Blow Up Career

If you want to blow up your career, you only have to do ONE thing.

It’s Jarrod Glandt. I’ve been working with Grant for over a decade. I started at Cardone as an entry-level salesman. And now, I’m President of the company making millions per year. But there’s one lesson I learned from Grant that accelerated my career more than anything else. 

I used it to grow my skill set, develop massive confidence, and excel at everything I set my mind to. Pro athletes use it. World-class musicians use it. Navy SEALS use it. And even the highest-performing employees on the planet use it to stand head and shoulders above their peers.

First I’ll tell you “what” I’m talking about, then I’ll tell you how to get it. And don’t judge too quickly, what I’m about to share with you is simple, but it’s not easy. There’s a reason average people never do it.

So what is it?

To blow up your career you need little thing called: Mastery.

Mastery means you’ve achieved extreme levels of competence in your field. This is the crucial difference between professionals and amateurs. Let’s explore that a bit:

The definition of “professional” is a person who is engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.

The definition of “amateur” is a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid rather than a professional basis. A person who is incompetent at a particular activity.

The most striking proof of these definitions is in sports. The difference in levels of mastery between pros and amateurs is undeniable.

On the one hand, you have guys like Tiger Woods, Lebron James, and Michael Phelps…

Compare them to the guys who go golfing on the weekends with a couple of beers, play pickup basketball after work, or swim a couple ti times a week at the YMCA.

It’s not even a discussion.

Amateurs will never compete with professionals because they simply can’t keep up with their level of skill or their rate of improvement and development. 

It’s the same relationship between “average” employees and employees who set out to achieve mastery in their field. This is exactly what I realized when I started working with Grant all those years ago. 

I didn’t want to be “average” or “mediocre.” I wanted to be the best. And, I wanted to climb as high as possible to grow the company and myself. So, I was determined to master as many skills as I could to become invaluable.

So… 

What makes Tiger Woods so good? Why are the SEALS so exceptional? How do you achieve professional levels of mastery in your career? It’s all the same answer.

Train Every Day to BLOW UP YOUR CAREER

This is easy to say, but hard to do. Yet it’s massively rewarding if you go all in.

Again, let’s go back to the sports example. Professional athletes, even the best in the world, train daily. In his prime, Tiger Woods hit golf balls for 13 hours a day. Lebron James trains 6 hours per day, seven days a week. Michael Phelps trained for the Olympics by swimming 50 miles a week, more than 7 miles per day. 

Do amateurs train that much? Do they train at all? Most of them don’t, so their skills and levels of mastery remain low. The same applies to you in your professional development. Your level of training directly correlates to the level of mastery you obtain. 

And here’s some great news: most companies don’t train their employees. And most employees don’t have the level of dedication or ambition to train on their own. So you stand to have an incredible edge by taking the initiative and doing what no one else is willing to do, honing your job skills daily. 

Or maybe you’ll even evolve into a different, higher role. 

Just imagine if you train 20 minutes a day. By the end of a year, you’ll have over 120 hours of training under your belt. Which is 120 hours more than most people in your position will do. When you train daily, your results can only go up.

There are two reasons for this. 

First, training increases your competence.

The more reps you get in, the better you’ll get at those actions. They’ll become a habit, second nature. You won’t even have to think about it, you just do it and it works. 

Second, you’ll increase confidence which is just as important as being competent. Think about it. The more you train, the more exposure you’ll get to the possible scenarios in your field. Getting that exposure during training means you’ll be prepared to handle it when you encounter it in the real world. 

Training daily gives you the advantage of “been there, done that, I know what I’m doing.”

Because you’ll know you’ve put in the work. You’ve drilled the process a thousand times. You’ll know what you’re doing. There’s no problem you can’t solve. You’ll be able to believe in yourself. And that confidence inspires trust from your customers, co-workers, and team leaders. 

If you get serious about training daily, you’ll find yourself in an endless cycle of growth.

When you train, you increase your competence and confidence, which increases your performance and results. Those increases will inspire you to reach even higher. To do that, you’ll need to train even more… and around and around it goes, spiraling you upward toward your highest potential.

Another benefit of training daily is that it helps you retain what you learn.

We have some of the best salespeople on the planet. But even our team suffers from memory retention over time. 

Check this out:

This chart shows that 84% of salespeople forget what they learned within 90 days of learning it. 84%. This is why it’s not enough to train a couple of times a week. If you want to truly gain mastery in your field, you need to do everything you can to protect the knowledge you acquire. Training every day will give you constant reminders and reinforcement to retain what you’ve learned and put it into practice.

Now, if you’re like most people, you’re probably thinking: “Okay Jarrod, I get it. Training daily is important. But my business doesn’t offer training. What should I do?”

Well, how you train will depend on your particular role at your company.

There is no one size fits all answer because none of us have one-size-fits-all career aspirations. If your company doesn’t supply training, you’ll have to take the initiative and find training on your dime. 

