4 Success Lessons from Cirque du Soleil

I know, I know! You might be saying, “Come on Eugene, success lessons from Cirque du Soleil?”. But if you look you can find the lessons in everything.

At this point I think I have watched every Cirque du Soleil that they have and every time I watch I am amazed. Not just because of the death defying stunts, and not because of the amazing atmosphere, but because of all of the success nuggets I get from watching.

I remember the first time I went to Cirque du Soleil. I took my wife Josephine there for her birthday a few years ago and she loved it. She had been asking to go for a while and I surprised her with tickets. If you want to see her reaction you can watch it here.

As I sat there in amazement watching them do these stunts, I realized a few things that to me looked like success principles. Here are the 4 success principles I learned watching Cirque du Soleil.

1) Faith

The first thing I realized was the amount of faith these performers had to have in order to put on this show. Some of them were tossed over 10 feet in the air and still landed on their feet. They also were tossed into the arms of other performers and had faith that the other performer would catch them. They were basically putting the fate of their lives in the hands of these performers. When you analyze it, you realize that what they are really putting faith in is the work that each person puts in to be great.

When it comes to success, how much faith do you have in your abilities or the abilities of your team? If you were tossed 10 feet in the air, philosophically speaking, would you trust your team to catch you? Would you have faith that they put in the work necessary to make the death defying catch? Would you trust yourself to make that catch? Some times when we look at the concept of faith we say “Hey, I believe” but do you truly believe in you or the team around you? No one creates success by themselves and your team can make or break your ability to win. If the answer to that question is “no” then you want to take the time to develop the practice of becoming great personally and with your team so that you can trust the work that was put in to allow you and the team to be successful, which leads to the second observation…

2) Excellence

The next thing I realized was that the performers had to be committed to excellence. When you watch every move that they make you see the fluidity and grace in each step. I thought about how many hours needed to be put into every practice to be good enough to get on that stage and perform. Malcolm Galdwell, in his book Outliers, talks about putting in 10,000 hours to become a master. I know for a fact that each of those performers put 10,000 hours into their craft.

When it comes to success, those who are serious about winning are those who are serious about excellence. These are people who put the time, energy, and effort into becoming great. Excellence is not about a single act but a habit because you are what you do repeatedly. That consistent effort creates the greatness we call excellence. I urge you take the time to be excellent at your craft by consistently building the habit of working at it every single day!

3) Focus

As I continued to watch, I realized that not one time did these performers ever break their focus and concentration. They had thousands of people watching them, but yet would not be swayed by the distractions of the crowd. They knew what they came to do — put on a flawless performance, which they came close to doing.

This time of focus is what it takes to win. In today’s society it is easy to be distracted. There is Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, television, computers; the list can go on and on. Each of these items are competing for your attention but a person who is focused doesn’t let any of these things distract them from their success. They are laser focused and determined to get to their end result by any means necessary. The only way to have that type of focus is to have a crystal clear goal of what you are trying to achieve. Clear goals creates optimal focus for achievement.

4) Mistakes

Now you might be thinking how can you have excellence and mistakes at the same time? Excellence doesn’t mean perfection, it means working hard to do everything at a high level. As I watched them I saw them make a few very small and very unnoticeable mistakes. The thing that made them so special when they made mistakes was that they made a mistake but kept the show moving forward; most people didn’t even notice the mistakes.

How great would it be if we can take on that same type of approach where we strive after excellence but when mistakes happen we keep moving forward? Most people make mistakes and it stops them from taking another step. In success, mistakes are unavoidable, so if you know they will happen then you can take mistakes for what they are. There has never been a great achiever who has not made a mistake, but there are a ton of average people who let mistakes hold them back. Don’t be like them!

These are the 4 lessons I learned watching Cirque du Soleil and it is a reminder that you can be a student at any time and learn anything you want. It also is a reminder that success principles are the same no matter who is using them!

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