American Checklist

While some mindsets around the world encourage being average, the United States is a country that encourages individuals to be exceptional. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young talk about why this is the case and how the country was made for entrepreneurs.  Exceptional impact: If you take responsibility for yourself, distinguish yourself, and use ingenuity to do it, the impact of that outside of yourself is likely exceptionalism.  Killing exceptionalism: The part of America that is geographically but not philosophically American finds exceptionalism to be morally repulsive or reprehensible. But when we kill the goal and the desire to be exceptional, we stop getting exceptional results from people. Making progress: Human progress is made by somebody doing something better, and that then serving as a kind of map for others to make improvements in their own lives.  Doesn't detract: Any number of people being exceptional doesn't take anything away from each person’s exceptionalism. It's not a direct compe

From the start, the U.S. has been a country of ingenious people. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young talk about how America supports ingenuity, and how ingenuity benefits the American people. Necessary ingenuity: Early immigrants to what became the U.S. were forced to be ingenious because they were doing new things in a new way and in a new territory. Raising productivity: Ingenuity, like entrepreneurism, is taking a resource from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. There are millions of ways to do this. Economic opportunity: Early Americans had the chance to perform economic activity that had previously only been reserved for people who’d been granted government monopolies. Rewarding the ingenious: America has always rewarded people with new organizing principles, new ways of getting things done, and new ways of employing people. Positive focus: Instead of focusing on what’s bad, focus on the solution that’s going to make the bad situation better. Instead of focusing on

It’s not the pursuit of happiness, but the actual creation of happiness, that leads to happy Americans. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young discuss why gratitude and an understanding of the marketplace are necessary in order for your efforts to be worthwhile. As healthy as you are happy: The body follows the brain in the sense that if you’re unhappy, that will translate into physical ailments, and if you’re happy, your body will get the message to keep going. Not the pursuit: There’s a problem with “the pursuit of happiness,” as it’s stated in the Declaration of Independence, because if you’re pursuing happiness, it means you don’t have it. Gratitude is voluntary: The one thing that every individual has control over that triggers happiness is gratitude. If you’re grateful, there’s immediately a pump of happy thoughts because it’s voluntary; nobody forces you to be grateful and appreciative, and it isn’t a function of your circumstances. No value: How grateful can you be for something that had no cost

Individualism is a characteristic of the American way, and it’s a key part of an entrepreneurial mindset. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young talk about the importance of maintaining your individualism in the face of temptations to join the collective. Disorderly leeway: Because the United States gives so much leeway to individuals to pursue their own path, there isn't the kind of orderliness and sense of neatness you get in a lot of other countries. Upside and downside: The upside of the notion of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is that you get an enormous amount of entrepreneurism and ingenuity, and the downside is that a lot of people have voices that you might not like. Individualist questions: Individualism means deciding, “Does this serve me? Does this make sense? Are these the values I hold?” No collective importance: If you really believe in individualism, then you believe that the collective doesn’t really matter. Entrepreneurial start: In all cases, entrepreneurism starts with

There has never been a state-imposed belief system in the U.S., but many Americans feel they have a personal relationship with a higher power. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young talk about how a personal belief in God gives Americans increasing purposeful energy. Purposeful energy: Your personal belief in God gives you increasing purposeful energy. 80% believe: Something like 80% of Americans said “yes” when asked, “Do you have a sense that there's a God and that you have a connection with that God?” Cut off: Whenever you try to say only our relationship and only our definition of God is the right one, and you have to toe the line, then it gets cut off from the energy. Then it becomes just another collectivist dictatorship. No imposition: James Madison said that the one thing we have to protect—and it's really protected right in the first amendment of the Constitution—is that people are going to believe what they believe about God and that there will be no state-imposed belief system. Always been: T

There’s nothing inherently wrong with loving to come out on top. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young talk about how your winning doesn’t mean that someone else is losing—and why losing doesn’t have to be a bad thing. How you win: The winning mindset is that you love coming out on top and coming out ahead in new ways. Might as well: Oftentimes, you've obligated yourself to show up and perform, and you might as well win if you're going through the effort. Lessons through failures: See failures as things you did, not as who you are. Consider what lessons you can take from each failure. Not equal: Even when other people my age had more than I did, I never blamed other people, or society as a whole. Useful disruption: Everything that's useful in the world should be disruptive when you first hear it. It should throw you slightly off balance. Win or lose: If you don't put yourself in a position where you’ll either win or lose, that means you're living a kind of ignorant life because you're not getting the p

