DON’T EXPECT MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM DOING THE MINIMUM

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

Going on, everybody? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. This is Chris Albert. And today, I'm gonna be talking to you a little bit about setting standards for yourself. This is really important because when you're in the military, you have a a pretty clear definition of standards.

Right? So if you're in the Marine Corps, for example, the Marine Corps pretty much lays out exactly what they expect in a good Marine. Right? They lay out what they expect in in an outstanding marine. And they they lay out the things that that you could do wrong, and that could put you on the bad side of the marine corps.

All that stuff is pretty much laid out pretty clearly right from the beginning, and the same is true of all military services. You know, the the the army, the navy, the air force, they all have standards that they expect the average member to uphold. When you get out into the civilian world, the standards aren't aren't quite as clear. Like, you know that you shouldn't break the law. Right?

And most of us when we're in the civilian world, we think, okay. Well, as long as we're not breaking the law, then we're good. Right? We pay our taxes. We walk on the right side of the street, drive on the right side of the street, follow all the traffic laws, you know, don't hurt anybody, don't kill anybody, and we'll be good.

But the thing is that just kinda sets a minimum for us. Right? It just kinda sets a minimum for us. So what else is there out there? Well, a lot of us think, hey, we go to school.

Right? We get a degree. And once we get that degree, we go and and we get a job. Right? And and we go to work every day, and we put our hours in.

And and then we come home, and we we, you know, try to be good to our families, and and and we think that's enough. Right? But there's an inherent problem there, And the inherent problem is that everything that I'm describing, it's a minimum. Right? It's a minimum.

It's a minimum for living what we would consider an adequate life. And then one of the problems that happens with with just doing the minimum is that you think you're doing enough. Right? You're you're going to work. You're putting your hours in.

You're you're you're trying to put money away. You're trying to to do everything right, but things just don't seem to be happening for you. And every time you sign on to social media, you're looking at at some dork who's sitting in front of a fancy car or sitting in front of a fancy house. And then we start comparing ourselves. We start comparing ourselves in terms of success.

And if you have the wrong mindset, what starts to happen is is you start to say, well, I go to work every day. I I work my butt off. You know, I went to school. I served in the in the military. Maybe you didn't go to school.

Maybe you just served and maybe you're just working hard. But then you start to say, why can't that happen for me? Why can't I get that fancy car? Why can't I have that awesome life? Why can't I live the life that I want to live?

And this is a trap. And the reason why it's a trap is because when you start to compare yourself to other people, just based off of what you see on social media, or or maybe you're not looking on social media, maybe you're just you know of somebody who's really successful. You start to fall into that mentality of saying, well, I'm awesome. I did enough. Right?

I I I've worked so hard. I've I've done all these things, and and the world's just against me. The world is lining up, and it's keeping me from getting to a point to where I can achieve the success that I want. And the reason why that's that's that's such a trap is because gets you into the thinking that, well, things just aren't possible for you. And that sets you into a mentality of, well, number one, continuing to do the minimum and expecting that you're gonna get more from it.

And number two, putting you into a state where you're not feeling any gratitude at all or or any, appreciation for what you do have. Now, gonna lay out a few different truths for you, and I want you to understand that this is all out of love. I'm not trying to single anybody out. I'm trying to give you guys a little bit of a wake up call. But the first thing is this.

We live in an amazing time. Right? We live in an amazing time. If you look at the history of mankind, you know, even as little as as fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, it was full of war. Right?

It was full of destruction, poverty, disease, and, yeah, we fought wars. Our generation has fought wars. Think about World War two. Think about World War one. Think about the impact that that had.

I mean, if you look at the first battles of of World War one, I think I think the French lost something like 400,000 people in the first week of World War one. I mean, that's insane. We couldn't think of that today. We really couldn't. And yet, here we are, you know, we fought our battles, but but we're here and we're complaining.

Right? Think about the Great Depression. How many people were impoverished? Think about the fact that that most women, up until about a hundred years ago, a lot of women didn't survive past past childbirth. Right?

And and and so a lot of women just just died in their thirties. Think about the life expectancy and and what it is now. Think about how long you could live. Think about the fact that, you know, even though you might live in a small house or a small apartment, what you live in right now is a veritable palace compared to what somebody was living in in, say, eighteenth century England. Right?

