#114 The Effort Effect

Rachel Denning (00:00.462)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the extraordinary family life podcast. Have you ever been involved in something where you noticed a literal direct correlation between how much you put in and how much you get out? Or have you ever noticed that with other people that they're involved in something and the literally is just this cause and effect between what you put into it and what you get out of it.

And this is true in so many areas of life. And I hope you've noticed it and really sense that maybe there's something right now you're involved in. And you realize, man, when I put in more thought, more effort, more resources, more attention, more focus, I get more out. Years ago, I had the privilege to go to Peru and I had taken some high school Spanish classes and done okay, right?

and you know, thought I was pretty awesome because I got good grades in my Spanish classes in high school. But when I got to Peru, I made a commitment that I was going to learn Spanish really well. Like really well. And it was just something in me that I'm like, you know what, if I'm going to learn it, I'm going to learn it well. I want to speak like a native. And as I got there, I started meeting people. I met, you know, foreign...

foreigners, expats who'd been living there for years, I'd met missionaries, I'd met all kinds of people, students, travelers, foreign exchange students, whatever. And some had been there for years. And their Spanish still was terrible. Terrible. And since then, of course, I've traveled all over the world and met expats and people all over the place. Some who've been there, I'm not kidding you, they've been there 19...

20 years, 25 years, and they are still slaughtering the language. And when I ask about it, when I talk about it, it all boils down to how much effort they put into it. And I, again, I was committed. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do this. And so I woke up every morning, most, most of the mornings, I got up between four and 4 .30 and I was devouring great books and scripture and

Rachel Denning (02:26.574)
all kinds of good things studying like crazy exercising you're working on myself but I put in time and effort to study study language to learn the vocabulary learn the grammar learn the rules and practice it and I was intense about making sure I was pronouncing the words just right I mean I was listening for every little infection inflection and and I paid really close attention to where where they place the tongue in their mouth or saying certain words and

And I asked anyone, native speakers, I asked them to correct me. Anytime I was saying something off, just correct me. I was hungry for it. And I stayed that way for years. And there was a, there was a direct connection between the effort I put into mastering Spanish and my results. And now for years, I've been able to travel, uh, well, all over the place and speak with, uh, native speakers. And they often ask if I was born in Latin America or where I'm from, they're often like, man, where are you from?

Your accent's spot on, you got it. And it's awesome. And I don't say that to brag or boast, but to say I put in the effort. I made a full commitment to master it. I put in the effort and the practice paid attention to the details. I gave it all the focus it needed and I got the result. The big lesson, my friends, is we get out what we put in.

Full effort, full results. Half effort, half results.

What percentage are you putting in?

Rachel Denning (04:01.454)
Whoo, whoo, what percentage are you putting in? Into yourself, who you want to be, how you want to do life, into your education, into your health, into your spiritual journey, into your financial journey, into your marriage, into the parenting relationship with.

each of your children individually? Into business growth? Into impact? See for things to get better, there's a quote from Jim Rohn, for things to get better, I must get better. For things to change, I must change. I can hear him in my mind saying that. Now I have the incomparable privilege of coaching wonderful people five or sometimes six days a week.

That means I get to observe up close their unique levels of effort and therefore the accompanying results. And not only do I get to do that now, I've actually been paying really close attention to human performance for the last 26 years. And you guys know this, if you're familiar with my story, because I grew up in a broken home.

Marriages fell apart family relations fell apart finances were a disaster My social skills were a disaster my own education was a disaster my own earning capacity was a disaster so at 16 I was just hungry For the secrets of success to find the clues Like what works what doesn't what what is an act a performance that someone's putting on and what's the real deal? And I've been paying

Really close attention to every part of life. I became a personal trainer at 16 and just got just deeply immersed into physical fitness and health and I got into education and learning and and the financial journey and and Transformation and impact and motivation and inspiration and how to coach and train and teach and mentor Whoa, so I've been paying really really close attention to human performance for 26 years

