Medium Well

From Stuck To Unstoppable: The 3 Things Killing Your Potential

De'Juan Season 1 Episode 3

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0:00 | 9:24

The difference between you and the people you look up to isn't talent, it's that they figured out how to maximize theirs.
In this episode I'm giving you a 3 part framework to help you do the same. We're talking about how to stop letting external factors, other people, and your own lack of direction get in the way of where you're trying to go.
Once I understood these three principles it changed the way I move. I hope it does the same for you.
We'll touch on mindset, focus, discipline, goal setting, self improvement and how to build unstoppable momentum in your life.
If this helps, send it to someone who needs to hear it. Let's get into it.

Follow on social media @wemeantwelll

SPEAKER_01

We all have talents and gifts, and the difference between you and your favorite entrepreneur, artist, athlete is not that they have talent and you don't. It's that once they figured out what their talent was, they maximized their potential. And by the end of this video, you'll know how to also maximize your potential and stop wasting it. This is medium well, where we're doing okay, but we could do better. I'm Dejahan, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00

Wait, what do you say? Medium rack or medium well? Medium well.

SPEAKER_01

So the main thing you have to understand is how to concentrate your energy, your talents, and your goals into one direction. There's three things that usually knock us off course when trying to achieve our goals or try to maximize our potential. Those things are other people, external factors, and a lack of direction. I'm gonna help you eliminate a lot of the impact of those three things through three principles with three stories. Let's do it. So this first principle I call flow has to do with how external factors affect us and how to eliminate their effectiveness on us. So recently I was taking a run, I was running through the city, it was freezing cold. It's been cold here in Michigan. It was freezing cold, it was single digits. I'm running by the river and I realized the river is flowing, right? And that made me think like it's it's cold out here, it's well below the freezing temperature of water, and this river is going. Meanwhile, there's lakes that are frozen. It made me realize that the forward movement of this river makes it immune to a lot of the external factors, the temperature or the conditions outside. It has a purpose and it has movement. And it was thinking for me, I want to be like that river. That river doesn't worry about if it's summer, spring, winter, or fall. It got me thinking lakes that are sitting still are dependent on what's happening around them to determine what state they're in, if they're water, if they're ice, if they're slush. But a river, even a smaller body of water, is less affected by external factors because of its forward momentum. So this helped me understand that movement is the most important thing when it comes to getting to where you want to go. It allows you to be insulated from what's happening around you. So if I understand what my goals are and I'm moving towards them and I'm creating and I'm making stuff happen, I'll be less worried about if social media really cares about what I want to do right now. I'll I won't be sitting around waiting for what I want to do to get popular. I won't be waiting around to see if others do it first and they're successful with it to mitigate the risk and the and the vulnerability it would be for me to try it. I won't be waiting for the economy to be in a better place or for the social landscape to be more favorable maybe to what I'm doing. Those things aren't necessarily bad, but if you let them stop you and if you're worrying about what's happening around you, you'll get distracted and you'll be knocked off course and you'll be like a lake frozen in the winter instead of a river moving and continuing to go down the path it's meant for. Also, if you're sitting around waiting for conditions to change, they might change, but guess where when you would be in a better position if you had already started and hit the ground running when they changed instead of starting from ground zero, starting from square one. So the first principle of flow is to start moving. Forward progress is the most important thing. The next principle is what I call force, and this has to do with how other people affect us and our trajectory. Now, when I played college football, I had a coach. He used to tell me turn speed into power. And at first that didn't really make a lot of sense to me. I used to think you're either a power back or you're a fastback. Now, obviously, I'm not the biggest guy. So when I played, I used my speed. So basically, the idea was he he explained to me when you are going at full speed, you create force. And when someone hits you, you are exerting force onto them. For context, if you played football, the player that you want to hit the most is a player standing still, like a quarterback in the pocket, for instance. Because when you hit that player, all force is being exerted into that player and none really back at you. A target sitting still is an easy target to hit. There is no danger to yourself. On the flip side, if you're on defense and there's a person running full speed at you, that is a dangerous proposition. If you hit them head on, you're going to get hurt. You're going to get hurt. And when that player is running full speed, you have to make a business decision. How do I get this person down on the ground or to slow this person down without it hurting me? So, what that does for me as an