How To Become A Top 1% Employee

Coming up, I'll teach you how to become a top 1% employee. It's a lot easier than you think. And then, Gen Z, they're sounding off on what they think about going to college. We'll break it down, and we'll coach you up, let's go. This is the Kid Colbert Show where we help you win in your work life so that you're winning in other areas of your life. Let's get to it. How many of you want to climb the ladder? You want to get promoted. Now, some of you heard climb the ladder and you think, I don't want to be in C-suite. I don't mean it that way. I just mean you want to move up financially because you've moved up professionally. You want to grow your income. You want to grow your influence. Well, this teaching is for you. We hear about the 1%ers politically a lot when we talk about income, but let's talk about 1%ers as it relates to performance. Only 1% of people ever become the superstars in the workplace. Only 1% of people ever reach the top of anything. It's really true. So why? Why so few? This vast population, this vast world, and only a few really max out. And I'm going to give you a very simple reason. Most people are not willing to do what it takes to be great. Now, let's pause for a second and talk about what I mean by great. Great means the absolute best version of you. Great is not a comparison. I don't care if anybody tells you. Well, this guy is a great man and this woman is a great woman. She's a great woman. But they're not greater than you because they're not you. Greatness is not defined by power, prosperity, notability. It's just not. Now, I don't say that's what culture tends to do. But the other day, greatness is about uniqueness and you being the best version of you. And the bar is so low right now, thanks to quiet quitting and the anti-work movement. And then just some people saying, I'm out. I'm not working like the seven million pathetic men in this world who in this country who aren't working. They can work. They've chosen to just take their ball and go home. So it's never been easier to catapult yourself into the top one percent of employees. So let's break it down. How do we do that? We need to understand what a one percenter is. In other words, an A player and A players get A results and they live a great life because of it. In other words, they're willing to do what they have to do so they can do what they want to do. So here's what you can do to take advantage of this very low bar in this work climate and become an A player a top one percenter. Here's what you can do. First you need to be aware of two factors, two elements of you. First, you need to be aware of hunger. You need to be aware of talent. So my definition of a one percenter is somebody who's very talented and very hungry. That's it. That's all I need to see. Is that person a one percenter? Are they an A player? Tell me are they talented? Tell me are they hungry? If the answer is yes and yes, now we've got a one percenter. Notice I didn't say are they talented and then move on. Talent is not enough. Talent is not enough to be great and talent is not enough to be a one percenter. It just isn't. I've seen many talented people sitting on the sidelines of life for a variety of reasons. But they didn't have the hunger. They had a talent, but they didn't hunger. They didn't hunger for very specific things. We'll break that down. Let's first talk about talent. You need to be aware of your talent. You need to be crazy self-aware. I know what I'm talented at doing and as a result, I know what I'm not talented at doing. So I've structured my professional life and my personal life to reflect that. Listen, I can carry a note. I've got a small amount of talent musically. I play the trumpet for six years. I can read music. I can hold a note. But I have a small amount of talent. If we're looking at the bucket of talent there, we're looking at I'm like a three or four, which means a lot of effort makes me average. Nobody pays for average. Where are you very talented? This is what you've got to be focused. I've got to be so aware of I am really gifted in these areas. And I've got validation of it. It's not my opinion. I've got validation. And again, validation isn't from Mama. Validation is from people who've pushed you in those areas of talent, who've coached you in those areas of talent, who've paid you in those areas of talent. That's where the validation comes from, not from Uncle Larry and your mom, because they won't tell you the truth. Secondly, you got to believe in the talent. It's not enough to be aware of it. You got to believe in it. And there's a difference between aware and belief. Give me an example. I'm sitting in a chair right now. This is a pretty decent chair. I mean, a studio chair is going to be pretty decent chair. When I walk in the studio the very first time and I saw this chair several years ago, I was aware that the chair was here and that the chair was constructed, engineered, built for me to sit in it and hold my weight. I was aware of it because I looked at it and said, that's a chair. But I did not believe that the chair was able to do what I thought it was able to do until I sat in it. You see what's going on here? It's the act that makes it belief. I can be aware of it. I can see it. I can think it. But to act on it is belief. You got to act on your talent. Now let's move to hunger. Hunger. What do I mean by this? Hunger is a deep desire to make a contribution to this world. A specific contribution, not just any contribution, a specific contribution. You hunger for it. In other words, you have an appetite. You long for it. You crave a specific contribution. You cannot teach hunger. You can make people aware of it, but you can't teach it. You cannot will it on somebody and you can't will it. You have to experience it, see it, taste it, smell it and go, I want more of that. I want to do that hunger, hunger to make a contribution and then hungry to grow. Again, just as I said, it's not enough to be aware of your talent. You have to believe in the