Life-Changing Lessons I Learned From The Top 1% (No Fluff)

Summary

In this video, Mike Thurston explores the key traits and characteristics that define the top 1% of successful individuals based on insights from interviewing over 100 exemplary performers. He highlights the importance of mastery, resilience, and a relentless work ethic. Mike shares that success is often a result of focus on one thing at a time, overcoming setbacks with resilience, and having an extraordinary work ethic. Additionally, successful individuals have strong networks, manage stress effectively, and are continuously learning. They are decisive, willing to take risks, and excel in communication. Furthermore, assembling a capable team and efficiently managing time are pivotal to their success.

Highlights

• The journey starts by mastering one thing and then diversifying. 🎨
• Resilience helps in bouncing back from failures and setbacks. 🔄
• Relentless work ethic distinguishes the top achievers and involves working smart and hard. 🏋️‍♂️
• Successful individuals are adept at stress management and decision-making. 🧘‍♂️
• Networking and communication are powerful tools that drive success. 🤝

Key Takeaways

• Achieving mastery is fundamental — focus on becoming the best at one thing before branching out. 🎯
• Resilience is key — setbacks and failures are just stepping stones to success. 🚀
• A relentless work ethic is non-negotiable in the journey to the top. 💪
• Strong networks are instrumental in reaching and sustaining success. 🕸️
• Continuous learning and adaptability are essential in a fast-changing world. 🌍

Overview

In this intriguing video, Mike Thurston unpacks the wisdom gathered from interviewing over 100 world-class individuals. He humorously refers to this journey as a 'side quest' that's turning into a major one in his life. Mike shares essential traits necessary to join the elite 1% club in various industries. Mastery, resilience, and a relentless work ethic are emphasized as core pillars of these high achievers.

Mike highlights that while some successful individuals manage multiple ventures, they often start by mastering just one. He also speaks on how crucial resilience is in overcoming failures and setbacks. A strong work ethic fueled either by passion or sheer determination stands out as a recurring theme. Mike insists that success doesn't happen by chance but by persistent effort and impeccable management of stress.

Interestingly, Mike emphasizes the significance of strong networking, decisiveness, team building, and efficient time management. Networking empowers individuals with opportunities and support, something Mike cherishes from his own experiences. Moreover, he underscores the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in a rapidly evolving world. Mike's captivating insights not only inspire but also offer a strategic blueprint for those aspiring to ascend to the top of their game.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Milestone Achievement The chapter introduces the speaker reaching a significant milestone in their podcasting journey. They have interviewed over 100 successful or highly skilled people, which originally seemed like a side quest but has become a central focus. The speaker aims to share insights and wisdom gained from these experiences.
• 00:30 - 10:00: Key Characteristics of the Top 1% The chapter discusses the common characteristics that individuals in the top 1% of their industry or market typically possess. The focus is on identifying and summarizing these traits to help others understand what is necessary to reach the top in their respective fields. The first characteristic highlighted is mastery, indicating a need for individuals to achieve a high level of skill or knowledge in their area of expertise.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Importance of BetterHelp Partnership This chapter discusses the significance of partnering with BetterHelp, highlighting the value of focusing on being the best in one area rather than spreading efforts across multiple ventures. It emphasizes the mindset of choosing to excel in a single pursuit even when other lucrative opportunities arise, defining it as a path to excellence and success. This mindset aligns with committing fully to one path, like the BetterHelp partnership, to achieve exceptional results.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks The chapter titled 'Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks' emphasizes the attributes of successful individuals in the industry. It discusses how these individuals often start with a single business, master it, and achieve self-sufficiency before diversifying into multiple ventures. The narration highlights the importance of resilience, noting that successful people persist despite facing numerous setbacks.

