Be the One

1. Embrace Your Role as a Creator to Design Your Future

The future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it, and execute it. It is not something you await, it’s something you create.

You are a creator. From ancient texts introducing God as "the Creator" to modern visionaries like Steve Jobs urging us to "build our own things," the message is clear: humanity's fundamental role is to create. This innate power transcends religion and time, making each of us capable of shaping our reality. The Museum of the Future in Dubai stands as a testament to this, its very architecture an ode to human creativity and legacy.

Overcoming doubt. The author, despite a broken home, dropping out of college, and a colossal business failure that left his family broke and living in a one-bedroom loft, eventually transformed his life. He went from selling animated Bible videos and emergency food storage to building five multimillion-dollar businesses and helping a company generate over $2.4 billion in sales. This personal journey serves as powerful proof that an extraordinary life is possible for anyone, regardless of their past or present circumstances.

Your potential. You possess the inherent power to imagine, design, and execute the future you desire. Your background, education, experience, or resources do not limit this capacity. Just as the author overcame immense challenges to create his success, you too can leverage your creative power to build the life you envision, transforming dreams into reality.

2. Live an Intentional Life, Not a Reactive One

You don’t accidentally go up hills. You only intentionally go up hills.

Intentionality is key. John C. Maxwell's profound "one thing" for an extraordinary life is to "live an intentional life." Success is an uphill climb, and you cannot hope to reach the summit through accidental actions or passive drifting. Every step towards your goals, health, relationships, and faith must be a deliberate, conscious choice.

Reaction vs. intention. Most people are caught in a cycle of reacting to distractions—notifications, news, emails, social media. This constant reaction is the antithesis of intention, pulling you down like gravity and stealing both years from your life and life from your years. It's our default setting, but it prevents us from truly creating our future.

Choose creation. To "be the one," you must make a conscious decision to break free from the reactive default and embrace a life of intentional creation. This means actively designing your days, focusing on what truly matters, and making deliberate choices that propel you towards your vision, rather than being swayed by every passing stimulus.

3. Update Your Identity to Align with Your Best Self

Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.

Identity shapes destiny. You will never outperform the way you see yourself. If you identify as a loser, you'll act like one; if you identify as a winner, you'll persist. Our identity, often shaped by others' opinions or past failures, can be a self-limiting belief that prevents us from becoming "the one."

Transformative stories. Jaime Molina, once inmate E90400 in San Quentin for multiple felonies, updated his identity to become a respected counselor, husband, and father of four. Similarly, Les Brown, labeled "educable mentally retarded" in fifth grade, was liberated by a teacher's words—"Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality"—and transformed into one of the world's most sought-after motivational speakers. These stories prove that your past is not predictive, and you are not your mistakes.

Build a new you. To update your identity, first, choose three aspirational words that describe your future best self (e.g., resilient, inspiring, confident). Second, lean into those words by acting as if you already embody them. This isn't about fighting the old identity but actively building the new, consistently aligning your actions with the person you aspire to be.

4. Clarify Your "3D" Vision: Define, Declare, Dedicate

When times are tough, lead with vision.

Vision is paramount. Every success story, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Walt Disney, begins with a clear vision. This vision acts as a powerful force, capable of pulling you out of darkness and propelling you through the toughest times, much like the author's friend's father, who survived Auschwitz by holding onto a vision of his unborn sons.

The "3D" framework:

• Define Your Vision: High performers can articulate their goals in 7-10 seconds. This involves a structured exercise:
  • List 5 past accomplishments you're proud of.
  • Brainstorm 50 things you want to achieve in the next 10 years, dreaming without judgment.
  • Assign a timeline (1, 3, 5, or 10 years) to each goal.
  • Total your goals by timeline to ensure a balanced mix.
  • Select your top 3 short-term (1-year) goals to focus on immediately.
• Declare Your Vision: Making your vision public makes it real, anchors it, and puts your reputation on the line, forcing action. The author's public declaration of a physique competition goal prevented him from eating tempting cookies, demonstrating that we often do more for others than for ourselves.
• Dedicate Your Vision: Anne Mulcahy, the "accidental CEO" who saved Xerox from bankruptcy, exemplified dedication. She wrote a fictitious Wall Street Journal article detailing Xerox's future success, shared it with all employees, and then fiercely dedicated herself to making it a reality, even asking executives to commit or resign. This unwavering dedication is crucial for transforming vision into reality.

5. Build the 3 Cs of Success: Confidence, Commitment, Competence

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.

The 3 Cs loop. Confidence, Commitment, and Competence are interconnected, forming a powerful loop where building one strengthens the others. This triad is essential for propelling you towards your vision.

Cultivating Confidence:

• Be courageous: Confidence is built through everyday acts of courage. Don't run from the "roar" of your dreams; run towards it. Taking action, even when scared, is the precursor to confidence.
• Shift your attitude: Your attitude is entirely within your control and is as important as your ability. Choose to show up with better energy, patience, and positivity, avoiding whining or blaming.
• Take physical action: The world's tallest mountains are climbed one step at a time. Taking the next physical step, no matter how small, breeds confidence and propels you forward.

