Thriving with Uncertainty: How to Create Certainty in a Chaotic World

Hey, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. Where have you been all day? I've been here waiting for you. Back with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. My name is George Wright and I am your host. And I'm going to take a couple minutes today and I want to talk to you about how to create certainty in a very, very uncertain world. I want to give you a few strategies to deal with uncertainty. and you know I think you've probably noticed this week we've had kind of a common message of fears uncertainty dealing with failure I think that's because I've found from talking to a lot of our community as well as yourself that people are struggling people are inside their head a little bit too much right now they're trying to figure out how to get unstuck and you know you've heard me say it before but your ability to embrace uncertainty in your life is in direct proportion to the success that you're going to have, the happiness, the prosperity, the growth. You know, we cannot grow or achieve outside our comfort or inside our comfort zone. We've got to get outside our comfort zone, which is where all of uncertainty lies. And we can't achieve the best versions of ourself, which I'm assuming because you're listening to the Daily Mastermind. You're trying to create a better version of yourself and live your best life. you know brendan bouchard in his book high performance habits talks about everyone's need and requirement to deal with uncertainty everyone that's been a great thought leader of our time has talked about the need and requirement for us to deal with uncertainty in fact brendan in his book said certainty is the enemy of growth and high performance too many people want certainty amid the chaos in the world, but certainty is a fool's dream and thus the charlatan selling point. Certainty ultimately blinds you, sets taste and fixed limits and creates automatic habits that become predictable. Bad thinking and opening up you to your competitors to pass you. High performers outgrow their need for certainty and replace it with curiosity and genuine self-confidence. I love that one. Replace your need for certainty with curiosity and genuine self-confidence. Uncertainty is a good thing, but you have to learn how to deal with it. It is a good thing, but you've got to learn how to deal with it. So let me give you a few ideas today. Let me talk to you about how you can create some certainty in your life and deal with uncertainty. First, you've got to have a clear purpose and vision. When your purpose is clear and your vision is clear, you're unstoppable. Your motivation is going to grow. Your drive is going to grow. Your discipline is going to grow. You've got to get clear on what it is you're trying to accomplish in your life. And that'll help you to create certainty. Because when you create clarity around your vision everything going around you fades off into the distance Also work on a will not do list A will not do list I love this because my business partner Robert Stubberg, likes to create a list every year of things that he will either eliminate or delegate from his day to day. And when you're clear about your focus and your vision, it's much easier to just say no. And it helps you to create more certainty because you know what you're working on. You know the direction you're going. You're not getting hit blindsided by all kinds of things you feel responsible to jump into. So create a, I'm not going to do it list, or I'm not, you know, I'm going to delegate it or delete it list. The other thing is more and more, we've got to learn to play offense and stop playing defense in our life. When you're an offensive player, you're not worried about all the things coming at you. You're worried about going after all the things you want. Most people spend their entire life playing defense by reacting to all the things in their life and it's just a distraction. It's just keeping you from your greatness. The day-to-day issues that come up can overwhelm us, obviously, but sometimes you need to just let some balls drop. And more importantly, you need to schedule and focus the time to do the most important things. Stop worrying about all the other things. Become great at offense, which is really how you're going to control your destiny, is becoming great at offense. Now, don't neglect the most important thing in the game of life, right? And that's you. You've got to focus on self-care. You've got to focus on taking care of you. And what I mean by that is clearly identify ways that you can take care of building your mind, your body, your spirit, your relationships. Taking care of your mind, body, spirit, and relationships are so critical for you to have that strength, that mental confidence, and that self-esteem to move forward. You know, a gratitude practice, for example. you know spending time by yourself spending time working on your own growth and development which leads me into your health most of you know that i'm very much a health and fitness conscious guy one of your greatest assets in your life is your health you know we talk about things that most excuse me unsuccessful people don't think about what are the assets in your life the first thing that comes to me is time and health most people are thinking assets are money net worth their job, their opportunities. I'm telling you, your health and your time are your greatest assets because with those, you can do anything. But one area of your life that I know you can control is your health. Now, unless there's some mitigating circumstances, your ability to work out, eat nutritious foods, take good supplements, drink plenty of water, get enough sleep, these are things that you can influence. I don't care what anybody says, you absolutely can control certain aspects of your life when it comes to health and don't forget that rest and recovery is important rest and recover it not about stress it not about the the working out it It not about the obstacles you go through It about the recovery Your growth comes in recovery and rest So make sure you budget that time in for yourself