Life-Changing Lessons I Learned From The Top 1% (No Fluff) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 What is up, guys? And welcome to another video. I thought I would put this one together and share some wisdom with you because I've actually reached a milestone in one of the numerous side quests that I've got going on at the moment. In fact, I don't even know if this is a side quest anymore because it's becoming more of a a main quest. But either way, that milestone is I've now interviewed over 100 people for my podcast. And when you sit down and speak to some of these people who've had a lot of success or they're extremely talented and skilled at one particular thing, you
• 00:30 - 01:00 learn a lot of things. You notice some patterns and common characteristics that these individuals have. So I thought I would try and summarize some of the most important characteristics and necessary characteristics that is required in order for you to become the top 1% in your own respective industry. market or simply just making silly amounts of money. So, in no particular order, we'll start off with the first one, and that is mastery. Now, instead
• 01:00 - 01:30 of them trying to juggle multiple things at one time, run numerous different businesses, usually they've gone all in on one thing. They've decided, right, this is the thing I'm going to do, and I'm going to be the very best person at doing that thing. And even when other opportunities come, you know, these shiny sparkling opportunities which say, "Hey, look, you can make money doing this as well." Usually, they're like, "Nah, nah. I'm just going to focus on doing this one thing. I'm going be the best at it, and
• 01:30 - 02:00 I'm going to be the leader in my industry." That's not to say some of these people have multiple businesses. Usually, the very successful people do, but they usually don't start off with multiple businesses. They usually start off with one thing. They master it. They become the best. They make a lot of money and then it usually just ends up running itself and then they start something new. The next characteristic is that they tend to be extremely resilient. Okay? So no matter how many times that they face setbacks, how many
• 02:00 - 02:30 times they encounter failure, they just bounce back and keep going, right? Every single time. It's very rare that you'll meet a highly successful person or somebody with many businesses where it's the first business that they start ends up being the most successful one making the most profit. Most of the time they try a load of different things and it fails, but they just keep going and they start again from scratch. And usually they have to encounter some pretty difficult situations where they've built up a pretty serious amount of debt or
• 02:30 - 03:00 maybe their life has had to take a step backwards. Either way, they just keep going. And it's something which some of them are born with. They're just able to handle it. But a lot of the people tend to just accept it and get better with these setbacks and failures as time goes on. Either way, if you want to make it, you want to be in the top 1%, you got to be pretty damn resilient with whatever it is that you're doing. Another thing I've noticed is that they're just always working. These people just cannot stop
• 03:00 - 03:30 working. It's like an addiction. They are constantly on the grind and usually when they've had some degree of success or they're very good at what they do or they've made a load of money, it's usually because they've worked for it. Very few people do I come across where they've just been lucky and it's kind of just fallen into their lap, right? Everybody who is successful the majority of the time have worked their ass off for it. They're willing to do the things that other people are not
• 03:30 - 04:00 willing to do. Now there is a little bit of a difference between some of these people. Some of these people just do what they are good at and you know they just get it done regardless of you know whether they want to do it or not. And then there's other people who have just found the thing that they love to do and do it all the time. And because they love doing it, they've got very good at it and had a lot of success from doing it. And it doesn't really actually feel like work. So there's kind of a
• 04:00 - 04:30 difference, but either way, whether these people love to do it or whether they just do it because they know it's the thing they need to do, they have a strong work ethic and they're always working. Another thing which I've noticed is that they have this ability to manage stress extremely well. You could argue the more successful that you become, the more pressure there is for you to deliver. The higher the expectations are, the bigger the responsibility is, you're dealing with more money. You probably got a hell of a lot of people under your payroll that
• 04:30 - 05:00 you need to provide for. There's probably some extremely big decisions that you need to make and there's probably going to be a lot of setbacks and problems that come your way. And I remember in a podcast I actually asked one of my guests, this was very early on. I was like like how do you get rid of the stress? I don't like stress. How do you get rid of stress? And he was like, well, you don't you don't really want to get rid of the stress and it's probably going to be impossible to get rid of it. If you want to get rid of stress and not having it at all, you probably want to go and live on a remote island and just chill by the beach
