I don't know about you, but it seems like I am oftentimes my own worst enemy.
I make these mistakes I shoot myself in the foot.
Why do we do this?
Guys, in today's video, I'm going to talk about ten mistakes I make that kind of screw
me over and how you can avoid making them.
Mistake number one.
I'm pretty good at making excuses.
I know I've talked about I hate excuses, yet I make them myself.
Why do I do this?
Because I'm human and excuses feel good.
They allow us to excuse ourselves from situations and mess we don't necessarily want to be a
part of.
But, maybe I need to be more honest if not with the person, but with myself that what
they want me to do is not a priority.
And, I've got some pretty good excuses.
I'm traveling outside the country, I haven't been home for months.
So, if I get invited to an event in Wisconsin, I'm going to say, hey, I'm just not in the
state, I'm not even in the country.
That's a pretty good excuse and I think that's good to go.
But, other times I'm showing up late for events and, oh, I've got four kids.
Well, I can use that as a crutch as an excuse or I can actually take a step back and say,
Antonio, you fell into the trap where, yes, on my best day it took me twenty minutes to
get to that event.
But you know what?
If I've got four kids in tow with my wife, I should probably give us forty minutes to
get to that event and make sure that we get there early because I can expect one of my
kids is going to have a meltdown that maybe the taxi is going to say, no, way, you're
not going to fit in our car and, these things have happened.
So, I need to plan and prepare for them and that's that's the hard thing to do because
excuses just really allow us to excuse ourselves and not take responsibility.
Mistake number two.
Lack of preparation.
So, I just talked about that very closely related to excuses.
We all want to show up, we want everything to be done for us because it feels good, it's
nice, it makes us feel important.
But, I can tell you and I'll just choose my conference as an example.
We just had another successful StyleCon and that one we're actually changing the name
to Menfluential.
But, I can tell you it's successful because 380 days out, we're already preparing for
the next one.
Yes, I've got a countdown timer and I'm looking at the number of day and every single day
we're taking a small step in terms of preparation for that two-day event.
All that time conditioning, all that time preparing is going to pay dividends when the
event shows up.
Mistake number three.
I multitask.
And I can tell you guys that that makes you incredibly inefficient.
There was a study done a number of years ago where they actually looked at multi-taskers
because many people believe, wow, these people are amazing.
How do they do all of these things at the same time and get them done.
But, the research showed that these guys were very good at doing a lot of things very poorly.
And in fact, if they had just focused in on one thing at a time, they would have been
faster and they would have actually gotten the job done to a higher degree.
This is something I really work on in my company, making sure people know what their one focus
is and that's a hard thing for us to do to cut things off and to focus in on the here
and now or on one thing that's incredibly important.
But, when you do that, you get it done quickly with less error and you're able to actually
get more overall done than trying to do everything at once.
Mistake number four is I have little discipline which is surprising to a lot of people.
They're always like, Antonio, you're in the Marine Corps you've got lots of discipline.
Here's the thing about discipline, it's actually has to be systemized.
I was disciplined in the Marine Corps because I had to be.
I was in an environment in which everything is discipline.
You're on a base, everything is regimented from the time you get up in the morning to
the time you go to bed.
So, you're in the system that forces discipline upon you and what happens?
Wow, you actually get a lot accomplished.
You're able to actually for many guys get in great shape, be able to get an incredible
amount done because you've got this very discipline system.
So, always think not discipline, but creating a system in your life that allows you to be
able to accomplish what you want to.
Mistake number five, waiting for the perfect time.
And mistake number six, waiting for the product or for your service to be perfect before launching.
Guys, I'm going to bring these together because they both focus in on perfection.
And perfection is a great thing to strive for, but never wait for it.
It's not something that's even achievable.
So, perfection on time.
I can tell you when I started my first company, I already had my son and I'm thinking to myself,
okay, this isn't the perfect time, the economy seems to be tanking, it's 2007.
I already have a son, so I probably should go get what?
Health insurance and go get a nice safe job.
But, instead I said, you know what?
I'm not going to have any less kids here in the future.
My wife and I planned to have more which now we have four.
It was also something that, hey, there wasn't a perfect time in the economy, but you've
got to move forward.
You've got to understand that time waits for no man and there is never the perfect time.
Now, when it comes to the perfect product the perfect service, of course, you always
want things to be really good and for the customers to be happy, for whenever you turn
that into your professor for them to be satisfied, but don't be late.
