Jan 25, 2022
Success Comes in Cans…
By George L. Rosario, Bible Based Business Consultant at GC Rosario Group
Feeling frustration? Did last year, last month, last week, yesterday or the last hour leave you feeling drained and unaccomplished? How you approach your frustration will determine whether you stay in it, or get through it.
There are three seemingly easy steps that can help you get over the frustration. I say they are seemingly easy because they look easy on the surface, but require you to have a mindset shift and put in some work. I promise you that the more you exercise these steps in your own life, the easier they’ll become. Let’s look at each one of these easy but difficult steps in detail, and tie it all in with the glue that holds them all together.
DO NOT FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CANNOT DO.
Every can’t is like a thief of energy in your life. Starting any statement with the words “I can’t” is already creating a mindset of defeat that will be very difficult to overcome. What if we changed that mindset by changing the way we think, communicate and plan our intended actions and goals? What if we started replacing every can’t or cannot with a can. After all, success comes in cans, not in can’ts or cannots. Winners use the word can more often than they use the words can’t or cannot.
I wish I could take credit for the “Success comes in cans, not in can’ts or cannots” quote, but it’s not mine. The first time I encountered it, I read it after an awesome meal (General Tso Chicken over Pork Fried Rice) from a Chinese take-out restaurant on Summerfield Street and Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood Queens (Delicious Wok). I found it inside the fortune cookie and it read, “Success comes in cans, not in cannots.” I’ve also heard variations of it used by great speakers like Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Darryl Davis, Les Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Alison Levine, Seth Godin, Jack Canfield, Robert Morris, Christine Caine, Nick Vujicic, Tony Evans, Robert Kiyosaki, Mel Robbins, Darren Hardy, Dave Ramsey, David Goggins, John Maxwell, Sheila Walsh, Simon Sinek, George L. Rosario (oh wait, that’s me… lol), and others.
We’ve either been in this mindset, or known someone who’s been in this mindset. It’s the guy that says, “I can’t enlarge my ministry’s territory.” or “I can’t open up a second, third, fourth or fiftieth church campus.” Imagine if Pastors like Steven Furtick and Robert Madu decided they couln’t grow their churches, they couldn’t open new campuses and they couldn’t spread the message to different places. What if Pastors like Rick Warren and Robert Morris said I can’t impact millions of people across the United States and abroad? What if Pastors like Chuck Smith and Billy Graham had allowed I can’t into their hearts?
Business leaders and entrepreneurs have to stop using the I can’t phrase in their vocabulary. I run into this a lot with entrepreneurs who are ready to quit on their dreams on goals because they haven’t made it fast enough. They set a goal and are full of excitement, and as soon as they run into an obstacle, they decide they can’t do it. Others quit before they get started. They are presented with an opportunity and immediately say I can’t do that. Winners have a vocabulary that does not include the dream killer; I can’t.
To those that expect the dream to become reality overnight, I have a MLM opportunity I want to sell you. Stop it! Winning takes patience, perseverance, vision, action and consistency. Winners are winners because they are not afraid of losing, and don’t quit when they lose. The word loser is not the opposite of winner. The opposite of winner is quitter. Some people quit before they start.
Imagine if Henry Ford quit before he was 45? Where would that leave my 1965 Shelby GT350 (no I do not own one, but hey… you never know)? Imagine if Susan Boyle stopped singing before her breakthrough performance at 48 years young? Imagine if Harland Sanders stopped trying to bring us before he turned 73? You gotta give up your KFC! Better known as Colonel Sanders, he started KFC when he was 66 but didn’t become a real millionaire until he sold the franchise when he was 73. How many of us would have quit long before that? Want to be a winner? Stop quitting before you’re done!
FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO.
Instead ask yourself, “What can I do to…?” End this question with your intended goal. For example, “What can I do to land this job?”, or “What can I do to earn that account?”, or “What can I do to grow my business?”, or a classic, “What can I do to bring our relationship to the next level?” (Yes, we consult on relationships as well and you get #GeorgeTheSpeaker & #TheFeistyColombian as your mentors).
What happens when you say “What can I do to open up this business?” rather than saying “I can’t start this business.”? If you ask yourself what you can do to open that business, you open your mind up to think of possible ways to make it happen. Asking what you can do rather than telling yourself you can’t do it turns the impossible into the possible. Thinking turns losers into winners. The lack of willingness to brainstorm and think turns potential winners into quitters.
Putting the words “What can I do to…” is how inventors, innovators, shakers & movers, creators, motivators, makers & doers make things happen. Who are some What can I do people? Let’s talk about it.
Do you like your cellphone? Did you know that the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City in 1973? I’m sure somewhere down the line, someone said something like, “I don’t think it will work.” Thank innovators for asking, “What can we do to create a mobile phone?”
Like flying to far away spots for fun vacations? Imagine if Orville and Wilbur Wright quit on their dream to fly before December 17, 1903? Do you think they never crashed prior to that day? They could have said, “We can’t do this” after their first crash. Instead, they looked at their mistakes and their successes and continued asking themselves, “What can we do to accomplish this?”
FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT.
Then to really win, add the question, “How can I do…?” What you do after this is add the goals you added at the end of the “What can I do…” question. For example, “What can I do to bring our relationship to the next level?”, etc. Now you look at it from a “How can I bring our relationship to the next level?”
