 We live in a world that tells us it's okay to skip steps. Tells us we should always be on the hunt for a shortcut or a hack. And implies that there's nothing wrong with focusing on the outcome and just skipping over the process. But anytime you do that, you are making a grave mistake because the basics work. They always have and they always will. And the very first step to you maximizing your growth, the very first step to you maximizing your performance is to admit that the basics work. But it's also having the humility to acknowledge that implementing the basics every single day is never ever going to be easy. I wanna challenge you to lean forward and ask one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself. How well am I actually doing this? See, there's a difference between what we know and what we do, and that's called a performance gap. It is the gap between what we know and what we do. It is the difference between what we know we're supposed to do every single day of our life and what we actually do. I'm willing to bet right now that if I ask you to take out your pen and your notepad and make a list of the healthiest foods that you know of, you could do that with no problem. And I'm sure that if I collected everybody's notes, many of you would write down the exact same foods. And if I ask you just to etch out what should a weekly workout routine look like for your physical fitness? Every single one of you would be able to do that with no problem. But then if I look you in the eye and I ask you, are those the foods that you eat? And when was the last time you went through one of those workouts? For many of you, you would start to see a performance gap. You know exactly what to do, but for some reason, that's not the behavior that you're performing on a daily basis. It all has to start from a foundation of taking full ownership over everything in your life. The very first step to high performance in maximizing growth is realizing that it's completely up to you. You need to be able to look in the mirror every single day and say, I accept 100% responsibility for, and I'll let you fill in the blank. You are 100% responsible for your own happiness and fulfillment. You are 100% responsible for your preparation, for your enthusiasm, for your commitment to your team or your organization. You are 100% responsible for your effort and for your attitude. No one else is responsible for those things. And as soon as you acknowledge that you are responsible for those building blocks of what it takes to maximize your growth and maximize your potential, that will lead you directly to having a winner's mindset. And a winner's mindset is waking up every day saying, I'm going to do the best I can with what I have where I am. And when you have that mindset, you'll immediately eliminate a trilogy of things that will prevent you from being the best you're capable of. That's complaining, blaming, and making excuses. When you can rid yourself of complaining, blaming other people or other things and making excuses, it's like taking a weight vest off. You'll become emotionally more nimble immediately. Now I don't use absolutes very much, but I can promise you this, complaining, blaming, and making excuses will do absolutely nothing to move you forward and improve your situation. We'll do absolutely nothing. Now what will do something to move us forward and improve our situation is change. Now change is one of those words and one of those concepts that gives a lot of people anxiety. And when we have the humility and courage to look inward and say, I need to change some of my habits, immediately folks feel uncomfortable. But most folks have been taught to resist discomfort and that is a mistake. Discomfort is not nice to have. Discomfort is a necessity. Discomfort is a requirement. It is a prerequisite to growth. So the sooner you can start to lean into discomfort and understand that discomfort is simply a part of the process that's required for maximum growth and high performance, then you'll no longer complain, blame, or make excuses about it.