Have a date, a deadline.
At the end of the day, whether it'd be a company, product, whether it'd be a project you're
working on, make sure to ship it.
Have that hard deadline because there is no such thing as perfection.
Oftentimes, good enough is going to suffice.
Mistake number seven.
I was a yes man.
I would say yes to everything.
I'm a nice guy I'm trying to help out everyone.
The problem with that is I spread myself too thin and all of a sudden I am working crazy
hours and my performance the products that I were creating were very low substandard
they weren't very good.
You need to make no your default answer.
I know it's hard at first.
So, find out what you can say no to what you can cut off because what that does is it afford
you the time and resources to actually focus in on what's important and people will understand.
And not only that, they will start to respect you because when you do do something, you
commit to it fully and you produce fantastic results.
Mistake number eight.
I stopped learning.
There have been periods in my life in which I've had intense education.
When I got my MBA, when I joined the Marine Corps, when I went to undergrad, but then
there are other periods in which I pretty much stopped learning.
I just focused in on doing.
The problem with that is you have to have continuous education.
You need to be setting a time hopefully daily, but if necessary maybe just once a week in
which you're reading you're focused in on higher education on broadening your scope
and your understanding not only of your industry, but outside your industry.
If you read all nonfiction, then maybe look to pick up a fiction book here or there.
I know for me, there are audio books, some of these I mean that right there is great.
There are other times you can just go grab Kindle, you know, read through on your phone.
Find a way even long form video content I think is a great form of education.
But, when it comes down to it, gentlemen, find a way to continue to educate yourself.
This right here is the biggest this is your most valuable tool, make sure it's sharp.
Mistake number nine.
I was acting like a lone wolf.
So, have you ever seen that movie, Lone Wolf McQuade with Chuck Norris?
I love that movie as a kid.
But why and they kind of glorifies the fact that you can be alone you can be this machismo
guy, you don't need anyone.
But, when you look at that movie, there were a few points in which Chuck Norris needed
just a little bit of help.
Now, for most of us, we're not Chuck Norris.
We need a lot of help and I have helped had the best growth the most success in my company
and in business when I've reached out and connected with others.
So, make sure you're not trying to do everything on your own.
A man is not an island, we are connected to each other and in order to make amazing things
happen, you have to surround yourself with amazing people.
The next mistake I want to talk about is when confidence is replaced by ego.
Ego is dangerous, confidence is good.
Confidence is something you earned, it's when you got a particular skill set, when you have
an ability and you know how and when to execute it.
And, yeah, you've got a little bit of fear, but you're very you have strength in knowing
you know what to do.
Ego is not that.
Ego is when you go beyond when you start to believe your own hype.
When people are telling you you're amazing, you're the man, you're like, yeah, I am.
I can go out there.
I don't have to practice, I don't have to prepare.
I can just, you know, and you can get away with it for a while, but when you fall it's
going to hurt.
And the way you keep yourself you keep that ego in check, you got to keep yourself grounded
and resist believing what other people say about you what that hype is.
Know that what you think of yourself is really where it's at.
You need to be, you know, don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to how you were
the day before, how you were last week and if you're slowly if you're making progress
on that, you're going to be safe.
So, bonus mistake.
Not taking action.
Oftentimes, I thought about things.
I thought wouldn't that be great if I did it and I never do it.
Gentlemen, you've got to take action to get what you want out of this life.
Now, for many of you guys like, okay, Antonio, I procrastinate a lot, how can I get past
this?
Guys, I want you to go check out the productivity journal.
John Lee Dumas is putting this out.
I think you got about a week left over on Kickstarter.
It is very affordable.
You want to have some skin in the game.
And John Dumas, he's a friend of mine.
I've got a business with him called High Speed Low Drag, we run together.
I was in Iraq with this guy back in 2003.
He served in the army as an officer a tank officer.
He is the real deal.
And, what I love is he helps you with your productivity, with your focus, being able
to execute.
He's got this in 100-day journal.
The price is very affordable.
Go out there invest in this because you'll invest in yourself.
If you get one accomplishment out of this that you've been wanting to get done for years,
guys, it is going to be more and worth it.
And to wrap this up, gentlemen, if you've got something to add, if you feel I miss something,
let me know down in the comments.
I'm always down there checking them out, reading what you guys are saying, trying to reply
when I can.
I really appreciate you being part of the community here at Real Men Real Style.
I'll see you in the next video.
Take care.