The Event That Woke Me Up… by {Rob Moore}

It was June 25, 1995, the day of my high school graduation. I was excited that school was finally over. During the ceremony, I noticed something going on that I believe nobody else in the audience was paying any special attention to.

My class consisted of 154 students and I noticed that approximately 10-15 students got to sit on the stage during the entire ceremony while the rest of the class had to sit with the audience. At the time, I didn’t understand why this was so but I did know that they were all pretty smart students.

When the time came for us to get our diplomas those students were called last. As soon as the principal called the first student from this small group and mentioned their grade point average which was in the nineties. I had figured out what had been going on. It became obvious to me that all of those students were on the stage because they had the highest grades in the class.

As the names continued to be called, the grades got higher and higher and I began to feel disappointed with what I had accomplished up until that point in school. Next, I heard a ninety-nine point three and then a ninety-nine point seven. I thought to myself, how can these grades be possible? Then something happened that I thought was impossible. The final student that was called, the Valedictorian had a GPA of 100%.

I knew at that moment that I was sleeping through school and that I could have done a lot better than I actually did. I realized that this student had to get a 100% on every quiz, every project, every test, and every exam in order to get that grade. In fact, all of those students had to work extremely hard in order to get those kinds of results.

While I was giving it 80%, these students were giving it 100%. While I was trying to fit in with the crowd, these students were proud to be a part of a different crowd. While I was just trying to just get through high school, these students were trying to get into college.

The point of the story…

You can’t become successful in anything by simply SHOWING UP physically in your career, business, relationship, or your life on a daily basis. It’s happening everyday to a majority of people and they don’t realize it.

Famous film director, comedian, writer, actor, and musician by the name of Woody Allen said that “Eighty percent of success is showing up”.

I believe that…

“Simply Showing Up Is Not Enough, You Have To Be Present As Well Spiritually, Intellectually, & Emotionally!” – Rob Moore

It Takes Action To Succeed! by {Rob Moore}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFUX2JbSSds

Control Your Thinking, Control Your Future! by {Rob Moore}

Invest In Yourself! by {Rob Moore}

I want to start this section off with a quote by a man by the name of Jim Rohn. He’s one of the top motivational speakers in the entire world. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us. He died a little less than a year ago due to old age. He shared a quote with the world that I believe is very powerful. When I first heard it, it hit me pretty hard and it stuck with me then and it will stick with me for the rest of my life and that quote was, “Formal education will make you a living but self education will make you a fortune.” 

Before listening to Jim Rohn on several occasions, I never 100% understood the value of what he said. I believed in my mind that reading books was a waste of time. That reading certain kind of books could be a waste of time but I believed that reading books in general was a waste of time. I didn’t even know anything about purchasing audio book programs to help with the pain of reading for me.

I didn’t even know that there were an over abundance of people out there in the world that make a ton of money, are extremely successful and shared how they did it on audio programs, DVDs and in books. I didn’t know that until I was introduced to Network Marketing. This section is more about the importance of investing in yourself because before I really understood what this was all about, I was misled in a couple of instances. I got involved in a couple of coaching programs for all the wrong reasons. I spent a lot of money on these coaching programs for all the wrong reasons and since I spent all of this money for all the wrong reasons, they did not work out at all for me.

I invested $5,000 in one coaching program. I invested another $5,000 in another coaching program. I remember investing $6,000 in another coaching program and $2500 in another coaching program. Then, I invested $9,000 in yet another coaching program and got very little return on all of those investments, once again all the wrong reasons. Since I had all those different instances where I spent all this money and I didn’t get anything in return, I believed that coaching programs were bad. I didn’t want to invest in the coaching programs anymore at all.

My whole mindset really shifted when I met a man by the name of James Malinchak. Now, James Malinchak is a very successful speaker. A lot of people don’t know who he is but he makes more money speaking than most people that are known do. Now, he spends a lot of his time coaching people on how to do what he has done in the speaking industry. He is the one person in this world that is responsible for shifting me out of the poverty conscious mindset into the prosperity mindset.

I attended his boot camp and learned a lot about the difference between successful thinking and poor thinking. One of the biggest that I learned from James was when he said, “Investing in yourself, is the most important thing that you can do in your entire life”. It’s very similar to what Jim Rohn was saying when he said, “That self education will make you a fortune.” James said that, “You’ve got to invest in yourself if you want to be successful.” After everything I’ve been through in the past, I was scared to invest in coaching programs. I didn’t want to lose anymore money.

