Success vs. Significance

Success vs. Significance. It doesn’t really matter what you do, what industry you’re in, what you love, if you go to work, or if you have any sort of business at all. None of that matters. I want to talk to you guys about success vs. significance. Brian and I were asked to come share and train with a group in Waco, something that’s been churning on Brian and I spurring off of a conversation with one of our mentors in our lives. One of the things he asked Brian and I was so pivotal and I want to share that with you guys. He asked us, “are you after success or are you after significance?”

Brian and I realized we are in the halftime of life. Some of you guys are in the beginning of your lives. Some of you are just getting started. Some of you just got married. Some of you just got a brand new job. Maybe some of you guys signed up to join the company that you love. Whatever it may be. I want to say this to you guys clearly in hopes that I can shift a perspective for you. So many people in this world live in a social media, reality TV, fame and fortune world that many of them all desire significance not realizing that success has to come first. So we admire people who are very famous or who add significance to our lives and we want that. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, we don’t realize that what came first. So many people find themselves so empty because they think, “I just want to be significant. I just want to add value. I just want to be important. I just want people to trust me. I just want to be a great person. I just want to be the best room mom I can be. I just want to be a great friend.” That’s all significance you guys and that’s fantastic. But I can tell you guys, nine years ago, I had to chase success. Because without success, it didn’t equal significance whatsoever.

I’ve heard on multiple occasions at events I’ve trained at, “I drive six hours to see you in person.” And my reply to them was, “Because you know I’ve been successful. I have the wisdom and the fruits and the work ethic. I have what it takes to get to where you want to go. Because I’ve done the work, it brings significance.” But so many people want to be significant without any success whatsoever. Sometimes being a great mom means we’re not going to be able to work 12 hours a day and you’re so exhausted. Maybe being a great wife means you actually have time. At 45 years old, I add significance no matter where I go, but it cost me in the very beginning a lot of choices. It cost me in the very beginning a lot of time. In our industry, we have leadership levels. Brian and I are at a high leadership level in our company but nobody is going to drive six hours to hear me speak when I’m a low level leader. It’s because I’ve been in lives, I’ve spent time, I’ve done the work, I’ve followed some business ground rules, I’ve had to get rid of some excuses, I’ve had to chase success, I’ve had to chase victories, I’ve had to get over feeling sorry for myself, I’ve had to become unoffendable, I’ve had to become super coachable, and I’ve had to do everything that it took to achieve success.

Today, I’m successful. Today I’ve achieved levels that still blow my mind. Today we make more money than we’ve ever made in our entire lives. Brian did the math the other day. At $120,000 a year of income as a VP of a construction company, what we’ve done in 9 years in our industry in the business world, it would have taken him 32.5 years at that salary, working that job at 80 hours a week. We had to get rid of things. We couldn’t focus on significance. We just had to focus on success. And for us, success was numbers. Success was adding value to people. Success was getting people started on products. Success was getting in living rooms, getting on planes, getting in cars, doing everything that it took. For some of you guys, you have it flipped. My mentor asked me last week what I wanted to do, and I said, “I just want to pour out to people. I pray every day that God will give me a message and I can go out to his people with a Spirit of Wisdom and a Spirit of Teaching. But I’ve done the work. I’ve followed the business ground rules. I’ve done whatever I needed to do to achieve success and what that meant for our family. For our family, success was having time. TIME = MONEY. We had to have time. I can’t sit here and write for you if I’m at work all day. Brian can’t do what he does with all these coaches, all these students, 7-on-7 football, and countless men that he pours wisdom into daily if he’s working 80 hours a week. We can add significance today because we chased success. A lot of times we think that character is significance. But character is what you achieve on the way to success. Because you’re either going to become the person you need to be, or you’re going to stay the same and achieve nothing. It is what it is. So character will come as a result of mentorship, selling out, personal growth, asking your closest people how you can be better. Many times when I get off a stage when I speak, I’ll look at my assistant and ask, “What could I have done better? I know I did a great job, but I want to know what I could have done better.” Character will come with that. When you’re humble and you just want to be the best you, you’re out of your house and you’re in front of people. I encourage you guys to have someone who will say, “Oh, you can’t say that.” Like Brian said to me, “Babe you can’t tell people ‘I challenge you.’ People feel threatened.” I thought, “Great point. I won’t say that.” It’s because I’m out in front of people.

At the end of the day, it’s about how can I be the best me? What could I have done better? What can I do better? Character is going to come as we go. Character is going to come as a result of being in the trenches. Character is going to come as a result of seeking mentorship. Of asking questions and having someone say, “You have more excuses than you’ve had results. You don’t show up, so you’re really not a person of your word.” Go seek success. Go seek results. Then watch the character begin to shift. Watch how things will change for you.