Or in, you know, up until the industrial revolution, people were living in squalor. Right? There was no middle class. And yet, we sit here with our computers, our iPhones, our houses, our hot and cold running water, our our our flushable toilets, our grocery stores, our refrigerators, you know, sitting here with with the ability to go buy snacks or or the ability to to have a hot meal tonight. And we sit here and we complain.

So number one, I want you to, no matter what you're going through right now, think about what kind of gratitude you could feel for living in this time and place. And it is an amazing time. And it is an amazing place. The United States Of America is a beacon for the world. A beacon of freedom, but also a beacon of progress.

A beacon of economic power. We have so many different things on our shelves because of our industry. We have such an amazing and diverse society where, of course, we don't always agree. And, of course, we have a a major political division going on right now. But America is still America.

Those of you who who served this country, you're still out there. Those of you who love this country, you're still out there too. And just because we hear on the media that a few idiots are out there claiming that this country is is horrible, which I can't understand for any reason why they would think so. Just because they're there doesn't mean that people don't love America. There's a lot of people who do, and you should too, and you should be grateful for being here.

So what's the other thing? The other thing is this. You gotta take a good, long, hard look at what you've done. Right? Who have you impacted?

Right? If you're working and you're going to work every single day and you're doing your job and you're just getting your job done, well, you have done the bare minimum. Right? But if you go to work every day and irregardless of of what you're doing, I don't care if you're you're working the fries at at McDonald's. I don't care if you're you're pumping gas at a gas station in New Jersey.

I don't care if you're you're a cashier. But ask yourself, have I done everything I can to impact those around me? Have have I put the effort in to learn about how the company I work for runs? Have I have I put creative time into thinking about how I could help this business to run more efficiently? Right?

And that is something if you do any of that, that's gonna help you to rise above anybody who's in your peer group. And that's what you need to focus on. You know, Bill Gates said a job at McDonald's isn't a bad job. A job at McDonald's is an opportunity. And it's the truth.

It's the darn right truth because if you look at it like it's it's just something I'm settling for, then you're putting yourself into a position of of, you know, mental poverty. But if you look at it as an opportunity, it's it's a foothold. It's a start. And you could do some amazing things. I've known a bunch of people who've who started out working for McDonald's, and honestly, they've worked their way up, and and they own a they own a restaurant now.

And I'm not saying, you know, that that that anything about what career choice you should make. I'm just saying that there's opportunity in everything. The next thing you need to do is you not only need to to to really think about yourself and and and what you're doing, you need to start studying people who've become successful. Because when you're in a position where where you're feeling sorry for yourself, you tend to think that all successful people are dishonest, and that they're just lucky, and that they're just they they just fell in the right place at the right time. But if you actually read biographies, you see that that a lot of their success, of course, is a part of it, but a lot of their success is because they were working their butts off.

They faced failures. They overcame them. A lot of them, you know, faced failures over and over and over again. And then they got themselves to the point to where failure wasn't a problem for them. They learned from it.

Right? They they they they started welcoming failure. So you need to start reading some good biographies. You need to start seeing what people have actually done to become successful. And what that's gonna do is it's going to allow you to see what it takes because that's a big part of of what's going on right now.

People just don't know what it takes. If they knew from the beginning, if if somebody taught them, then they probably have a better handle on it. The fact is they don't teach this stuff in school. They teach you to do what you have to do to get the passing grade, so that eventually you can go get a job, so that you can eventually go to work every single day, come home every night, and and be an employee. But it's your job to figure out how you turn that position you're in, no matter what you have, no matter what you're doing, into an opportunity to change your life.

And that's what I got for today, guys. Hope this all makes sense. You know, I try to put stuff like this out there so that it helps you. Because I know there's people out there who are in a bad position. I know there's people out there who think their their lives aren't going anywhere.

And I know a lot of you out there are brothers who serve this country proudly and honorably. And you owe it to yourselves to make things happen here. You owe it to yourselves to live an amazing life. And you owe it to the guys who can't be here to take advantage of this amazing opportunity to make it happen. If you haven't been to the Warrior Soul podcast before, like I said, my name is Chris Albert.

The purpose of this podcast is to help veterans, to help veterans to understand the opportunities that are in front of them. The reason why we do it is because over the past decade and a half, we've been in a bad state in the veteran community. If you're not a veteran, doesn't mean that you can't listen to the show. Anything that we talk about here could also apply to your own success. And all we ask in return is that you let people know that we exist.

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Thank you all for listening. Now get out there and live your best lives while you can.