Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success: Discovering Your Gift and the Way to Life's Riches (7 page)

Your vehicle doesn't just connect to your gift and transport you to the next level of your success. Your vehicle should accentuate your gift. It should help you to perfect your gift. This means that you have to be aggressive about learning how to drive and be patient enough to master the vehicle you are in before you trade up to the next. Master that gift where you are. Make every mistake you can in the lemon before you get the coupe.

My dad was a car man. He owned a '50-something Mercury, an old '63 woodie station wagon, and a '68 station wagon, which became my first car when he passed it on to me in 1977. I don't want you to get stuck in one vehicle. You must recognize that it is about getting you to the next level, and not about taking you the whole way. I have seen too many smart, talented, gifted people stay in the same vehicle too long. If you notice that you are working hard and smart, connected to a vehicle and clear on your vision, but every day you seem to move less and less, it's time to upgrade. It's time to take another class, join a new organization, or start a new business. Look, if you are committed to your gift, and you are growing and perfecting it, you will know when your gift is becoming too much for the vehicle.

Now that you have started using the vehicles available to master your gift, it is time to start choosing the avenue that will get you to higher levels. Let's get beyond thinking of vehicles for our gifts as just traditional nine-to-five jobs. You have to take the time to test-drive as many options as you can for your gift. And don't be afraid to choose a plane when others are driving a car. Your vehicle can be as unique as your gift. When I started out as a comedian back in the '80s, you couldn't have told me that I would have several opportunities for my gift, including hosting a radio show, having my own daytime television show, taking over a popular game show, and now writing my third book.

We also can't be afraid to test-drive a car outside our price range. Some of us won't even think about sitting in a luxury car because we can see only where we are now. We can be too quick to shut down a vehicle because it requires working longer hours, learning a new skill set, or spending more time away from home. Even though a vehicle might require a greater investment up front, you have to consider how smooth your gift will move you through your journey if you are willing to put it in a high-quality vehicle.

Just as important as knowing what kind of vehicles will be best suited for your gift is knowing what opportunities to avoid. Just because you are a great chef, it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to open a restaurant. The best vehicle for your gift could be catering private affairs. If you are a great basketball coach, the best outlet for your gift could be coaching high school students instead of setting your sights on the NBA.

I'm the last person to dampen anyone's desire to become an entrepreneur, but I want you to think hard about entrepreneurship before you sign on the dotted line. This isn't just any ordinary ride. Entrepreneurship requires sacrifices beyond the responsibilities of working a nine-to-five job. You're going to need the right team to keep you on track. There are likely expenses that require resources that you do not have to invest at the moment. Or maybe you're the kind of person who prefers quality time for yourself and your family, and less time spent working long hours. And you can't just let anybody into your car when you are committed to being an entrepreneur. Do you know what a person on a plane is called who doesn't want to go where it's going? A hijacker.

There's nothing wrong with paddling the canoe of an entry-level position while keeping your eyes on the yacht of entrepreneurship. Take the time to network with people who are in your field. Find out what it really takes to become your own boss and what kind of sacrifices of time, money, and energy it will take to be successful.

Ask yourself these questions in order to choose the perfect vehicle for you and your gift.

1.
    
Where is your final destination? It is important that you always keep in mind where you want to end up.

2.
    
Where is your next stop? What is your next goal? Is it a promotion at your current job? Is it going out on your own and doing a side project? Is it starting a family? See, this is the key question. Because the opportunity or vehicle for Robert—who is thirty, single, looking to be married, and wants a job that pays well but gives him plenty of family time—will not be the same vehicle for Stephanie—who is the same age, doesn't want a family, and wants to be partner in a huge corporate law firm. What do
you
want? Can this get you to that place and set you up for the next trip?

3.
    
Do you know how to operate this vehicle
today
just enough not to crash? That means you are not growing. Don't go back to being a teacher in your old school when you know your next stop is principal. Is the vehicle out of your mastery, but controllable? That's the drive you want. It's challenging, fun, takes you out of your comfort zone,
but
. . . you can make it work. That's where you need to be.

These questions will make sure you are focused on the right vehicle for you. This will also keep you from trying to buy matching Bugattis with a friend who isn't even going to the same place that you're going. Tailor your vehicle for your gift and your journey, and you will always be in the right ride.

List the best vehicles for your gift
today
.

Write down the kind of vehicles that you would like to use for your gift five to ten years from now.

Share one of your new rides with me using the hashtag #Vehicle4MyVictory@ActLikeASuccess.

I
n order for you to properly fuel your gift, you have to embody the proper makeup, and often that requires some change on your part. When I refer to makeup, I'm not talking about the thousands of dollars you ladies spend on Revlon or MAC, or how much you men spend on Brooks Brothers; I'm talking about your getting the right caliber of traits together that will lead you to your biggest dreams. Your makeup is the driving force behind the vehicle you have attached yourself to that will lead you to success. In this chapter, we are going to explore what it takes to develop your personal makeup to the highest levels and propel you forward to reach your goals.

The first thing you need in your makeup kit is to be the kind of person who attracts rather than repels others. There are no self-made men; therefore, you have to learn the laws of attraction to draw the right people to you. You have to be easy to work with, or at least be willing to create the atmosphere that makes it easy to work with you.