During that boot camp, James offered to coach some people and I didn’t even consider it because even though he did shift my mindset, the shift was just beginning. It didn’t shift completely so I didn’t invest. I didn’t have the money to put up into a coaching program to not get a return because that’s what I believe would happen again. I have to tell you, that stuck with me for a very long time.

I kept on thinking about what both Jim and James said and these individuals were making a ton of money. I also realized that when a successful person is telling you to do something, you don’t really want to reject it. You really don’t want to fight it. You need to just be more open to listening and taking action. They are where they are for a reason.

So when I was in that boot camp, another gentleman by the name of Jonathan Sprinkles, got up on the stage and was offering another boot camp. His boot camp was all about learning how to give spectacular presentations. He did some things on the stage as a sample that made me say, “You know what?  I got to get to his boot camp to learn more about how to present on the platform”.  

I went to Jonathan’s boot camp with the intent of just going there for three days just to learn how to present better from the platform and Jonathan did the same thing as James. He was offering a coaching program. He gave us a great example of why it would benefit us to be coached by him.

He had two people come up to the front of the room and he gave them both, fake money. He told one person the path that they would have to take to get out of the door of the seminar. Then he told the other individual, path that he needed to take to get out of the seminar and whoever got out of the seminar first was going to be successful first.

He would then tell each of them how many steps to take and each step represented a certain amount of money being spent on a specific speaker activity related to building a successful speaking business. The whole moral of this little exercise that he did was to difference between somebody trying to become successful in the speaking business without coaching versus somebody trying to be successful in the speaking business with him being their coach.

I already thought about the amount of money that I have already wasted trying to build my speaking career on my own. The amount of trial and error can be costly when you’re trying to do anything on your own. I believed and it was probably true that I was going to eventually run out of money before I reached my goal. That really stuck in my mind and made a lot of sense to me. That situation stuck on my mind more than anything in that entire boot camp. I didn’t even really pay full attention to the rest of the boot camp because of this. But at the same time, I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the $10,000 to give Jonathan to coach me. I didn’t have it. I couldn’t afford to put this money up and not get a return.

But you know what?  I thought about what Jim said. I thought about what James said. I thought about what Jonathan said and it all made sense. I said, “You know what? I can either spend the money now or I’m going to spend it later. I’d rather spend the money now and be guaranteed success, have somebody right by my side to help me get where I want to go versus wasting all my time getting where I want to go without the help and wasting a lot of money. Not to mention possibly running out of money.” 

I made the decision to coach with Jonathan and let me tell you, for every 5 minutes that I spend with this guy, either in person or on the phone, I believe he takes six months learning curve away every time. Just by spending that little bit of time, I believe he takes that much of the timeframe of me getting somewhere off. It has been the best and most difficult decision I had ever made towards my entrepreneurial success.

Now, I don’t even think twice to invest in something that I know I’m going to get a return on. The cost isn’t what matters, it the results that you’re going to get that matters. When it comes to an event by Jonathan Sprinkles, I have no problem investing.  When Jonathan comes out with a product, I have no problem investing in it. When James comes out with a boot camp, I have no problem investing in it. When James comes out with a product, I have no problem investing in it because I know and truly understand that these guys know what they’re doing. I know that I am going to get a huge return on my investment as long as I get off of my butt and do something. I didn’t have these feelings towards prior programs and that some of the reason why they didn’t work for me.

So the message here is, invest in yourself, become an investor. Don’t just spend your money on material things like cars, clothes, video games, coffee, CDs and things that will eventually have no value. The best money that you can spend is on yourself – meaning on things that are going to enhance your mind and things that are going to enhance your skill set. Buy things that are going to shorten your learning curve. The biggest, best investment that you can make is in your self – period.

So invest in the books, invest in the CDs, invest in the coaching, invest in the seminars and just keep investing in these things that can build your mindset and your skill set and before you know it, you’ll be making so much money that you can buy whatever you want to buy – period, space, space.

Expect Excellence! by {Rob Moore}

If you were to interview any of the associates that ever worked for me when I was a seafood manager, they would all pretty much tell you the same thing. They would tell you things like, “Rob really cares about his people. He’s always going to take the time to listen to you. He’s always going to try to accommodate you to the best of his ability. His department has a disciplined environment. He’s a great role model. He’s an extremely hard worker. He knows his job very well and he has very high standards.

Now, the high standards part is what I really want to focus on and I want to emphasize. You see, because I had very high standards within my department, I was able to build an extremely strong team.

The last store I was in before I got promoted to a store manager trainee position was actually in a store out in Middletown, New York. I was in that store for two and half years. When I first stepped into that store, it was a very rough department. There were lots of issues going on and a lot of problems that I had to clean up. I went in there and I built it into something that became very strong and profitable. So strong that I was able to take the people that worked there and I was able to train them to be able to run the department as if they were a seafood manager.