talent. The same is true for hunger. It's not enough to crave a contribution. You have to then be willing to grow in order to do it. Let me give you an example. If a kid wants to play high school football, okay, we're not going to be talking about the next level. Just high school football. I really want to play. I really want to play. Great. Are you willing to practice? Are you willing to hit the weight room? Are you willing to get out and condition yourself? Are you willing to do what it takes to do the thing that you desire to do? It's not enough to crave it. If you're hungry for it, you've got to move towards it. You've got to go shoot it, skin it, bring it home and cook it. You've got to do those things. Understand that if you want to be a one percenter, you have to be aware of your talent and believe in your talent. You have to be hungry for a contribution and be willing to grow so that you can get more of that contribution. You do that. You set yourself apart. Why does that matter? This greatness is not an accident. Greatness always happens on purpose. Hey folks, now is the time to kickstart your technology career with my friends at Beffel Tech. You can earn a micro credential in front-end web development for only $5,000 in just 15 weeks. That's half the time of their other very successful programs. Front-end development is very employable. Starting salaries of up to $75,000 so you can get a job, get paid and continue in their full stack program if you want. A lot of employers help pay for that continuing education. It's lifelong learning. One step at a time to help you avoid student loan debt and have the freedom to do what you want to do. Beffel Tech offers Ken Coleman show listeners who pay cash 10% off. For more info about building a new career your way, go to beffeltech.net slash Ken Coleman. Terms and conditions do apply. October is almost here and some of you think, oh, I got to get my kids a Halloween costume. I want you to be thinking about the fact that you and many others are going to have to start paying their student loans back 40 million, by the way. And our team wants to help. Ramsey Solutions is positioned strategically. We are positioned with a lot of experience in helping people get out of debt, including student loan debt. That's why we're hosting a free live stream on Tuesday, September 12th at 7 p.m. central, so eight eastern seven central Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, Jade Warsaw are going to walk you through how we got in this mess and how we can get out of this mess together because we are here to help and we can help the free live stream is available to you at Ramsey Solutions dot com slash student loans, Ramsey Solutions dot com slash student loans. I wouldn't miss it. I would not miss it. If I've got student loans or if I've got kids that are getting ready to take them, I would not miss this. This is appointment watching eight eastern seven central Ramsey Solutions dot com slash student loans Tuesday, September 12th. All right. More updates on the continuing devaluation of a college degree. I've been saying this. I said this five years ago, I'm going to say it five days from now. You know, Nathan, it just occurs to me. You were shaking your head because you and I have known each other a long time. It's very rare that I can even say something like this and I don't want to miss this. I'm never right. Number one, I'm a husband of 25 years and I'm not griping, but every man in a successful marriage knows you pretty much have to give up your opinion and being right. If you want to be happily married, let's just be honest, all right. Secondly, I have three teenagers, Nathan, which means they never think I'm right about anything. And so it's rare. It's rare that I get out in front of something and say, I'm telling you, this next generation is going to begin to devalue and question the ROI return on investment for college. And here we go. Are you ready for this? I'm never right, except for this. Here we go. Four million fewer teenagers enrolled at college in 2022. Then in 2012. So 10 years difference in the 10 year span, college enrollment has dropped by four million students. Folks, that's not a blip. That is a trend that is going to start to look like a freight train. These numbers are going to continue to snowball. Why? The price tag. The price tag. It's too much. I can't justify it. You can't justify it. More on that in a minute. From 2010 to 2022, college tuition rose an average of 12% a year while inflation only increased an average of 2.6% each year. And folks, I point this out because this still, this message still makes a lot of you uncomfortable because you have been brainwashed. That college is absolutely the best alternative for a kid leaving high school. You've been brainwashed and it's so counterintuitive for you to go, huh? That doesn't seem to make sense. Inflations in your face right now, does that bother you? That college tuition over a 12-year period rose at 12% a year. Inflation rose at 2.6% a year. That's whacked out. If that doesn't make you upset, hold on. Hold my beer. It's not a Bud Light. Today, college costs at least $104,000 on average to attend a public university. Four years, public university average cost $104,000. And $223,000 for a private university. See, that's where they really get you. You get all excited when you send your kid to a private university because I mean, they're special. They got in the country club. They get to wear the sweater vest and the tie and the penny loafers. You see where they're going here? It's a trap. It's a status trap and it's trapping young people. It's trapping parents who are signing, co-signing on loans. It's a trap. It's a mirage. Here are the data to prove me right. The salaries that students can expect to earn after graduation have it kept up with the cost of college. A Pew Research Center report found that earnings for young college educated workers had remained mostly flat over the past 50 years. Four years after graduating, according to recent data from the