Here is a simple rule:

Whenever you want to increase your rate of success in any endeavor, simply look around at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

In 1980 I was hired by Bud Lucas to become a stockbroker for E. F. Hutton.  He told me that I would receive a salary plus a commission.  I told him that I did not want a salary.  I wanted straight commission.

He explained that accepting the salary was a “no lose” proposition as I would receive whatever was greater: the salary or the commission.

I was the only rookie to ever insist upon receiving straight commission from day one.  I went on to break the previous first year sales record by three hundred percent.  (E. F. Hutton had 5,000 stockbrokers working for them at that time.)

The average person always attempts to keep their options open.  This is a major reason why they’re average.

When I think of highly successful people like Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Gandhi or Einstein, I note that they all have one trait in common.

They’re exceptional in how much they have given up. They are extraordinary in their single minded pursuit of their special area of endeavor to the exclusion of all else.

They have forsaken all their options save one.  They dedicate themselves to that one pursuit.  In that regard, they develop their full potential.  Only the greatest do so.

The great conquerors – Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan – also shared a common trait.  They burned bridges behind themselves.  There was no turning back.  It was victory or death.

Fortunately, one does not have to choose between being great and being dead.  There are many levels, gradations of achievement.

Know that there is a trade-off, however.  One can only succeed at an endeavor to the extent that one focuses upon it exclusively.

You must find your level of success between one thing and everything, between being someone and being everyone.

We humans are limited in our abilities.  We can only focus upon one thing at a time.

Your success will be determined in large measure by your willingness to give up options, to commit to one option and stick with it no matter what.

Who does that?  Not many!

Kirk