“You’re exceptional”
Dear Reader,
A long, long time ago I was having a “tete a tete” with a friend of mine from the Marines … YES, him that I’ve mentioned so often, and the SAME man that gets a look in during the FIRST page or so of Gorilla Grip (and with good reason too!).
If anyone HAS a gorilla grip, and that “kung fu like” grip he told me I had, it is HIM.
But anyway, this ain’t about grip.
This is about something else. It’s about the fact that to be TRULY successful — — to get results that you TRULY want out of life, and make life yield whatever it is you want on your OWN TERMS, you have to be exceptional.
And you have to do exceptional things, and be prepared to do what NO-ONE else is doing, my friend.
Back when we were having that discussion about Indians, and certain Indians (or those of Indian heritage) not “fitting in well with the West”, he said a lot don’t.
“The accent is different. Their style is different. Their … “And he trailed off, but he was right.
But I had to argue anyway, hehe.
“Well, there are always exceptions to the rule”, I said, laughing and popping open another cold one. “Look at me!”
“OK, but you’re exceptional!” (from the horses mouth, as it were!)
And while I would have continued the conversation, I didn’t talk any more about it, primarily because it brought back a memory from EVEN longer back way in the day . . .
Back in the day, my Uncle (yes, him who correctly labeled me as a wolf and working out of my CAVE) made a comment that sticks in my mind until now.
For whatever reason (and going back to the thing about Indians) a lot of Indians (those from the subcontinent) have a different accent from a lot of other Americans, despite (some of them) being born there.
Despite having lived there for years.
Despite having … ah, but you get the point, I think?
A friend of mine once told me, yes, but there’s always those “small” differences even if the accent is good . . .
And while he may be right, yours truly showed up in the U.S. at the callow age of 17 and quickly found out that I had to do one thing in order to get people to understand what I was saying — that being to ADAPT.
Be what I’m called so often. A chameleon.
And this was driven home rather rudely by the fact that I was brushing my teeth one day in the dorms, and the guy next to me (our “Resident Assistant” for the floor) came up to me and say hey.
I replied back in the same vein.
HE shook his head in amazement.
“What you saying, man”
I repeated myself.
He started at me, shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs.
“What are you saying, dude? What language are you speaking?”
(along with a look of sheer BEWILDERMENT, if that makes any sense!)
And … THAT was the point I decided I had to mould my accent into something more recognizable, hehe, at least if I wanted to get along with no problems in the drawly American South.
And back to my Uncle — — when I met him, his comment was “he’s done it in less than 4 months. We haven’t been able to do it for years!” (w.r.t accents etc).
And now … back to my buddy saying what he did. . .
Now, you may think that doing what I did was no big deal. That it was something “natural” for me.
Well, try going to a foreign country my friend — and try picking up the accent almost instantly. It ain’t easy, especially if you’re young and haven’t ever been exposed to different cultures before. Culture shock galore if I might say so, and when you throw drawls and accents in there, as well as an incredibly foreign environment (that now feels like and IS home in many regards, hehe) … well, let me just say it ain’t as easy as you might think!
The Marines have this saying “improvise, adapt and overcome”, and without knowing it, that is precisely what I was doing back then in that instance.
I’d add on … “in an exceptional manner”. . . !
In other words, do it well or not at all.
And truth be told, all the adapting and overcoming at the end of the day won’t matter until and unless you’ve got solid proof and results to back it up, my friend.
And said results come from being exceptional … day in and day out.
Or, doing the small things well day in and day out until the snowball effect ensures the small things morph into big things and BECOME exceptional things which you then do day in and day out.
Virat Kohli, probably the most successful cricketer of our times was once refused selection to a junior level despite having loads of talent (and despite having results as well to show for it).
The selectors wanted his Dad to cough up a bribe, and being the man didn’t, Virat wasn’t selected.
He was crushed.
He cried.
He was depressed.
But he SHOOK himself out of it, and quickly realized a truism at the age of 17 that I myself did …
That being, in order to be successful, you have to do EXCEPTONIAL things.
Achieve EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS.
Get results that FORCE the world to sit up and take note of you.
And until that happens, my friend, it just ain’t gonna happen for you.