The “What can I do” and the “How can I do it” work hand in hand. They sometimes seem like the right thing to the untrained eye, but they are not. When you skip the “I can’t grow my business” phase, and cross the “What can I do to grow my business?” phase, you now enter the “How can I grow my business?” Let’s look at a real life example.
At one point in my life I wanted to open up my own real estate office. I was a Realtor working in Brooklyn when I first spoke this goal out loud. Interesting enough, people who had never done it decided to tell me, “George, you can’t open up your own office.” Being a non-quitter, I asked why not. They explained that as a new agent, I could not open up my own office because New York State licensing law had a requirement that I had to work 2 years as a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson and do a certain amount of predefined business before I could apply to become a Licensed Real Estate Broker, and since I was not licensed as a salesperson for two years or sold enough to qualify, I could not open up my own office.
The quitter would have taken this information and said, well then, I guess I can’t open up my own office. Being a non-quitter, I decided to do some homework on the matter. I wanted to know what I could do to make this happen. I asked myself, “What can I do to meet the requirements to go for my Broker license so that I can open up my own office?” I learned that I had to be active for 2 years as a full time Realtor, and that I had to close a certain amount of business in those two years. I was not ready for the next phase.
I then asked myself, “How can I sell this many homes over the next two years in order to meet the time and production requirements for my Broker license?” I sat down and devised a plan. How many homes would I have to sell per month in order to gain the production points to qualify for the Broker license in those two years? I learned that I had to sell one home every three months for the next 2 years to qualify. I then asked, “How can I sell one home every third month?” I found mentors that were teaching people how to do this and I hired them as my coaches. This is the “How do I…” phase.
THE GLUE THAT HOLDS IT ALL TOGETHER:
There is a way to lose even if you have gone these three phases. You can get past the “I can’t do it” phase, jump into “What can I do…” phase, and then slide into the “How can I…” phase, but fail if you forget the glue.
What is this glue? It’s the why. If you do not have a very strong why, a solid reason for chasing a goal, you can and will probably backslide all the way back into the “I can’t” phase. If your why is very weak, you will most likely get stuck in that phase. How do you make sure you escape and never go back into that phase? You have a strong, clearly defined, meaningful, solid, respectable why and you remind yourself of it weekly, daily and even hourly. Print it out and put it in all the places your eyes gravitate to. Don’t let anyone tell you what your why will be.
Most parents say it’s their children. That’s too easy. That’s not a why. That is a must. You must take care of the kids. So don’t put that on the why column. Put it on your must column. When you learn to identify the musts in your life, you’ll be able to discover the whys. Telling yourself that your children are your why is like telling yourself that breathing is your why. Breathing is something you must do. Taking care of your kids is something you must do.
Many married people might say it is their spouse. Again, that is not a why but a must. The moment you say “I do”, you are accepting the responsibility to meet the needs of that person. Husband, you must meet your wife’s needs. Wife, you must meet your husband’s needs. If this offended you right now because you are a husband or a wife and you don’t think it is your responsibility to meet your spouse’s needs, you should definitely book a session with my Kingdom Queen Claudia and I. Don’t wait until it is too late.
So if family is not a why, then what is? Again, I can’t tell you what your why is. What I can do is share one of our whys with you.
Claudia and I have a burden in our hearts to create a mentorship program for married couples. That is the what. People tried to trap us in the “I can’t” phase. We decided to spend our time in the “What can we do to?” and “How can we do it?” phases. We tied it all together with a very strong why.
Our why is that there is a divorce epidemic, and that many of these divorces could have been prevented by this mentorship program. Our why is that the real work starts after the “I do.” Our why is that we want to give good married couples the opportunity to have a strong mentor couple to walk with thought their marriage so that they don’t have to figure things out alone. Our why is that no one, not a husband, nor a wife, nor children should have to go through the pain and suffering divorce causes if it can be avoided. That’s our why.
See, while my wife is an amazing, beautiful, strong, intelligent, awesome, superhero of a woman, she is not my why for this project. While I am a super handsome, strong, intelligent, awesome, superhero of a MAN (you know Claudia’s laughing right now), I am not her why for this project. Our why is bigger than us, and it drives our “What can I…” and “How can I” phases.
CONCLUSION:
I hope this has helped you prepare yourself for success in whatever you set out to do. Remember to run from the “I can’t…” phase and the people in it as fast as possible. You don’t need doubt and negativity holding you back.
Need help getting started? Let’s talk about it. Go online right now, even if it’s 3 am, and schedule your complimentary 30 minute consultation. Yes, complimentary means you get to pick my brain for 30 minutes for free!
George L. Rosario is a Brooklyn NY born & raised businessman & entrepreneur turned consultant. He started GC Rosario Group with his lovely wife Claudia. With over 30 years of service to the marketplace in NYC, George has relocated and been graciously adopted by the business community of South Florida. He now travels the country helping businesses and organizations thrive in today’s noisy environment. The post-Covid era forced many to close their doors, but also opened new doors of opportunity, growth and prosperity for innovative thinkers. George & Claudia Rosario help companies, businesses, organizations and teams develop the necessary skillset and plan of action to not just survive, but thrive in this new world. GC Rosario Group helps both secular and Christian based institutions meet their goals.
