Yesterday I called all of my heroes agents/publicists (Plitt, Macklemore, Stallone, Vaynerchuk, Robbins, Brown), got three direct personal emails, got a response from Macklemore’s fiancé, and everyone is stoked. I am waiting to hear back from the other three today or tomorrow. My heart was pumping before I picked up the phone, but I yelled out “I got this! Wooo! Let’s go!!!” And apparently, the people on the other line could feel my energy through the phone, loved what I was talking about, and were more than happy to help me.

Our potential is a really scary thing. It scares us because for almost all of us, it is such a great thing. Great in the sense of enormous, high achieving, successful, winning…etc. How do you compete with that? How can we be that person each and every single day? Well I have been tossing this question up in the area for some time now, and what came back down was pretty interesting. This is what I came up with for myself.

1. Dream it – If you can create it in your head, you can sure as hell work towards achieving it. No idea too silly. No task too large. Map it out on a piece of paper or a chalkboard and go to town.

2. Believe: You can have all the planning in the world, but if you don’t believe that you can do it, you will never achieve it. Simple as that. You have to believe that no matter what anyone else says, you have what it takes. You have to believe that you are the only person in the world that you need to make it happen. Bet on yourself.

3. Standards – Michael Jordan once said that it was his standards for himself that set him apart from everyone else. The guy who was deemed the most talented player of all time said it was his expectations for himself. Wow. So, set those standards high. Aim for them each and every day. If you fall short, try again.

4. Z-A planning – I like planning backwards. Here is my end goal…alright, how am I going to get there? Where do I need to be at the halfway mark? When should this milestone be? Ask the planning questions. Every general in every war had battle plans to be the most prepared they could possibly be…and they knew those plans were going to tank, but they still prepared.

5. The One Degree – Sustainable growth. If you have small sustainable change over time, eventually you will end up in a completely different place than where you were before. That is pretty much what The Better Man Project is about in the first place. 400 days later, I am an individual that would hardly recognize the person I was a couple years ago. This happened because I chipped away each and every day. Don’t try to change everything all at once. You are doing yourself a disservice.

Believe in yourself. If you don’t make your plan, someone else will make it for you…and they don’t have anything great planned for you.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project