Stand on Your Own Two Feet — With Some Help

In my Reclaim Your Gladiator course, the entire first day is about learning to stand on your own two feet. In this world you have to learn you can stand up against all resistance and all things that come your way, so you can become completely independent and take ownership of your own life and actions. The second day of the course involves learning to work as a team and learning you can accomplish much more if you surround yourself with great people who have the same motivation and integrity as you.
 
It might seem these two ideas are diametrically opposed, but the reality is they can both be accomplished at the same time. Let’s take working out, for example. If you have the mastery to work out every single day you learn to do it regardless if you’re by yourself or if you’re with others. If you only work out because you have a workout partner, then when your workout partner stops you might stop too. On the other hand, if your commitment is to build a healthy, strong body for yourself then you will continue to work out regardless of who your workout partner is or if you even have one. This is the ability to take extreme ownership of your own life and health. However, you’ll find once you have this mastery and commitment to improving your body it’s more fun, interesting, and challenging to find a workout partner you can have fun with and enjoy. The difference is the commitment is made to yourself to improve yourself, and if you surround yourself with people who have the same kind of commitment you can enjoy and have more fun following through.

Another example is financial mastery. Wealth is one of the Six Pillars of Living Every Minute, which means you need to take responsibility and become an expert in both your and your family’s wealth. This means you have to do the learning. You have to understand regardless of the economy, regardless of the stock market, regardless of the real estate market, you take responsibility for you and your family’s financial future. That commitment is the ability to stand on your own two feet in a world where most people are unwilling to do so. However, once you’ve made that commitment finding friends, advisors, mentors, and teachers to help you obtain financial mastery makes the whole process a lot more enjoyable, a lot more fun, and a lot more successful.
 
What you must remember is the commitment is to yourself and to those you love, not to the mentor, or the financial advisor, or the broker, or the real estate agent. The commitment is to you, your family, and what’s best for your financial future. Your commitment is not to the mentors, teachers, and friends. Once you’ve made the commitment, surrounding yourself with great people who have integrity and commitment like yours makes the journey a lot more fun, but you have to be able to have the commitment to stand up by yourself if need be.
 
In Special Forces training, you learn to survive by yourself in all kinds of adverse environments. You learn if you’re stranded by yourself you can stand up and survive those situations. However, you also learn having a team of other people around you to complete a mission is much more effective and enjoyable than being by yourself in the middle of a hostile environment.
 
Your commitment to your mission is the same. Your mission could be your career, your nonprofit, anything, wanting to make the world a better place, anything. Whatever it is, your mission is a commitment to be to yourself first, to improve, and to become the best you can possibly be in the field you choose. Once you make that commitment finding people to surround yourself with is the goal. Find people who are smarter than you in certain areas and build a team to create spectacular. This is the key to success. The mistake some people make is thinking the team is the key when it’s the commitment, regardless of the team. This is the key that allows you to build the team, to motivate and inspire them to follow you and to get on board with your mission. The ability to be inspiring to others comes from a deep commitment and motivation within yourself.
 
If you think about it, the great leaders of the world knew this. For example, Gandhi, Buddha, and Abraham Lincoln were people that were committed to their own mission and values, regardless of their circumstances. That allowed them to go and create a tribe that could get behind their mission and help them. It was not the creating of the tribe that made them successful, it was their commitment to their purpose.
 
Become committed. Become the kind of person who could stand up on their own two feet, particularly in the Six Pillars: your health, your wealth, your relationships, your mission, your mastery of yourself, and your leadership and contribution. You have to be able to stand up for those things in the world by yourself, and only then can you find yourself a team of people who are committed to the same things you are. As you help them, they help you, and you will find you can all do things much better together.
 
 I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Keep Living Every Minute,

Dr. Tim, M.D.