Inform Yourself

You Get What You Accept

The second common problem we’ve witnessed among people who are inauthentic is that they settle. The geniuses we studied don’t settle. They are unreasonable in their expectations, regardless of what the culture says. They force life to work with them on their terms, not the other way around. They know what they are good at and what they like to do and they refuse to allow themselves to get into work or roles, or relationships for that matter, that force them to be unhappy being something they are not.

Just after college Jay went to work for Johnson and Johnson as a surgical sales representative. He was struggling as a sales person. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a good sales person, or that he wasn’t smart or hard working enough, but that the sales process he had been taught wasn’t a good fit for his natural drivers and talents. His motivations weren’t the same as most of the other sales reps. One day he was telling his sales manager, Rick Gilson, how unsatisfied he was with my own results. Rick told him something that day that seemed rather insignificant at the time, but later his words would take on a life of their own. Rick, in what Jay believes was his sensitivity to his own realization that perhaps he was not being authentic, said, “You get what you accept.”

When you really think about it, this disarmingly simple thought is actually one of the most powerful concepts you can own. It is the realization that you are in control; that you are the master of your own destiny, and this grand idea holds the power to set you free from any inauthenticity you have. The concept of “you get what you accept” is the great elephant, and when you truly grasp this concept you realize that whatever your condition in life, you alone are ultimately responsible for how you deal with it. And this realization should move your world because it means that you just put yourself in the driver seat.

Our legacy of dependence teaches us that in many ways we are not primarily responsible for our success. If we follow management’s rules, and do things as dictated, then we should be successful. Instead, our primary responsibility is simply to follow directions as perfectly as possible. We aren’t controlling our own path to success, just fulfilling the prescribed path chosen for us by others. Our only success is in how compliant we are.

You are the only one who really can be responsible for your success – including defining what success is to begin with. And if you are the only one responsible for that success, and you don’t
have it, then you are the only one who can do anything about it. A significant part of breaking that legacy of dependence means assuming full responsibility for your success, or lack thereof. As scary as this might seem to some, it is also incredibly liberating to realize that it really can be that simple.

We don’t live under a totalitarian regime. You are not forced into one role or one job for life. You are free to do whatever you want, wherever you want, and as organizations become enlightened and start to realize that geniuses drive their own cars, they too will start to allow you to control more of your own destiny within the company. So, if you are unhappy with where you are in life, just remember - you get what you accept.

Geniuses don’t place their success at the feet of others, they accept it themselves and they absolutely refuse to settle because they know they get what they accept and they accept only the best for themselves…and they get it.