I want to encourage you guys: Go do something before you seek to be so significant. I see a lot of people try so hard on social media, and I think, “Oh goodness. You’re trying so hard.” You guys, it comes naturally. Significance is given to you. You can’t force that. I turn around and I think to myself, if I were to say, “Hey you guys we are going to have a conference. I just want to pour into you guys and tell you everything I could possibly tell you for 8 hours. Registration is up and it’s live.” I know the hungry will show up. The hungry will show up because they are seeking a success they know we have achieved. Whatever that is. Maybe it’s our marriage, maybe it’s my champion boys, maybe it’s my family, maybe it’s my walk, maybe it’s my faith, maybe it’s my business, maybe it’s how I treat people, maybe it’s my leadership. People will come because I have achieved success in my life. My marriage is successful. My boys are successful. My leadership has been successful. My team has been successful. My income is successful. My leadership level is successful. My faith is successful. Everything is successful.

I encourage you today, think to yourself, “Am I seeking success or am I seeking significance?” Brian just said to a group of guys the other day, “You know I love you guys. You’re totally fired up about where you are in your life, and that’s great. If there’s nothing else you desire to achieve to be successful, whether it’s financially, your job, or this is the best you’re willing to get, then figure out how to add significance and add success outside of yourself. For the rest of you guys who do what I do, go chase success. It’s there for the taking. It’s there to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.” So many of us think that we have a mic, but we really don’t. We’re really truly forcing a mic. Go add value. Go be successful. Go chase success. Significance is going to follow you.

I hung up that conference call with our mentor and he said, “I’m here to tell you. I think the rest of this year, you need to have fun. You just need to have fun. You have fought your butt off for nine years. You have read every self-help book. You have read every success book. You’ve eaten more vomit than most people will ever want to eat. You have achieved more success than most people will ever achieve in their lives. Go have fun. Go do what you love to do. Go pour into people. Go smile and give wisdom. Go LIVE on Periscope. Go LIVE in your Bible Study. Go speak and let people listen to what you have to say.” And you guys when we hung up that call, I called my girls and I just started crying. Literally started crying and I said, “Wow. I just got permission to have fun. All that God has instilled in me because I’ve died to self. All that God has instilled in me because I’ve spent hours trying to understand people. All that God has instilled in me because life’s not easy, but it’s pretty simple. All that God has instilled in me because I see the choices that people make. All that God has instilled in me because Brian and I have sat through hundreds of marriages at this point and kept them together. Hundreds of people that I’ve pulled the lid off of their head and helped them walk through life. Hundreds of thousands of people that I’ve inspired to stop thinking so small. Hundreds of thousands of people that I’ve encouraged to dream. And he said, “Just go have fun.”

So I’ve done that. It’s funny because even in that moment, I get the question, “How do you keep time for yourself because everyone is asking you questions?” And I said, “But that’s my gift. I love it. That’s my gift. So asking me a question is to allow me to operate in my gifts.” I do that a lot, I go LIVE and I’ll pour out or my girls or tribe or boys will. We just pour out and we just give wisdom. All my travel girls can tell you, we sit around and there’s always a lesson in everything. Whether it’s a question, “Hey what’s your perspective on that?” Whatever it may be. Just don’t ask me how I feel, because I don’t live in feelings EVER. Toby just said on Sunday, to follow your heart is greek for stupid. Everybody thinks, “My feelings matter and I get to follow my heart.” He said, “I don’t care if your mom crocheted it, if you Pinterest it, that’s the stupidest wisdom you could ever get. The Bible tells us the heart is deceitful above all else.” So all of my girls know not to ask me how I feel because I don’t give a rip potato chip about how I feel. Ask me what I’m thinking.

Seek success and significance will follow. I’m not saying to you, “Go have fun.” Maybe some of you guys haven’t achieve the place in your life to be told, “Go have fun for a little bit.” Some of you guys still need to go chase success. Like Brian said, there’s very pivotal points in our life where it was about success. If we weren’t successful, Brian had to go back to work. If we weren’t successful, we were broke. We had already lost everything to a foreclosure and a bankruptcy. It was about success for us. We had to have victories. We had to have money. We had to have fruits of our labor look like a harvest. We had to. It was success. I didn’t give a rip potato chip if I could give you mentorship at that moment. We had to have success. And we did.

Listen. I want to encourage you guys: don’t think that life is all cherries. Once you’ve achieved success, significance will follow you. Once you are stable financially, stable in your marriage, stable with your children, stable in your friendships, significance will brew itself. You cannot force honor or respect. That comes with leadership and success.

Go 100% seek success today. Go find yourself in a position to be able to say, “Good job self.” Today for us, it’s about closing out the fourth quarter of the year. Some of you guys just have to flat finish. Finish hard. Finish strong. Some of you guys have to get over how cute you are, what your body looks like, how many posts can I do on social media today to seem like everything is okay. Stay off of fake social media and go chase success. The end. Go chase it. Because what happens is, we portray this image and then people rise up in front of you and say, “That’s not what I see on social media.” You want to know what makes my heart tick? Last night I had someone come up to me, and she said, “I drove here to listen to you tonight.” And I told her she had to give me a hug because that’s awesome. She said, “I’ve watched you and I’ve wondered: Is she really that full of joy? And from the second you walked into the room tonight to right now, you truly are who you say you are.” I told her, “Absolutely 100%. There’s never any fake in Robbie Page.” So guess what that means, people see that and your spirits join and they begin to pull in a little closer. The filth will leave, the fake will fall wayside, but always the super real transparence will stay put.