The Hustle Ep13: How to Keep Going When You Want To Give Up

Hi, guys, Calvin here from Young and Wildly Successful. [inaudible 00:00:32] record a quick video for you about the importance of keeping going when perhaps the going gets a little bit tough. And the reason I’m sharing this story with you is that I just had one of our clients attended a self-mastery program. Beautiful woman, she’s in network marketing and has gone out there and decided to run her first ever event.

It’s always an exciting time when you run an event, but there’s a lot of technical aspects that go into event-based marketing that the average punter [SP] if you will, has no idea about. We spend a huge amount of money every year to make sure we get the formula of events right. And she’s not one of our business clients. She’s a personal growth client, and so she didn’t necessarily have access to our strategies.

But the reason why I share this with you is that she has her first event. She puts a lot of time, energy, and effort in it, and unfortunately, no one comes along. And it’s a really challenging place to be when you’re in a position where you put yourself out there, and you’ve been disappointed because the result hasn’t come your way. It’s a really disappointing place to be. It’s very sad when that happens. And I remember when I had my first event. I had 11 people at the event…no, 12 people at the event, sorry, 9 of which were family. I was just lucky enough to have a large family. I remember listening to Robin Sharma once talk about how he had his first seminar, and he had five people at the first seminar, five of which were family. And in fact, I think he had seven family members say they were going to come and then two canceled.

So when we have things, and this may not be relevant for you in terms of events, but it’s certainly relevant for you in terms of going after a dream and goal and coming up short. When you have an expectation of what’s going to happen and then something different happens, it’s often times very disappointing. And so the message I want to deliver to you today is to understand not just why you get started. There’s a lot of talk these days about Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why”. That’s really important. Starting with why is very important. And what’s more important is understanding that it’s about finishing with why because a lot of people get started. Getting started is not the hardest part for a lot of people because they’ve got momentum. They’ve got excitement. They’ve got passion. They’ve got motivation.

It’s when you’re being knocked down a couple of times. It’s when you put a lot of money, time and energy, and then you’ve done the slides, and then you’ve done your hair and makeup. You’ve done all these great work and no one wraps [SP] up for the fifth event in the row. That’s hard. And it’s hard to keep going at that time because what eventually happens is that we just give up because we go, This is too difficult.” And eventually the why has deteriorated, and what I want to encourage you to understand is that it’s not about starting with why. It’s about finishing with why.

And when you think about what you’re about to accomplish or you’re about undertake and achieve in your business, in your life, in your… whatever it might be. I want you to be clear on why I am starting this. But then, more importantly, why I am going to finish it as well. Why I am starting this but why I am going to finish it? Because until you know why you’re going to finish it, I promise you, the why to get started will get lost. You will lose the why you started with along the journey to success because there are so many failures. So many failures, so many moments of disappointment, so many moments when you put yourself out there and you get rejected, so many moments where you let yourself down, never mind somebody else letting you down, that simply a why to get started with is not enough. You need a why to finish. And I want you to consider that the deep of why you’re doing something.

When I wanted to go out there and build a successful business, I had my eyes set on making a million dollars in 12 months. And originally, I set that goal why I get started was because one of my early mentors, Tony Robbins, had said to me that he’d achieved a million dollars in 12 months. And I thought, “If I want to be at the same level that Tony’s at, then I must, too, make a million dollars in 12 months.” That was the why I get started, but I promise you there were many times…in fact, I distinctly remember we ended up making a million dollars in 10 months, not in 12 but 10 months. But nine months in, we were about three days away from bankruptcy in the company because we were growing so quickly but spending so much money. And I had to dig in deep. And the why that kept me going, the why that led me to finish and cross the finish line wasn’t getting started, competing with Tony or doing something similar to Tony. It was that I wanted to show Indiana, Milly, Poppy, Pip, Cherish, Seruchet [SP], Destiny [SP], Caitlyn [SP], Nicholas, Brandon just to name a few. These are my sisters, and my brothers, and my cousins that are all younger than me. And I wanted to show them that it’s possible. I wanted to show them that it’s possible.

I had…well, I don’t know how many there are. Maybe 11. I had 11 whys to keep me going because if I gave up, then what I was doing is I was telling them that it was okay to give up. And there’s so many times that I’ve wanted to give up, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t. And I don’t give up because not only now I got those 11, but now I’ve got over 100,000 whys. [inaudible 00:05:13] what you mean 100,000 whys? When you’ve worked with as many people as we have, and I have the pleasure now of working with over 100,000 people in 70 countries.

Their stories live with me every day, and I know that if I had given up along the journey towards success, I never would have got to have those experiences and those memories. And I often times will say “[inaudible 00:05:32] you can take all the money that we have away.” And I’m driving a Rolls Royce right now. And you can take all of this away from me, right, but you just leave me with the memories of the people that I’ve helped and the people that I’ve worked with, and I’ll be the wealthiest man on the planet. Because, truly, they’re the reason why I keep going today because I realized there are people out there that still need my help and my support. If I give up, I’m giving up on them as well. And so I want to encourage you to understand this point as well and that is what is your why to keep going and what is your why to get started? You need to have both.

I just want to finish by telling you this very beautiful story that I once heard from a mentor, Les Brown. And Les talked about what’s called the Chinese bamboo seed. Now the Chinese bamboo seed is about the size of your fist. It’s obviously grown in China, and it’s the world’s most difficult plant to deal with because it takes such an incredible amount of energy and effort and output to yield…sorry, input to yield any output.