as well. And when you're trying to deal with uncertainty, play to your strengths. Stop doing things you're not good at. We've all talked about this idea of being inside your unique talent, which is your stuff that you're excellent and passionate about. Stop spending time in areas that you're not good at. Stop spending time in areas that you're not uniquely qualified to deal with. You try to do everything and that's what's keeping you in this frame of mind that's not working for you, that's giving you stress and anxiety. This is a recipe for unhappiness and it shows that you're not committed to your long-term vision when you're doing things that you shouldn't be doing and you're not inside your unique talent. so focus on your strengths and you're going to plow right through uncertainty even if it does bring failure great you're going to learn some things from it but you will grow when you play to your strengths another thing i'm going to highly recommend is getting up early now listen i hate to get up early in the morning i there's not a morning i get up that i don't hit my alarm snooze a couple times and begrudgingly get out of bed but i'm telling you we've all heard the phrase the early bird gets the worm but let me put it a different way um you know i was listening to an interview with Ed Milet the other day and he talked about how his life and business used to be a ton of chaos every day. He would wake up and immediately his mind and life would be taken over and hijacked by stress, anxiety, and troubles. Then one day he realized that if he'd just take control of the start and the end of his day, like bookends, that he'd be able to have a huge degree of control over his day. So if you're not an early riser, get up early because then you can put this morning ritual in place that'll get your critical thinking going, that'll help you to determine in the trajectory of your day. And that extra little time in the morning can help you do that. And even though you don't want to do it, man, it's going to give you so much more peace of mind throughout the day. My morning routine consists of meditation, workout, and affirmations. And my ending of my day is generally journaling, a little visualization, but just kind of more rest and regrouping. So be early riser. Be an early riser and bookend your days. Another one, and I know you're going to think this is kind of off the mark, but keep a scorecard. Keep a scorecard. When you're dealing with uncertainty, you know, you can't hit a target that you can't see, right? So you set goals. We're talking about all of this idea of winning the game of life and being focused on your clarity and purpose and things of your goals. How do you do this without a scorecard? Every time you sit down and you are not sure where you're at and you're floundering around and you're not exactly sure where on your course where on your path you're actually at that creates doubt and that uncertainty will creep in but it's way easier for you to do things when you have a scorecard you know you progressing you know you going down the right path and if you not you know what you need to do to change that It those little mile markers along the way that give you some peace of mind when you dealing with the chaos of the world Create KPIs for your business. These are key performance indicators, KPIs. I could give you a ton of different examples from business things that I've done, but it might be the most critical activities that you're doing. It might be the critical measurements like revenue and profit or activities like presentations and prospecting or meetings that you're doing with people, but keep those key performance indicators in front of you. And when you do that, that'll help you to create some certainty. Now, the last thing I wanna kind of mention to you, and you've heard me say this before, so I'm gonna say it again, because it's just a concept that every time I hear it gives me some more peace of mind in the storm. Because let's face it, a lot of us are in the storms of life right now. We are in the blizzard, we're in the tsunami, we're in whatever it is in our life that's hitting us from every direction. And I want to remind you of something that's important. It's not the direction of the wind in your life that's going to take you where you need to go. It's the set of your sail. You've heard that quote before. It's not the direction of the wind, but the set of your sail that takes you where you want to be in life. And you know this because if you've heard one of my podcasts where we've talked about sailors being able to sail into the wind, an experienced sailor can sail into the wind through this idea of, I think they call it tacking, where they set their sail to kind of cross diagonal back and forth into the wind. What you have to realize is that successful people, when they do all these strategies and things that I talked about, they're setting their sail. They're setting their sail to go into the wind, which is where their best life is, the best version of themselves, the happiness and fulfillment and everything that you want in life is in the direction of the wind. It's in uncertainty. It's in your uncomfortable areas of life. It's outside your comfort zone. It's not on the shores. It's out in the ocean. It's out there. You've got to be able to learn to sail into the wind with confidence. And that comes with discipline, consistency, daily rituals, and making that decision that you create your life and that you're responsible for what happens and that no matter what, you're going to get through it. So that's my message for today. I believe that your ability to look for and anticipate and want uncertainty because you know it's going to create success in your life and to give up this need for certainty and comfort, give up that need for certainty and comfort. That's what's going to take you into a life that is going to help you live extremely fulfilled and extremely profitable, extremely prosperous and successful. That's the message I have for you today. My name is George right to third. This has been the Daily Mastermind. Have a phenomenal day and I'll talk with you again tomorrow.