Maintaining Commitment:

• Trust the process: Success follows a "Dream -> Struggle -> Victory" process, where each stage is equally significant. Embrace the struggle as a necessary part of achieving a bigger victory.
• Never quit on a bad day: While quitting some things might be wise, never quit when you're at your lowest. Breakthroughs often follow the darkest hours, so commit to resetting after tough days.
• Persist until you succeed: The word "until" makes success inevitable. Most people persist until things get hard; "the one" persists until they achieve their goal, adapting and growing along the way.

Creating Competence:

• Schedule skill development: Don't rely on talent alone; build skill above it. Michael Jordan, despite his talent, was obsessed with developing his skills. Schedule dedicated, untouchable time for both soft (communication, leadership) and hard (sales, writing) skill development.
• Seek feedback: Adopt a "shoshin" or "beginner's mind" mentality. Leaders actively seek honest feedback to learn and improve, putting ego aside to ask, "What could I have done better?"
• Prepare with excellence: Winston Churchill, a renowned orator with a speech impediment, spent an hour preparing for every minute he spoke. Don't wing it; anticipate and prepare meticulously to leave nothing to chance.

6. Elevate Your Emotional Maturity to Navigate Adversity

All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.

The inevitable challenge. As you pursue big dreams, you will face criticism, mockery, and doubt—the "nail that sticks up shall be hammered down," the "tall poppy syndrome," or the "crab mentality." The author experienced this firsthand when "friends" laughed at his entrepreneurial aspirations. How you respond to this adversity defines your emotional maturity.

Own your R (Response). The formula E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome) highlights that while you can't always control events or outcomes, you always control your response. Don't react like a victim; respond intentionally like Bruce Lee's "mind like water," where the response is appropriate to the event. Your response also creates events for others, so choose to create positive ones.

Resilience and conversion. Emotionally mature individuals are resilient, asking: "How far do I fall? And how long do I stay down?" They fall lightly and bounce back quickly. Furthermore, they "convert the hurt," transforming pain and criticism into fuel, much like a solar panel converts sunlight into energy. This allows adversity to propel them forward rather than hold them back.

7. Amplify Your Associations by Tipping the Scales Towards Positivity

I listened to those who believed in me, and I listened to those who said I could.

The power of influence. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech almost didn't include his dream, as advisors deemed it "overused." It was his friend, Mahalia Jackson, who urged him to "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" This highlights the profound impact of who you listen to and associate with.

The "Rule of 33." Instead of trying to surround yourself with only five aspirational people, distribute your time equally among three groups:

• 33% people ahead of you: Mentors who inspire, challenge, and elevate you, having already achieved what you aspire to.
• 33% people where you are: Collaborators who understand your current struggles and can grow alongside you.
• 33% people behind you: Individuals you can mentor and teach, as you learn more by giving and pouring into others.

Tip the scales. Ronald Reagan's success, from football player to president, stemmed from his choice to "listen to those who believed in me, and I listened to those who said I could." Despite Napoleon Hill's finding that all influential people had "well-intentioned" friends who predicted their failure, Reagan, like King, chose to give more weight to positivity. Your associations, even distant ones, profoundly affect your health, happiness, and beliefs, as shown by studies on the social contagion of obesity. Consciously choose to amplify positive voices and mute negativity.

8. Speak Life into Your Future and the Future of Others

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Words shape destiny. The tragic story of a repairman who "thought" himself to death in a mildly cool boxcar, writing "These might be my last words," illustrates the profound power of words. As Lao Tzu said, thoughts become words, words become actions, and ultimately, character becomes destiny. Our brains are hardwired for negativity as a survival mechanism, scanning for threats rather than positives.

Rewire your language. While controlling every negative thought is an advanced skill, you have 100% control over the words that leave your mouth. Trevor Moawad's research suggests negative words are 4-7 times more powerful than positive ones, making them 40-70 times more impactful than negative thoughts. The author's trainer, D'marko, instilled the rule: "Never say you can't do something," teaching that the subconscious believes what you tell it. By replacing "I can't" with "I can," you empower yourself and unlock hidden strength.

Speak life. Your words affect not only you but also others, capable of healing, helping, or even triggering pain responses. Consciously choose to speak life into your future and the lives of those around you. Replace "I have to" with "I get to," focus on accomplishments rather than fatigue, and remind others of their potential. This intentional shift in language can profoundly alter destinies.

9. Stack Deep Reasons to Keep Going When You Want to Quit

If I only had one ‘why,’ I would have quit.

One "why" isn't enough. James Lawrence, "The Iron Cowboy," went from struggling in a turkey trot to completing 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 states over 50 consecutive days, and later 100 in 100 days. Despite facing immense physical pain, accusations of cheating, and overwhelming reasons to quit, he persisted. His secret: a "bag full of 'whys'"—a constantly refilled reservoir of reasons to keep going, because one "why" is rarely enough for extraordinary challenges.

