Is 90% enough?

What is your number for success?

• Top 50% of your field?
• Top 10% of your field?
• Top 1% of your field?

After writing now 50+ articles this year, countless hours of research, and daily real life application of learning and growth in the workplace.... My educated opinion is that being in the TOP 10% is even better than being in the TOP 1%.

I'd like to take you back to where 10% all started for me.

The big goal for me in high school was to earn gold cords at Graduation, which meant High Honors. To achieve this, I would need a 90% or better.

The problem was, I didn't want to study 4 hours a night. I actually liked working 20 hours a week so I could drive the nice car and have the nice things in high school. I also liked spending time with friends and my girlfriend at the time.

So what did I do? I figured out the EXACT amount of effort I would need to accomplish my goal of earning gold cords. Sometimes it was last minute studying. Sometimes I had to stay after school with my Math teacher. But I still wanted to enjoy life, so studying 4 hours a day was not an option.

I ended up graduating high school with a 89.6%, which they rounded up to a 90% and I earned my gold cords.... making both myself and my family proud!

Then, through various careers for the next 20 years, I always made it a point to be in the TOP 10% of salespeople at whatever company I worked for. I figured out the exact skillsets I needed to acquire, and I learned them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Now for the hard truth. The funny thing about growth is sometimes we don't know when to stop. In certain parts of my career/life, I strived for even more. In my mid 30's, I actually wanted to be TOP 1%. I was traveling almost every week for work, spending 80-100 hours a week working in order to hit those sales numbers.

As most stories go in this situation, I eventually ended up in a painful Divorce. I can try to put blame and excuses otherwise, but my focus to be in the top 1% of my career pretty much ruined all other categories of my life. If you look at the picture above, you can see that my increased effort actually had a negative return.

But who do we all envy? The Youtube stars. The Sports All-Stars. The Olympians. The billion dollar CEO's. The social media icons with millions of followers. We envy the top 0.01%. Nobody things about all of the sacrifices they had to make in most categories of their life to get there. And is that truly the definition of your success??

Or could it be something better that is actually MUCH more achievable?

Through a bunch of my own mistakes, soul searching, and real life research, I really began to understand the importance of these Core Principles (which I will go into much greater detail in my upcoming book!!!!)

1. There is SIGNIFICANT ROI to being in the TOP 10% of your field. That being said, the returns start to diminish and can even go negative if you strive for perfection.
2. It's actually pretty easy to get to the top 10%, if you have laser like focus on developing the skillsets that matter most. Perfection is not needed, you can reach the top 10% by being a 9 out of 10 in those specific skill sets.
3. Making learning a daily habit. THIS is the missing key to success for most people. I started with just 5 minutes a day, and now a days I spend between 30-45 minutes each morning sharpening my skills. I personally believe the ROI is there to spend up to 10% of your working hours on growth and development.
4. Surround yourself with the right people. The ones that can inspire us. The ones that can coach us. The ones that can mentor us. Most of us suck at this. Due to my own personal struggles here, I decided to build the best-in-class engaging private online community myself. "Top 10% Club" coming soon... stay tuned.
5. It's critically important to grow personally and professionally at the same rate. I've screwed this up too many times, and just finally figuring out that this may be the most important principle of them all.

ACTION TIME:

1. What percentile of excellence means success to you right now?
2. What percentile of excellence means success to the people around you?
3. What actions can you take today to shift those percentiles to a place that will bring you more joy, happiness, and self-worth both personally and professionally?

Thanks again for investing a few moments of your day with me today. I value your time, and promise to continue to provide fresh, actionable content week after week. We as leaders need to inspire growth and learning, now more than ever. I appreciate you subscribing and sharing with anyone that may find value!

Your Friend,

Dan