Welcome to “How You Living?” a transformative podcast featuring best-selling author, inspirational speaker and minister, Dr. Rick Rigsby—and, now, Dr. Rick.
(00:24): Hello friends. Thanks so much for joining us today. I want to talk to you about easy specifically mastering the easy former Pittsburgh Steelers head football coach. Chuck Nolls said on one occasion, champions are champions. Not because they do extraordinary things, but because they do ordinary things better than anybody else doing ordinary things better than anybody else. That's the key to extraordinary performance regardless of the task, regardless of the field of endeavor, mastering me easy, I believe is the trademark of greatness. I talk a lot about executing basics. Another way of saying mastering the easy as a child, I was taught to master the easy by my parents, whether it was peeling a potato or scrubbing a toilet, it had to be done. The right. My dad was a cook for a maritime academy in Northern California. Sometimes he would have responsibilities that would result in him working on the weekends.
(01:32): And we loved this at kids. It meant we could beg him to take us to work with him on a Saturday. It meant everything from playing ball in a, an empty gym to watching sailboats maneuver around the bay. But it also meant helping out in the gal, in the mess hall, as they used to call it in military terms, it meant kitchen patrol also known as my dad usually gave me one of two jobs, either garbage detail or peeling the potatoes. I would often choose the ladder if I had a choice, but in both cases, he would show me what he expected. He showed me only one time. And in showing me he set the expectation. He did not tolerate anything less than excellence. He showed me one time. He set the expectation. His command was simple. Ricky, if you're gonna do a job, do it right when I would peel potatoes friends.
(02:36): Let me tell you, I knew not to return a potato to my father with one spec of skin on it. I'm talking about mastering the easy at home. We didn't have housekeepers growing up, unless unless you counted those kids. We did everything from washing dishes to cleaning the bathrooms. We hated scrubbing the toilets. It meant arduous, tedious, attention to detail. We didn't mind so much the outside chores doing yard work, painting, fence repairs, washing the cars. I have to pause for a moment. I'm thinking right now in my mind about that Clint Eastwood movie grand to Reno, whose character feels the emptiness in his life with beer and home repairs, while developing an unlikely friendship with his neighbors. Here's my favorite scene. Clint's character. Walt is sitting on the front porch, admiring the job he did washing waxing his car. Isn't it interesting that an entire generation of kids have no idea how gratifying it is to admire a car.
(03:49): You've just washed by hand, whatever we did at home, it had to be done the right way. It had to be done correctly. I can hear in my mind with a piercing familiarity right now, Ricky, if you're gonna do a job, do it right. Mastering. The easy became part of our core curriculum. Growing up. I have four degrees. My brother is a presidential appointed judge in Washington, DC. We weren't the ones in our family. It was a country mother from Oklahoma and a third grade dropout daddy from Texas. They both taught us to master the easy. They said it this way, execute the basics better than anybody else. And you'll grow your capacity for that, which want mastering the easy, I think about a basketball coach, a former basketball coach at UCLA by the name of John wooden, the wizard of Westwood, the very first thing he taught his incoming freshman was the proper way to put on their socks.
(04:59): Because if you don't know the proper to put on your socks, your feet will develop blisters and you will be of no use to the team. How about tennis? Great. Arthur Ash, who said start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. How about another tennis? Great. Beyond Borg, beyond Bo org mastered the basics in such a way, mastered the easy in such a way that he posed a tremendous threat to any of his opponents. I have a friend who was a professional tennis player back in the seventies. He said to be on board was the stiffest competition. When I asked why my friend said Borg had the basics so down, he wore his opponents out. Here's a basic, here's mastering. Easy. How about mastering? Making a bowl of soup. When my father found out that I was going to a new restaurant, he would always encourage me to order a bowl of soup.
