What Does Doing Your Best Mean

We believe life is precious. This is it. We've got one shot at this. It's on us to live life to the fullest to maximize what we've been given and play the game of life at our full potential.

Are you living up to your potential? Are you frustrated that despite your best intentions, you just can't seem to make the changes needed to take things to the next level. So you can impact your career relationships and health.

If this is hitting home, you're in the right place. Our mission is to open the door to the exceptional life by showing you how to play the game of life at a higher level. So you're playing at your full potential rather than at a fraction as most people do. We'll share the one thing that once we learned it, our lives were transformed. And once you learn it, watch what happens. Welcome to Think It Be It the podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield.

Hey. And I'm John Michell. So Kelly, here's the topic today. How has doing your best evolved for you? And for me? Interesting idea. And

Very interesting. I'm going to be pontificating while you share your thoughts here.

Okay. You know, this, this idea came, because last week, I interviewed the Head Coach of the University of Texas football team, Steve Sarkeesian. And he is such a great guy. I mean, he just fabulous in the University of Texas has a decent chance to win the national championship this year in football, although some people would probably say I'm drinking the Kool Aid, but I'm drinking the Kool Aid one gallon, a man sugar to it. Nevertheless, we had a great conversation. And I was telling him that how how doing my best as evolved. And you know, when I when I hit about 40? Well, actually, I think it's in my 30s. I just, I just had this idea that, you know, I'm so damn sharp that it's just a matter of time before I'm super successful. Naive was the 30 year old John Michell, but, but when I hit 40, I'm like, you know, this thing is not quite working out, I'm semi successful, but I'm not overly successful. And I thought, you know, all I can do is is do my bed says the only thing I can actually control. And so that was my focus in my 40s do my best. And what that really meant to me was getting up at 530 in the morning. And now many years later, I see how an enlightened that understanding of doing my best was and and, you know, today, I see that doing my best is really a combination of five things. One is effort. Okay, getting up early. Another thing is, is personal growth, continually bringing the wisdom of experts in your head every every week, that's the strategic relative to what you want to accomplish. It's focusing on what moves the needle, it's being self aware. And it's what is the what is the fifth one self aware, oh, boy, and maybe the most important tuning into reality, what is reality, telling you because you know, you can get so locked into what you think and how things should work, even though they may not be working. If you're not tuning into reality, and just having that as a feedback loop. You know, you're gonna probably be disappointed with results. So my evolution and doing my best went from, you know, getting up early to those five things. So I'm curious in your life, how is it changed?

You know, it's interesting, when you first asked me this, you know, literally a couple of minutes before we started recording, we talked about the topic. You know, I was like, interesting, I need to put a little bit of thought into this. And you know, what's really clear, and I think when I look back, do your best was a, it was lip service. I don't really even think I understood what doing my best was. I hadn't defined that in any way. And I actually am reflecting on a story. I had a mentor that was like a father figure to me growing up and he would come to my soccer games and I remember him early on I he said, I was I was not being a good loser. We'd lost the game. And I'm probably like, 11 or so I was like, well did you Do your best, you know? And I said, Well, I think so, you know? And he said, Well, you either did or you didn't. And if you say if you say I think so well, then you didn't do your best. So it was, you know, so it was just, it was a phrase that in but I don't really even think that I had defined or understood what doing my best to net. It wasn't until I think later in life and understanding, okay, well, I need a lot of information to understand what my best is. So first of all, I've got to get around, I've got to get clarity, you know, around, who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to achieve? Who does that next version of me look like to achieve the things that I want to achieve? So for me, I would say the number one thing for me is clarity and being really clear about who I am, and how I want to show up in the world. And the way I define my best, you know, did I show up? You know, was I present? Was I inspiring was a generous? You know, and then and that being the kind of the starting point for me about my identity, right, as a human being, and really being clear about what that is? Because until you know that, how can you quantify what your nest is? Absolutely. And I think in just talking, I had a couple of lights come on to say, you know, it wasn't until I was probably close to 40, where that started to make sense. In my where I really started to think about it on more of a deep level, the more self aware I became, the more reflective of the night by became, the more clear what your best meant. Yeah, that's

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's interesting. So you know, you, you start focusing on doing your best at about the same time, I did, except I would say that clarity piece was, which was way better than my just get up early piece of cheese. Like,

for me, it's like you, you got to focus on identity, because then you can say, All right, so this is the person that I, you know, need to strive to become on my journey to what is next, then does that person show up, that person goes up, waking up at 4am, you know, digging into their day, and they exercise and they journal and their health is their priority and their relation, like, then everything kind of starts to fall into place on what the best looks like, when you're very clear about your identity, you can start to say, Okay, well, what does that person do, then? I need to be this what what are the habits, rituals? And do does that person do to have accomplished what I want to accomplish? Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, for for our audience, you know, you get up at what, four in the morning? I do, man, I'll tell you is, I'm sure you're listening me getting up at 530? Going? Boy, that's lazy. Yeah, I've got my day dead by the time visualizer opening? Well, you know, I tell you, I was telling coach shark shark. I said, you know, to me, life comes down to having a successful life comes down to, to having an intelligent plan, and doing your best. And I think most people would agree with that. But I would also say that most people are not very enlightened in terms of what is an intelligent plan, and what is doing your best because, you know, they hadn't really thought about it, you know, and it's interesting that, that we were well into our 40s, or even 50s, for even really got our head around this. And so if you're younger than that, this idea that, you know, if you have an intelligent plan, and you do your best if you if you do those two things, you need to have the the innate belief that God is going to make it all work out. It's all going to work out. So Kelly, what do you think about that idea of that you have to have an intelligent plan, and you have to do your best. Do you agree with that idea?