Living in the digital age gives us unbelievable access to all sorts of training materials for just about anything on the planet. Now obviously, I’d recommend everyone to explore Cardone University. We have several courses that apply to any role at any company.

But whether you go with us or not, I’m confident that you can find training that will increase your job performance and blow up your career. 

Simply consider the two categories of skills you need for your job: technical skills (coding, plumbing, sales) and interpersonal skills (communication, negotiation, leadership). And just Google it. There’s a lot of knowledge out there you can get for free that will help you distinguish yourself in your role. 

One thing is certain: if you don’t train daily, you will never reach your fullest potential as an employee.

You just won’t. You’ll cruise along at the same speed as every other average person at the company, get overlooked for promotions, and eventually become discouraged when you realize your career is stagnant. That’s the life of a mediocre employee, one who just shows up for a paycheck with no desire to advance or improve.

If that life scares you and you’re ready to commit to mastering your craft, here are some practical tips to keep in mind about daily training:

  • Train to immediately increase production — You’re not training to get smarter. You’re training to do better, today.
  • Train in short segments, preferably interactive — attention spans are short, and interactive elements help with memory retention and practical application.
  • Your training must be measurable — you (and your employer) need to be able to see and track your progress.
  • Reward (and penalize) yourself — whenever you exceed a goal, celebrate it. If you fail to meet a training goal, penalize yourself in some way. Achieving mastery requires honest accountability and incentives.
  • Train through every medium — it’s not enough to listen to podcasts and watch videos. You need to engage all your senses at different times for the best results. Reserve certain parts of the day for certain types of training. Use as many as you can: interactive courses, role-play, rehearsals, reading, listening, video courses, etc.
  • Convenient — the training you choose should be available at all times. Whether you’re sitting at breakfast, in the car, or grabbing groceries you should be able to use some form of training whenever/wherever you have a couple spare moments.
  • The training must be practical — You’re not looking for useless college textbook knowledge. You want training that you can use to make more money right now.

And let me expand on that last one a bit because it’s a major misunderstanding that could easily stunt you from blowing up your career and wasting your time. 

If you train with the wrong intention in mind, you won’t get the results you want. You’re not training to simply gain knowledge or understand concepts. You’re training with a clear intention of applying it to increase productivity in your job right now. You need to be improving or learning skills that you could put into practice as soon as you finish learning them.

It’s like going to the gym. You don’t go to the gym to just “see how it’s done” or to just “put in the time.” You go with a specific plan in mind. You’ll train a certain muscle group with certain weights aiming for certain reps. Then a specified time doing cardio. You plan it all out for a clearly defined outcome. Studying how the bicep works doesn’t get your biceps bigger. Going hard on arm day does.

So when you train, be sure to train with the intention of implementing what you learn. As you’re taking in the material, think to yourself, “How could I use this knowledge today to improve my performance?”

This brings up another obstacle you’ll have to overcome if you want to become a highly-valued professional: the fear of trying new things. 

I remember as a new salesperson in Grant’s office that I was terrified of trying the new things I learned. Why? Because I worried I’d mess it up and lose the sale. I already had a process that worked pretty well. So I didn’t want to screw it up by throwing in new stuff I’d never tried before. 

I’m here to tell you right now, that you may have to fall down a little before you can ascend to greater heights. You may struggle and stumble putting brand-new ideas into action. But you have to do it anyway. You may need to accept some temporary dips in performance before you master the skills that will take you to the next level. It’s just part of it. So don’t be discouraged, keep pushing through it.

And I’m just going to be brutally honest about this.

The journey to mastery isn’t always easy or fun. There will be days you don’t want to train. In fact, maybe it’s most days. 

Grant always says “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Everybody wants to be great, but nobody wants to train. But the truth is, you won’t be great if you don’t train. So you need to decide how badly you want to be a pro. And pros train. Daily. 

This is the only way to develop the skills you need to sufficient degrees to reach your goals and have your way in your career. Even if you’re already great at what you do, it doesn’t matter, you can always reach for the next level. 

In fact, the better you are and the longer you’ve been in the game, the more you should train. And all we have to do to prove that is look at any of the world’s top performers in literally any sphere. 

As Grant has always told me, “Investing in yourself is the best investment you’ll ever make.” 

When you train and grow in competence and confidence, that’s something you’ll take with you everywhere you go. You’ll have it forever. And wherever you apply it, you’ll increase your value so you can get more of what you want in your career and every aspect of life.

What do you think about training daily? Are you ready to commit to it? Comment and let me know. And if you have any questions, I’m ready to help.

Peace,

Jarrod Glandt

Disclaimer: This content is intended to be used for educational and informational purposes only. Individual results may vary. You should perform your own due diligence and seek the advice from a professional to verify any information on our website or materials that you are relying upon if you choose to make an investment or business decision. Investment, real estate, and business involve great risk and there is no guarantee of performance or results.We are not attorneys, investment advisers, accountants, tax professionals or financial advisers and any of the content presented should not be taken as professional advice. We recommend seeking the advice of a financial professional before you invest, and we accept no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage you may incur.