Essential Step 2

Hi, this is AJ and welcome to the second webinar. This is Step 2, the second

essential step for change and leadership. Remember I said I would teach you all 7

essential steps. So in each email you’ll get a link to videos and text and each one

will cover one step. So this is step number 2. So you learned step number 1

already. You know that health and energy are really the foundation for everything

else. It’s the first thing you’ve got to take care of. If you’re tired, it’s hard to do

anything.

So I’m assuming that you’re starting to improve your health and energy, or at least

you’re thinking about doing that. What do you do next? What’s the second step?

Well, once again the second step is not obvious. It’s maybe not what you would

think. So you’re wanting to make a big change. Maybe you’re wanting to make a

huge improvement in your English speaking or you’re wanting to make some other

big change in your life or start your own business, whatever it is. So you know you

need energy, what’s Step 2?

Step 2 is you must develop a personal mission or missions. So what does that

mean? What is a mission? A mission is really a reason. It’s a purpose. It’s your

purpose, your life purpose. Now when people hear that term, oh, life purpose, they

kind of, oh my god, that sounds so big, y’know. Like I have to be Mother Theresa or

Gandhi and save the world, and that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean if that is

your life purpose, that’s great. But you can start much, much smaller, okay? It’s just

something that you are passionate about, something that you care deeply about. It’s

your reason. It’s your why.

See, we don’t make changes unless we have a strong reason to do so. Like we

might say I want to be healthy, I want to be healthy, I want to be healthy, I want to

lose weight, I want to lose weight. But until we have a really powerful reason to do

it, we’re not going to do it. If we have weak reasons, if it’s just like, oh I’d like to lose

weight or I’d look a little better, that’s probably not going to give us enough focus and

passion to actually take the action in order to get that result. It just doesn’t work that

way, right? When we have powerful reasons, a powerful why as Tony Robbins says,

then we find that change is much, much easier.

So you need a powerful why, a powerful reason, a powerful purpose in your life.

Now, of course, you can have smaller little missions, smaller purposes. But what I’m

talking about here is a more general big purpose, or maybe a couple (of) things, that

in your life that sort of give you passion, that constantly fuel your passion. See,

here’s how I think of it. I think of it as the first step, health, is the engine. It is the

engine that gives you the capability to do anything in your life. You’ve got all that

energy and you can put it into lots of different things.

The problem is, if you don’t have a purpose then it’s really easy to do one thing and

then do another thing and then do another thing, and not really know what to do.

And, oh I don’t know what to do, and nothing really happens. So a powerful mission

or missions, it gives you a direction, a focus. And that gives a lot of power to your

life and it lets you focus that purpose and attention on any problem, any difficulty,

any goal, and really achieve it. So what am I talking about? When I say to develop

a general mission, what I’m saying is you need to develop a purpose in your life, or

purposes, that are not dependent on any specific job or situation or relationship,

right?

Let me give you an example, my own example. So my purpose, I have this whole

little thing I have written out and I chant it when I run sometimes. But anyway, the

sum of it is that number one that my first purpose is to constantly be growing and

learning, constantly grow and learn, constantly grow and learn. And so, see this is

very general and I can constantly be growing and learning. It doesn’t matter what

job I have or if I’m unemployed. It doesn’t matter what relationship I’m in. It doesn’t

matter what the situation in my life is. I can always be focused on growing and

learning. And that is a very, very powerful purpose that has helped me in my life

again and again and again.

Now the second part of my purpose, my general mission, is to bring confidence,

happiness and vitality to people all over the world. Again, that’s not dependent on

any one business or any one job or any one person. That is very general and I can

do that in many, many different ways. And yet it gives me a tremendous amount of

passion and focus and concentration. To bring confidence, happiness and vitality to

people all over the world and to be constantly learning and growing.

So you need to develop a couple of these yourself. And let me tell you why.

Because your mission is your fuel, okay? If Step 1, your health and energy, if that

was the engine, well you’ve got to put something in that thing to make it go. And

your mission will give you that passion. And the reason that’s important is that

number one if you’re trying to be a leader, people follow passion. People crave

passion. They want passion.