higher education authority, a third of students earn less than $40,000 lower than the average salary of $44,000 that workers with only high school diplomas earn. Factor in the average student debt of $33,500 at college graduates, oh, after they leave school, and many graduates will spend years catching up with their less or their degreeless counterparts. So these kids are waking up to this. Student debt-driven financial hole is leaving more and more younger people with a lower network than previous generations. The morning consult found that 41% of Gen Zers said they tend to trust U.S. colleges and universities. This is the lowest percentage of trust of any previous generation. Now, I'm going to tell you something. That is good news to me because it tells me these Gen Zers are going, this value proposition doesn't add up to me. Sure, I can go and party for four to five years and show my wild oats. But then I've got to pay when I get out and when I look at what I got to pay when I get out versus what I'm making when I get out, I'm not so sure that that's a fair trade. Now I want you just for a second to think of a product or service that you recently paid for, that after you got into it, you went, well, that was an absolute trap. I didn't get what I paid for. That's what Gen Z is saying. They're going, why would I want to do this? They don't want to do it. And the numbers are bearing themselves out. The average enrollment is dropping, community college enrollment, dropping. That's one storm. These kids are just, they're waking up and going, I don't know. That's one storm. The other storm is the student loan debt we've got. It's about to hit the shoreline in October. It's going to be a lot of pain. And I think this pain is going to be so vocal that I hope it wakes America up finally to say it's time to turn the eye at the people that are in charge of the education matrix. Those would be your leadership at higher institutions. Everybody at the top, college president, the board, regents, everybody. You're all on the hook because you all are driving this 12% tuition increase per year. Are you kidding me? Oh, by the way, these are the same educated folks. Who charged you the same amount of money but sent your kid home and told them to learn online? So that's the second storm is our student loan crisis. By the way, it's back to being a full blown crisis because the Supreme Court told Uncle Joe that there's this thing called the Constitution and we have to abide by it. So they smacked down his political play and now a lot of people who for three years had to hope, real hope that they would have their student loans forgiven are now dealing with the harsh reality that they got to pay it. The third storm, corporate America is saying we're hiring these kids out of college and they're not trained to do what we need them to do. So we've come up with our own training programs. So we'll just hire you right out of high school or high if you don't have a degree, third storm, all coming together for a super storm that is going to make college and universities as we know irrelevant. I told you so and I'm telling you so. Welcome back to the Ken Coleman show where we help you win at life so that you, excuse me, when it works so that you can win in the rest of your life, I got distracted Nathan during the course of break was asking me a very personal question. He was like, do I know you well enough and he was asking me, you know, what kind of adult beverages I enjoyed? And so full disclosure, I've ADHD, I thought I'd tell the audience. I'm not going to tell you all, but I was really thinking that through Nathan. That was very, very good. I was written on the first half. You were. Well, we know each other a long time, having directed me many, many years when I was host of the Dave Ramsey YouTube channel, Nathan would be in my ear. And I mean, some of you think you hear voices in your head sometimes. I actually know what it's like to hear at someone else's voice in your head. And it's these little things in my ear here. And he would tell me what to do and still haunt you every now and then he does. He does. All right. If you're enjoying the program on YouTube, would you help us grow? You can do that by liking the video that you're watching, subscribing to the channel and sharing with a friend. And on podcasts, follow us, give us a five star review and share as well. So I would be grateful for that. All right. Let's get to the phones where Elliott joins us in Syracuse, New York, Elliott, you're on the Ken Coleman show. Hey, can you hear me? I can hear you well, sir. Thank you, sir, for having me on the show today. I really respect the work that you do. Thank you, sir. So can we a little bit of a background and we'll lean into it sound good? Sure. All righty. So I'm walking around lately with the suspicion that I might be too successful for my own good. And I'll emphasize for my own good, I'm 25 years old and by many standards, I would say that I'm successful. I make just shy of 100,000 a year. I've got two degrees, so definitely resonating with the show today. And I'm the first in my family to reach this level of success, along with my girlfriend, she's finishing up her second degree as well, but despite all the success, I'm coming in out of work every day, just downright miserable. So I'm trying, I'm really trying to work that out. What's making you miserable? I would, there's a host of things there. I know, but I want you to give me the top two or three, because I'll bet you they're all bucketed. What are the top two or three reasons why you come home miserable every day? I know that I'm an utterly driven person, but due to how irrelevant I perceive the work to be. Uh-huh. Yeah. It feels. Yeah. So, and then when I hit a roadblock, I see a difference between the person I know I am and the person I'm showing up as at work. And so because of that, irrelevance and the degrees of separation from what I think is impactful. Yeah. Uh-huh. Your work doesn't matter to you. And so you're starting to go, well, I