Excellence Is What You Repeatedly Do (It’s A Habit)
Video transcript below:
Morning guys. Another thought of the day, quote of the day. Something that you can use to live a better life.
To be more in the now, more in the present, and to be more analytical in your decision. So that you can just be better, get more stuff done, and live a happier life.
Just be awesome. Right? That’s the whole point of this type of stuff. As much as I’m telling you this type of stuff, I get as much as you. Cause when I’m teaching, I’m learning. And that’s why this is exciting for me.
And so I thank you for joining me on this journey you call life. Just give me a little of your time, some of your precious, precious time that we all have so little of.
I hope you enjoy today’s quote, thoughts, and book of the day. Whatever it happens to be, I got a lot of those days. And use it to take action in your life.
Use it for something out of the ordinary. Use it to break from your routine. Break from the zombie walk routine most of us go through.
Even if you have a positive routine, you tend to get stuck in the same things and the same things, and it’s always good to break out of that and go outside of ourself.
Today’s quote is going to be something related to routine. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m going to find a good one right now, and then we’ll talk about it.
Alright, today’s quote of the day is a Wild Durant quote; I believe it might have been ascribed to Aristotle, but it might be a different interpretation. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
If excellence is a habit, you’re not going to wake up one day and be excellent. You’re not going to wake up one day and produce a great work of art, a play, a movie, a screenwriting, a novel, a short story, a youtube channel, or a youtube video.
Since anything you produce in your life will be based on the habits you create to do the work to build the thing, you have to develop your habits. If you want an extraordinary life, you need to make the habits of someone with a great life.
To be a millionaire, you must build the habits that millionaires have. And that’s why I talk about how you can be a millionaire tomorrow if you make your life exactly like the millionaire and what they did to become a millionaire.
Those habits, which you can find in books and articles, you can find a millionaire and ask them what they’ve done. Generally, you’ll see that millionaires don’t necessarily live a perfect life where every second is perfectly planned out and mapped out, and they have this incredible work ethic.
Many times, millionaires, or anyone successful, usually find something they enjoy doing or are very good at. And a lot of times, they go hand in hand.
They enjoy it, then they get good at it; the more they’re good at it, the more they want it, etc. And what they do is they double down on that skill, and they do it all the time. And the more they do that, the more they compound, right?
The more you get that compound interest type effect, the more you invest in the skill, and the more you can produce great work. And then, as a result, the marketplace will reward you, and you’ll make more and more money, and that’s how you eventually become wealthy, independent, etc.
And so, it’s all about building the habit around those things. For example, if I’m growing this youtube channel, every morning, I’m waking up, coming out here, and doing either a book of the day or a quote of the day or something.
And some videos are going to be better than others. Maybe one of these goes viral, and it’s just a great idea, and enough people share it. And maybe 90% of them, only a few people watch, and hopefully, they have an impact, so for me, it’s still a win.
The point is I’m still focusing on the habit. I’m still doing the work due to the routine I’ve built. Because you’ll find that to produce excellent work, you must put in a lot of crap work.
And Steven Pressfield talks about this a lot. He’s like, for everyone, one piece of paper that I would write and keep, I would throw away ten. There’d be ten that’d be in the trashcan.
Just completely wasted paper that I wrote on, that would be complete garbage that I threw away. If you’re not willing to put in the work, and if you’re not doing the work as a result of the habit, generally, you’re not going to get those ten pieces of garbage to find the one gem.
And that’s the fundamental point. You have to build the habit. Especially around the thing you’re trying to accomplish in your life.
There are so many examples of how whatever your discipline is, you can find ways to practice daily, even if it’s one thing that will make you a better salesperson over a couple of years.
Again, to be a writer, you must write every day. A lot of it’s going to be crap, but some of it’s going to be good. And then eventually do that enough, you’ll produce something that is excellent work, that will be your life’s work.
Hopefully will make a dent in the universe and pay you and do whatever, right? Because that’s all we’re after. But we only get there if we’re investing daily.
So find what that thing is in your life, and start investing daily by building a habit around it. Excellence is a habit, so what are you doing about it? Simple as that.
What are you doing? Do you want to be a boxer? You got to hit a bag. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. Do you want a good jab? A thousand jabs a day.