Now, I only had one person at that time, that just did not want to get on board and he decided to go in a different direction with his career. This happens sometimes but everybody else stayed with me. As the years progressed, a few more additions came to the team because we grew sales and they were all eager to learn. They really enjoyed being there and another thing that I failed to mention was, I was very strict. In other words, I expected excellence from each and every associate that worked for me.

Even though I was strict, had high standards, and expected excellence, people were always begging to get in my department. They wanted to work in that kind of environment because developed leaders. So what I did was train all the part timers, trained my full-timer, and trained my to all run the department as if I was there all the time. And because I did this, it didn’t matter whether I was in the store or not. It didn’t matter if I took an extra day off. It didn’t matter if I went on vacation. The department was going to run the same way as if I was there at a very high level because of what I built.

Let me just tell you about why this is so important and how this really paid off for us. During my last six months in that store, I applied for a position to become a store manager trainee and the position.  was actually taking a lot of courses with the company on personal development to help build my management skills. My goal was to take everything that they offered to make myself better.

While I was waiting to find out whether or not I got this job, I went to Schenectady, New York. I want to take two classes that were being held back to back. I had to stay overnight and everything. When I walked in for the first class I saw the program director for the program that I just applied for sitting in his office.

When he saw me, pulled me into the office and basically told me that finally, after six months, I was selected for this position. So I was like, “Great, fantastic!” He said he already talked to the seafood vice president. He already told him that I can stay for another month and then, I had to come out. So I was like, “Great, fantastic!” Went into my class, didn’t think anymore about it, just extremely happy that I got the position. During lunch time, we ate lunch inside and usually once we get done eating, people like to go stand outside the building for the rest of the lunch period.

So, we’re standing out there, just getting some fresh air and just talking. Then this guy rolls up in a little Jeep and rolls down the window. I looked from a distance and I said to myself, “You know what, that looks like the seafood vice president.”  Then he looked at me and flagged me to come over to the car. It was him. As I got up to the car, he just wanted to congratulate me for getting the position. He said that he was very unhappy to see me go because I was one of his strongest department managers in his department. He was very happy that I got the position because there has been nobody in all the history in the Seafood Department that was able to go from seafood to a store manager position prior to me.

So our conversation was pretty much done. He moved on to do what he had to do and then I went back to what I was doing. Then the next day, I went back to the training center for day two to take my second class. When we went on our first break, around 10 o’ clock in the morning, I called my department. I just wanted to check in, see how things were going and my assistant manager was actually off that day.

So I was talking to one of the associates in the department and said, “Hey, how are things going?”  He said, “Uhm, pretty good, pretty good. Everything’s good.” I said, “Great, fantastic!” Hung up with him, went back to class and while I was in class probably about an hour or two later, my phone just kept going off during class. I said to myself, “What in the world can this guy want? I just talked to him this morning and just checked in”. It was very rare that I would get constant phone calls like that from the department.

So, I ended up getting worried and I walked out of the class to make the phone call to find out what in the world was going on. I called and he said, “Hey, I just want to let you know that everybody’s saying that the seafood vice president is coming here.” And I said, “What are you talking about? That cannot be possible. I just talked to him yesterday. We were just talking about how I got the position. He congratulated me and he didn’t say absolutely anything about coming down to the store for a surprise visit”.

Then I said, “I think that’s very rare. I don’t even think that’s possible that he’s coming.” Then he said, “Listen. I’m telling you. He’s coming. The store manager says he’s coming. I got other seafood departments calling me, telling me that he’s coming.” So then, I started to believe it.

I then was a nervous wreck because I knew a lot about this guy. He had a history of going into seafood departments and if things aren’t 100% perfect, he rips people apart. I’ve seen him go in departments, things not be right and then seen seafood managers lose their jobs. I’ve seen seafood managers get written up. I’ve seen seafood managers get suspended. I have never ever heard of this guy having many good visits. There was one bad encounter I had with him and there was one good visit he had with me when I was working in another store but I still know how high his standards are. So I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t even think.

So, I just gave him some pointers and some things that he’s going to look for, just make sure we’re good to go. So, I hung up the phone and was thinking about leaving the class because I was so nervous about my job. I didn’t know what the department looked like because I hadn’t been there in two days. I knew my people were good at what they do but this was the seafood vice president that coming to inspect the place. I decided to just stick it out. So I was like, “By the time I drive all the way there, he would have came and gone. I’m just going to have to just wait it out”.