Oh, 100% You know what, it kind of goes back to what we were mentioning earlier about clarity, like having an intelligent plan. You know, again, it's really hard to do your best if you don't have an intelligent plan. Like it's the roadmap to do your best, right? Yeah. 100% on the same page,

you know, I tell you, I think the majority of people do not have an intelligent plan for their life. That's my observation. And I was, you know, I, I've talked to my stepson about this, and really anybody that will listen, you know, if you're, if you got a life, and you got to work, you can have a great life. If you're making And $20 an hour, the advantage is done work, you know, why not get a skill, so you make $50 an hour, then then you can have a great life. But that fundamental idea escapes a lot of people. And that's, that's what I'm talking about an intelligent plan. And you know, if you're an entrepreneur, you know, what's, what's your strategy for success? What are the three things that move the needle, you know, all the things that we sort of incorporate into our technique? You got to figure those things out. That's what what having an intelligent plan is, right? Yeah,

absolutely. And so an intelligent plan, you know, we talk about what moves the needle, we given that as an example, what else is part of that intelligent plan? I mean, you talked about, you know, ongoing, you know, personal and professional growth. But like, what are the other things that you're talking about, when you say, intelligent plan beyond moving, you know, focusing on what moves the needle and knowing first of all, what moves the needle, and then focusing on that?

Well, I think if we're talking about having an intelligent plan for your career, it comes down to the six things that we, we include in our template, you know, having a succinct business plan, having your strategy for success, finding two or three things, move the needle, seeing where you want to be in three years, what the milestones to get there are understanding what the linchpin issue to go, the next level is. And, you know, this is all sort of as you know, alternative to having a business plan that most people may or may not have, that they look at once a year, and it just gathers deaths. You know, you know, when when I grew my business, and I know, this is how you do your business, I didn't have I didn't have that 30 page business plan, I was reading my business plan 12 minutes a day, every day, it made it way more action oriented, and obviously wouldn't, would affect my unconscious daily actions. But that's, that's what I mean by intelligent plan with regards to business and, and you know, then the other thing is, you got to have an intelligent plan for having a great marriage, or if you're not married, finding a great partner, and you gotta have an intelligent plan for health. But, you know, I see that people do life by default. They don't have a plan for doing life. I mean, you know, they just wake up and go, Well, I'm winging it. Now,

where's the wind gonna blow me today? Yeah.

I am just winging it baby. hoping for the best. And, you know, you know, I see that I was mentioning this on a podcast. That's how most people people do life, they, they don't have an actual way of doing life. And that becomes a problem because, you know, they've got to overcome two big things. One is they're innately wired to be wired to the survival, which caused them to be fear based and reactive. That's a giant thing that you got to overcome every day. And in the fact that 95% of your daily actions are unconscious. So if those, if you're anxious, determine your success in life, and 95% of them are unconscious, you got to you got to gain control of those unconscious daily actions through rewiring your autopilot. But those those two fundamental problems are things you've got to overcome, and you can only overcome them in your morning routine, and more specifically, through that daily repetition, because that's how you influence the subconscious mind. But all that seems admittedly clear to me, but and I know it does to you, too. But again, it goes back to most people are basically asleep at the switch in my opinion. Yeah,

sleepwalking, you know, I mean, I can relate to that. There have been seasons or a point in my life where I'm like, every day is like, rinse and repeat. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, where you're just kind of going through the motions and everything. So like, I get it, it's easy to fall into that what our autopilot does, right? It wants us to be on autopilot and go through the motions. It's way easier. It's trying to conserve energy and to keep you safe and all of that. And so it's easy to fall into those old patterns that don't serve us.

Right. You know, I tell you, you You made me realize something, oh, maybe a year or two ago about how we're wired to not want to change that we're, the subconscious mind does not want us to change and that being wired for survival. It makes us averse to change. That's that center. resting.

Yep, swipe so painful. That's why when people you know, when you're doing something different and where you're feeling out of your comfort zone, and that's part of it, your brain is making you feel uncomfortable, because it's not part of the regular programming. It's not part of the autopilot. So it's like, you know, we're here. So that's why the reprogramming of the auto pilot is critical.

Absolutely. Well, you know, as we wrap this up, so So, so how do we do our best? Well as applied to our methodology, and in our 12 minute a technique, you define exactly what is doing your best to you? And again, you know, I, there's five, five things in my, in my view of what that is, and but, and yours Don't doesn't have to be what mine are. But you just got to see it with clarity. That's sort of the the part that you brought to the table, so absolutely. Okay. Well, I think that's got it for the day. We'll see you next time.