matter more than this. And so the question becomes, is this, is this a dead end or is this you just experiencing frustration on the latter climbing? Let me, let me explain further so that you can answer this. I want you to be really honest. Is this just part of you having to pay your dues? Or is this just an absolute, I got in the wrong seat one way or the other? And I just know there's, there is no, there's not climb. There's no climb here. This isn't me having to be patient. This is an absolute dead end. What is it? Um, I'm thinking it's more of a dead end only because, uh, so I, I've made it through my one year mark with the company on that and I stuck it out because I thought that was the right thing to do. I still think it was the right thing to do. Well, all right. So pause. So when you joined the company, here it goes. Was it in this position? Correct. Yes. So did you misread this? Uh, no, I did not misread this. So why is it a, so when you joined, you were jacked up about it. Yes. Uh-huh. Out because the opportunity itself seemed unrealistic to like, it surpassed any potential opportunity that I thought was available to me at the time. So it looked like a very attractive ladder that you could get on and use that ladder to climb. Correct. But now, and maybe much sooner than now, you realized there is no next rung here. I'm stuck. Yes. Okay. All right. You understand why I'm digging into all this because we've got to figure out what's true and then we need to figure out what's our next move based on what's true. And if this were a situation where you are being impatient, I'd say, you know, relax, young grasshopper, I get it. But you do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do. This does not seem like this. This seems like, um, either you were, either you misread the situation or they've changed the game on you, or they sold you, uh, so much oceanfront property in Arizona. Which one is it? Yeah. So my inside joke is that you know the last bullet on the posting where it does and take care of other manager requests. Uh, that seems to be the, uh, uh, yeah, okay. So the job description, as you read and interviewed for is a whole lot less of the rest of the stuff. And it's a whole more of, I'm just an Aaron boy for the boss. Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. Now I know what's going on. You feel number one lied to or certainly misled, uh, and you certainly feel devalued because you go, anybody can do this and I'm not being pushed. I'm not being challenged by this role. Is that what's going on? That's fair. Yep. Okay. Good. So what's your question? Now that I know what's going on, what's your question? Well, the question was, and now I'm starting to, uh, shift a little bit. Good. Originally, the question was, how do I maintain, so I have faith that I'm going to end up in a good place and have a lot of these issues resolved. But I'm starting to lose, I feel like I lose the ability to maintain perspective while going through that process. Yeah. 100%. Great question. Is that the question? Yeah. I'm wondering how to maintain that perspective and that's all through it. Okay. Great. What about point of view? So how do you maintain perspective when you're in a job that you know, you're not going to stay in much longer and it is a dead end? Here's what you do. You focus on what that job allows you right now as miserable as it makes you. It allows you stability in the now and stability to move to the next. Make sense? Yes, sir. So I know I don't want to be here. I know my time is close to done, but there's no reason to jump off of a bridge when you can walk across a bridge. And so we go, okay, the bridge is me staying in this role until I find something else. And then when I find something else, I'm out. So your perspective is, okay, yes, you're miserable, but you need to be grateful for what it is. The good that it is and the good that it is is that the job that you can do with your brain shut completely off and it's taking care of your bills and it's setting you up for the future. And then that ought to push you to go, I got to get out of here. So it's you. Do you mind if I add one point there? Yeah, real quick, because I got about a minute and a half. What do you got? Yes, yes, sir, with the mind shutting off part, I agree. And so I agree only because I believe I'm being taxed slightly with disproportionate responsibility sometimes. So yes, I'm being pushed, but I'm not being pushed in the appropriate way. I get what you're saying. My point is, that was just me making a little side point. It doesn't matter. The point is that you need to be grateful. You said, how do I keep a good perspective? So you're grateful for what it does for you. And if you just walk today, how much stress would that put on you? Quite a bit. Right. So your perspective is, I'm not going to do anything stupid. So I need to show up, and I need to keep shoveling them, you know what, until I find something else. So my perspective is, I need the stability, and because I need the stability, I need to be grateful for the stability. So perspective is, don't shoot yourself in the foot. Thank you, sir. You know what I mean? Now, what this does is, I'm grateful, but I'm urgent. That's the last piece. Your posture emotionally, every day is, I'm grateful, I'm faithful, and I'm urgent. I'm grateful for the gig. I'm going to be faithful to do the best job I can do while I'm here. But I am urgently looking. I am urgently planning so that I get myself on a much better perspective. That's the mindset. And that'll get you through my friend, and you're a sharp young man. I love the call. He's very mature of you to be asking these questions, and I think your next opportunity is closer than you realize. I'll be urgent while being grateful and faithful. This is the Ken Coleman Show. Thanks for listening to the Ken Coleman Show. For more, you can find the show on demand wherever you listen to podcasts, and watch the show on YouTube. You can also find Ken across all social media by following at Ken Coleman.