When lunch time came, I was so worried about my department that I didn’t eat lunch. I went straight to my phone, called the department, and wanted to know what was the update was. I wanted to know if he got to the store or not. When I called, the same the associate that I talked to earlier in the day answered and said, “Oh, things are fantastic”.

Then I said, “Okay, that’s great. Did Mike get there yet?”

He said, “Yeah, he’s here right now. Matter of fact, do you want to talk to him”.

I said, “Of course. Yeah, I want to talk to him. I just want to get this being over with”. 

The Vice President gets on the phone and says, “Hello?”  And I said, “Hey, Mike. How’s everything going?”  Then he said, “Oh, things are wonderful” in a very happy voice. I was shocked and now able to breathe. I felt a whole bunch of relief. He was telling me how this was one of the best visits he’s ever had and he was just blown away at the fact that I wasn’t there that day. I wasn’t there the prior day and my assistant was off that day as well.

I had part-time associates running the department and then he said, “This department looks the best out of all the departments I ever visited in my entire career”. I was just blown away by that comment. The moral of the story is this. The only reason why this was able to happen is because I expected excellence from all of the associates in my department. I expected excellence from myself. I expected excellence from my assistant. I expected excellence from my full timer. I expect excellence from every single part-time associate in my department. I expected them to be able to think, act and react like I would, if I was there. Those high standards, those high expectations, and that demonstration of excellence, got us major recognition from the Seafood Vice President.

When I tell people that story from other seafood departments, they just could not believe it because they knew the reputation of that Vice President as well. They know the high standards that he has. They know what will happen to their positions and jobs if things were not right. I was not even there. He didn’t give us anything to work on. He was just that happy.

So when you expect excellence, you don’t have to worry about there being problems. When you expect excellence, while everybody else is sweating, being stressed out, getting tired when times are rough, you’re laughing and having fun all because you expected excellence. So, are you expecting excellence in your life?  Think about the benefits. Where can you start expecting excellence in your life right now?

Step Out Of Who You Are! by {Rob Moore}

The first time I learned this lesson was my freshman year of high when I tried out for the Junior Varsity basketball team.  I was always interested in the sport of basketball but played very little up until this point. I had two very close friends that I hung out with all of the time and basketball wasn’t one of there favorite sports. I was very interested but hardly played because of them.

When I got to high school that first year, I started to realize even more things that we didn’t have in common but basketball was the one thing that I wanted to play. I had to choose between hanging out with my friends and playing ball. I chose to play ball. They thought I was crazy and all of my other friends thought I was crazy to try out for the team but I did it anyway.

I was quiet, shy, and had no basketball skills at the time and I’m trying out for the team. As I look back now, I would say the say thing everyone else was saying but I disagreed back then. The first day of practice came and went. I didn’t do well but I wasn’t the only one who didn’t do well.

They started cutting people on the second day and I was not one of the casualties. I actually made it all the way to the end of week and the coach was going to make the final cuts that Friday. From the moment I stepped on the court on the first day of try-outs I knew I was not good enough.

There were some people dunking, I was seeing fancy dribbling, and it was clear who the stars were. I didn’t even know what a lay-up was and I couldn’t do anything with my left hand. I know the only reason why I was able to make it to the last day of cuts was because what I lacked in skill I made up in hustle.

Well, the last day of try-outs was over and the coach said that he was going to call the names of the players that made the team and if your name wasn’t called, you were cut. My name was never called and I was very disappointed. I just wanted to prove everyone wrong by making the team. I didn’t care if I played in a game or not. I just wanted to be right for once.

I wanted this so bad that I approached the coach and asked him what I needed to improve on to be able to make the team next year. I was willing to do anything. Even if it met practicing all year and all summer to do it. After I asked him that, he could clearly see the hunger in my eyes and offered me a management position with the team so I could practice with them as well.

I accepted and not too long down the road of that same year, I was offered an official spot on the team. I achieved my goal and proved everyone wrong but I had to step out of who I was in order to make it happen. I had to change. I had to ignore the negative responses that were coming from all of my friends. I had to walk away from my best friends.

I had to do all of these things because what I wanted for my life was far more important than what others thought. Out of the twenty to thirty players that got cut, I was the only one who didn’t accept getting cut. But because I was willing to step out of who I was, I got a golden opportunity.

I believed that I was the worst player in the entire gym on the first day of try-outs and I really didn’t have a clue of what I was getting myself into to. Instead of whining, complaining, making excuses, listening to my peers, and giving up, I did the best I could everyday in practice and it paid off in the end. If you want something different, be willing to do something different and keep trying until you get what you’re after.