How to keep your edge.
A few weekends ago, I was on the show Fox & Friends. I did it “on the wire,” which means I sat in the Dave Ramsey studio and appeared live from Nashville.
It’s a nationally broadcast show with a weekly audience of millions and millions of people. I was nervous, but since this was my fourth time being on the show, I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I was the first time.
When I texted my team leader that I was doing the show again, he wrote me back something that I thought was brilliant. Here is what he said:
“Treat every time like it was your first time.”
I love that because it speaks to a great temptation we all face as dreamers. When you do something enough, you tend to get used to it. You take it for granted. You get comfortable and sometimes even casual with what you’re doing. The energy and excitement you initially brought to it wanes naturally, as you settle into first a rhythm and then eventually a rut.
This happens when you hold your 15th client meeting.
This happens when you preach your 50th sermon.
This happens when you record your 12th song.
This happens to everyone who is working on a dream.
To combat this natural sway toward complacency, you have to deliberately treat every time like it was your first time. To get amped and focused and execute like it was your first and maybe even last time you’ll get to do something.
Because even if you’ve done something 100 times, that might be the first time someone has heard you speak or listened to your music or walked into your store. It’s their first time. And to serve the reader, the audience member, the customer, with a fantastic first-time experience, you’ve got to act like it’s your first time too.