You have to give up any excuses and justifications and come to terms with the results you are producing. If you are under quota or overweight, all the great reasons in the world won’t change that. The only thing that will change your results is to change your behavior. Prospect more, get some sales training, change your sales presentation, change your diet, consume fewer calories, and exercise more frequently—these are things that will make a difference. But you have to first be willing to look at the results you are producing. The only starting point that works is reality.
So start paying attention to what is so. Look around at your life and the people in it. Are you and they happy? Is there balance, beauty, comfort, and ease? Do your systems work? Are you getting what you want? Is your net worth increasing? Are your grades satisfactory? Are you healthy, fit, and pain-free? Are you getting better in all areas of your life? If not, then something needs to happen, and only you can make it happen.
Don’t kid yourself. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Take your own inventory.
FROM VICTIM TO VICTORY
Raj Bhavsar was born to be a gymnast. It was the natural career choice for a kid who—at the age of 4—lived to climb up things, including trees and furniture, and jump off them. His parents, worried that he’d hurt himself and destroy their house, signed him up for gymnastics classes at a nearby gym. Raj quickly fell in love with the sport, and by the age of 10, he wanted to be the best at this sport that he loved and represent his country in the Olympics.
He began focusing intensely on becoming a better gymnast, and soon the success began to show. He started winning first and second place at competitions and was a five-time Texas champion by the time he entered high school.
His high school and college years were a blur of awards and championships: regional state champion, national champion, senior national team, and then placement in two medal-winning championship teams. In his mind, he was unstoppable.
In 2004, Raj was competing for a spot in the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. Of the 12 routines he’d done, 11 of them had been perfect. Everybody agreed that he was a shoe-in. Elated, he was thinking, Greece, here I come!
But at the conclusion of the trials, when they read off the names of the Olympians, his wasn’t on the list. Then he heard the words, “Raj Bhavsar, alternate.” In that moment, his whole world—everything he’d been working toward for a decade and a half—was shattered. His expectations were sky-high and tangled up in his self-worth, so when they weren’t met on that awful day in 2004, he came down to earth with a crash. For the next few years, he burned with one desire: to find out why he’d been denied. He needed to find someone to blame.
Although Raj went to Greece as an alternate, it was a bittersweet experience watching his teammates work together and compete day after day. Unofficially, he was part of the team, yet it was clear he wasn’t really one of them. He never had a chance to compete, and he returned from the trip disillusioned and lost.
Back at home, he did some serious soul-searching. He asked himself, Do I truly enjoy gymnastics? Do I love the competition regardless of the scores and the accolades? His answer was Yes! So he decided to recommit himself to being a gymnast, and this time to throw himself into the sport—not just to win competitions, but for the art of it, and the love of it.
Unfortunately, without the intense drive to win, his performance suffered. At the 2007 U.S. Nationals, held nine months before the 2008 Olympic team was selected, he bombed. His performance was rocky, and for the first time in nine years, he didn’t even make the national team. He had to own up to the truth: What he was doing wasn’t working.
A few days later, a friend of his, a 2000 Olympian himself, handed Raj a book and said, “You need to read this.” Raj took it from him and saw on the cover a picture of a white-haired guy with a big smile and the words: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He thought, No book can get me where I want to be; my problem is different. But when his coach recommended the same book a few days later, Raj decided to give it a chance.
I’ll let Raj tell the rest of the story:
The book was The Success Principles, and the first thing I learned was that, to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that happens in your life. This was a tough one to swallow considering I had been convinced—for years—that life had played against me. Soon, however, I realized that harboring resentment and dwelling on “what happened” had gotten me nowhere. Suddenly, instead of continuing to look for someone to blame, I began to turn that energy inward and examine how my own mind-set of fear and negativity had contributed to my recent performance. Where was my fear coming from, and what was causing these negative thoughts in my head?
I had always thought that fear meant I was broken—but Jack taught me that successful people experience fear and negativity on a daily basis yet still choose to move forward toward their goals. Negative thoughts, rejection, fear—they’re just part of the process! Suddenly, these thoughts became challenges to overcome, rather than huge roadblocks or evidence of my failure. I was on a whole new course.
My coach saw the light go on in me. It was like a switch was flipped, he said. Working with him on a new training plan, I recommitted to my dream of being an Olympian—but now I also wanted to be an Olympian in life.
I created a vision board and mind map—not only to help me visualize success but also to break down my huge, lofty, overwhelming Olympic goal into areas of daily focus that I could manage. When the 2008 Olympic tryouts were held, I sailed through the competition. I felt happy, clear, and on top of my game. I nailed all my routines. With all the work I’d done on myself, I was confident they would name me to the team this time.
But when they named the final team members, my name wasn’t called. What?!
In a cruel repeat of 2004, I heard, “Raj Bhavsar, alternate.”
When a reporter from NBC asked me how I felt about being named an alternate a second time, I answered with one sentence, “There is no external event that can defeat my sense of inner accomplishment.”
Still, I was honestly baffled that—after all I had done—my dream was still outside my grasp. While a part of me was ready to give up on being an Olympian, something inside me said, “Keep the dream alive! There’s no way this is over.”
The next morning, I called the USA Gymnastics officials and reconfirmed that I’d be honored to be an alternate. For the next week, I trained hard and stayed ready. Then it was announced that Paul Hamm—the 2004 Olympic gold medalist and a member of the Olympic team for 2008—had made the decision to withdraw due to injuries. The committee would decide which one of the three alternates would be chosen to replace him. Waiting for the decision was probably the most excruciating, yet exciting, 24 hours of my entire life.
The next day at the gym, my coach, my sports performance counselor, and I were on the phone to USA Gymnastics when the president of the organization came on the line to give us the official announcement. As he started his announcement—saying how happy they were about the decision and on and on—inside I was begging, Just say the name! Is it me or not?
“At this time,” he finally said, “we’d like to announce the new member of the 2008 Olympic team . . . Raj Bhavsar.”
With a shout, Raj fell to his knees. Then, smiling and crying at the same time, he stood up and hugged his coach. He hugged his counselor. He hugged everyone.
But Raj also knew the road ahead would be difficult. With Paul Hamm out, not a single member of the team had any Olympic experience. Sports media—even people in the gymnastics community—had written off the team, doubting they could make it into the finals. That was when Raj committed to doing whatever he could to keep their outlook positive.
The night before the competition, he assembled all six team members and urged them to commit to caring for one another as human beings first—athletes second. In that moment, each knew that his teammates had his back. The next morning, the team walked onto the competition floor wi
th their heads held high and, in a stunning upset—with the entire arena chanting “USA! USA!” —Raj and his teammates edged out the Germans to win the Olympic bronze medal.
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The Success Principles(TM) - 10th Anniversary Edition Page 5