• 05:00 - 05:30 sipping margaritas every day. You know, stress is just a part of the game. You know, particularly that the more successful you are, the the bigger the company that you're running or whether the bigger the competition that you are involved in, if you're a sports person, the pressure is going to be even bigger. And you just have to have this ability to deal with it and handle it. You ask many entrepreneurs and successful people, they'll usually have had a period in their life which has been this kind of lonely phase where you know it's just been them by themselves uh you know
• 05:30 - 06:00 maybe single, no relationship, no mentors, no friends because they've kind of had to leave their old friends behind before they can find those friends which they're trying to find. And there can be periods of times where it's very stressful, right? where you're doing a lot of work. You don't have the staff, the team yet because you're kind of at that point where you're doing everything. You don't have anyone you can talk to because no one's really in your situation at least yet. You know, financially you might be struggling trying to keep your overheads low and
• 06:00 - 06:30 you sacrifice being in a relationship. It can be very lonely and you don't really have anyone to talk to. That is when BetterHelp come into the picture. And I'm happy to say that they are partnering up with today's video. Better Help is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your needs. You can chat via video, phone, or even just text message, whatever is most comfortable for you. What I love is how easy it is to get started. There's no waiting rooms, no driving across the town or city, just professional support when and where you
• 06:30 - 07:00 need it. I've personally used Better Help and worked with some of their therapists to sit down and open up about my past relationship struggles and some of the other things that have been going on my life when things have got a little bit intense. Having someone to talk to really does make a huge difference. So, if you've been thinking about giving therapy a try or just need someone to talk to, give BetterHelp a shot. And since you're a viewer of this channel, you can get up to 10% off your first month by going to betterhelp.com/mikethirsten. Another
• 07:00 - 07:30 character trait which they have is this ability to be extremely disciplined. Okay. Whatever it is that they are doing, they are first of all not distracted by the endless amount of distractions that we are facing in today's modern world. Number one is probably social media. Usually when I see successful people, they're not, you know, mindlessly scrolling on their phone. They've often either capped how long they will spend on social media or their phone doesn't even have social media apps. They're just completely
• 07:30 - 08:00 focused on doing the thing that needs to be done. Okay? They're not bouncing between numerous different tasks. And it's something which I've experienced many times whether it be social media or just trying to do loads of different things at one point in time. My phone is going off. There's so many people that are trying to speak to me. It's a very distracting world that we live in today. But these successful people have this ability to block all of it out and they are just extremely focused at doing this
• 08:00 - 08:30 one particular thing that they are required to do. These individuals are also risktakers. Now they are maybe not making or taking the stupidest of risks. often they're quite calculated. But nevertheless, people who have become very successful have needed to take risks in order to get that success in the first place. Anybody who has made a load of money, if you were to ask them, oh, have you taken risks before? If they
• 08:30 - 09:00 would say no, they're probably lying. A lot of the time, whether it's switching careers or making an investment or taking a gamble or stepping into the unknown, it requires balls. You got to have a pretty [ __ ] big set of balls in order to try something new. Particularly, you know, if if it's actually never been done before, it's a huge risk, you know, both financially, but also of your time and focus. But you
• 09:00 - 09:30 have to have that willingness to try it. It's kind of very similar to, you know, willing to fail. You have to be willing to fail, accept failure. It's just part of the process. And also understanding that yes, you also have to take some risks as well. Those people who are completely risk averse probably wouldn't be entrepreneurs. They'd probably get a job working for somebody else, a very secure job where they're on a fixed salary every year. Yeah, maybe they can work hard and get promoted, but there's that safety net there. All right, they
• 09:30 - 10:00 usually tend to be avoidant of taking those risks and they're just content being safe and stable without having to, you know, deal with too much change. I've also noticed that they have very strong networks and it tends to be correlated with the degree of success that they're having. And often when you're starting off, whether it be a new business or you're in your early 20s, you probably don't have a huge network or any network at all. But as you become