Now, some of you reading might be thinking “Well, I’m not exceptional. How do I make this happen”
Well, good news my friend.
One, there is a reason I titled the article what I have. Self explanatory. We ALL have the seedling of genius within us — whether we CHOOSE to give it a vehicle to express said genius and let it BLOOM (once we find our calling) is entirely up to US.
And as for those that chime in saying “what is our calling” — well, wrong question.
All I can say is this … if you’re part of the vast majority of people out there, what you’re doing for a living is probably NOT what you’re cut out for — — or what you TRULY enjoy doing … or, “what your calling is” (if I might put it that way).
If it doesn’t inspire you to do it day and day out without seeing any real results (much like a seed planted takes time to germinate, so do actions), then it ain’t your calling.
If you don’t think about it first thing in the morning when you wake up — — it aint your calling.
If you don’t get into nasty (verbal, of course!) fights with friends and family over it (assuming you TELL them about your aspirations and goals) and their caustic comments to the lines of “you’ll never make it” — — well then I’m sorry, but it ain’t your calling.
If you’re not wiling to go through hell, high water and BRIMSTONE to GET IT — nay, GRAB it with BOTH hands, it ain’t your calling.
And so forth.
If you’re not PERSISTENT — it ain’t your calling. Again, and so forth!
A good exercise to do at this point might be this.
Ask yourself this — what do you really WANY from life?
Really, really want (and no, saying “more money” doesn’t cut it — I want SPECIFICS in every regard).
Amazingly enough when you ask people this question, they don’t KNOW the answer to this question!
And it’s so easy to find what you really really want that I wonder why more people ain’t doing it, my friend.
Make a list of what you don’t want — truly don’t want — truly cannot tolerate. Lets say 10 things.
Put it on paper.
Then turn that sheet of paper around, and write the very opposite of those things.
And bingo! You’ve got what you want right there.
Yes, you can laugh at this exercise as being “too easy”, but believe me now and trust me later, the vast majority of adults out there don’t have a clear idea, let alone PICTURE … in their minds of what they do want out of life.
And after determining what you DO want, BANISH the thought of “they said I couldn’t do it”, or any self doubt etc that might creep in.
There are literally NO LIMITS to what you can achieve if you put your mind to it and back it with persistence, my friend.
As a former boss of mine Jim once told me (during a particularly rough annual review which according to him should have made me feel like I was being “nailed to the wall”) …
“The sky is the limit for you, Rahul, if … “
Now, I don’t agree at all with his review, but that isn’t the point here. The point is, we can ALL do it. We ALL have the ability to do it, and those that say they don’t are simply making EXCUSES for their incompetence and laziness — nothing else.
Sorry if that offends anyone, but it’s TRUE.
No, you don’t need “background” to do it. You don’t need “connections” to achieve the impossible. You don’t need education (it helps, but education hardly teaches you what you need to know in the school of LIFE). And so forth.
Henry Ford, poor and uneducated dreamed of something that was considered undoable at the time i.e. a “machine on wheels”.
He went to work, backed it with persistence, and now evidence of his achievements BELT THE ENTIRE EARTH!
And the same thing holds true for ANY ACHIEVER down the ages. Could be Edison, the Wright brothers, Ford, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos … or anyone you’d say is a true achiever. They all have certain things in common my friend.
They weren’t born exceptional.
They didn’t have a silver spoon to feed ‘em.
THEY MADE THEMSELVES EXCEPTIONAL!
Second, and more importantly, it isn’t that hard to be exceptional or do exceptional things.
Not as hard as you’d think, anyway . . .
Back when I got into the best shape of my life (something that people have ALL noticed) I realized I was going to have to channel MY INNER MAN in order to even come close to doing so.
And events in my life lined up accordingly.
First, the ONE event that made me REALLY get emotional about it. I’ve written about this before, of course . . .
And then the ACTIONS that came from that event. Things I had never done before, and was amazed I could DO, to be honest.
The human mind literally has NO limitations, my friend, as Napoelon Hill once famously said, and whether that means Rahul Mookerjee the caveman waking up at 530 to climb hills multiple times, and do so again in the evening, or bang out 500 pushups a day religiously, or whatever it took … or write all day long … I realized the SAME DAMN thing a long time ago.
