“Success isn’t owned. It’s leased, and rent is due every day!”

The quote from J.J. Watt “Success isn’t owned.  It’s leased, and rent is due every day!” is one of the most true and accurate statements for any leader and anyone that wants to be great.   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.”  Jim Collins says that “Good is the Enemy of Great!”  What they are saying is that we can never allow complacency and there’s always room for improvement, we can’t ever be okay with being just okay. 

There are no days off, there is no time limit on mental focus on improvement, there is no limit on improvement.  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?" “What did I do today to be better than I was yesterday?”  The true challenger is yourself.  “What are you doing each day to get better?  The greatest thing is that this is about effort and not limited to ability.  We all control the amount of effort and focus we put into something.  It doesn’t matter what your current position or title.  Whatever you have, somebody else is coming for it, and rent is due every single day.  Somebody always wants a shot at your position or an opportunity to show they can do better.  Even when you’re on top, especially when you’re on top, 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.  The reality is that there is no such thing as staying the same.  Coach Ed Emory used to say  that “there’s no such thing as staying the same, you’re either getting better or someone else is.”  Such a very true mentality.  Even when things are going well and you’re on top of your game, you still must improve just as much or more than every single competitor, or they’ll catch you some day. 

 

Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all-time, was at the peak of his sport for over a decade.  You’d watch him in practice, even at the end of his career, trying to be the first on the team in sprints for conditioning at the end of practice.  He’d always try to be the best in every inter-squad scrimmage.  He wanted to have the highest free-throw percentage, both in games and practice.   He even wanted to beat all of the stadium crew in pitching quarters.  Everything was always a competition and 1^st place was the only place for him and even then he always thought he could be better.  This mentality is what made him the greatest.  While he had tremendous talent, there were other players that had just as much, if not more talent.  Everyone in the NBA was chasing him and wanted to knock him off the top spot, but he was always working to get better and never complacent with his or his team’s performance.  Complacency was not a word in his vocabulary. 

 

One of the biggest problems in education is complacency. Success is simply a product of day-in-day-out application of habits and disciplined actions…..small steps each day to improve, paying the rent daily.  If your school isn’t performing the way you’d like, take a good look at where you are falling short. Chances are you’re probably a little behind in the rent in those areas.  Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. In the Ancient Greek mythology, the story was told of how everything is achievable through consistent daily routine. What does it take to not be complacent and always push for improvement?  Four things come to mind:

 

#1 CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: The secret of sustained success is continuous improvement. Marshall Goldsmith once said, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”.  This is a never-ending process. 

#2 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH: John C. Maxwell said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to someone else; progress is becoming superior to your previous self”.  Always have a growth mindset.

#3 DREAM AND PASSION: Henry David Thoreau said, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live a life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”  Improvement doesn’t happen in a status quo environment. 

#4 GIFTS AND TALENTS: Everyone has a talent or something that they are really good at.  Your talent is something you’re good at, that comes naturally for you.  Don’t try to change your style to fit someone else’s mold.  Accentuate your strengths and your students’ strength while you work on opportunities for improvement. 

 

I was proud of our team this week, not just for their scores but the attitude they took toward the scores.  In math, 75-85% of our students met or exceeded MAP growth projections.  While this is good, our team wanted to know what we could do help the @20% that did not meet to be able to improve for SC Ready (EOGs).  It would’ve been easy to be just be happy with the improvements and successes, but our teachers want more.  One of our consultants was doing a PD with our teachers and presented them with a chart of 9 different images.  She asked them which one shows their reaction to their MAP data.  None of them chose the images that were indicative of being completely satisfied with the scores.  Everything we do is about attitude and being successful is mostly about attitude and work ethic, things we control.  Great schools and great leaders are never complacent.  They celebrate successes and accomplishments, but are never complacent with the results.  The results take care of themselves when we do the very best we can every single day on being the best we can at each part of the process.  

 

If you really want to know the reason why some people succeed and others don’t, you need not look far-the secret is in their daily routines and attitude toward constant improvement. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.  For something to change, something must change.  You can’t ever be okay with being okay and you must realize that you don’t from when you’re comfortable.  You must learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.   The questions are simple…. Did you, as a principal or instructional coach, give your teachers and staff the best you had to give that day?  Did you, as a teacher give your students the best you had on that day?  Did students give you the best they had to give?  Do you take care of rent each and every day?