(06:07): When I would ask why he would say son, if the soup is not good, don't invest in the restaurant. To this day. I work on mastering the easy as a minister, as a public speaker, I'm always working on my craft every day. I'll give you an example. From my early years as a television reporter, I would spend countless hours chasing down news stories in my news car to improve my articulation skills. I spent years reading billboards out loud. Now I was by myself in the news car. So there was no audience, but I wanted to improve my articulation. So when I would see a billboard, I would sound it out out loud, for example, oh, what a feeling? Drive a Toyota mastering the easy I'd listen to San Francisco giants baseball games. When I'd drive around my news cruiser, I would rehearse my own broadcast swung on a deep drive to center field maze on the run makes the catch what a spectacular play.
(07:15): I would even include. Commercials friends. Your mouth is parched as a Bleacher seat. Then turn up a can of Budweiser, Budweiser, the king of bears. You see friends, if you really want to be great at anything, you have to first master the easy. I learned that from a country, my other, from Oklahoma at a third grade dropout daddy recently, I was involved in a rather intense discussion with a dear friend who asked me to coach him up for a job he's applying for. He wanted my honest opinion regarding how he can improve. My initial assessment was for him to develop up greater breadth and depth, specifically developing a memory and a deeper memory bank. I offered a few simple exercises. Here's an exercise that I do daily to continue to develop my memory. I think of an event that occurred years ago. And what I I choose to do is this.
(08:21): I will work to remember every single detail that surrounds that particular event. And so I shared this with my friend. I will refer to my friend in this example as Fred. So I talked to him about a trip. We took a few years earlier and I told him to recite and recall every single event from that trip. Every descriptive statement that he could possibly think of. I wanted him to recount every detail from that trip, the greater the detail I told Fred the higher his score would be with a hundred being max, Fred scored about a 50, which is probably average. But when I pressed Fred, he got irritated and said, why do I need to remember obvious that stuff that you're asking me is easy to remember? Why do I need to remember it? But here was the problem. As easy as it was, Fred was not able to recall those details.
(09:29): This exercise led to a lengthy discussion. I am happy to report Fred final only got it. The difference between ordinary performance and extraordinary performance, extraordinary people master the easy like mini high achievers, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. One of the richest men in the world rises early. He's mastered the task of rising early without the use of an alarm clock. He doesn't like the word alarm. It signals danger, distressing suspense. That's not how he wants to frame his day. Oprah Winfrey. She also has mastered the task of rising early without an alarm clock mastering. The easy another rich person you perhaps have heard of is Warren buffet. He says, he's mastered the simple act of reading every single day. In fact, he says he spends 80% of his day reading. Listen to what buffet says. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will, huh?
(10:43): By the way, a few years ago, accounted Tim Corley surveyed 233 wealthy people with regard to their daily habits. Listen to this Corley found that 88% of those people devoted at least 30 minutes or more every single day to education or self improvement through reading mastering the easy small efforts consistently repeated results in mastery. It's really not complicated. Linkedin CEO, Jeff Weiner, like to carve out time to think. He says that that is the foundation for all of his day. Just mastering a small time every day to think you see it really doesn't matter what you do. The principle remains the same. If you can master the easy you're on the road to if extraordinary performance, it doesn't matter what the endeavor is. NFL hall of fame, quarterback, Kurt Warner through unlimited footballs through a tire. I mentioned tennis. Great beyond board. He hit countless balls against this family's garage door boxer, Mike Tyson, despite all his antics.
(11:59): Gosh, he was a ferocious boxer. And that greatness as a boxer resulted from mastering film study. He would watch countless hours of boxers over and over and over in the attic of a former trainer's house where he lived as a young man. How about Britain's prime minister, Winston Churchill. He mastered three basic three easy philosophies. Number one, he never wavered. Number two. He was true to his principles. Number three, he stood resolved. He stood even if he was the only one standing by the way Churchill one said, quote, history will be kind to me for, I intend to write it in. How about the man who spent five years perfecting a simple chicken sandwich that would be Chick-fil-A founder, Truit. Cathy. How about Kobe Bryant? Who mastered the easy task of asking questions? And it didn't matter where he would ask the questions. He wanted to know how to improve so that he could be the best basketball player.