Rachel Denning (06:20.718)
And I've seen so much. And so let me say emphatically that there is a notable and significant difference between those who put in a full effort and those who put in a half effort. I can share the same principles, right? Lesson, life lessons, ideas, practices with all of my coaching clients or with an entire audience. And they all get different results.

because of what I call the effort effect. It's not the principle. It's the implementation. It's the practice. It's the effort that matters. As long as the principle is proven, right, which I only ever try to teach and share proven principles that have that literally can stand the test of time, or at least if they are only if they're time bound for a certain season or generation or time period.

they're proven in that time period. So if the, if the principle is proven, if it's sound, if it's solid, if it works for lots of people, it's not just some rare thing, then the only real variable is the effort that we put into its practice.

Whoa, where are you putting in half efforts and getting half results? And even maybe blaming the principal. I hear this all the time. Like, well, no, that just doesn't work. And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. It works for not just hundreds, not just thousands, not just tens of thousands. These principles work for millions of people. And you're saying the principle doesn't work.

Sometimes we don't put in the effort and we blame the principle. We blame the lesson. We blame our circumstances. Well, you know, it's just not working. Life's busy. Things are hard. I'm going through hard times right now. And we can look across history. That's why it's so important to read biographies and autobiographies and study lives of great men and women because you realize they went through every imaginable and sometimes excruciating circumstance.

Rachel Denning (08:35.565)
and came out triumphant by applying the principle, but they put in full effort. Sometimes we blame other people. Well, I would totally do it except my spouse. Well, I could except it's my kids or my boss or my coworkers and my employees. And we start blaming, making excuses, justifying rationalizing for the lack of real results when the reality is my friends, it comes back to the effort effect.

In what areas of your life are your own half efforts sabotaging the outcomes you really want?

Interestingly, I've noticed that some people have these self -installed governors. So like I'll explain what a governor is. There's certain motors or engines on vehicles have a governor. And so it only allows it to go so fast or to be revved up so high, right? They they'll put a governor cap on, on a big truck that it's max speed is like 65 miles an hour. Right? So it has a governor. Some people, some of us have a self -installed governor.

that prevents themselves from giving more effort. They've installed it. Whether it's a mindset or a heart set or a limiting belief about themselves or about that thing. The limiting belief might be about the thing. Oh, well, no, that's not, they might say, well, you know, health isn't that important. Or they might say, well, you know, it doesn't matter how much effort you put into marriage. It'll always just be pretty miserable and you just have to tolerate each other.

I've heard these kind of things and it's a form of self -sabotage.

Rachel Denning (10:20.973)
And so we have, we have a group coaching program that is just awesome. Actually, we're splitting it now into two different ones. We have a 20 day challenge. So every 28 days we do a challenge on super important themes and super important topics that are related to family life, right? Creating your extraordinary family life. We we've gone through the first five already. And then what's awesome is once you get access to this, you get access to all of the videos and trainings. It's unreal. It's so unbelievably valuable.

Like if you, if you want to start your family life, you've, you got to take advantage of this. So we've done the first five, which are the five elements. So you, your marriage, your parenting, your family culture and your family finances, right? We've done the first five. Now we're going through the metal acronym and this is all proprietary stuff. This stuff we, we created. And so the metal acronym now applies to each of those things. And we're starting on that at the next 20 day challenge. And the M is for mindset, right? And how that applies to each of those areas.

So we have, we have our 20 to challenge. Then we're starting a group coaching, which we've been doing it. Now we're just ramping it up where it's extraordinary family life group coaching. And we're going to meet weekly live and do group coaching. Like, but like really dive in deep coaching. Oh yeah. And then of course I do personal coaching, uh, with a few select people who are ready to seriously level up their lives and go after it.

So I want to share some examples that I've come across over years with working with people, right? For example, the effort effect applies to salespeople who take a rejection personally, right? They go out, they're trying to offer something and the person doesn't take their product or service and, and they put in this, they take it personally and, oh, they just sabotage their own efforts, right? And they're not really going after it. Um, it's the person who is answering text messages, all

day long when they're supposed to be working or they're looking up YouTube videos where they have alerts and, and dings and notifications going off incessantly. It's the employee, the employee who just gets up and walks out because she's having a bad day and is frustrated with what's happening in her personal life and says, Oh, I just can't handle this work right now. And just gets up and walks out. Right.

