So I think we should open with that. Yeah, yeah, let's read it. All right, so commitment is what transforms the promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions

and the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none, coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of, the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism. I love that. That's so good. It totally is. Yeah. So when you look at it, we've talked a lot on a lot of the podcast episodes about getting

things done. It's called Start With A Win, right? When you look at it, it starts with commitment, doesn't it? It does. This is a two-part episode. Let's break this down into two components of commitment that I think are incredibly powerful. In fact, I was speaking to a class of new broker owners.

So they're new franchise owners. They're entrepreneurs. They've been in our space for a while. And I was talking to them today. And I said, guys and ladies, do you know what really wins this business? It's commitment. It really is commitment. It's commitment to doing the things

that you don't necessarily want to do. And we've heard a lot of different approaches to commitment over time. Mark Twain always said, eat a live frog every day because it'll be the worst thing you do all day. And that's commitment, right? Yeah. I mean, go ahead and grab that frog. You're doing it. It's really cool. My son has a saying that he has told to me recently. And he said, Dad, doing something is easy.

Deciding to do it is the hard part. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It's true because you think about once you do something and get in the habit of it and you start doing it, it becomes a routine and things like that. But making that decision, that commitment to do it, because I think there's a lot of fears around that, right? Like, well, what if I fail? Right.

What if I, you know, aren't as good as I thought I was going to be? You know, there's a lot of things that if you start something, well, now you're committing to it almost. You're in it, yeah. So it's interesting, what if I fail? So people look at failure in life and they're afraid of it because they think failure is the end. Well, failure is only failure

if you allow it to be the end, if you stop trying. So you look in life, there are wins and losses, right? And that's a fact. There's the W column and the L column. But if you look at life and how the entrepreneur thinks, how the human being thinks, and I'm not talking about like a sports team or something like that, but I'm talking about us progressively making ourselves better. It should be wins and learns, not wins and losses, because you always learn something about it. If you did something wrong, and I'll be the first one to say, I get a lot of learns in my life and I learn a lot from those, right? It's like getting an answer wrong on

a test. You go back and go, all right, how did I get this wrong? I want to learn from that. And that's what you do. So it's about this attitude piece. So we've got two pieces of, two components to commitment. We've got attitude and we've got execution. So the first one is attitude. It's the mindset behind execution. It's willpower and overcoming the challenges to accomplish these things. And we had an episode called Kaizen, small improvements. And it's interesting because small improvements actually create willpower. People slowly get

moving into something in their mind because they look for something easy to do and easy to decide to do. And then they start making little bitty adjustments from there. So it might be if you want to go run a 10K, let's say. You don't start by going out and running the 10K. Go, all right, I'm going to put on my shoes and go run a 10K. Sorry, it doesn't work. You're not going to be able to walk the next day. But if you go out and you run around the block, or you start walking, you walk around the block.

Or if you want to lose weight, people don't get up in the morning and go, I'm going to go lose 20 pounds. They take their time and they say, no, I'm going to get up and I'm going to make a little bitty improvement in my life. And then those things start adding up, but you've got to have this attitude, this willpower to get it done. And there are some ways that you can accomplish that. What are those ways, Adam? I'm glad you asked, Mark. That's one of the great reasons why you're here. You have such good questions. Well, you know, I'm a questions guy.

Oh, there you go. All right. So those ways are, you know, we start with a system. And I talk about systems. Goals versus systems. You know, a goal is the thing you're trying to get to. A system is how you get there. So you've got to really break it down into something that is very manageable. The old saying,

how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. That's a system for eating an elephant. And an elephant's a large creature, takes a lot of bites. But if you look at it and go, I'm going to try and choke that thing down, you're not going to make it happen. It's not possible. But if you take a bite, and then another bite bite and then another bite, and that's really what it boils down to is figuring out how to do that, how to get that into your head that you can accomplish it. Now, of course, also, you have to know why you want to accomplish it, right? What's the reason behind it? I heard a really good example of establishing your why. And what you need to do is, let's say

