Why The "Path To Success" Is Not Obvious

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The paths to success are not obvious and counterintuitive.
Look back at your own life. Think about those things that made the difference, the critical little thing that happened. Whatever it was that took you to the next level, and put them all together and look at them and then say, "Was that an obvious step? Was that an intuitive step? Is that something that most people would have done?" The answer is almost always no.
It's intuitive to focus on your own needs in any situation and to focus on what you're getting. It's counterintuitive to put all your focus on the needs of the other person in the situation. In fact, even the people I know who are the best at it still have to flip it on and really work at it to do a good job.
It's intuitive to try and convince your customer to buy what you're selling. Here's what I'm selling; you should buy it and here are the reasons. It's counterintuitive and not obvious to find a group of customers that has a need and say, "What do you need that someone isn't fulfilling?", and then create it.
It's intuitive to humans to be the smart one or the important one in a relationship; to talk about themselves, to talk about their accomplishments. It's counterintuitive to let the other person be the smart one, to let the other person be the important one. It's intuitive in business for most entrepreneurs to pursue ideas that they like and to just keep sticking with them and working on them. It's counterintuitive to create an idea and then emotionally detach from it. Put it out into the marketplace and measure everything that happens. Then judge it on its own merit.
It's intuitive to spend and consume what you have right now. The non-obvious, and very counterintuitive thing to do is to reinvest and allow compounding interest do its trick.
It's intuitive to think right now, in the moment, short term. It's counterintuitive to think long term. It's intuitive to multitask, do a lot of things at once. It's counterintuitive to focus on one thing, bring it to completion, focus on the next thing, and bring it to completion. It's intuitive to try to do everything you're doing in business well. It's counterintuitive to do one thing way better than well and don't worry too much about the other stuff. Outsource it, do whatever you have to do to just get it done.
It's intuitive to try to take advantage of and try to grab every opportunity. It's counterintuitive to let all of those opportunities go by and don't get distracted by them, very counterintuitive. It's intuitive to let situations, problems, things that go wrong, loss, upset you and get to your emotions.
It's counterintuitive to recognize whenever there's loss, or friction, or problem or drama, and realize that's there's going to be all kinds of opportunity in there. And that you're getting a brief window to look at how you're system and your people, and other people, how everyone's behaving and learn all kinds of stuff. It's very counterintuitive to see loss, or friction, or problem as an amazing opportunity, very counterintuitive.
We humans have these weird things that happen in our mind that prevent us from getting what we want. What I need you to do is open up. I need you to open your mind a little bit and not get too trapped in where your mind automatically goes during this program. A lot of the stuff we're going to talk about is counterintuitive. A lot of this material will appear difficult or complex, but I'll walk you through the steps.
Leonardo Da Vinci had a nice quote. He said, "Every now and then go away. Have a little relaxation. For when you come back to your work, your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away, because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance. Lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen." He was talking about altitude there. I don't know how he knew about it; how he copied my thing back then. But he seemed to have a sense for the counterintuitive.
The way I sum that up is get altitude. You've got to zoom out. You've got to get out of your perspective.