If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go alone

Debunking the 10 biggest bullshit myths to succeeding

that are holding you back

By

Brian Peters

Bullshit Myth # 1

If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far get a team.

If you’re in business, sales, or any form of sport and you want to be the best, you will likely have heard this business “mantra”.

Of all the business mantras and philosophy of succeeding that abound, this one bullshit phrase has held more achievers back than it has made.

In this book we will explore the psychology of achieving at the top.

However, let’s be clear, this book is for those that want to excel, not just do better, not just do well, not just improve, this book is for those individuals that want to be the best, who want to be at the top. If this is not you, stop reading now.

You want to be at the top of whatever it is that drives you.

Whether that’s the best salesperson in your company, the best sportsman in the world, whatever it is.

To be that person, embrace the fact that you will be alone.

If you are not this person, this book is not for you. If you are this person, then I truly believe this book will unlock secrets for you to help you be at the top.

Bullshit Myth # 2

Motivation is vital to succeed.

No, it’s not. If motivation is not a key factor to success, what is?

Well, let’s take a moment to understand motivation. Who is usually doing the motivating? It’s usually someone other than the person themselves. Motivation almost always comes primarily from external sources.

“You can’t keep pumping up a flat tire”.

The people at the top, and usually alone because of what it takes to get there, don’t need any motivation whatsoever. If someone must be motivated and continually motivated, they are doomed to fail.

Instead of motivation, the key ingredient is inspiration.

So, what’s the difference?

Inspiration is Internal and this is where the nuclear reactor of achievement is driven.

You either want to be the best or you don’t. You either want to be at the top or you don’t.

Quick example, Navy Seals or the SAS, of which I have several friends. During the selection for these elite soldiers, the instructors give no motivation whatsoever, in fact they do the opposite. They try to kill any desire to achieve to be the best that they can.

They constantly tease the candidates to quit, give up it’ll be so much easier, you can stop all this pain and effort if you just quit, the way they signify they’ve quit is they ring the bell in the courtyard.

Normally out of every hundred intakes of candidates, maybe 5 to 10 will make it.

These are the 5 to 10 that don’t need any motivation whatsoever, and in fact the more the instructors encourage them to quit, the deeper they dig into the internal nuclear reservoir of inspiration.

Their own internal vision has inspired them so much, that no matter what hardship is thrown at them, they’ll just keep going.

You can’t turn these candidates off even if you try, and the Navy Seal and SAS instructors try their best to turn them off.

They are looking for those candidates that can’t be turned off.

Bullshit Myth # 3

You are the average of the five people you associate with.

If this were true, then Usain Bolt would have taken the gold in the hundred meters in the Olympics, and his four friends would have come second third fourth and fifth.

Usain Bolt was on his own.

Kentucky fried chicken, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and the list goes on, started out on their own.

That’s not to say that at times they didn’t employ someone who was skilled, these are employees. They didn’t hang out with four other fried chicken specialists, or four other burger specialists, or four other donuts specialists.

Meeting others and picking their brains is not the same as having a team.

Let’s consider Paypal, which was started by a large team of very clever individuals.

The question to ask is, why then does someone like Elon Musk, like him or hate him, you can’t deny his achievements, breakoff on his own, from a very lucrative income in the millions, to revolutionize the world with space travel, the automotive industry, and social media. You can’t motivate Elon Musk, his internal nuclear reactor of inspiration to achieve doesn’t need it.

Many of the other founders of Paypal went onto to create Google, et cetera.

I had the pleasure of bodyguarding Roger Federer and several other of the top tennis players in the world.

Yes, they have a coach. And they have a support team to pick up the tennis balls, drive them wherever they want to go, masseurs etc. These are employees. They don’t hang around with the other four top tennis players in the world.

Let’s just focus on the coach for the moment. Could the coach be classed as a “team”.

Even the top tennis players change the coach from time to time, except Nadal as his father is his coach.

These tennis players are so internally driven to be at the top on their own, remembering they play singles, not doubles, as they want their legacy to be they stood alone at the top.

