Today we’re going to separate the thoroughbreds from the regular horses, and that’s what we’re doing out here. That’s the term I heard when I went to this basketball camp. I was 11 years old and my brother went with me. He was 12. We went up up to Northern California to a place called Weed, and it was Mount Shasta Basketball Camp.
We were so excited to be there. We wanted to be good basketball players. We wanted to impress the coaches. We wanted to see how we measured up against these other basketball players.
So we get there and it's the first day of practice. We’re out there on the gymnasium floor, and it seems like there are 100 or 150 campers out there. The coach comes out. The FIRST thing he does is he says, “Okay campers, here is the deal. Right now we’re going to separate the thoroughbred racehorses from the donkeys.” I remember just freezing in my tennis shoes that day when he said donkeys. I did not want to be a donkey.
I looked up at my brother and he was looking down at me. We did not want to be donkeys. We shared that look like, “I want to be a racehorse.” I want to win.
We worked our tails off until we became those racehorses.
Now, later I learned this about thoroughbred racehorses. The only thing that separates a thoroughbred from every other horse is this certain ability. The ability is they do the same thing over and over and over again without losing enthusiasm while other horses get bored. They might work hard, but they get distracted and they can’t do the same thing over and over again.
That’s what I learned in this basketball camp. We had to do the same thing over and over and over again until we mastered it.
I want to you to think about where you are a racehorse, where you’re a thoroughbred and where you’re a donkey. When I’m being a donkey, I’m being distracted by social media or running to the grocery store or doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Racehorses don’t go to the grocery store. They don’t get on Facebook. They do one thing. They run fast over and over again.
I want you to think of yourself from now on as a racehorse. What do you eliminate from your business? What do you eliminate that you do from your business if you’re a racehorse? I have a buddy who operates on racehorses. I visited him down in San Diego. He’s a knee surgeon for these racehorses.
What I noticed is these racehorses don’t do one thing, except run fast. They don’t do one thing. They don’t feed themselves. They don’t comb themselves. They don’t go to the grocery store. They don’t walk around being distracted. They do one thing on the track: they run fast. That’s all they do.
I want you to start considering yourself a thoroughbred racehorse.
Let’s just think about that for a second. Let’s think about what you have to eliminate from your company, from you doing. I bet you’re doing a ton of things right now that are making you a donkey. Things that are slowing down the progress of this racehorse.
I want you to delegate that to somebody else. That’s somebody else’s job. Racehorses do one thing. They run fast. So whatever skill it is that brings in the most money for your company, and brings the most life to you, that’s what I want you doing.
So from this day forward, YOU are a racehorse. YOU do one thing. YOU run fast.
Okay, you get out there and start running. We’ll see you.