you put a board on the ground, like a two by six, and it's maybe 12 feet long, and you have to walk across that board. And you go, all right, that's pretty easy, right? So you just, you know, you can walk across the board, it's sitting on the ground. Now, what if that board was a hundred stories up in the air between two buildings? That makes it a little more complicated. It does make it a little more complicated. But if you change the reason that you're walking across that board is to save your child because the other building's on fire, does that change it? Well, yeah, of course. Absolutely it does. It's a mindset shift. And if you take all those variables out of it, you're still walking across a board. That's so true. I never thought of it like that, but

it's true. So why do you want it? How can you instill in your heart that you want it so much that you're willing to walk across that board regardless if it's on the ground or if it's 100 stories up in the air. You got to want it. It's about having the right attitude, having the right why, and going after it because simply put, you got to have the right reason. And if you don't have the right reason, you're never going to find the commitment. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Cool. So this leads to mastery, having the right why. That's kind of the first step. You know, Simon Sinek talks about why, the power of why. Great book.

Oh, yeah. Amazing book. Really good book. If you haven't read it, check it out. I'm a huge fan of it. And he talks about the power of why in combat. He talks about the power of why in family he talks about the power of why in combat. He talks about the power of why in family and really the power of why in life. And it's just, when you think about it,

you've got to have the power of why in order to create commitment. Without it, there is none. Why do you exercise? And I know we always, it's so cliche to go back to exercise and everybody always goes back to it, but why do you exercise? Is it for you or is it for your family, for your kids? Yeah, your loved ones. For your health, for their future. Do you want to be around? It's such a strange thing because we give up on ourselves before we give up on other people. Have you noticed that? Yeah, so true. So when most people, when they have a heart attack, strangely enough, 14% of the people that have a heart attack decide to change their lifestyle because they had a heart attack. That's sad. That is sad. What is their why? Maybe

they don't have the right why. And you think about maybe when you get to the point you're having a heart attack, are there other things going on in your life? And maybe your why is a little bit off from where a proud, happy why of mastery is. I still have all this time to spend with my family and to be amazing in life and do some incredible things for mankind, for womankind, for humankind, whatever it might be. And they've got a why, so they're going to go attack it. And it seems too that your why can probably constantly change, right? Because I think it's probably important for us to sit down, right? And write down the whys. Like, why do I want to be more successful? Or why do I want to make more money? Or why do I want to get in shape? You know, you can kind of write these things down, right? And then maybe once you get in shape, maybe once you become more successful in your business,

then your why kind of changes, right? It does. But you know, what's interesting is when you think about the why, and this is an interesting exercise to go through, write down your why, and then ask why. Why do your why? Yeah. Do that six times. Oh, wow. That's deep.

That is deep because you will run out of reasons and you will truly find your why. And that why goes from your handwriting and on the table all the way into your heart. Because that's where your why is. It's in your heart. It's not a logical decision. It is a emotional decision because we're all tied emotionally to something in life. It's a loved one. It's a purpose. It's a greater cause. Those are all emotions. And your why transcends logic and becomes a deep part of your being when you ask those six whys. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally. That's great. So pretty cool. But ultimately, that is the foundation for commitment, for the attitude portion of commitment, for understanding really what is your promise and how do you turn that into reality? So it's so cool when you speak boldly of your intentions to dig deep into that promise, year after year, day after day, time after time,

in order to get down into your character and how you are able to harness this power of change. So that's what commitment's about. I'm looking forward to the next episode where we talk about getting it done. Yes, totally. All right, Mark. And thank you, everybody.

Again, share and like this episode, subscribe and share this with some people that you know could use a few of these thoughts that could stimulate some new dimension into their why. And next time, we're going to talk about execution, getting things done. We'll see you next time on Start With A Win. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And remember, start with a win.