You couldn’t turn off their desire to be the number one tennis player in the world if you tried. Nadal was the number one clay court player for something like four years. His internal nuclear reactor of inspiration and drive was so high, even with knee injuries, and other injuries, you could not stop his drive to be at the top.

My sport is bodybuilding and I was driven to become Mr. Universe.

The world is full of bodybuilders, many are just people who want to wear tight T-shirts in public and impress the girls.

However, the very top of the sport where the Mr Olympia’s live, it’s a whole different game.

The thing with these guys is, they always train on their own. On another occasion they might pair up with another top bodybuilder to have a session, yet 99% of all their training sessions are done alone.

The drive and commitment to achieve at this level is so high, few people can get even close. Of all the millions of bodybuilders around the world, maybe 10 to 15 will be on the stage each year.

The reason they train alone is they train harder than the other millions of bodybuilders on the planet. The desire and commitment to tolerate the amount of pain during each session is difficult to find others to tolerate.

The train alone, they eat alone, they stand alone on the stage.

So, do you need support? If you’re in Sales a great PA will work wonders, but what happens when it’s 9 o’clock on a wet and windy Friday night and you’re still driving to a meeting to hopefully make that sale that makes you number one in your office or company or country this month.

You are there alone, and if you are driven to be at the top, you not only have to embrace being alone, but welcome it.

Bullshit Myth # 4

It’s harder on your own.

Really? When I joined the sales industry, and as I’m the type of person that wants to be the very best I can at anything, I quickly tore up all the sales processes that I was taught, threw away what didn’t work, kept a few bits that seemed to work, then invented and created Sales approaches and referral approaches of my own.

I picked other people’s brains from time to time, as no one can know everything.

I got so good so quickly, that I was asked to manage a team. Initially this sounded like a nice idea, as I would get override from all the other salespeople’s business for managing them and training them.

It didn’t take long to realize I was losing money.

I had a team of 10 who said they wanted to be in my team because clearly, I seem to know what I was doing as I was earning so much money every month.

My system was to meet every morning at 9 am for 15 minutes as a team. Then I would monitor activity such as, did you have two appointments yesterday, did you get one referral, did you make one sale no matter how small, did you line up a sale no matter how small.

I explained when I first started to manage them, that my job wasn’t to motivate them. I explained you bring the motivation. I’ll show you what to do with it, and I still do that with the people I coach around the globe today.

It became clear that even though these people had joined a commission only, do it yourself sales career, they seemed to need inspiring and motivating externally.

I did this for a while explaining clearly what they could earn, how they could earn it, and as I always do, I break it down into “is that all I have to do”. Once this is defined in such a way that it just makes sense to do XYZ, then it’s down to that individual to turn on their internal nuclear reactor and go go go.

After two months of doing this, we set in a new rule, if you hadn’t had two appointments the previous day or you hadn’t made a sale or offered a sale, no matter how small, and you hadn’t shown the referral presentation, then a rule was you were saying to me that you didn’t want to be in my team anymore.

Every morning, I would go around the table ticking my check box, and anyone who said they hadn’t achieved those three things, said so and then packed up their stuff and left. No drama, no pleadings, no extra motivation and cajoling, just go somewhere else.

The distraction of managing these low performers, affected my own sales and income and a month later I handed off my team to someone else.

Of course, there are examples of people who have built hugely successful insurance companies with hundreds of salespeople, and if that’s their preference, then fine. My own internal vision was I could do a high seven figures each year fast under my own efforts.

The company I worked for had a smart managing director, and we had a discussion where he asked me what I needed to be able to achieve at the level that I wanted to.

My answer was, anything that’s in my way just get it out of the way and let me go, let me do what I can do, just take away any roadblocks or speed bumps. I didn’t need any motivating, my internal nuclear reaction of being able to earn millions and retire after 92 months was on full.

I was the number one advisor in a company of 4000 advisors for eight years, the number one earning advisor in the UK, and later the number one earning advisor across two continents.

When you are on your own, you can go as fast as you want, with no-one slowing you down.

Maybe stick up the following sign in your office

“I’m 100% internally inspired, motivation not needed”

Bullshit Myth # 5

Stay away from Negative people.

