Hey, here we are in my backyard and this is the scene of the crime. I want to show you something. I want to show you exactly what it looks like, the improvements you can make, over a year’s time if you do what I do … or what I actually make my kids do. Now, a lot of times teachers or mentors or people in my position, they talk about this stuff quite a bit. They teach you stuff. But this is not a theory to me—making dreams come true, being the best in the world at a thing—those aren’t theories to me. This is in my real life. That’s why I bring you to my home and I show you what my kids are doing and how we live our life. So let’s get started.
I want you to watch this one thing. A year ago in this backyard, almost a year to the day, Axel and me started doing some dribbling drills—some ball-handling drills with the basketball. We call it the “Dirty Dozen.” So there are 12 drills that we do every day out here in the backyard and we started this last summer. I would take video of Axel on my phone while he was doing his drills. So now, it’s a year later. He was 7, now he’s 8. I filmed him again one year later exactly to the day so that he could see his progress because to him it feels like he isn’t making any progress. In fact, he feels like he’s struggling or like he’s getting worse. So I want you to watch something now. You’re going to watch Axel one year ago do a dribbling drill, which is one of the Dirty Dozen. And I want you to watch how he dribbles the ball. He’s pretty good. He was still pretty good last year. But watch how he’s kind of slapping at the ball and he keeps his head down on the ball so he’s watching the ball the whole time. You see his head down the whole time watching the ball, which is not a good thing. You don’t want to do that. And then a couple of minutes after that I’ll show you a video of him jus a couple of days ago and you can see him a year later.
I’m showing you this because I want you to apply this to your own life. All you feel is struggle. You don’t see the improvement. So if you want to be a great speaker, or whatever you want to be, we can make it come true but you just have to do these “Dirty Dozens,” or the equivalent thereof, daily. It’s pretty simple. Let’s watch the first video. Watch Axel’s head down and watch him kind of smacking at the ball. Let’s watch it …
Okay, we’re back. Not bad, right? Axel, not bad. You see how his head is down and you see how he’s slapping at the ball. But I want you to have distinctions. I want you to see how subtle it is a year later. I want you to notice his demeanor; the composition of his body and the confidence that is in his body being that he’s done this “Dirty Dozen” over and over again for a whole year. Let’s take a look at that video now …
All right, we’re back. You notice the difference in his body language, in his demeanor and his maturity. So think of this dirty dozen, or the equivalent thereof, to you and your speaking career or your stage presence. So his stage presence at first is his head is down, he’s trying to make his way through, he’s working his ass off—just like you might do or I might do on stage. And then you train and you train and you train every day for a whole year and you see the difference in your body language because now you handle yourself. Now, you’re doing the same exact drill you did a year ago but you have this presence and you look better and you’re attractive and you’re magnetic. Same thing is true for you. The problem with you and me, most of the time, is we’re not doing the “Dirty Dozen” daily. So you have to find what that is—if that’s your voice, if that’s your movement, if that’s your writing, if that’s your stage presence, if that’s you just getting on stage more and more and more.
Now, I want you to think back to that video of Axel. So he’s 7 in the first video and he’s 8 in the second one. I want you to project out Axel 10 or 11 years from today. He’ll be 19 years old, a freshman in college and really hard to stop at that point because when you do the “Dirty Dozen” (or whatever the equivalent is for you), you don’t just get better incrementally. You don’t get a year better over time. It’s like compounded interest. You get BETTER. And then you surpass everybody. And then by the time you’re 12 years old, nobody can catch you. Well, the same is true for me. I’m 54 years old. But if I outwork everybody this year, with that “Dirty Dozen” of me being a speaker or a trainer then no one’s going to really be able to catch me. And the same is true for you.
We don’t just dream. We make these dreams come alive by actually showing up day in and day out. And now think of your life and your career 10 years into the future, so far ahead of the competition that no one really wants to compete with you because they can’t. They can’t catch you because they’re not willing to show up and do the “Dirty Dozen.” So get out there. Do it. Do it every day. It will be unrecognizable to you who you become, but everyone around you will recognize it, just like you did in the two videos that I just showed you. So get out there and do it.