• 10:00 - 10:30 better at life, at business, at communicating, speaking to people, and putting yourself out there, and even just getting a bit more money and status, it just opens you up to connecting with other likeminded individuals. But there's levels to the game. It's very difficult for you to be at the bottom of the pyramid trying to connect with that person who is at the top of the game or they're in the top 1%. Usually, you kind of have to build yourself up there, network with other
• 10:30 - 11:00 people who are on a similar playing field to you, but just constantly continue to level up and network with people at your level or above. But either way, everybody that I've spoken to who is smashing it and killing it, they have a great network. And it's an extremely powerful thing to have. Take me for example, you know, particularly after doing this podcast and meeting all the people that I've met. If I have a problem with anything or I need something fixed or I need some advice or even if I needed some money, like
• 11:00 - 11:30 whatever it was that I needed to do, I could I noticed somebody that I could reach out to and I could be like, "Hey, can you help me out? Can you give me some advice or you know, what do you think you should do, okay, in this situation?" I'm going to be good. They're also very decisive. So, they're quick when it comes to decision making. They don't dwell on it too much. They just make a decision and move on. Or if change needs to be made, they will make the change and they're not afraid to,
• 11:30 - 12:00 you know, maybe take a completely different direction. They're very quick to adapt to changes in the environment, changes in their industry, market, whatever it might be. Right? I understand it is important to spend a bit of time weighing up the pros and cons of making a pretty important decision, but you could definitely argue if you spend too long making a decision or too many people in your industry are making too long making decisions, progress is going to be very slow.
• 12:00 - 12:30 Getting things done is going to be painfully slow. So, the quicker people are at replying, uh, making decisions is going to allow them to have a higher degree of success and just move faster in an incredibly rapidly changing environment that we're facing in today's world. Usually, what I tend to do when it comes to me making big decisions, I do like to think about it, but I tend to not make that decision later on in the evening or if I've not had a good night's sleep.
• 12:30 - 13:00 Usually, I make a big decision after I've had a good night's sleep. and usually the following day, right? I've I've slept on it. You hear a lot of people say, "Oh, well, I'll just sleep on it." But it actually does make quite a big difference. Sometimes I've gone to bed thinking I'm going to do one thing and then I wake up and I'm like, "Actually, what the hell was I thinking about?" Like, no, this this is a much smarter decision which I'm going to make. And I I tend to make it when I'm not experiencing uh any emotions for whatever reason that I might be feeling
• 13:00 - 13:30 emotional. I don't feel like I'm that emotional of a guy. Usually, I'm very rational, but in order for me to make my most rational and logical, smartest decision, as I said before, I need to have a clear head, and I need to have had a good night's sleep. They will also have a very good team. Now, they will not have always had this team, particularly if you're just starting off. Most of the time, they are the team that they're the guy or girl that is doing everything. But in order to progress and speed up scale, they have
• 13:30 - 14:00 needed to hire. But hiring the right people, okay? Hiring people that they maybe aren't the best at doing, you know, a skill set which they don't have. They hire someone who is the best of the best at doing that particular thing. Or they just hire people that do the things which they don't need to be doing. And I think this is extremely important because so many people who set up businesses or whatever it might be, you're a control freak and you just want to do everything yourself. And it could be quite hard to delegate tasks to other
• 14:00 - 14:30 people, particularly when you think that you're the best at it and nobody can do a better job. Usually there is almost always somebody out there that can do a better job than you at one particular thing. So find them, hire them, teach them, and give them the right incentives so that they will always give their best. And if you can hire a team of killers who are all out there to help you and be the best version that you can be and them do the best things that they can do and be rewarded for it, then you're going to have an unstoppable
• 14:30 - 15:00 force behind you and hopefully it'll even get to the point where this team of people can actually just run the business for you. So you can just spend your time doing the things which you either want to do or the things that you should be doing or an even dream scenario you can just go off and just start your next venture and uh maybe get to the point where you are running multiple businesses. As I mentioned earlier before these people who have got very good at one thing they can then do other things because they have the right team in place just keep that other thing