Really? Does anyone really think that people like Federer and Nadal and Usain Bolt or the founder of Wendy’s never had people saying you can’t do that?

Didn’t seem to stop them did it.

Quick question, so how do you stay away from negative people, the world is full of them. You’d have to live on a desert island on your own to achieve this.

When I first heard this, I took all these mantras on board and assumed that these more experienced people knew more than I did so it must be correct.

What I found was that I was becoming so conscious of trying to be aware of who was negative and who wasn’t and how to avoid them, it was actually causing more stress than just laughing at anybody negative.

Going back to the Navy Seals instructors, they would do everything they could to be as negative as possible, you’re not up to this, you can’t do this, why are you here? You’re weak, you know you’re going to fail so why don’t you just ring the bell.

Of course the washout rate is high, but those that do pass it, their internal nuclear reactor of drive is so powerful anything negative just bounces off.

You can’t stay away from negative people, and when you do come across them and they start their little jabs, think of it this way, “no one kicks a dead dog”. The reason they’ve been negative is you have embarrassed them. They see the drive the absolute determination that you will succeed no matter what, and it makes them feel weak and ashamed and pathetic, so they want to try and drag you down. If you fail it makes them feel better. So whenever someone is being negative towards you just let that reinforce you that they’re frightened of me, they see my power, isn’t that fantastic.

Bullshit Myth # 6

Lazy people will never succeed.

Really? The best people to achieve anything are lazy.

Let’s add to that, lazy and smart.

Using an example of Sales. Of course you must work hard, sometimes unbelievably hard. You learn more about yourself in commission only Sales in three months than probably 10 years of a normal career. The highs are really high, and the lows are incredibly deep, especially when you’re learning.

So why is being lazy, and smart, vital.

In today’s world of Sales, a huge number of companies employee BDM or Cold callers. They employ people to troll social media for prospects, churn out thousands of emails prospecting people.

Clearly, this obviously has some success otherwise people wouldn’t do it.

But we want to excel, we want to be at the top.

So let’s compare to strategies, a cold caller making 10 appointments a week, which means 10 meetings a week if they all happen, which is anything from 15 to 30 hours a week attending these meetings.

The normal success rate with this approach is 10% to 20%

That equates to 30 hours for 1 to 2 sales.

Now let’s look at a referral strategy sales approach. Once a salesperson becomes good at getting referrals, it works more like this.

One referral one appointment one new Sale. Time taken, about two hours.

Here’s the kicker, Salespeople with the cod caller approach, are avoiding the pain of learning how to get referrals at extreme cots to their success. The cost being 15 to 30 hours a week, for one to 2 sales a week. Plus, all that rejection every week. That’s why the fallout rate of salespeople is extremely high.

No one ever leaves the industry because they’re seeing too many people and earning too much money.

So, the key is to find the “laziest”, which is the shortest route from A to B, and that is learning how to get referrals, and each client you sit with, gives you one referral, which leads to one more appointment, and one more Sale.

That’s the lazy approach. Then, like anything you must work your ass off at it, first to learn how, and then to maximize the number of sales.

This approach will take any salesperson over seven figures yearly, I became a multimillionaire earner yearly with this approach. I coach advisers and salespeople across the globe, I’ve yet to come across any salesperson or IFA, who earns close to 7 figures using the cold caller approach.

If this is you reading this, then call me and let’s talk. You will earn even more when you crack the real secret.

Remember this book is not about making a living, this is about wanting to be at the top.

Bullshit Myth # 7

Work life balance is vital

Really? Remember, we’re talking about those of you that want to be at the top.

If you want work life “Balance” whatever that means. Then your chances of being at the top slim to none.

So what is actually meant by work life balance? Is this a 9 to 5 job, come home have dinner with the family, sit and watch TV, go to bed around 10, next day repeat.

Shouldn’t it be more like work life “management”?

It would be good at this point to remember you have only so many years where your energy levels are at the highest. Wouldn’t it be good to maximize these years. The years where you can do 12-to-14-hour days and still get up with a smile on your face the next morning. Where working six and seven days a week can be done for periods of time without finding you in the emergency ward.

