I was speaking to a client who just returned from the wedding of an old college friend that he studied the bar with. It’s been several years since he spent some time with him and on our first coaching call, he shared about his trip. However, he mentioned, “You know Coach, my friends seem a little different now.” I asked, “What do you mean?” He shares, “I don’t know. They just seem different. I can’t relate to them like I used to.” I then shared with him about how you have now created what I call the gap.
Let me explain. Any of you who are working on yourself to be your best, are reading all sorts of books to learn how to be a better communicator, how to be a better leader, how to be better in business, and how to be a better person. Just learning all these different skills and traits to become and show up better every day creates a different you. For any of you who have taken on a coach, someone who personally challenges you and shares insight, skills, and techniques to get better, what happens is you are consistently working on yourself. As months go by, you may not notice a difference, however, when 12 months pass, you may look back and say, “Oh my God, I’m not the same person I was a year ago.”
What happens is you create a gap between you and all the folks that are not doing the same work on themselves that you are doing on you. That’s just simply the way it works. I’m sure many of you had conversations with people that after you had the conversation, you would look to someone and say, “They just don’t get it.” Well, of course, they don’t get it. The reason they don’t get it is they haven’t done the work you’ve done on you for themselves. So, they haven’t got to that point to truly understand the significance and the wisdom that you brought to the table because you have gone through the process of understanding things at a higher level and they have not.
I had a coach say to me a long time ago; something that took the pressure off me when I was frustrated because I wasn’t where I wanted to be. He said, “Mr. Dill, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be in the process.” And for all of you listening today, you all are exactly where you’re supposed to be in the process. Whether you’re going through a great time or whether you’re going through a significant challenge right now, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be in the process because everything that happens forces you to step up and learn from it and get better. As you pursue and persevere through that experience, you look back and say, “Oh my God, that was the best learning experience I ever had.” The more experiences you have like that, and the more you are consistently going outside your comfort zone and being challenged not only by yourself but by others, to do things you haven’t done before to get better, you consistently create a gap between you and a lot of people that aren’t doing the same work.
Understand that you don’t have to get frustrated the next time you speak to somebody who doesn’t get it. Don’t get frustrated when you meet somebody that you’ve known for years that you haven’t seen for a while, and you realize like, wow, they’re not the same person. No, they are exactly the same person they were years ago. The difference is that you are not the same person you were years ago because you put the work in and advanced in your growth and you have now created the gap. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a way of saying, good job. You’re doing the work. Praise yourself for consistently going outside your comfort zone and doing whatever it takes for you to become that much better every day. Because as you compound that growth over days, weeks, months, and years, there’ll be a day you’ll be sitting back saying, oh my God, how did I get here? Acknowledge the success you’ve created for yourself, pat yourself on the back, and say good job, you’ve done the work. So, congratulations on your future on doing the work. Don’t get frustrated about the gap. Just be happy that you are the one out in front because you’ve done the work.
COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud Action Coach Franchise partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice. Businesscoachmichaeldill.com