“This is my world and in my world you gotta get dirty. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m getting dirty.” – Django
It was 10:30 am on New Year’s Day when I watched Django Unchained with my wife. The signature Tarantino western movie had been sold out almost everywhere the day before. After three hours of graphic shooting scenes, mixed with themes of slavery, I paused and reflected. Whether or not I liked the movie Django is irrelevant. But I did uncover four powerful lessons for entrepreneurs, small business owners and anyone who wants to achieve remarkable success in business and life. Django is what I call a “Grinder,” a person who uses the four qualities below to achieve ridiculous success.
1. Passion is a prerequisite to greatness!
Django traveled and visited every single plantation looking for his wife. Passion is that internal energy. It’s fire inside of person that fuels your efforts and activities to achieve your goals. You don’t find your passion, its already inside you. Passion becomes activated and its fueled by specific activities. Passion makes you forget to eat and you hate to sleep because you want to keep progressing after your goal.
2. Vision.
Django had “cyclops vision” and was only focused on one thing- his wife! He was not a jack of all trades, he was not trying to do ten different things well, only one. So many people focus on trying to start multiple businesses and they have plan b, plan c, plan d, plan e etc… All this means is that they are mediocre in many things and magnificent in nothing. Django would also visualize his goal. He would dream about his wife. He would imagine her there right in front of him. To be successful in business and life, you must go back to playing make-believe. See yourself progressing, see yourself already successful, what does it look like, what does it feel like? You must act like you are it, even though you are not it, until you become it.
3. Strategy is critical.
Strategy is a unique plan of action to achieve your goals. Django was a slave and lacked knowledge. He knew that. So his strategy was to partner with a mentor who know more than he did and could help him accomplish his goals. But their relationship was not one sided. Django helped his mentor get what he wanted, so Django could also achieve his goal. There is a saying you should be so good at what you do that people can’t ignore you. Well, it does not matter how good you are, people will ignore if you don’t have an effective of communicating who you are and gets their attention. In business, you must have an effective marketing strategy and in the workplace you must have an effective networking strategy.
4. Perseverance is paramount.
Django was always outnumbered and outgunned, but he refused to give up on his dream even when facing death. He was totally irrational and many would have considered his dream of being a slave and taking on one of the largest slave plantations in the country unrealistic. No matter how many times he failed or was captured, he stubbornly refused to quit until he and his wife were reunited. Perseverance is the number one quality you must have to be successful in business and life. The opposite of success is not failure. Failure is a part of success. The opposite of success is “quit.”
Django’s ultimate vision was to be reunited with his wife. It does not matter what your vision is, the formula for attaining greatness and achieving remarkable success are developing and applying these four qualities.
Join us Grinders and Grind for Greatness!
James Bird Guess is a speaker, author and trainer on top performance, leadership and small business growth. He is also the best-selling author of the book, How I Made a Quarter Million Dollar$ From the Trunk of My Car, and founder of JBG International Success Academy, a performance training and research company. He can be reached on facebook.com/jamesbirdguess
Image Credit: imdb.com