The spoils in life — and fitness — go to the EXCEPTIONAL, my friend.
And in terms of workouts, it’s the same damned way.
If you don’t workout in an exceptional manner, you ain’t gonna get nowhere real quick, if at all.
Other hand, if you do . . .
The choice, my friend is up to YOU!
And lest you think this applies to fitness alone, well, THINK — again.
Think several times.
Back when I wrote all the books for another business venture of mine, I barely did anything but WRITE.
Write, write and write more.
It was a writing fueled BINGE quite literally, and other than the brief times I’d take “out of my schedule” to fit in a quick workout, there was literally nothing else going on in my life other than writing.
I was quite literally, a horse with no BLINDERS ON . . .
And I banged out output that most people would be hard pressed to produce within months, if not YEARS — in weeks, or (and this wasn’t uncommon at all — and isn’t when you’re writing in the flow) — DAYS.
And yes, the books SELL (for those that are wondering).
I’ll reveal more details later, but for now, how I did it holds no mysteries — or it really shouldn’t, my friend.
I buckled down — and GOT TO WORK — and did exactly what the tagline in 0 Excuses Fitness tells you to do — which is this — JUST DO IT.
As they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Take one step. Take another. Take another, and before you know it, you’ll be so far along the path to SUCCESS at whatever you choose that you’ll be wondering why you ever thought you couldn’t do it!
Last, but not least, a key element to avoid along this journey will be the naysayers, negative influences, and those that constantly (consciously or unconsciously) try and bring you DOWN, saying you “cant do it”.
Saying “you don’t have what it takes to become successful”.
Making jokes about your lineage (on some occasions, hehe, and if you’re an avid reader of 0 Excuses Fitness communications, you KNOW what I BE talking about in that regard) and how “someone with that lineage and background could never ever succeed at anything”.
Remember this, my friend — as Twain once said, the main with an idea is considered a CRANK until that idea SUCCEEDS.
And while it’s best to NOT tell others at all of our deepest aspirations and goals (before you achieve them), the fact remains that at times, others will come to know.
It’s like a bucket of crabs. As that one crab tries to climb out, the rest will ALL try and pull it back into the bucket . . .
By any means necessary, and believe me, in this case, friends and family are often (wittingly or unwittingly) the BIGGEST culprits.
And that’s why another key truism to remember here is what Napoelon Hill once famously said.
Tell the world what you’re going to do, but SHOW IT FIRST!
In other words, actions are what COUNT in this here GAME of life — not mere talk — and if you can make the actions exceptional, so much so the better for YOU.
You get what you put into it, my friend. There ain’t no two ways around that.
Last, but NOT LEAST — lots of people see the SUCCESS, but they don’t see the HARD WORK that goes on behind the success.
They don’t see the GRIND.
They don’t see the daily STRUGGLE the man or woman is facing.
They don’t see the constant criticism, and carping by family members, and they don’t feel the PRESSURE the person has to BREAK OUT OF THE mould (or the bucket of CRABS) and BE SOMETHING in life on their OWN TERMS.
As Ben Settle, world famous copywriter (now) said in one of his daily blog posts, everyone sees the success, but NOT everyone sees the STRUGGLE and hard work that goes into CREATING that success.
In his own words “that ain’t sexy”, is it now.
And I can relate … and how. And that’s another reason why that above Hill saying is something you should take to heart, and EMBED into your daily life — and work as well.
Do so and combine that mindset with exceptional ACTIONS (even if those actions are routinely castigated, put down, or you feel they’re not worthy of note), and watch the SEAS of your life PART before your very eyes.
Best,
Rahul Mookerjee
P.S. — I’ve said my part, but I forgot to include the link where you can pick up the guidelines for what will form the base (and a solid one!) for the MOST exceptional workouts you’ll ever have in your life — https://0excusesfitness.com/0excusesfitnessystem/
P.S #2 — If your kids are driving you insane during the lockdown or cant sleep until the wee hours of the morning, well, here is the course that will have them burning off their energy as they should be — https://0excusesfitness.com/kiddie-fitness/
P.P.S — Rave reviews are pouring in for Advanced Hill Training. Truly an EXCEPTIONAL course — check it out here — https://0excusesfitness.com/advanced-hill-training/
