Devin Durrant’s Top 4 Advice For Achieving Success

Devin Durrant’s Top 4 Advice For Achieving Success

Sean: What drove you to start writing a book, and I’m all for it. I’ve written two books. I’m about to write my third one. Honestly it’s so hard to write a book. right? We pay it forward. It’s the real reason why we do it. And I’m wondering what drove you to finally say, okay, I’m going to do this?

Devin: Well, I like what you said about paying it forward. Part of the reason I chose the path that I’m on is because of a book. I mentioned it earlier, Creating Wealth by Robert Allan. He helped me think thoughts that I hadn’t thought about previously. He expanded in my mind and in the values Delta. Really, It’s a workbook where I ask people to consider What are your values? How would you describe yourself and what are your strong values and what are values that you would like to make stronger? And at the same time, I asked the question, What do you value? And then I draw a correlation between your values and how they impact things that you value in your personal life and your professional life. And so it’s been a wonderful journey to consider the importance of our values and the importance of focusing on our values and using them to improve those things that we value in our lives, those things that are most important to us.

Sean: So you mentioned optimism being one of them, perhaps your favorite, your favorite one, because that’s the one you mentioned right off the bat. And I know very few people, very few people, thank God, who are pessimists. They’d like to call themselves realists these days. And how can I? I’m wondering if there is a way I’m not forcing this question. How can we kind of turn the table and flip the script, finally tell them, hey, you know what? If you keep on like this, I don’t think a lot of good is going to come in your life. Is there a strategy for us to allow them to see that being an optimist or having good optimism is very valuable for them?

Devin: Yeah, that’s a good thought. And really my response to that is that’s why I wrote my book, because the easy audience is the audience that says, I agree with everything you’re saying. The difficult audience is the audience that says, I don’t I don’t know that I agree with what you’re saying. Och, well, allow me to make an argument, read the book, read the stories. Are you compelled to consider that maybe optimism is more important than being a pessimist or being a realist? And to see if I can persuade the tougher audience to recognize the importance of our values. And granted, there’ll be some people who just will ignore the path that I’m on, and that’s okay. But hopefully for those people out there saying I’m looking for some things that I can do that are easy, small, simple things that I can do that will make a positive difference, maybe in my personal life or in my professional life. And I’d love to try something out. I think my book could possibly help that kind of person.

Sean: Aside from optimism, Devin, what are some things for you people should learn or should get out of your book and apply it to their lives?

Devin: Yeah. Let me start with what you just said, is how can they apply it to their lives? So in the book, I outlined values, my priority values. Some people might call them core values, but they’re the priorities for me. But my book is really an invitation for you to discover what your values are, what’s important to you. So I share my values as maybe a template for others to plug in their values. For example, I write about kindness and what an important value that is to me, and gratitude and the importance of the value of service, and maybe thinking a little bit less about ourselves and more about others. I write about integrity, and I write a lot about my mother, who is probably for me the best personification of integrity. I write about communication and humility. And the last value I write about, it’s the value of initiative. If we don’t have the drive or something to put one foot in front of the other, take that initiative. Everything else can be hollow. And so I share some thoughts about the importance of taking that first step. And maybe it’s just a small step, but the importance of initiative and making positive changes in our lives.

Sean: It’s an amazing answer. Devin There’s a lot of guys and girls like me where I’m a 12 year old entrepreneur in my business, 12 years old. Today, I’m in my early thirties. You’ve gone the way you’ve learned so much. That your children are now taking over the business. What will be your top two or three pieces of advice that could help us in our trajectory towards success and hopefully someday good retirement.

Devin: You know. Thank you Thank you for that question. I. I’m going to say something that will come as no surprise to anyone, but I think it’s a true principle. And for me, it’s really just doing hard work, putting in the time. This was part of my upbringing. I had a wonderful coach when I was 14 years old, and it was the first time in my life. That I really understood what it meant to work hard. And I’m eternally indebted to this coach because of how hard he made us work during that basketball season. But he helped me understand the value of hard work and what that really meant. And I’ve applied those principles in every pursuit that I’ve had since. For almost the last 50 years. And. No. And I think you combine that with. What do I enjoy? What? What? What interests me. And once you figure out what your love is, your passion, your interest. Then you spend the time. One of the values that I talk a lot about is discipline. We always have so many options in today’s world that can distract us from the pursuit of our goals. Once we can identify the direction we want to head and it’s really just, I think, working harder than my competition. And striving to give the best possible product and striving to give the best version of myself to those closest to me, my family, my friends, and as well in the business world, to give the customer the best product that we can offer.

Sean: Amazing. Hard work, discipline. Focus. Give your best. Something I would like to add to that for those of you tuned in, is a lot of people today saying work smart. Don’t need to work hard. I completely disagree. This is the time when we got knowledge and information all over the place. There’s no huge advantage to working smart because everyone works smart. In fact, I don’t hire people who just work smart anymore. And we’re a 50 man team in soccer. I run a digital marketing agency. I hire people who work hard because they’re rare, and find few in between these days. So I completely agree with what you said, Kevin, and more so now it is applicable than ever before. So you don’t need to apologize. It is nothing new because it is something that is so needed nowadays, especially with the younger generations. They keep hearing work, smart work smart. Don’t work hard. It’s not true. It’s not true. These days. Working smart is overrated, and working hard is something that we really need to see in the younger generation now.

Devin: I agree Sean, very well said. And I think too that it’s particularly important when you’re younger. Yes, we all want to work smart, but it’s got to be combined with hard work and those things together will produce fruits sometimes. I think when they say we don’t want to work smart, we’re saying, I don’t want to work so much. Yeah, that’s a misnomer. And but if you do work smart and you do work hard, then over time you might be able to put yourself in a situation where now I don’t need to work as hard as I once did. Yeah, but there’s, there’s, there can’t get around that. I think particularly for an entrepreneur who’s starting out with a new business.

Sean: Well, thanks, Devin, for your wisdom. I could tell my team as I headed over to the office earlier, I had just been in conversation with an NBA player and people here who are tuned in appreciate this episode. They want to know more about you, want to hit you up? Where is the best place to do that?

Devin: Please, please come to my website. It’s thevaluesdelta.com and there’s some resources there you can download for free. And there’s also a 13 minute video there that I think your listeners will enjoy. It’s about the value of quiet service and it’s kind of a tearjerker. It’s a story that my father wrote and that we’ve animated. So I think if you come to the website, check it out. And if you have a few minutes, watch the video and you’ll be well rewarded. But come, come see me at thevaluesdelta.com.

Sean: Awesome. We’ll have these in the show notes. Just go to leadership dot com. Look for the episode with Kevin Durant. You can just click the links there. I’m going to head over there on your website right after we end this recording. Thank you for sharing that, Devin. Thank you for sharing your wisdom today. We appreciate it and we are better for it.

Devin: Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, Shawn. Let’s do it again sometime.