It’s a natural feeling to want to be successful in life.  We constantly set goals, both short and long term, that hopefully lead to success.  Sometimes they’re short, quick wins and other times they are long term goals that lead to success such as saving for retirement.  Time and time again I hear people call others “lucky” or “fortunate” when they achieve success.  Is it really simply a matter of luck that leads to success?  I don’t think so.  Sure, I’ll agree that in almost any victory, a little bit of luck helps.  We all deal with small fires or bumps while achieving our goals.  We all have someone that mentors us, watches over us or gives helps to crack open the door.  What you do with that opportunity is up to each of us.  But, if you just sit back and wait for that door to be opened then you may never reach your goals.  So, what can you do to help achieve your goals, both short and long term achievements?  I’d argue it’s all in the advanced work.  It’s in the preparation and practice that you do leading up to achieving your goal.

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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