Nobody Promised You Success Was Going to Be Easy

Bernie Gallerani has spent 22 years coaching entrepreneurs and watching the same pattern play out. People get excited, they start working, and the moment it gets hard they assume something is broken. In this episode, he asks a single question that cuts through all of it: who promised you this would be easy? From the highlight reel trap to the difference between emotional attachment and behavioral commitment, Bernie delivers the kind of straight talk that separates people who talk about success from the ones who actually earn it.

Transcript

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Hey everybody, Bernie Gallerani bringing you an episode of Success is not convenient. Wow, this has been so much fun over the last year doing this uh these podcasts for you all. And um boy, it's been just over a year that we started these, and I tell you, it's just been so helpful for me just doing the research and learning even things about my own personality through this. Um, but I want to ask a real imminent this is gonna be like a hard-hitting one for you today, um, one that hopefully will get us all to just sit back and think. And when I had this title brought to my attention, I thought a lot about for my own life. And so here it is, because we're all talking about success. As the title of our podcast is Success is not convenient, a lot of these topics that I try to bring to you are the difficulty sides of either owning a business or dealing personally with issues or seeing issues being dealt with personally, and how the challenging maneuvers are of going through all of that. And so, some somewhere, somehow, people in the process of trying to figure out to be an entrepreneur or trying trying to do something different, that it was just going to be easy. And I'm not sure who promised you that. And so the title today is Who Promised You That? And and so why I think this is important is I think a lot of people think or they have a misconceived idea that things are supposed to be easy. Guys, nothing is easy. It's called life, it's supposed to be difficult, right? If you want easy, do nothing, and then you can see what happens to those people that do nothing. I know the folks that are watching this are not those people, so um, I can be candid with you about no one promises us anything for any reason whatsoever. Right? What do they say? The only thing that um is for certain is death and taxes, right? So who told you that this was supposed to be easy? Who told you that? Because somewhere along the way, people started believing that if it's this hard, something must be wrong. Gosh, it shouldn't, like the work that I do shouldn't be this difficult. I'm not sure where that narrative came into people, but nothing's more wrong than that. It's just hard. This is just hard work, and it's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be difficult. Let me say something that might bother you a little bit, right? Actually, it might bother you a lot. You don't have a motivation problem. You don't even have a timing problem. You don't have even resource problems, you have an expectation problem. You thought that this would feel a little bit better or different, then it does. Then that's okay. And you thought that this would probably move faster than it is. You ever heard of thing, everything takes a lot longer than you expect it to be? Maybe you thought success would show up before you had to suffer for it. Before it was difficult, your idea didn't include suffering. When you were thinking about it and getting all excited, you didn't think about difficulty and suffering and pain and frustration. I'm not sure who told you success was going to be easy. And that's the that's the most interesting part is people sometimes think, well, it's supposed to be easy. This is my natural ability. I felt really passionate about it. If you have the ultimate passion, it's still not easy. You can sustain yourself because you have a passion, but there still is just as much difficulty. Here's what's happening. See, we live in a world where you only see the highlight reel of somebody's life. See, you see the closings, but you don't see the 200 calls that got hung up on, the 200 calls that somebody said go pound sand, the 200 calls where they maybe called you names at times. You see the money, but you don't see the years of doubt that went through with somebody that succeeds at a high level. You know, I I it's always fun, and and I take a group of our entrepreneurs and realtors to uh some uh events, real estate events, and then they people get on stage and they talk about their tremendous, amazing businesses. And then my uh my my agents, my entrepreneurs come back and they're like, oh man, that's gonna be me someday. I try to say to them as you know, guys, you're seeing the the highlight reel, but you're not seeing the door closed and the pain associated with it. You're seeing the confidence in the person, but you don't see the insecurity that they had to fight through. You're seeing the highlight reel, but you're not seeing the reality of the pain they suffered from. So what happens? Is you start thinking, well, why is this easier for them than it is for me? It's not. You're just finally seeing what actually it actually costs. There's a price we pay for a level of success. Here's the lie that people live in. If I'm working hard, it should start working. No, that's not how this thing works. Hard work doesn't guarantee any level of success. Hard work just gives you a chance to succeed. I'm gonna say this again. Because you work hard doesn't lock you in for success. Working hard never gives you a guarantee. Hard work just gives you a chance, and that's all we can ask for. That's it. And most people quit right there because they thought effort equals reward, and it absolutely does not. It equals opportunity. I love that because it leaves you an opportunity to succeed. Hard work is important, but also is making right decisions on top of hard work. Hard work is important, but adversity is just as important. Having an ability to sustain something that when you feel like quitting, you keep going. You're like, well, isn't that hard work? Yeah, but it also takes a level of perseverance. And so