957. The Moment Of Truth Is Coming For You

The moment of truth is coming.
 For you. For me. For every team, company, and individual.

No one is safe. You can’t buy your way out of it.

When it shows up, you’re either doomed or deemed.

Doomed if you coasted — talked a slick game, did just enough, got comfortable. When the pressure rises, you’ll vaporize like flash paper.

Deemed if you prepared — studied, practiced, added “one more” when it wasn’t required. That’s when you drop into another gear and separate from the pack.

Lance Armstrong once said:
 “When you open a gap and they don’t respond, it tells you something. They’re hurting. And while they’re hurting, that’s when you take them.”

That’s a moment of truth.

Darren Hardy calls it Acceleration in The Compound Effect—doing the unrequired, stacking unfair advantages, and building momentum long before you need it.

Moments of truth refine you if you’ve prepared… and expose you if you haven’t.

So don’t just get ready. Stay ready.
Because the moment of truth is coming back around, and when the gap opens, you’ll either hesitate… or you’ll take it.

Transcript

0:01

Doomed or deemed, everyone gets a moment of truth, but you don't get a moment of truth just one time. You're gonna get your moment of truth many times in life, and when it comes, you're going to either be doomed or deemed by it. And I say doomed because you're doomed in your moment of truth. If you've been coasting, you've been talking a good game, enjoying the trappings of success, doing just enough to get by. But when the pressure rises, bro, you're gonna burn up like flash paper. But there's another side to this too. There's one side where you're doomed, but then the other side in your moment of truth, where you're deemed and you're deemed. If you've been preparing, studying, practicing, and stacking the reps that no one else sees. See when that storm hits for you. You've got that sixth gear that you can drop into, and that's when you're gonna separate from the pack moments of truth. Don't give a damn who you are. They're gonna come for everyone. They come for groups, for teams, for companies, for families, and for individuals like you and me. You can't skip 'em. You can't buy your way out of them. You can't negotiate with it. The only option is to be in a favorable position for when they come and they're coming for you. in his book, it's not about the bike. Lance Armstrong, wrote something super powerful. See, for context, he wasn't known as an experienced mountain climber. He wasn't, he, they didn't feel like he had the toughness or the legs to be able to do so. And so in this, I think it was his first tour to France when he won it, he. He was trying to catch the two that were in front of him and going up the mountain. He had seemingly nothing left, and he said that's when he hit the gas. He went all in and pedaled his ass off and passed them up. And this is what he wrote in his book. He said, when you open a gap and they don't respond, it tells you something, they're hurting. And while they're hurting, that's when you take 'em. See that's the moment of truth. You don't pull away when everybody else feels strong. You pull away when no one does. That's when you take 'em. That's when you get your lead. Darren Hardy in his book, the Compound Effect calls it acceleration and his point is super simple. You do what's unrequired. One more rep when you don't have to. One more phone call. When it's time to go home, one more page. When you're tired, see, it's that one more mentality. It's that extra gear that you shift into when your moment of truth arrives. See, you don't rise to the occasion. You fall back on your preparation. This is what's gonna expose you. When your moments of truth come, they're gonna either refine you or they're gonna expose you. See if you've prepared, they reward you with the momentum. But if you haven't, they're gonna cash in on every broken commitment. All of the, I'm gonna double up tomorrow, I'm gonna start on Monday. All of the skip study sessions, all of the times that you could have studied, but decided to just soothe yourself in vices in Netflix and overeating and hanging out all the times you pulled up early when simply you could have gone one more. Bro, I'm not casting stones at you. I'm the president of that organization. I've been there countless times. I have caved so many times and I'm in my moment of truth. I thought I was ready, but when the tide went out, bro, it exposed me. It's like I had no pants on. And that's what moments of truth do. They strip away all the talk and they expose whether you're really prepared or not. But here's the good news. Another moment of truth is coming for you. It is. So if you didn't really rise through the occasion in the last moment of truth, or maybe the moment of truth that you're in right now, this is where you know thyself. This is when it exposes you and you own it. And you say, oh, all right, I see what I gotta do. You don't blame anybody else. You take ownership. And with the experience now, now you go back to work. All of your past failures, you're gonna learn from it. You'll prepare better this time. And when that moment of truth comes back around, bro, this time you're gonna be locked in. And think about moments of truth. We've all seen it like in sports teams that look