The "Why" stacking exercise:

• Start with "What": Identify your primary goal (e.g., "be the one").
• Ask "Why": Why do you want to achieve that goal? This is your first "why."
• Go deeper: For each subsequent "why," ask, "Why is that important to me?" Continue this process to stack seven "whys" deep.
• Connect to the heart: The magic often happens around the fourth or fifth "why," as reasons move from your head to your heart, becoming deeply emotional and powerful.

Outnumber and outweigh. Your reasons to keep going must not only outnumber your reasons to quit but also outweigh them in depth and emotional significance. As new obstacles arise, your "whys" will evolve, requiring you to continually stack new and heavier reasons. This practice ensures that when you're ready to give up, you have a profound wellspring of motivation to draw from, enabling you to do "one more."

10. Magnify Your Focus to Separate Yourself from Distraction

The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

The distraction epidemic. Distraction is a pervasive modern problem, linked to anxiety, depression, obesity, and even physical injuries. It's an addiction, with nearly half of Americans admitting phone addiction, which triggers dopamine like cocaine. Multitasking, a form of distraction, lowers IQ and costs the U.S. economy nearly a trillion dollars annually, with individuals losing thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars each year.

Focus is your superpower. While 98% of people are distracted consumers, the 2% who master focus become creators. Focus offers three key advantages:

• Magnifies effort: Just as a magnifying glass focuses sunlight to burn steel, focused effort multiplies your results in your career, health, relationships, and faith.
• Has economic value: Calculate your "dollar-per-minute" rate by dividing your annual income goal by 2,000 hours and then by 60 minutes. This reveals the financial cost of every minute spent distracted (e.g., social media can cost $78,000/year).
• Is the strongest separator: In a distracted world, focus is the ultimate differentiator, allowing you to sprint ahead of the masses and achieve extraordinary results.

The "5 x 5" strategy:

• Clarify your top 5 strategic priorities: Identify the 5 most important "categories" or goals in your life (e.g., health, wealth, a specific project). Richard Branson famously turned down $1 million for a one-hour speech because it wasn't one of his strategic priorities.
• Find your 5 high-impact actions (HIAs): For each strategic priority, identify the 5 actions that will produce 95% of your results (the 5% of actions from the Pareto Principle). John Maxwell, for example, focuses on 5 HIAs daily for writing books: read, think, file, ask questions, and write.
• Throw away the rest: Eliminate low-impact actions and distractions from your routine. This "addition by subtraction" involves saying "no" to anything that doesn't align with your strategic priorities and HIAs, creating an "avoid-at-all-cost list."

11. Live with Focused Urgency, Recognizing Time is Limited

The biggest mistake we make in life is believing we have time.

Mortality as motivation. Steve Jobs called death "the single best invention of life," and Marcus Aurelius urged us to "meditate on mortality." We are all on a death sentence, and this finite reality should be life's greatest driving force. Instead of living casually, pushing things off until "tomorrow" or waiting until we're "ready," we must embrace urgency.

Time is finite. The average American dies at 79, meaning life could be half over at 40. With a third of our lives spent sleeping and another third on routine tasks, only one-third remains for "free" time. This limited window demands focused urgency. Alexander Hamilton, who died at 47, penned 85 Federalist Papers in six months, writing "like you're running out of time" because he was. Kobe Bryant, who died at 41, famously stated, "If you’re patiently going about it, you’ll never get there."

Conquer inaction. At the end of life, 84% of regret stems from things we didn't do—the dreams unchased, the risks untaken, the actions postponed due to casualness. The cost of regret far outweighs the cost of urgency. Commit to living with focused urgency, valuing every minute, and acting now on your dreams, goals, and relationships, rather than waiting for a tomorrow that may never come.

12. Win Both Races: Achieve Success and Leave an Unforgettable Legacy

No other success can compensate for failure in the home.

Life's two races. Life presents two fundamental races: the race for material success (money, accolades, influence) and the race for a lasting legacy (faith, family, relationships, impact, service). Many people win the first but lose the second, sacrificing their values for wealth, which ultimately means losing. Conversely, some avoid the first race, playing small and burying their talents, which also means losing, as having more resources allows you to do more good.

Have it all. The author's philosophy is that you can, and should, win both races. You can achieve material success while simultaneously building a profound legacy, doing good and doing well. This means being rich and righteous, loving your life, and leaving an unforgettable mark on the world.

Be unforgettable. The secret to leaving an unforgettable legacy lies in consistently asking: "How can I add value?" The author's son, Isaac, exemplified this by writing heartfelt, hand-written letters to John Maxwell and other leaders, which left a lasting impression and inspired others to "add value." Your ancestors are cheering for you, and your descendants are counting on you to win both races—to live a life of purpose, impact, and unforgettable value.

Last updated: March 9, 2026