Everyone’s heard stories of where a driven businessman who says that it’s all for their family yet spend hardly any time with the family driving the business forward, eventually loses the family to divorce. We’re not talking about this. What we’re talking about is management of your time.

A simple example of how to check where your time goes do the following.

Tie a clipboard to your wrist for one week. Have a sheet on the clipboard for each day that is split up into 10-minute intervals.

Every 10 minutes write down exactly what you just did in those 10 minutes.

At the end of the week assess. I’ve done this many times just to check I keep on track, and when I’ve done it with advisors, Salespeople and businesspeople I coach, almost every time they say that they waste about 1 ½ days a week.

They quickly learn that if they really manage their time, they could have one and a half days extra with their family and children, whether that’s as 1 ½ days or whether they split that over the week. They always find that if they manage their time tightly, there is plenty of time to drive a business through the stratosphere and have a wonderful family life.

There is no need to miss out on building a successful business, or sales career, or sporting career and a family life, when time is managed.

Bullshit Myth # 8

You need a formal education to succeed.

Really?

How many of the richest and most successful businesspeople in the world today dropped out of college?

Elon Musk is building rockets, never took any college degrees in rocket science or anything related, he read a lot of books.

Look through history and see multimillionaires and billionaires in the 60s and 70s who built phenomenal businesses and companies and left school at the age of 16 to get a job to earn money to help feed the family.

• Steve Jobs: Co-founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College after just one semester.

• Bill Gates: Bill Gates left Harvard University to start Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen.

• Mark Zuckerberg: The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University in his sophomore

• Michael Dell: Michael Dell left the University of Texas at Austin to start Dell Technologies

• Larry Ellison: Larry Ellison dropped out of the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago before founding Oracle Corporation,

Bullshit Myth # 9

You need to be an extrovert to succeed.

Really?

Early in my initial sales career, I noticed they were two successful sales managers in the company, they were completely different. When someone opened the fridge door and the light went on, one of the managers would quickly move out of the light and into a neutral place, he hated the spotlight, a real introvert. The other manager would stand in front of the fridge light, pull out his comb start combing his hair as the show was obviously about to go on. The true extrovert.

I see myself more as introvert.

There are certain careers where the brash, confident and overconfident, extrovert Sales and businessperson flourishes. It does appear that these careers are less and less.

The more thoughtful, introvert business and salesperson seems to get on just as well if not better than the loud extrovert.

Business Myth # 10

Success is all about luck.

Really? Well, we know that this one has been done to death, and luck has been translated into labor under constructive knowledge. Whereas some people claim the luckier someone is the more successful they are.

Whilst there’s no denying that some luck can be helpful from time to time, there are far too many examples of people who had no luck whatsoever, and in fact what are the opposite, and still succeeded far above anyone else.

Seneca: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

The best approach to ensure your success is to consider luck as this weird thing that may or may not happen, and it doesn’t matter if it does or not, you are still going to drive yourself to the success that you are inspired to achieve.

No Navy Seal ever said, ‘Yeh I got in, I was lucky’

If you are determined to consider luck as a factor, try looking at it this way. You are lucky you are born in today’s generation; you are lucky you have two eyes, two ears, and nose and mouth, two arms and legs that work, and lucky to be healthy, you are lucky that you have an opportunity to try anything, and lucky to be alive today.

Perhaps think I’m lucky my nose is on my face with the holes facing down, if the holes faced up, I would likely drown when it rains.

Compare it to the 1920s and 30s, where there was no work no matter how lucky or unlucky a person you are, there wasn’t anything to be lucky about. Perhaps consider being lucky as there is so much information available at your fingertips on a computer or phone. And most of all consider yourself lucky that you have choices, whether you think you do or not, you do.

Because you can’t get a job, how lucky it is that you can start your own commission sales business without any worries about losing a job, because you don’t have one.

The only thing holding most people back is the bullshit they accept and let affect their success. Overcome these by ignoring much of the bullshit in the world today, stated by so-called experts, and start telling yourself things like, “I am better than I think I am”.

Dig deep down inside and start believing and accepting that you may be the actual best at something, better than anyone else.

Someone must be ALONE AT THE TOP, ask yourself why not you?