• 15:00 - 15:30 ticking along and running. Okay. But it's it's very hard to try and get to that point at the very beginning when you don't have the right team in place. These people often tend to be obsessed with efficiency as well. Very often, if you watch what it is they do on a day-to-day basis, very rarely will you see them wasting time or just not being productive. Each hour of the day is spent well. All right? They're very particular about how they're spending their time. Now, some of these people are very organized and they have these fully booked out schedules where every
• 15:30 - 16:00 single hour of the day they're doing one thing, next thing and moving on to whatever it is they might be doing. Other people like me, I don't like to be that organized, but I'm very intent with how I like to spend my time. I don't like doing things that I genuinely just don't want to do or if I feel like the time is wasted. Okay? So whether it be with the operations of the business, they want it to be as efficient as possible or what it is they're doing with their time, they want it to be as efficient as possible. They don't want to waste it. And often they've built up
• 16:00 - 16:30 this very uh you could argue difficult skill of just saying no. The ability to say no does become increasingly harder as you become more successful and as your status uh tends to increase. More people want a piece of you. More people want to sit down, have a coffee, discuss, set up a potential business. The amount I get is insane. And it would be nice to say yes to everybody and talk with them, but I just honestly would not get anything
• 16:30 - 17:00 done. So, I am extremely selective with who I choose to train with. If I'm going to train with anyone, I like to train by myself most of the time. If I'm going to have a coffee with someone, okay, there have to be a reason behind it. What was the purpose of me having a coffee with you? Right? A lot of the people that I have on my podcast, I probably would not have been able to have a conversation with them, but the fact that it's been recorded and been shown to my audience and um you know, the fact that they get to meet me and I get in their network, they get on mine, it's a kind of win-win
• 17:00 - 17:30 situation where both parties are benefiting. Okay, I get to sit down, have a discussion with them for an hour and a half, but then you know my entire audience and people who aren't even a part of my audience will get to maybe part of their audience will get to sit down and listen to a conversation which we have. So there's there's a reason behind it. And since we're on the topic of podcasting, usually these people are extremely good at communicating. They have very good people skills. Now, you could argue there are some people who become extremely successful and they're
• 17:30 - 18:00 a little bit introverted or on the spectrum a little bit and they kind of just hide away and, you know, just work away at their business and um obviously have built an amazing business or become very good at one thing. But most of the time, these people have become successful because they just understand how people work and they have an ability to communicate and get a message across and they can be very persuasive. They're very good at sales and marketing themselves. And you could argue I was speaking to Grant Cardone a couple weeks
• 18:00 - 18:30 ago and he said one of the most underrated skills is the ability to communicate. And it's something which I I wish someone had taught me from the very early ages at school. The art of communication, public speaking, it's extremely powerful. But unfortunately a lot of these skills which I have been talking about and these traits that the the top 1% of people have often those skill sets aren't taught in school. It's something which you have to go and learn yourself outside of school. But the
• 18:30 - 19:00 earlier you do it the better. And speaking of school and the last point which I would like to make the last skill set that these people have is they are continuously learning. They very rarely ever get to the point where they're like, "Oh, yeah. I know everything now, so I can just, you know, sit back and just bask in my own glory and magnificence." No, they maybe they're always humble, but they always
• 19:00 - 19:30 understand that there is more to learn. There's always more to learn. And you can argue the smarter that people get, you know, the the more they actually come to terms with the fact that they really don't know anything and there's so much more to learn. If you want to look your very best to transform your physique, build muscle, lose body fat, highly recommend you check out the thirst. It's got everything in there that you could possibly need in order to sort your physique out. If you want to escape the 9 to5, build a life of freedom, build a following, and an extremely strong personal brand that I
• 19:30 - 20:00 would also recommend that you check out. digital playbook. A playbook which I have created from me being 25 years old to getting to the point where I am right now at this point in time. See you in the next video.