WHEN YOU’RE A CLEANER . . . . . . You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one way to get what you want.
A Cooler accepts what he can’t do and gives up.
A Closer recognizes what he can’t do but keeps working at it.
A Cleaner knows what he can do and stays with it until he decides to do something else.
Cleaner Law: if your name is on the door, you’d better control what goes on behind that door.
Failure is what happens when you decide you failed. Until then, you’re still always looking for ways to get to where you want to be.
It’s Derek Jeter responding to a reporter who asked if the Yankees were panicking during a late-season slump, and how Jeter was dealing with it: “I don’t panic so I don’t have to deal with it.” Total Cleaner. Or Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, offering to sign a medical waiver so he could return to action with a lacerated spleen, against doctors’ orders. It’s Dwyane refusing to go down with that bad knee in the playoffs, or Kobe refusing to sit out with multiple injuries— including the concussion—that would have staggered anyone else. That’s how you decide to not fail. You go, and you go, always looking for the unexpected option that keeps the situation in your control.
Success and failure are 100 percent mental. One person’s idea of success might seem like a complete failure to someone else. You must establish your own vision of what it means to be unstoppable; you can’t let anyone else define that for you. What does your gut tell you? What do your instincts know about what you should be doing, how you’re going to succeed, and what you’re going to succeed at? How can anyone tell you what that should be?
When someone else says you’ve failed, what they really mean is “If that were me, I would feel like a failure.” Well, that guy’s not you, and he’s obviously not a Cleaner, because Cleaners don’t recognize failure.
What happened with the building was a setback. But dealing with setbacks is how you achieve success. You learn, and you adapt. When everyone else is talking about how you “failed,” you show up like a professional, remap your course, and get back to work. That’s the progression of good-great-unstoppable. No one starts at unstoppable. You fuck up, you figure it out, you trust yourself.
A Cleaner never sees failure because to him it’s never over. If something doesn’t go as planned, he instinctively looks for options to make things work a different way. He doesn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, he doesn’t blame anyone else, and he doesn’t care what anyone else says about his situation. It’s never the end, it’s never over.
It’s never over. You have choices:
The Cooler admits defeat.
The Closer works harder.
The Cleaner strategizes for a different outcome.
You never know how bad you want it until you get that first bitter taste of not getting it, but once you taste it, you’re going to fight like hell to get that bitterness out of your mouth.
A Closer will keep going until he’s forced to stop— remember, he’s called a Closer because he’s there at the end. But once the end arrives, he knows it, he feels it. It’s over.
A Cleaner can’t ever accept that it’s over. But he does recognize when it’s time to change direction.
One of the hardest things to do is to change course once you’ve set your goals. You made a decision, you worked for it, you earned the payoff . . . but for whatever reason, it’s not going the way you planned.
It’s not weak to recognize when it’s time to shift directions.
It’s weak to refuse to consider other options and fail at everything because you couldn’t adapt to anything.
Don’t try. Do.
Success is about doing things that no one else can do.
You can’t be relentless unless you’re willing to take chances. Safe makes you good, chances make you great.
A Cleaner knows when to walk away, and which direction to walk. Never running, always walking; he leaves smoothly and on his own terms. He can lose a battle because he’s still planning to win the war. Lose a game, but win the season. Lose a season, come back and win the next three. Lose a job, start a new business. No one else is getting the last word on whether he succeeded.
A Closer recognizes what he can’t do but keeps working at it.
A Cleaner knows what he can do and stays with it until he decides to do something else.
Cleaner Law: if your name is on the door, you’d better control what goes on behind that door.
Failure is what happens when you decide you failed. Until then, you’re still always looking for ways to get to where you want to be.
It’s Derek Jeter responding to a reporter who asked if the Yankees were panicking during a late-season slump, and how Jeter was dealing with it: “I don’t panic so I don’t have to deal with it.” Total Cleaner. Or Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, offering to sign a medical waiver so he could return to action with a lacerated spleen, against doctors’ orders. It’s Dwyane refusing to go down with that bad knee in the playoffs, or Kobe refusing to sit out with multiple injuries— including the concussion—that would have staggered anyone else. That’s how you decide to not fail. You go, and you go, always looking for the unexpected option that keeps the situation in your control.
Success and failure are 100 percent mental. One person’s idea of success might seem like a complete failure to someone else. You must establish your own vision of what it means to be unstoppable; you can’t let anyone else define that for you. What does your gut tell you? What do your instincts know about what you should be doing, how you’re going to succeed, and what you’re going to succeed at? How can anyone tell you what that should be?
When someone else says you’ve failed, what they really mean is “If that were me, I would feel like a failure.” Well, that guy’s not you, and he’s obviously not a Cleaner, because Cleaners don’t recognize failure.
What happened with the building was a setback. But dealing with setbacks is how you achieve success. You learn, and you adapt. When everyone else is talking about how you “failed,” you show up like a professional, remap your course, and get back to work. That’s the progression of good-great-unstoppable. No one starts at unstoppable. You fuck up, you figure it out, you trust yourself.
A Cleaner never sees failure because to him it’s never over. If something doesn’t go as planned, he instinctively looks for options to make things work a different way. He doesn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, he doesn’t blame anyone else, and he doesn’t care what anyone else says about his situation. It’s never the end, it’s never over.
It’s never over. You have choices:
The Cooler admits defeat.
The Closer works harder.
The Cleaner strategizes for a different outcome.
You never know how bad you want it until you get that first bitter taste of not getting it, but once you taste it, you’re going to fight like hell to get that bitterness out of your mouth.
A Closer will keep going until he’s forced to stop— remember, he’s called a Closer because he’s there at the end. But once the end arrives, he knows it, he feels it. It’s over.
A Cleaner can’t ever accept that it’s over. But he does recognize when it’s time to change direction.
One of the hardest things to do is to change course once you’ve set your goals. You made a decision, you worked for it, you earned the payoff . . . but for whatever reason, it’s not going the way you planned.
It’s not weak to recognize when it’s time to shift directions.
It’s weak to refuse to consider other options and fail at everything because you couldn’t adapt to anything.
Don’t try. Do.
Success is about doing things that no one else can do.
You can’t be relentless unless you’re willing to take chances. Safe makes you good, chances make you great.
A Cleaner knows when to walk away, and which direction to walk. Never running, always walking; he leaves smoothly and on his own terms. He can lose a battle because he’s still planning to win the war. Lose a game, but win the season. Lose a season, come back and win the next three. Lose a job, start a new business. No one else is getting the last word on whether he succeeded.
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