this is understand, it just equals an opportunity to succeed. I want you to think about this. Most people quit their goals within a week or within weeks, not years and not months. They quit within days and weeks because the moment it gets uncomfortable for people, they interpret that as, well, this isn't working for me. No, that's not true. This is exactly what working feels like is it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pain at times. I'm not talking about physical pain. I'm talking about emotional pain. I'm talking about giving things up. That's painful sometimes when you can't go home when you want to go home. You can't go to the mall when you got to go to the mall. You can't go have lunch with your friends when you want to go with your friends. That's the pain of staying totally focused, working late nights, and even though you're not seeing the measurable results, you know within yourself that this is eventually is going to pay off if I have all the adversity and I work hard and I continue to keep staying focused on my goal. You know what the real problem is here? People are emotionally attached to a better life, but they are not behaviorally committed to earning it. They want it, but they're not willing to do all the steps to put themselves in the best position for it. They want more money, but no more discipline. I love that because I train entrepreneurs and it's always difficult because I always try to get them to commit more, and they just have a hard time being in who they are. They want more success, but not more rejection. They want more freedom, but they don't want more responsibility. They want more better outcomes, but they don't really want the process it takes to have those things. And this is where it gets really dangerous. People start believing life owes me more than this. It doesn't. Life doesn't owe you success and life doesn't owe you happiness. Life doesn't owe you any sort of results, and life responds to who you become, and that's it. I know this is hard, but if it's not working for you right now, it's not because it is the problem. It's because your habits are the issue. I can't tell you how challenging it has been over the last, you know, 22 years in this business, where I've had to complete completely change my activity. But in order to do that, I had to change my thought process towards it. So instead of asking, why is this so hard for me? Just ask, why did I expect it not to be? Why did I think it shouldn't be this hard? That question will change your life. And it'll change your life forever if you're really honest with yourself. Because now that you're not surprised by the difficulty of it all, you're prepared for it. So ask yourself the question, why and how do I become better so the result turns out in my favor? Let me ask you something straight. If this were easy, you wouldn't even want it. Because if everyone could do it, it wouldn't make anything you did special. See, the reason success matters is because most people won't do what it takes. They won't stay consistent long enough, they won't stay focused long enough, and they won't stay disciplined long enough. They tap out, they call Uncle. I can't handle it. And then what happens is they create something in their mind why it didn't work. So they tap out too early every time. And then they sit there and blame another person or another thing, or it's not the right timing. Oh, this wasn't the right timing for me. No, you just didn't put in the effort and have the discipline necessary. Oh, you don't understand my situation at that time. These are excuses. So the real question is not how do I make this easier? The real question is how do I become stronger? Because the game is not designed to get easier. You are supposed to get better, improving the quality of your approach. Pressure is not punishment. Pressure is the filter. It's the filtering out the talkers, the dabblers, the people who kind of want it, kinda want it. I'm not fully engaged, I'm gonna stick my toe in the water. No, dive into the deep end. What's left? The ones who are willing to pay the price. Those are who's left. Are you the one that's willing to pay the price? There is going to be a price paid over and over again. You are gonna pay a price over and over again. And every level of success you go to, I love saying this because it's so true because you're learning something new. Once you've learned something, you have some level of success. You go to another level and it kind of starts over. You have a little bit more confidence because you're training your brain to understand that everything's okay. But every level is another devil. Every level is a section of uh frustration or maybe pain that you have to go through in order to go to the next level. So let me ask you something. Where in your life right now are you frustrated? Not because it's broken, but because it's hard. Where are you telling yourself this shouldn't be this difficult? Where in your life does that show up? Well, what if it should? What if this is the exact weight required to build the person you're trying to become? You're building, you're manufacturing. I want you to look at it like this. When you come out and you make a decision to say, I would love to do this, you're now creating the new person. You're not that person. If you were that person, you would already have those things. You're not that person. So you're under construction. So are you building an awesome foundation, a strong foundation to carry the weight required to build the business or the person that you need to be. You don't need it to be easier. You just need more endurance and you just need more motivation. You need better standards in your life. Standards. You're living by your standards. You have to change your standards to improve the quality of your standards, is improve the quality of your life. You don't need the perfect plan. There's no such thing as a perfect plan. You need to stop quitting when it gets uncomfortable. It's supposed to be uncomfortable. It's supposed to be. But a lot of people retreat because they're like, well, this makes me feel uncomfortable and painful. Put your arms around discomfort. Man, if I'm ever comfortable, something is wrong because that means I'm not