If you want to stand out from the crowd and really succeed than you must “Commit”!

It all started when I asked my 16 year old niece, Ashley, about getting together to celebrate all of her achievements in dance. But, said she would need to get back to me after she speaks to her mom (my sister)after finding out her availability. I said to her you mean you have no clue day-to-day when you have dance, rehearsals and actual recitals? She said “correct, I have no idea, mom keeps my schedule. “

That made me reflect back on when I was teaching karate to kids and all of the other activities parents would have their kids committed to, like basketball, soccer, baseball, etc. What I used to think is that this kid has no shot at being successful at any of their activities, including, karate if they don’t focus on one. 

I remember one of the parents of a very talented kid in my karate class telling me that their kid was quitting karate. It just got to hard for Johnny. I saw that a lot. The minute it got a little tough and the kid complained, the parents consoled them and allowed them to quit. What kind of lesson is that to teach kids? It’s okay to do a lot of different things and when something gets tough you quit. 

One parent told us that they gave their kid the choice to pick one sport or activity, that they would commit to. But before they allowed them to join that one activity, they explained to their kid, that this will be a long term commitment of one year. And no matter what happens or how they feel, they are obligated to stay committed to it for that time. No excuses! I lost touch with this particular student, but I venture to say that if his parents remained consistent with that mindset, that kid is a very successful adult today. 

It’s my feeling that this noncommittal mindset has severely affected the younger generation of today, especially in the northeast. 

In the Heartland of America, where football is like religion, kids aren’t given a lot of choices. For those kids that are privileged and talented to play football, all offseason activities are focused on making sure they will perform better the following football season. There life stops on Friday night during High School football season. We see the average age of young people getting married in the Heartland is 22-24 years old. In the northeast it’s 29-35 years old. Young people in the northeast say they don’t want to settle down because they are concerned about financial insecurity. I disagree. It’s because they want to “try a lot of things” like their parents encouraged them to do when they were young. 

It’s the same reason that the average young adult jumps jobs every couple of years. Some are still “waiting for their perfect job” a year or two after they graduate. They are having a tough time committing to something. 

Now back to my niece, don’t get me wrong, she is extremely successful at dance. She wins awards constantly. Not just participation award (which I think is a joke) but “first place” and “best of” awards. And yes she only focuses on dance and only dance. By the way she’s also a straight-A student in school. My feeling is, if you’re really successful at something, the skills that got you there are translatable to other things. The focus and discipline that she cultivated in dance, easily translated for her at school. 

But why did I bring up my niece? It’s because of her inability to commit to getting together. I find the inability to commit to be epidemic, especially as it relates to getting together or making appointments. The generation of today wants to do what they want, when they want to. In their mind they feel like they have so much going on. And they probably do. But that’s part of growing up. The difference is the generation that proceeded them uses something called a calendar. What’s that you say? It’s a very novel way to organize your time and your life. 

Earlier on in my business career I had a planner that I would carry around. The problem is, sometimes it wasn’t with me always. Sometime, someone would stop me and tell me about a meeting or an event. I’d have to remember, when I got back to my planner to enter it and block out the time. The other issue I had was if I wasn’t looking at my calendar all of the time, I could miss a meeting.

Finally with technology, I had the answer. I could enter the appointment on my smartphone, which was with me all of the time. And I can set the alert to notify me when I have an appointment. Genius! Thanks Steve Jobs! Unfortunately, young people of today, who are very technologically savvy are resistant to use this great tool. For some reason they want to keep it all in their heads and rely on people close to them or doctors offices send multiple text message reminders. 

By trying to keep it all in their head, compounds the issue. They feel more overwhelmed and their brains actually have to work harder. I’m sure it happened to you. You wake up in the middle of the night with a thousand things on your mind and all of the things you have to do tomorrow. Did you ever write it all down. Once you do, you can go right to sleep. It works the same with your calendar. Use it for everything in your life. My mentor said to me, that if it’s not in his calendar he doesn’t do it. I’ve learned to “live and die by my calendar”. If everything you need to do is in your calendar, than you can commit. If the spot is open than book it! 

The next lesson I learned from my mentor, is proper calendar management. You can go to the other extreme and fill up your calendar with almost anything. How do you figure that out? My mentor recommended that I read the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. You need to establish and define your goals. He said this to me. Just like GPS, it’s important to know where you are and where you want to go. He said, that point A represents where you are and point B is your goal. We only have two resources in our life, our time and our money. He said if those two resources aren’t taking you directly to your goal, you’re on a detour. It will delay the time it’s going to take you getting to your goal. 

Here’s a story that really helped me. A teacher was finally fed up with his students belly-aching that they didn’t have enough time to finish their school work. So the next day, the students arrived to a huge pile of rocks on a table next to a very large clear glass cylindrical beaker. Once the class settled, he proceeded to place all of the rocks into the beaker. And when he was done, he asked the class if the beaker was full and everyone said, yes of course. 

He then pulled out a bucket of pebbles and poured them in the beaker. The pebbles settled in between the rocks and when he filled it up to the top he asked the class again, “is it full?”. Some where starting to catch on but most said yes. He then pulled out gravel and again filled the beaker. Now half the class said it was full and others said “no.” Then he pulled out sand, and you get the idea. At the end the entire class said it was now full, until he poured water in and he said “now it’s full.” He asked the class if we started in reverse with water, sand, gravel, pebbles and then rocks would everything fit into the beaker? And the entire class was having an “aha moment”, and said no. 

Here’s his point. The rocks represent the things in our lives that are the non-negotiables. For me the big rocks represent anything that will help me accomplish my goals. Most people allow their calendar to be filled with sand, gravel and pebbles. I heard it said, that an item in your calendar is present-based or it’s future-based. If I want to do better in school, investing time to organizing my book bag is a present-based event and actually studying is future based. While watching a martial arts movies is fun, it’s present-based. But practicing Karate would be future based, if my goal is getting a black belt. 

Okay, you ask “where are you going with this?” This is my point, it’s time to take personal responsibility and commit. If you want to rise above the crowd, in this very competitive world, it’s time to take charge. It’s your life. Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos reached out to you and wanted to get together. Let’s take it a step further and he suggested a date to meet up with you. I hope your response isn’t “that should work, let me get back to you.” I hope it’s not something like “why don’t you reach back out a couple days before to confirm with me.”

One thing that I learned about successful people, they are quick and decisive. It’s time to commit. The device you have in your hand has more computing power than the IBM mainframes, in the 80’s, that took up an entire floor of an office building. Use it! Use your calendar and commit. If you do, success is eminent! I challenge you. Commit to do it for 30 days. 

Steve Spiro, Entrepreneur / Consultant / Motivational Speaker / Mentor - To learn more, go to www.spiroglobal.com