In sports there are athletes who people, including me, think were born to play their given sport.  Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Serena and Venus Williams.  All examples of people who are extremely gifted athletes.  You could probably come up with another 10 athletes in your favorite sport(s) to list here as well that are amazing at the game they play.  While these athletes may be gifted, it is not simply that they were born to play the sport.  Their excellence is the result of years and years of doing the advanced work.  They spend their lives preparing for greatness.  We’ve all heard the stories of shooting hundreds of foul shots before a game; putting for hours on end; running wind sprints with parachutes attached until reaching pure exhaustion; and swimming hundreds of laps per day.  In this world, improving by just a mili-second can be the difference between reaching the holy grail in their sport.

Doing advanced work isn’t only for sports.  Musicians who are getting ready to go out on tour will practice their concerts for weeks and sometimes months before going out on the road.  Actors practice for hours at a time for what amount sometimes to only a few minutes of screen time.  For an event like the Inbound Marketing Summit, we spend almost an entire year planning every angle of the event to ensure a successful event for our attendees, speakers, sponsors, venue, and our team.

This leads me to consistently ask myself what I am doing to ensure future success.  Do you ask yourself this same question?  If so, you must define what success actually is ahead of time so that you can measure against it.  It’s hard to do advanced work for something you can’t measure.  Sometimes those goals change and that’s ok.  Change your success metrics and the advanced work to achieve those metrics.

A great example of doing advanced work is in planning a presidential event.  President Obama attends and speaks at several events every week, sometimes having 2-3+ events in a single day.  Each one of these requires weeks of preparation including security plans, emergency route planning, media plans, travel and scheduling and a number of other considerations.  Every second of President Obama’s movement is scheduled and planned ahead of time.  This planning isn’t done solely because of the President’s busy schedule, it is also to ensure a successful and safe event for all involved.  During one of President Obama’s visits, the White House Presidential Advance team filmed a couple behind-the-scenes videos as they prepared for an event.

If you can’t view these videos, you can check them out over on the White House’s YouTube channel.

What advanced work are you doing to prepare for your future success?

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Watch this presentation and really pay attention.  First, it’s a great talk that Mike gave filled with jokes and interesting stories.  But, then read in between everything he’s talking about and listen to what he has to say about the nature of hard work and what he has found traveling the country doing these “dirty jobs”.

What are your thoughts about the nature of hard work?  Let’s chat about it in the comments below…

If you haven’t seen this keynote before, take the 15 minutes to watch it.  If you have seen it before, then watch it again.  Then, instead of just moving on to the next blog post, or next meeting, or next tweet, stop.  Yes, stop.  Stop and think about if you’re doing what you really love.  I know I am.  I work extremely hard but I’m having more fun with Chris Brogan and Colin Browning over on our pirate ship of New Marketing Labs, than I can explain.  I love running my steakhouse with my best friend, Joseph Gionfriddo.

Think about if you spend all day (or at least most of your day) focused.  Focused on executing on your goals.  Focused on killing it today.  Focused on killing it in 2009.  If you’re not, if you slow down for even a 1/2 second, then your competition is going to pass you by.  Ok, maybe they won’t fly by you for just taking a break for a 1/2 second.  Or will they?  Are you willing to take that risk?  Are you ok with that?  If you are then that’s cool.  But, I’m not.  I want to be producing content, coming up with new ideas for the steakhouse; working on client projects, working on New Marketing Labs events, experimenting with tools, having meaningful conversations and developing strategy/vision all the time.  When I’m relaxing, I’m mulling over new ideas in my head.  I’m always analyzing, thinking of what’s next, and focused on what my goals are.  When most people are watching tv and getting a good night’s sleep, I’m trying to stay that extra step ahead.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What motivates you to stay focused and kill it every day?  Is it a video, a book, a quote, or someone in your life?