(13:08): He could be. There's one example of Kobe asking Michael Jordan questions. As they both stood side by side, when somebody else was shooting a free throw Kobe's bugging, Michael Kobe would also call Michael as the legend goes in the evenings. Late at night, it would be a certain time in Los Angeles. The game was over. It would be a couple of hours later in Chicago, but the phone would ring. Michael would pick it up and it would bug Michael. Eventually a friendship resulted. Isn't that interesting. A deep brotherhood resulted at Kobe's funeral. Michael in tears talked about how much he loved his brothers design to learn, to grow, to challenge himself, to get better and better and better every single day. You can trace all of that back to Kobe. Bryant's insatiable desire to master the easy something is easy as asking a question to gain information golfing legend tiger woods has become a global icon during his recent hall of fame speech.
(14:25): He discussed how he learned how to play golf by playing with his father, Earl, a former of special forces, green beret. He learned early in life cause and effect that where he, you strike the ball on the club face determines the ball placement tiger. And his father would begin around late in the afternoon. After Tiger's dad got off work, the rule was simple. As the sun was going down, they would play until someone lost the ball. Well, tiger wanted to keep playing. So he did everything. He could not to lose a golf ball. This forced him to learn where every one of his shots would go. He learned how to shape shots. He learned where to hit the ball on the club face tiger would hit golf balls in the grass, through the trees in the sand, out of the sand, through hula hoops, he was learning to master the easy Mr.
(15:18): Woods taught his young son a fundamental lesson that tiger has relied on throughout his illustrious career. Mr. Woods would say, son, train hard, fight, easy, hard fight. Easy tiger applied this philosophy to his golf life. He made practices grueling so grueling. He had thousands of balls until his hands bled. He hit every shot imaginable over and over and over again. Tiger said, quote, I made practicing so difficult. It hurt so much because I wanted to make sure I was ready. Come game time, train hard, fight easy. That's the foundation for mastering the basics mastering the easy Tiger's dad would say to him, son, nothing is given to you. If you don't earn it, you don't deserve it. I've been taking golfing lessons lately. I'm reminded that golf is a game of small adjustments, a game of proper alignment. I've had a hook. I'm a lefthander and I've had a hook ever since I began be playing golf back in the 1980s, I've been told, well, that comes from all your years of playing baseball and softball and just gonna have to live with it.
(16:39): I've tried everything to mitigate this hook, but it wasn't until this old guy, this old teaching pro who had been teaching forever watched just a couple of my swings and said these words to me, Rick, you wiggle and waggle. I said what? He said, your grip, your grip, you wiggle and waggle your grip. Once you start off, it's fine. It's just fine. But as you swing, your brain pushes you to that bad habit of wiggling. And we, your grip, the result, the club head changes slightly as I swing. I'm now striking the ball with more of a closed face, literally encouraging the ball to hook. This is what the pro said. I'm gonna give you one simple exercise. And when you master are this easy step, you will hit the ball straight friends. It worked. I can't believe it. All the club pro told me to do was before I addressed the ball, hold the club out.
(17:47): That's right. Stick it out. Right toward, right toward my instructor and make sure that my club face is exact. And then don't change my grip. Don't move my hands. I then present the club face behind the ball. I don't change my grip. I take my time. I do all my other mechanics. I swing and believe it or not. I hit the ball consistently. Straight now comes the hard work of mastering. This easy technique. He also told me this, the club pro told me that golfing Jack Nicholas once said that 90% of the time your club shot is determined before you even swing the club. Your golf shot is determined before you even swing the club. Oh, friends. This speaks to making sure that in our lives, regardless of the endeavor that we begin every endeavor by making a fundamental commitment to master the easy, whether peeling potatoes, or playing the piano or throwing the football or changing the grip of your golf swing. The key to extraordinary performance is discovered as we master the easy, well, that's gonna do it for this episode until we meet again. This is Dr. Rick asking the most important question I can ask. How you living.
Are you ready to make an impact in your world right now? Do you want to stop existing and start living your best life right now? Dr. Rick wants to give you the first chapter of his bestselling book, “Lessons from a Third Grade Dropout”, absolutely free. Just go to www.RickRigsby.com/FreeGift to get the print or audiobook right now.
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