What Did You Do To Get Better Today

Ladies and gentlemen, success isn’t owned. Success is leased, and rent is due every single day.

J. J. Watt is widely regarded as the best defensive player in the National Football League. It’s been a tough stretch for the NFL. I’ve talked about why I think you’ll eventually abandon the NFL, but I’ve got to tell you there’s still a lot of great guys in that league, and one of them is J. J. Watt. Talk about somebody who is an inspiration, not just to other athletes and kids who want to play football, but to people like me.

This is J. J’s quote, not mine: “Success isn’t owned. It’s leased, and rent is due every day.” In this interview, J. J. goes on to say: “Every single day someone’s coming for your job, someone’s coming for your greatness. If you’re the greatest, someone else wants to be the greatest. So if you’re not constantly improving your game, somebody else is.”

What’s even more amazing about this is the fact that this quote is originally from my good friend and mentor, Rory Vaden (author of the NY Times best-selling book Take the Stairs, and the forthcoming new book Procrastinate on Purpose). It’s a shame J.J. didn’t credit Rory for the quote, but it make me happy that J.J. is inspired by Rory’s work (as I am).

The concept of paying rent everyday is so incredibly important, and it has a lot of resonance with me. People have asked me recently, “Hey, Jay, isn’t great that a lot of people know your blog now and they know your name and they read your books and things like that?” I’ve got to tell you folks, it absolutely is great. It’s a #FirstWorldProblem.

But do you know how many other bloggers there are out there? Do you know how many other public speakers there are out there? Do you know how many other authors there are out there and podcasters and video podcasters and everything else I’m doing?

Why am I recording a video right now in a hotel bathroom in Orlando when there’s a lot of other things I could be doing? Because every day rent is due. Every day someone is trying to take away whatever it is that you’ve built for yourself, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a plumber or a consultant or a house painter or an insurance agent or a realtor or a flower arranger or a wedding photographer or any other business that you’re in. Whatever you have, somebody else is coming for it, and rent is due every single day.

You’ve got to wake up every morning and say, “What can I do today to climb that mountain and stay on top of the mountain?” There are no days off. That’s not the way modern business works. There’s always somebody coming up from the bottom trying to push you off the pedestal. It doesn’t make life easy. It doesn’t make life quiet, but that’s the reality.

Sprout Social Shoutout

Today’s Sprout Social Shoutout is for my friend Michael Brenner. Talk about a guy who’s living this principle. Michael is now head of content strategy at NewsCred, a fantastic content marketing company. Before that he was at SAP, one of the best people in the whole world to follow on the topic of content marketing, especially if you’re interested in the business to business side of that equation. So make sure you give Michael a follow.

This video is from Jay Today is my near-daily 3-minute video where I talk about social media, content marketing, business and life. JayToday is available on Youtube, iTunes (as a video podcast, and now as an audio podcast too), and at JayToday.tv.
The show is sponsored by Sprout Social (which I use for my social media), and Candidio (a great video editing service).

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