So the Chinese bamboo seed is about the size of your fist and what happens is your put this seed into the ground and you have to water it twice a day, twice a day for five years. Twice a day for five whole years, and every single day, twice a day, morning and night. You cannot miss a single day. Twice a day for five whole years you water this plant again, and again, and again, and again, and again. The soil and the temperature have to be in the right environment. In fact, they won’t grow in certain parts of China because the soil temperature is too warm or too cold. It has to be the right place at the right time. Otherwise, the soil doesn’t respond and the seed doesn’t germinate.

And what happens is after five years of doing this, not single breakthrough has occurred. So if you consider, if you would have just take a moment and look three and half years in, you’re still watering a patch of dirt. It hasn’t germinated. It hasn’t spawned. There’s no life. There’s no bamboo. Now you just think about that for a moment. If you were watering this for a year, 365 days, and you’ve got your Chinese bamboo seed, you planted it in the ground, you’re watering it twice a day. You’re standing there watering this going, “Is this ever going to actually grow? I’m not even sure if I even planted this seed.” But every day, you do it.

Now you’re two years in. Most people would actually be giving up at this moment. Most people if you’ve been working twice a day on something with care and design, and intention, and you still hadn’t produced a result, no results at all, zero results. Not even some results, no results, no progress for two solid years, three solid years, four solid years, five solid years, most people give up. Most people give in. But what happens is…and after five years of nothing happening, most people would have given in.

Two times a day, day and night, what eventually happens is that it doesn’t just break through. It explodes through the surface of the earth, and it grows 90 feet tall in just six weeks. Now let me just repeat this. For five years nothing happens, for five whole years. But in just six weeks, it grows 90 feet tall. Now I’m six foot, but it grows 90 feet tall at 15 times my height. Through the roof. Insane!

Now here’s the question. Does the Chinese bamboo seed, it’s about the size of your fist, does it grow 90 feet tall in six weeks or in a little over five years? Does it grow 90 feet tall in six weeks or a little over five years? And the answer you already know because so many people look at what they have in their life. They look at the results of their activities and their actions, and they say, “I want more.” And if you want more, you must do more. And if you want to have more, you must give more. And if you want to create more, you must produce more. And you need more creativity, more energy, and more passion. And when you think you’ve given all that you have, understand you’re probably only two and a half years into the five-year process.

It is a beautiful story. I want you to remember that at any in moment in time and you look garden that you’ve created for yourself, and you don’t feel like there’s anything that has been growing there. I want you to understand the Chinese bamboo seed was growing from day one. It just wasn’t growing up. It was growing inward to lay a foundation so strong that when it did grow 90 feet tall in six weeks, it didn’t just grow up and fall over. It went up and it stayed up. When the twin towers collapsed from the attacks in 2001, when they collapsed, the United States and New York rebuilt. And it took them seven years to lay the foundation of the new Freedom Towers. Seven years. Seven!

So no development happened up for seven whole years, but it happened down. And it happened down for a reason because they made a commitment and that was this. These towers are going up and they ain’t ever coming down again. So we’re going to lay a foundation so strong that this could literally shake the foundation and nothing would happen. I want you to understand it was once said that if you want to build a tower tall enough to pierce the skies…I’m in Dubai right now, The Burj Khalifa tall enough to pierce the sky, first lay a foundation of humility. If you want to build a tower tall enough to pierce the skies, first lay a foundation of humility.

When you think you’ve given all you’ve got, you’re only about halfway there. And I want to encourage you to understand no matter what result show up in life, no matter where you think you’re so far away or so far ahead, no matter where you think you are, you’re always better than you believe. You’re always closer to the end outcome. But I want to promise you one thing, and please hear me on this point, we’ve talked a lot about this on this video starting with why finish and with why. If you never finish, you may as well not have even started.

Eric Thomas talks about this idea. If you’re going through pain, if you’re hurting, hurt to finish. Don’t hurt to quit because then your pain, the pain you felt was for nothing. If you’re going to go through some pain…Winston Churchill one said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” You don’t turn around and go back and say, “I’d like to have some more of that please.” If you’ve already put in the work, get the result. Get a reward from it. Rather than just standing up and being where you are and hoping something else had happened to you because you weren’t willing to go the extra mile.

And when you say, “That’s it. I’ve got to give up,” I want a little voice in your head to say, “Just go one more rep.” When you think you’ve pushed all the weights you can, I want a little voice to say, “Just give it one more rep”. When you’ve given all that you had to a relationship, just say, “One more date.” When you’ve spent all the money you have, then you say, “I need one more dollar.” When you’ve invested all that you can invest, just say, “Invest that little bit more.” When you’ve done all that you can do, when you’ve all that you can do, then I want you to ask yourself, “What else I can do?” Because it is not over until you win. And it starts with why and it finishes with why. Remember, every one of us, hold on to your fist, has that Chinese bamboo seed inside of us.

So I want to encourage you guys three things: to live strong and to live with passion, to make today and every day a phenomenal life-changing adventure. And above all else, no matter where you are, no matter where you’re going, I want you to enjoy this route called life. And I want you to live life on your terms. I’ll see you in another video, guys. Please share this with somebody that needs to hear it, that needs to remember their why, that needs to remember to keep going when the going gets tough. Because you know what, diamonds are formed, ladies and gentlemen, under pressure. You are in the pressure cooker of life. Keep going. It’s going to get better. I promise you. If you keep going, it’s very difficult to beat somebody that never gives in.