Like Bruce Lee said, “I fear the man who practiced one kick a thousand times, not 10,000 kicks once.” I’m paraphrasing. But that’s the point.[Colin] He wants to see all the people. Smile.[Woman] Still smiling.[Colin] Okay, I’m out here at McKinney Falls, a nice spot in Austin, and today’s video is about habit and excellence. And how the pattern is what defines greatness.
So on the weekend, even my habit of deep work and recording are all things I have to do daily, or I’m going to lose the habit.
And so, on a day like today, where it might be easy to want to go home, tuck in, and watch Netflix the rest of the night, I’m going to make sure I’m going to be getting to work later, probably as soon as I’m done with this.
And so, definitely enjoy some of the time but make sure you get right back to it. Because, again, excellence is a habit. It’s not something you do.
So part of me didn’t want to come out to this. It’s cold and rainy, and it takes a lot of time. It’s far. But I said I would, so I did. And I think that’s a vital lesson for the younger generation.
That’s better than saying, I’m going to make it, and not showing up. The worst thing is when you say you’re going to do something and then you don’t.
People won’t trust you anymore. They won’t ask you to do things anymore. It’s the worst.
[Montel] Thought of the day, sometimes the simplest things are the most profound in a world where we constantly look to the future and modernity.
[Colin] What’s an example from your daily life?
[Montel] Just getting together within a circle, there’s something about that space with people that’s so ancestral. We used to gather around the fire.
[Colin] Without any particular goal, right?
[Montel] Yeah, without any plans.
[Colin] Or a minor goal.
[Montel] Right. Or even just a dream of being with other people.
[Colin] Montel’s thought of the day.
[Colin] Something I don’t do enough is get outside and walk. But doing more walking, but the main, just going out every day for even a ten-minute walk around the block.
And here’s the thing, going without an audible or a phone or anything, that’s going to be a big difference. Cause, with a loud, and I think it’s great because you can get a lot of books in, but all the famous thinkers, Beethoven, Mozart, Freud, Hemingway, all the guys had walking habits.
They would do their Einstein and talk about quotes from these guys about how the best ideas always came when they were walking. And obviously, they didn’t have phones, distractions, music, or whatever.
It’s going to be suitable for a kind of mindfulness and meditation. But it’s also going to be good for creativity and sparking ideas.
And I think anyone that has anything they’re trying to do creatively, I think going on walks ideally in nature is going to have, could have profound effects. So I highly recommend it.
[Colin] See me coming, huh? You see me coming. What are you doing? Smile for the camera? You like being on camera. See, he’s going to jump up and down.
[Colin] Wee. (da da da da dant, da da da da dant, da da da da dant da, da da da da dant) My nose is running. He knows the camera is there. He wants to be on it.
[Colin] You see, I was thinking of a product idea, a little umbrella that has a thing that connects to the camera on the tripod somehow. He had to hold a thing over his the whole time—a small umbrella.
[Woman] They have them for strollers. An item that attaches to the side.
[Colin] Yeah, a tiny umbrella that can fold down and take up no space. You deal with a lot of weather stuff when recording and whatnot.
[Colin] The issue of habit, it’s late, I’m tired, it’s rainy. We ate out, and it’s making me feel sleepy. But I’m going to go to the gym.
I will go to the gym and spend at least 20-30 minutes there. Do arms, some squats, and some basic stuff. I am not going to go super hard.
I’m going to get in there and do what I can. Because going and doing something is better than nothing.
And on a Sunday, I’ve talked about this before, you have habit muscle, and those times you don’t want to go, you don’t want to do the thing, you don’t want to get up and work, you want to relax, you want to watch Netflix, you want to start tomorrow, well those are the times you should never, ever skip.
Because you’re weakening your habit muscle, and it’s going to be more accessible, you’re more likely to do that again the next time you feel that way.
Yet, if you get in the habit of every time you feel like crap, or you’re tired, or whatever, and you don’t want to do it. When you take that as a trigger to do the thing, think about it. That’s awesome, right?
So today, it’s all about habit. I don’t want to go. It’s not going to be a great workout. But it’s going to be better than nothing.
And that’s the habit, and that’s the point, and that’s how I’m going to win over the long term. And that’s how you can also win over the long time.
Founder/CEO, Wild Foods