Rachel Denning (12:50.125)
It's workers who do the absolute bare minimum, just not to get fired. They're not there to contribute, to add value, to grow, to improve, to really give anything. They're just there to do the bare minimum to not get fired. They're constantly watching the clock. They only do what they're told versus those who really care and take pride in their work and in themselves. And they look for opportunities to add value and service.

See that the effort effect works across all spectrums and in all scales. Some people read a ton. Many of my coaching clients are reading voraciously one to two books a week or more. And they're listening to audio books now at double speed and they're getting up early in reading and they're staying up. Well, they don't stay up too late because they realize how important it is to get to bed, but they're reading before bed and they're, while they're running.

they're listening to books and while they're driving, they're listening to books. They're getting up early. Many of my clients without me saying anything, they know in order to hit it and really succeed, they got to get up and make their mornings matter and they themselves start moving it up and up and up. Many of them are getting up before five. Some of them are getting up at four or even three 30. And I know you're like, whoa,

That's insane! That's crazy! But when you look, and you grow into it, but when you look at the highest performers in the world, they get to bed early and they get up early. There's a lot of wisdom to that old adage of early to bed and early to rise. Way more than we think. And again, it's the effort effect. Are you willing to put in the effort to get up early and start your day with power?

It's the effort effect. And some people are just like, no, I want to sleep. And so they get the results, but don't blame anything else but yourself when it comes to the effort effect. Some are extremely diligent. When I asked them to do something, when I teach them a principle or practice, they're on it and they stay on it and they get immediate results. Some will lose 25 pounds in just five weeks in a healthy way and feel fantastic.

Rachel Denning (15:11.053)
Some will make what are called money packs where you get accountability set up with me or with a friend or with family member or coworker and you say, look, I need accountability. I'm this matters so much to me that I'm willing to pay you a lot of money. One of my coaching clients went into a coworker and said, look, here's a thousand bucks that you get to keep if I don't get up every day at 4 a .m. Whoa.

How's that for taking it seriously and putting in the effort? That same client also has a deal with his coworkers because part of his sales work is making calls and it's hard to make calls, especially cold calling. It's brutal. So they got together with the team and said, Hey, we're going to make a certain number of calls, right? Results are results, but we're going to make a certain number of calls. I can't determine how many people buy, but I can determine how I show up. And so they make a certain number of calls. He says, if we don't make our calls, we've all committed to each other.

to take four bites of cat food or something like that, right? And just having that there, having a little bag of cat food right there, you're like, oh man, I'm making my calls. You just have to get serious about being serious. And you have to put in the effort.

Rachel Denning (16:31.661)
But then many people, if not most, are just constantly checking their email and telling themselves a story about how important their email is. Yet highly productive people, they'll check their email after they've done their important work and only for a small window once or twice a day in the afternoon.

They chit chat a ton.

just chitty chat here, chitty chat there, and it doesn't feel like it's much time, because it's only five minutes here, 10 minutes there. But it adds up, and if it's 30 minutes in a work day or 60 minutes, just 30 minutes a day, my friends, turns out to be 22 eight -hour work days in a year. 22 eight -hour work days if you just chit chat for 30 minutes. They get on social media. Same thing. They get distracted. Same thing.

And even if they're not actually doing something else, just having, just being distracted in your mind or whatever, and just you lose focus, you lose momentum, you lose productivity big time. They make excuses. They sleep in. They eat junk food. They exercise, but only with a half effort.

The effort affects it matters my friends. This thing is so powerful. It's such a powerful principle. And so examine every part of your life. And I do the same with mine. Like, Hey, where, where am I not getting the results I want? And then the first place I look is at my own efforts. Am I really truly putting the effort effect in play in my favor?