Next, you have to aspire to be a visionary person with a positive outlook. Those who allow other people to expand, develop, and explore are the kinds of people you want to have around you. When you are with the right people, there are ripe opportunities for you to gain from their experiences and knowledge.

You also must recognize your shortcomings and be willing to improve on them. In recognizing your shortcomings, you may want to consider them when hiring others to be a part of your team.

Finally, you have to respect time—yours and others'—by being punctual. You have to be a person of integrity. You have to be honorable and reliable by doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it.

An essential part of your makeup has to be getting honest, getting real, and being willing to take on new actions.

Now is not the time to start lying to yourself. If you are tired of the way you've been living, it's time to give that up. I want you to go to a mirror right now, look yourself in the eye, and be honest with where you are right now. Don't reason it away. Don't blame it on somebody else. What is the thing you do that keeps blocking you? Look beyond your excuses and ask yourself, Why? Your answers may be fear, failure, family circumstances, or finances. If the answers don't immediately come to you, this may be the time to seek pastoral or professional counseling. Don't be afraid to get the help you need in order to live the life you deserve.

This is where we get to the good part of replacing your negative actions with positive ones. Is procrastination killing you? Replace it with a strategy that will get you into action. Do you refuse to admit when you are wrong? Enlist a partner or a friend to keep you accountable for your responsibilities. Whatever the issue, make a commitment to get real and find positive and responsible replacement actions.

Here's the problem with people who think that they have a makeup that they really don't have. If you're asking the question and answering it, too, you don't have the real makeup. You can't have the real answer. All you are doing is constantly telling yourself what you want to hear about you. You have to be willing to have a bone-chillingly honest conversation with yourself. By not being frank about the situation, the only person you are cheating is you.

Once you have become honest with yourself and you identify new actions for tackling your weaknesses, here comes the hard part—changing your habits. In his book
Making Habits, Breaking Habits
, psychologist Jeremy Dean challenges the myth that it takes only twenty-one days to change a habit. It might take two years to fully make a shift in some areas of your life, but that's now two productive years for a lifetime of reward.

Don't worry about how much time it takes to make the shift. Time is in your favor when you use it productively. Focus your energy on developing your new habits. Just take it one day at a time. And when you get done with one day, I want you to do something revolutionary—I want you to get up and do it again. And again. And again. Pretty soon, this won't just be some new habit you're trying to conquer—this will be your new road map for success.

Many times in my life I have had to change my makeup. I had to start becoming a more positive person with integrity to get the job done. I think the biggest shift for me was during a joke-writing period. I learned a lot from Richard Pryor. What made Richard Pryor so great was his openness. He was willing to talk about all of it—his growing up around after-hours joints, his catching on fire, the arguments in the car, and his marital issues. That's what made him most effective.

When I began in comedy, I was so protective of who I was and where I came from. I was trying to write my jokes in the fashion that others wrote, and as a result I didn't develop the truth of who I was as a stand-up comedian. Once I was no longer afraid to open up about me and my truth, things changed for me professionally. Talking about my truth allowed me to expand my material. I was no longer afraid to talk about my mother, who taught Sunday school; or my failed marriages; or my growing up in Cleveland. This was the first time I came face-to-face with real integrity.

As we grow our integrity, one of the first pieces to focus on is learning how to lead. We get too focused on looking to other people at times when the real answers lie inside of us. We have to take the time to recognize our own strengths and weaknesses. I think what makes me effective as a person of integrity on the radio or as a spokesperson is that people know I am going to tell them the truth no matter what that truth is. You don't always have to agree with it, but I'm telling you my truth. I think that people have grown to respect that.

Improving your makeup also means that you have to be willing to give yourself a real self-evaluation. When I write a joke and I go out onstage, I give a joke three shots before I decide to throw it away or keep it. If I tell the joke and it always gets a big laugh, I rate that joke a 1. If I tell it and it gets a laugh only sometimes, then that joke is a 2. If I tell a joke and most of the time it doesn't get a laugh, that's a 3. When I first started, I needed those jokes because I needed the time. You're paid fifteen minutes to open, thirty minutes for the middle set, and forty-five minutes to headline. I needed this time so I could become a headliner. I learned that if you are out there telling 3's, that's a shaky set. So every time I wrote a new joke and it was a 2, I got rid of a 3. The only way I did that was to have an honest assessment with myself. I kept writing jokes, and when I got a 1, I would get rid of a 2. After a few years, I had all 1's. That's when I really started developing as a stand-up: when I created that system of self-evaluation.

Your personal self-evaluation has to be one of complete and total honesty. The only one who can do the self-evaluation is you. Until you are ready to have a completely honest conversation, even a self-evaluation will do you no good.

I know that I'm not great with mundane tasks. I have to hire somebody around me who is good at the day-to-day details. I also know that I'm not good with graphs and charts. I learned that in college. You cut the lights and put a graph on the wall, then I'm going to go to sleep. So I hire people who like graphs. I don't like having to repeat myself over and over again to get a person to understand something. I don't have the patience for it. I also have to constantly watch myself and work on not coming up short. Real integrity is knowing where your shortcomings are.