great, as long as everything's going in their favor. But when the adversity comes, man, it's like they just implode and they turn on each other. But the great ones, bro, they lock in personally. Collectively. They shrink the chaos down to the next play, the next rep, the next breath, and they execute. And that's what you have to do. That's the choice that you face in your moment of truth, implode or lock in. So how do you get ready? You don't wait for the storm to prepare by then, bro, it's too late. So you train as if it's already there. You work harder when it's easy. Build up the reserves in these calm times. Okay, you're gonna need them. You're gonna need to draw on those things. And it's not, that's why I say stay ready. It's so cliche to say, but it is, man. So I wanna be in a position when these moments of truth, because they don't tell you ahead of time, they don't send you a tweet, they don't send you an email. They don't send you a 48 hour notice. When the moments of truth come, bro. What you got is what you got. So when it's easy, be dyslexic. Work harder. Put your effort over your emotions. Yes, there's times you wanna go home. Yes. You don't wanna do it. Yes. It's been a tough day. Instead of sitting there sulking, you study, you analyze, you adjust. You make the necessary corrections, and then you put forth that effort. The emotions always ride in the backseat. It's effort over the emotions, bro. It's gonna pay off for you the way it pays off. Either way, it's gonna pay off for you. The way it's gonna pay off is totally up to you. It's gonna pay off. Based on the accumulation of all the hard work that you've done. So you have that extra gear or it's going to show off and it's gonna pay off in such a way that it's gonna totally expose. You see, in these moments, you gotta be able to see through, not too you. If you're not prepared, you're gonna see two and you're going to sit there and point the blame and sit down and go in that neutral gear and hope the storm just doesn't consume you. But there are gonna be other people. Like Armstrong said, when others are hurting, and I'm saying metaphorically hurting when others are hurting, bro, you're all gas, no brakes. You go through it and this is where you find. What you're made of, this is where you get your momentum. This is when you capitalize on your momentum. All of the hard work, everything that you've done in the dark now comes the light in a productive way. And this is where you get your lead and dammit You don't ever give it back. And I'm going to tell you this, man, it may take a few cycles to go through. It may take a decade or more of cycles to go through. So you're gonna go through a cycle and you're not gonna be very good at it. You learn, you analyze, you adjust. You get ready for the next cycle. When the next cycle comes, you may be a little bit better, but not fully prepared. You learn, you adjust, you analyze, you get ready for the next one, and then the next one comes and see. Every time, man, you got a little bit more experience. Every time you're a little more seasoned, every time you're a little more knowledgeable, every time you're a little more skillful, every time you know a little bit more of what to do. So when these moments of truth come to whatever degree they come, and like I said, bro, they're gonna come for everybody, individuals, for companies, for families, they're coming. And when they come, you gotta draw ranks. You gotta get ready. You don't eat each other up. You do what's required and then you do what's unrequired and then you put your effort over your emotions and you go the extra step. You'll get there, you'll win. And when you do, don't ever give your lead back. So I just want to ask you, where have you been coasting? Hmm? Where have you been coasting? Because a lot of times, man, you know, people think the good times are gonna last forever. They're not good times and bad times. And I would venture to say that bad times last longer than good times they do. And it's what you don't do during those bad times or haven't prepared for, I should say. That's what's going to prolong that. But there's so many good benefits that you can find in these dark, tough times. This is what people do, is they capitalize on those times. So where have you been coasting? Just check yourself on that. Have that one more mentality today. One more rep, one more call. One more study session, like what you don't feel like doing is probably the thing that, that you need to do. And bro, I'm not saying like for the next 10 hours do it. I'm saying like, give yourself 15 minutes. I'm gonna set my timer for 15 minutes. I don't feel like doing this. But what this is gonna do is this is gonna reshape your emotions so that way when the, when the gap opens, you won't hesitate. You go all in. Your moment of truth is gonna define you and it will refine you. It's gonna reveal strengths that you didn't know you had, or weaknesses that you've been hiding. Either way, it's coming for you again and again and again. So if one narrowly missed you, it's coming. It didn't miss you. You just lucked out. It's coming back. Don't get ready. Stay ready. Work harder when it's easy so you can win when it's hard. Alright. Thanks for sharing today's episode. Remember, keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.