Many Americans see opportunities even in failure. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young discuss how Americans are disrespected if they don’t have personal growth as a goal and rewarded if they make something bigger out of what they’ve been given. Growth is central: Central to American culture is that growth is a goal, growth is a result, growth is a measurement, and growth is a capability. You're taught this as an American, that you should grow. Respected for growth: In America, if you don't have growth as a personal goal, you’re disrespected after a while. On the other hand, you're very rewarded if you’ve made something of yourself. Measuring growth: The U.S. is amazing in the number of different kinds of measurement that it has for growth in all areas. There are 100 independent measurement bureaus that are measuring whether something actually happened, whether it's really honest growth, and whether it's really productive growth. No experts: In a collective, all expansion needs to be directed by exper

Most of America’s biggest successes have been the result of teamwork turning ideas into practical reality. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young give examples of this, and present the theory that the model for teamwork was built into the American way right from the beginning.   Comparing to the ideal: People who hate America are always comparing America to their ideal of America. They’re not looking at the country from the standpoint of where it was 50 or 100 years ago. A fundamental emotion: The fundamental emotion of all haters of America is pessimism. Built on teamwork: When you look at how the country was built, it was individuals coming up with new ideas that all required teamwork for them to go from the idea stage to the practical reality stage. The teamwork model: There's only so much life, liberty, and happiness that you can develop for yourself before you have to cross over into cooperation and collaboration with other people. The teamwork model was built into it right in from the beginning. F

“Exceptional” can be an inflammatory word when people mistake it for arrogance, but in reality, it’s the way Americans accurately see themselves and their country. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young give examples of exceptionalism, including increasing, widespread prosperity in a growing population.   Power to the people: America is the first country that built a government based on all the power belonging to the people and the people granting a limited amount of authority to their government. Unprecedented success: The personal success of individual Americans on such a wide scale with such a huge population is unprecedented. This refers to self-generated wealth in terms of the United States and the quality of life that the country has produced. Raised the standard: The U.S. has set a model where it's raised the whole standard of living for the entire planet. No value outside: The direct opposition to a transformative attitude toward exceptionalism is that no one has any value outside of the collect

It’s the clever thinking of individuals that allows others to do things in an entirely new way. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young discuss how this is something that America has represented for people since its founding, and why it’s caused some people to hate the U.S.   Selling the future: Instead of doing my research first, I get the cheque first. Then when the cheque comes in, I’m on the line because I have to figure out what the cheque writers want so I can deliver it. A new way: The whole emphasis of ingenuity is that people are able to do something in an entirely new way because of someone's clever thinking—a good description of what the U.S. was and is for many people. Hated for ingenuity: Ingeniousness is the biggest source of hatred of America. It’s the biggest source of jealousy. A challenge: Ingenuity is a challenge to the existing ways of doing things. Ingenuity for freedom: The ingenuity of the United States was first of all to create a product where freedom was more possible than it wa

You can’t have individualism without freedom, and you can’t have freedom without individualism. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mark Young discuss the benefits of taking complete responsibility for everything that happens to you in your life.   Resonant mindsets: Americans will relate to other countries that have resonant mindsets. It was in defense of mindsets that they came to the aid of countries that had mindsets that were more in resonance with their own, and fought against countries that were opposed to the mindsets. Writing the script: There’s always been an enormous emphasis in America, going back 400 years, on individualism. America gave a chance for individuals to write the scripts for their own futures. If you want to strive as an individual and succeed as an individual, the American system supports you as an individual. Individual focus: Individualism in the fully developed American forum is a focus on your own capabilities, opportunities, and resources. 100% responsible: The essence of individu

Dan Sullivan and Mark Young explain how America is the entrepreneurial country and the aspirational country, the difference between a philosophical American and a geographical American, and their plans to explore the American mindsets in this podcast series.   Entrepreneurial America: America is the entrepreneurial country. If you look at the founding documents and the experience of the country’s founders, the U.S. is the only country that was entrepreneurial from the start. The American spirit: It’s in the American spirit to go through all of the difficulty of being an entrepreneur and to test yourself in the marketplace—whether you’re good or not depends on what the marketplace says—and to turn yourself around and try something else if you fail. Aspirational country: America is a place where you can have a future that’s bigger than your past. That’s always been the central message. All about mindsets: America is the one country on the planet that’s strictly about mindsets. You’re either a happy American or