growing. See, we have to convince ourselves, and I tell people this all the time. Anybody who knows me personally will tell you, Oh, yeah, he says this all the time. Listen, if I'm ever comfortable in my life, things are not growing for me. I want to live every single day in a state of discomfort, not unhappiness, discomfort. Because I can't grow. If I'm not thinking about how do I solve this problem today? How do I solve this situation? I got a little butterflies. You've got the little butterflies where you're nervous. God, I love that every day. Embrace it. Embrace the fact that your life, in order to grow, will be doing new things all the time. And if you're doing new things right now, if you made a decision to do something new that you weren't used to doing it, you're gonna get that little butterfly. You can call it fear, we can call it whatever you want. I like calling it butterflies, but you know, you get the you know, the fear. I I I used to think it was fear. It's really not fear anymore for me. It's just something I don't know. And when I don't when I do something I don't know, it makes me feel a little weird, right? So I'll ask you one more time here. Who promised you that this would be easy? Who promised you success would come fast? Who promised you that just because you want more, you automatically deserve it? Nobody promised you any of those things. And the second you accept that, you become dangerous because now you're not waiting for it to feel good. See, what you're doing is you're not waiting for it to get easier and you're not waiting for permission. You're just going to do the work regardless, no matter how it feels. Write this one down if you can. Your feelings are well overrated. You know, you know those people I'm talking about. I don't really feel like it. I'm not really sure I'm aligned with that. My feelings aren't there. Crush them because they're trying to protect you. They're protecting you from living your goals and living the life that you dreamed of for you and your family. They're just protecting you from growth. Isn't that crazy? Like your brain is taking over because it's trying to create survival for you and it thinks it's doing the right thing. And actually, it's not because what it's doing is it's taking the old person that says, I like feeling safe. The new person says, No, I'm not gonna feel safe because safe gives me the life I have, and I don't want the life I have, I want a better life. See, that's the difference. That's the that's the thing champions are made out of. I never needed this to be easy for me or for you, I just needed it to be worth it. And I can tell you, it always is worth it when you have the right mindset. If you want the exact level of impact that you're expecting, if you really want to make something different, you have to be different. I know this is always a hard one. You have to actually be different. You have to be the person every single day that says, I'm maybe better today than I am tomorrow. Are you willing to stand up for yourself to do that? What processes are you gonna take so you can actually be better? Here's something for you. Where in your life are you blaming the process instead of just admitting that you're not doing the work that's required to win the game? These are these are tough questions. If someone followed you day your daily habits, exactly what you do, would they end up being successful or exactly where you are right now? If somebody watched you and said, I'm gonna do what you do, and they ended up where you are, are they successful? You might say yeah, you might say no. Is there somewhere else you can go? Are you actually tired of your situation or just uncomfortable enough to complain, but not committed enough to change it? See, all of us like talking. Don't talk about it, just be about it, right? You guys have heard that one. Have you ever truly become the person capable of the life that you say you want? Or are you still hoping that the life will just adjust to who you are? That's the biggest joke of all. If you think success is going to show up, the success you want to show up and you stay you, stop fooling yourself. That's not how things happen. You're better than that. If nothing in your life changed over the next 12 months, would it be because life held you back, or would it be possibly because you didn't really step up? I don't know. I can tell you, if I just stayed the person I was 22 years ago, I wouldn't have the things I have today. You don't answer these questions right now. Because, see, your future is sitting on the other side of all these answers. So these questions that I just asked you, your future's on the other side of those. And depending on how you answer those, if you can you can be in denial if you want. You can sit and look at this video and go, I don't really like this guy because he's too forward, too straight. Let's be straight with each other. This is your life. This is the promise you made your spouse is to provide. If you didn't, you should have. Maybe your spouse is depending on you to be the person that delivers the dream life. Do your kids deserve it? I know many of you, I got a bunch of people I work with, and my kids are everything. Really? Everything? Are you giving them the life that they deserve? Are you showing them what their life could can be like? I felt a responsibility with my children to show them what their life could be if they actually sacrifice themselves a little bit. Are you willing to do that for your family? Is it willing to do that for your life? Guys, I know these are tough questions, and these are really, really hard things to hear, but they're needed if you want to grow your business. This podcast wasn't says, hey, come join me, life's easy, we'll have fun. This podcast says success is not convenient, and that's what this video is all about. I'd love to hear any of your responses. Um, and thank you for listening uh to this today. Hit the like button, the subscribe button. We'd love to continue to keep making sure that you get all of these videos in your inbox every week. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for paying attention, thank you for listening, thank you for making an effort. Your life deserves it. Everybody have a great day.