offensive player, it told me if I'm running full speed, it makes it a lot harder for someone to slow me down or even and definitely to stop me. So, as a running back, I took that principle and I ran hard. I ran fast. It was not easy to hit me. And if you did hit me, you felt it. And what does that mean for us in real life? And what does that mean, well, this is real life. What does that mean for us when it comes to our goals? It basically means a target that's moving is harder to slow down. So once I understand where I want to go and where my talents are, once I get moving, it's a lot harder for someone else to slow me down with their opinions, with their negative energy, with their judgments, and with their distractions. And to be real, a lot of distraction from other people doesn't come with malicious intent. A lot of times it just comes from relationships you have. Like for instance, if you were a fashion designer and you wanted to get some sketches out every week and post on social or get it out to some people just so they would see your designs. If you decided every week I'm gonna do this, if you haven't done it and it's Thursday, and your friend says, Hey, you want to hit the movies, you'll be able to say, I can't, I got some work to do, you know, because you know what your goals are and you can stick to it. But let's say you're not moving, aka you have no plan, you haven't been putting work into anything, and you're kind of lost. When your friend hits you up on that Thursday and says, Hey, you want to hit the movies? You'd be like, Yeah, why not? I ain't got nothing else to do. I didn't know what I was gonna do anyways. So now every week you have someone hitting you saying, You want to hit this basketball game, you want to hit the movies, you want to go out to the bar, you want to go drink get a drink. You say, Yeah, why not? I ain't got nothing else to do. Now these these relationships that are well-meaning are causing distractions for you, and it's a lot easier to stop you because you're not moving or you're moving slow. So, like a running back in football, if you're running full speed, you're applying force and you're making it harder for them to hit you in football, and you're making it harder for people in real life to slow you down with well-meaning distractions, with judgments, with opinions. You're not sitting around thinking about what are people thinking about me. You're full speed doing what you know you should be doing with your purpose and direction. And my last principle is called focus, and this has to do with ourselves, our internal clarity and direction. Think about a bullet. A bullet is small, and sitting still, a bullet's a danger to no one. It's barely a paperweight. And if someone were to toss a bullet at you, a cold banana would hurt more than a bullet. But a bullet at full speed with direction and momentum creates incredible impact. Obviously. It's changed the course of this world and civilizations. The ability to make gunpowder and have bullets has changed the balance of power all over the world back in the day and even now. Gun control and who has guns and who doesn't really affect our world because of bullets, these small things that can be put on a singular path at a high velocity. It's one of the most unstoppable forces, and it's not because of its size, it's because of its velocity and direction. So, what does that mean for us? If we're not like the bullet, we're consuming more than we create, we're listening to too many opinions and not trusting ourselves. We find ourselves with decision fatigue because we don't know what we're doing, we don't have any clear direction. There's a lot of options, a lot of opportunities we're juggling. We don't have any clear yearly, monthly, daily goals. We're kind of just floating around, feeling it out. So, what's the remedy? Well, the idea is to clearly know what you're doing, why you're doing it, create a structure for yourself, daily goals, monthly goals. Know what you're working on and what are the landmarks you're trying to hit. Because we can be moving in a direction at full speed, but if we don't know exactly where we're going, it's not going to be that impactful. So listen to yourself, figure out what your goals are, figure out what you want to do, create a framework for yourself, create a structure and focus on that. Don't allow yourself to be easily knocked off course, don't allow yourself to be easily distracted, don't second guess yourself. It's good to look back and see what you're doing, but set certain amounts of time for yourself to move forward in one direction and then look back at it. Don't easily self-sabotage yourself and just stop working and stop going in the right direction. So now we have three principles to address the external factors, other people, and clarity. Be like a river that's moving, a running back at full speed, and a bullet that's focused. I remember easily as force, flow, and focus. That's a little bit different than the order I said it in, but I like the way that sounds a lot better. So I say force, flow, and focus. Flow is movement, not worrying about external factors. Force is velocity, not letting other people knock you off course. And focus is clarity on your direction and commitment to that direction. Long story short, a moving force is harder to stop for you, for other people, for external factors. Once you build that momentum, you become an unstoppable force. You're seeing the wins happen, you're feeling the motivation, and you're becoming harder to stop and slow down. This is how we reach our potential. I appreciate y'all watching. Subscribe, of course. Come back for more, man. I'll be yapping all the time. I'm a yapper. I appreciate y'all. See you next time.