Success Secrets of Rocky Balboa

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What do you think of when someone says, “The Eighties (’80’s)”?

Tight rolled jeans?

Flouresent colors?

Skinny ties?

Perms, crimps, mullets and mohawks?

Some of those come to mind for me, but mostly I think of all the awesome movies that came out in that decade.

(Funny thing is, now that I think about it, if I were to write up a list of all my favorite 80’s movies, more than half of them would include either Sylvester Stalone or Tom Cruise…but how can Rambo III and Top Gun NOT be on your all-time best movies list?!)

One of my favorites from those 10 years was Rocky IV (see, Stalone again), and while a big part of that reasoning has to do with the totally unrealistic blood-bath of a boxing match at the end of the movie, there are some actual success principles to be learned by watching it.

(hint: men, make sure to point this out next time you’re trying to convince your wife it’s a good movie for date night!)

As a quick recap (in case for *some* reason you haven’t seen the movie [and you call yourself an American?]), Rocky’s friend and mentor Apollo gets killed in the ring by Ivan Drago (the Russian heavyweight champ) and so Rocky must avenge his death by beating Drago in the ring.

The reason this isn’t the greatest idea is that Drago is about 12 times the size of Rocky and the Italian Stallion hasn’t been in the ring in a couple of years, so he’s got a lot of ground to make up.

And here’s where the leadership and personal development lessons come in…

Rocky takes a very unorthodox approach to his training.

While Ivan Drago is using state-of-the-art machines and athletic training equipment and facilities, Rocky opts for an abondoned barn in the middle of Siberia using old ropes, rocks, and horse wagons.

Makes perfect sense, I know.

But there’s actually genius in his approach, and it comes back to some basic success principles that when followed, regardless of the endeavor, increase your chances of success many fold.

The Success Secrets of Rocky Balboa

 

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

This is principle number 1.

When you get used to being in the same environment doing the same thing all the time, you get lazy and soft.  You’ve got to change your environment and change your method of operation enough that it engages the creative problem-solving side of your brain.

You will become more productive and you won’t fall into your old time-wasting habits that are limiting your results right now.

Think of the ways you could be pursuing your goal but aren’t because you percieve them to be too hard or you are afraid of for some reason…THOSE are your next moves to make and methods to act on.

And when you do, that is where you will find a breakthrough.

Simplify

Most of us have way too much going on at once, and way too much stuff in front of us at any one time.

Rocky ditched the hi-tech stuff for a barn because he knew the only thing he needed to train hard was discipline and gravity.

Take account of your schedule and daily activities and “to-dos” and ditch anything that isn’t directly related to the goal at hand.

A big one here is email.

More specifically, being subscribed to 238 different “guru” lists that always have great new products coming out and things to sell…nothing wrong with that at all, it’s just very distracting and at some point you have to stop learning and start doing.

One of my personal goals is to unsubscribe from all lists except from a handful of marketers I  know and trust so I can stop using up mental RAM with the nagging feeling of “my inbox is about to explode and I need to do something about it!”

Singular Focus

This one is similar to Simplify, but a little more specific.

Pick one task to complete (two TOPS) and work on it until it is done.

Multitasking, while a cool word that earned you some level of status 10 years ago, is not all it’s cracked up to be, and most times proves to decrease productivity instead of increase.

Have a small list of things that MUST be accomplished each day and do not stray from them until complete.  You’ll be amazed at how much more you get done and how much better you’ll feel about what youv’e accomplished.

And finally…

Deadlines

Make sure you put some timelines on the things you want to get done.

It’s way too easy to continually let things slide if you don’t have a “must be complete by this date” stamp on each project.

If you need to, pretend you’ve got a boss that’s going to ask for the assignment on the due date, or ask someone else to hold you accountable to it’s completion.

Bottomline, make sure you have some sense of urgency (real or imagined) attached to your goals or you’ll soon find it WAY past when you thought you’d be finished with them.

Rocky knew what date he needed to be in the ring.  He was either prepared when he got there, or he was certain to be savagely beaten for all the world to see.

(not that that’s what awaits you if you don’t complete your goals in a timely fashion, but it makes for a good point!)

So there you have it.  Personal Development and Success Habits from movies of the 1980’s…hmm…do I feel a series coming on?

Talk soon,
Steve