So if you’re passionate about something, people tend to listen to you. Even if you’re

full of shit, okay? We have plenty of examples out there of people who are totally full

of shit, meaning they’re totally wrong. And yet lots and lots of people follow them

and listen to them simply because they’re super passionate about their topic. Now

we don’t want to be full of shit but we do want that passion, because the opposite is

also true. There are also a lot of people out there who are very knowledgeable, who

have a lot of very beneficial information who could really be great leaders and really

help a lot of people. But nobody listens to them because they don’t have passion,

right? They’re kind of flat. And we don’t respond to that emotionally.

So you’ve got to have passion. I’m not like this all the time, right? But when I’m

teaching I have a tremendous amount of passion. And how do I do that? Why do I

do that? Because I’m thinking about my mission, like before a seminar. Let’s say

there’s 300 people in the room and I’ve got to go up and teach them. Well, before

that, y’know, I’m doing all kinds of crazy stuff to get myself energized physically first.

The second thing I do is I remind myself of my mission, y’know? I’m going to bring

confidence, happiness and vitality. I’m going to bring confidence, happiness and

vitality to all of these people. And I’ll kind of repeat that again and again and again,

like a crazy person by myself in a hotel room, until I’m really, really excited and

passionate about that.

So then when I jump on the stage to teach those people, they feel it. They feel the

passion. They feel that I’m there to help them, to give them something. That I have

a purpose, that I’m not just there to teach a few words of English, that there’s

something deeper. And you need that, too. So it doesn’t matter if you’re, y’know,

trying to teach English, or you’re trying to help your child, or you’re just working a

computer job. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you have a deeper purpose in your life

people will feel it and they will respond to you differently. You’ll be much more

influential.

And this also will help you make personal changes in your life. So let me give you

an example of this. In my own life, I’m trying always to be healthier. And I found

something interesting. If I just tell myself, I want to be healthy, I want to be healthy. I

should be healthy. I want to look good. I’ll usually make some changes for about a

couple of weeks. I’ll get out there and exercise. And I’ll eat better. After a couple of

weeks my motivation will just die because there’s nothing deeper behind it. But

instead what I have done is I have focused on this purpose to bring confidence,

happiness and vitality to people. Vitality means health and energy. And so then I

start thinking about it and I’m like well if I am going to help other people feel better,

look better, and have more energy in their life and be healthier, well then I need to be

a great example of health and energy.

So now when I’m out there running or trying to lift weights a little bit or trying to eat

healthier, I’m not just thinking about some cosmetic change like lose a little weight.

I’m thinking about my deeper purpose. And that gives me the energy to do things

when I don’t feel like doing them. It gives me the passion to keep going and going,

to overcome difficulties, to run 9 miles even when I maybe don’t want to when it’s

raining and cold outside. But I’ll still do it because it’s not just about me. I’ve got a

bigger purpose, okay? So people crave this. It is so powerful.

It will make a big difference in your life if you can develop a more general deep

purpose, something that you can connect to all the smaller goals you have in life.

You have a lot of goals, but what’s the common purpose behind them?

Okay, so, again step number 2 is develop your personal mission. Develop your

personal purpose, the reasons in your life, the reason you’re living your life, at least

for now. Don’t try to be a perfectionist. You don’t need to come up with something

perfect. Just come up with a couple things that are really, really important to you.

For me it’s learning and growth. And then it’s also contributing to people, giving

confidence and happiness and health and vitality. So I’ve written those out and I

remind myself of them every day. And it gives me tremendous energy and passion.

That combined with living a fairly healthy life and having physical energy really helps

me overcome big difficulties and problems and helps me achieve big goals that I

couldn’t otherwise do. And it will help you as well.

So Step 1, you already know, develop your health and energy. Step 2, develop your

personal mission or missions in life. Alright, so this is the end of webinar number 2,

step number 2. Now the next several steps will be a little bit more of what you might

expect. These steps will be a little bit more specific and less general. But these first

two are very important. You’ve got to get these first two first and then the other

steps will actually be much more powerful and much easier. Okay, so get the first

steps down, the first two, and then look forward to the next step, step number 3.

See you next time.