The drive to close the gap between near-perfect and perfect is the difference between great and unstoppable.
Figure out what you do, then do it. And do it better than anyone else.
Physical dominance can make you great. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.
When all hell breaks loose on the outside, you barely notice; you’re calm on the inside because you’re ready, prepared, and the best at what you do. You don’t tell anyone how you’re going to handle the situation, you just handle it. Everyone else is panicking and choking, and you say, ‘No problem.’ You step on the other guy’s throat, and you finish the fight.
A true Cleaner never tells you what he’s doing or what he’s planning. You find out after the job is complete.
Cleaners understand they don’t have to love the work to be successful; they just have to be relentless about achieving it, and everything else in between is a diversion and a distraction from the ultimate prize.
It’s not weak to recognize when it’s time to shift directions.
Being relentless means never being satisfied. It means creating new goals every time you reach your personal best. If you’re good, it means you don’t stop until you’re great. If you’re great, it means you fight until you’re unstoppable. It means becoming a Cleaner.
Every accomplishment is just a stepping-stone to the next challenge; as soon as they’ve hit their target, they’re already stalking their next conquest.
Ask yourself where you are now, and where you want to be instead. Ask yourself what you’re willing to do to get there. Then make a plan to get there. Act on it.
Cleaners never feel external pressure; they only believe what’s inside them. You can criticize, analyze, demonize a Cleaner, but he’s still only going to feel pressure from within. He knows what he’s doing right, and what he’s doing wrong. He does not care what you think. He steps out of his comfort zone and challenges himself to get to the next level.
You already know what you have to do, and you know how to do it. What’s stopping you?
It’s time to stop listening to what everyone else says about you, telling you what to do, how to act, how you should feel. Let them judge you by your results, and nothing else; it’s none of their business how you get where you’re going. If you’re relentless, there is no halfway, no could or should or maybe.
Success isn’t the same as talent. The world is full of incredibly talented people who never succeed at anything. They show up, do what they do, and if it doesn’t work out, they blame everyone else because they believe talent should be enough. It’s not. If you want to be truly successful, you can’t be content with “pretty good.” You need to find an extra gear.
We never saw obstacles or problems, we only saw situations in need of solutions.
If you want to be great, deliver the unexpected. If you want to be the best, deliver a miracle.
Cleaners are rule-breakers when they have to be; they only care about the end result. When things go wrong and everyone else starts to panic, the Cleaner is calm and unflappable, cool and steady, never too high or too low, never too happy or too depressed.
Time tells you what you didn’t accomplish. Focus turns off the clock and directs all your energy to the result.
Focus is about controlling your behavior, so it becomes easier to do the right things, and harder to be distracted by the wrong things.
If you want to go somewhere new, you have to throw out the tired, old map and stop traveling the same road to the same dead end.
When you’ve been knocked down, confidence gives you the patience to stay down for a minute, until you know how to get up better than you were before. Most people jump right back up because they don’t want to look weak and damaged, and then immediately get knocked down again. When you’re confident in your ability to recover, you know you’ll never be weak or damaged again.