Rachel Denning (18:13.869)
And almost always, if I'm not getting the results I want, I can look at how much effort I'm really truly putting in, not, not the stories I tell myself, but really truly putting in. And if I, if I need some help saying, well, how much is, is hard effort? Like how, how do I measure that? Then I look at the greats, look at the greats, look at the people who are in phenomenal shape or who are very wealthy or who have phenomenal relationships and just.

just look, find out the level of effort they're putting in and measure yours against it. And the excuse that often happens is we see the effort they put in and they're like, I'm not doing that. That's fanatical. That's crazy. I'm not putting in that kind of effort. Who can do that? That's nuts. Right. And we start coming up with all these stories of why we can't. And we settle back into our own little pit of mediocrity and we get half results because we're putting in half effort.

Now I'm not necessarily saying more time, although that's sometimes required.

But, and I guess this is the point. If 10 people sit down to do work for a four hour period, are they all gonna get the same result out of those four hours? Are they all gonna get four hours of results? And the answer is absolutely not. What they get out of those four hours is what they put into them. That's the point. People who are earning 100 times more than you are not.

working a hundred times longer than you. It's impossible.

Rachel Denning (19:52.365)
but they're putting in more effort. So my invitation, my friends, is to be reachable, be teachable, be touchable. Let people coach you and guide you and give you feedback. Never, ever avoid good feedback. Don't balk at it, don't resent it, don't ignore it. If you need correction, get corrected. If you're wrong, admit it, apologize and fix it. Good correction makes us better if we accept it and do something about it.

That's literally why we all need coaches. Man, we need coaches to hold us to the fire. Give us, give us the, those proven principles and practices if we're unaware of them and these little tweaks that like just magnify our efforts, right? There's some, there's an art and a science to being really effective and productive, but then it's up to you. It's the effort effect and we have to be fully engaged.

or strategically disengaged, like I like to share with my clients be fully engaged or strategically disengaged. But many of us have never actually really fully engaged. In fact, some people have never felt what it's like to give an absolute full effort and definitely not for a sustained amount of time. They do it in little teeny bursts, but they don't get the effect. Like when I talk, I did the podcast episode on Kavi consistent and vigorous improvement. I say acronym I came up with years ago.

We have to be both consistent and vigorous both. And that's the effort effect. So because of the universal law of the effort effect, if you're not getting much out, you have no one to blame but yourself. If you don't know what you're doing or not doing, get some coaching. That's the effort effect there. So sometimes we roll back on the excuse of, well, I don't know what to do. Well, then your job and all your efforts should be focused at finding out what to do. Like get on it.

Take the courses, read the books, get the coaching. Like that's where your effort goes is finding out and then once you've found out, your effort goes into implementing it. At that point, if you really don't know, then we can still only blame ourselves for not getting the mentoring, not getting the coaching, for not finding out and not implementing it. My friends, there's never a better time than right now to level up in the effort effect.

Rachel Denning (22:21.357)
Oh, I love this stuff. So get after it today. Do a quick analysis, rate yourself on maybe if a scale helps, maybe do a one to 10. Do you give yourself a rating and evaluate how well you're doing. Maybe a letter grade would help you. However you want to evaluate, just evaluate yourself on the effort effect in each important area of your life and share this too. Will you share this principle with someone you know that needs to hear it or could benefit from it? Teach this to your kids. Teach it to your classes.

teach it to the people you mentor and guide, give it to your employees, share this podcast, take a screenshot of it and share it. Like get it out there. We've got to teach people the effort effect because otherwise they'll go through their lives making excuses, justifying, rationalizing, blaming other things and circumstances and people when the reality is if they knew about the effort effect, they would, they get back power. That's such an empowering principle and idea because if, if I understand the effort effect, then I realized that my...

Results are my responsibility. Oh yeah. My results are my responsibility. In fact, results in general are my responsibility and my outcomes are directly tied to my efforts. So let's get after it. My friends, let's push hard. Remember every day we are training for greatness. Every day. In fact, I'm wearing my training for greatness shirt right now.

Every day we are training for greatness. And awesome is truly always an option. Reach upward.