I Dare You to Be in the Top 20%

By Dan Pederson

Praise for I Dare You

I Dare You is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. If you want to be successful in business, family and life, it is a must read. Chapter seven and Life's 7 F's says it all.

Jeanne Evans CMA (Certified Medical Assistant).

This book is amazing! It will help you remember why you started your journey to be in the Top 20%. Believe in yourself, set goals, achieve your goals, invest in yourself, follow your dreams, and most of all WORK HARDER is the theme of I Dare You!

Charles Russell Walker III, Entrepreneur

Something happens when you get absorbed by a book, and you love it so much that you will write your thoughts in the margins. Becoming a student of "I Dare You" is about learning and achieving results when you are active in the process. When you make notes in the margin and underline a sentence, you can hear yourself talking with the author, in this case me. When you are so excited about a sentence or paragraph because of how it relates to you, and you decide to write a note on the inside cover or in the margin, you can not only see and feel my ideas taking shape, but more importantly, your thoughts.

You can even argue with me the author under your breath, or I hope out loud and come up with your theories, ideas, and explanations as to what is happening in your life or business concerning the ideas in this book. In all of these ways, you become a co-author of my book entitle "I Dare You."

"I Dare You' is an experience that cannot be taught in a classroom. It is all about absorbing the ideas, making them your own, and aspiring to be in the Top 20%.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637103821

Book preview

Chapter 1

Persist with SELF-DISCIPLINE

Over the past thirty years, I have consulted with more than two hundred businesses and trained more than one million people in small and large groups and way-too-many-to-count one-on-one settings. In every case, persistence and self-discipline are essential to the progress and attainment of the success of the Top 20% of people I have consulted.

I have discovered that you can achieve almost any goal you set for yourself if you have the persistence and discipline to pay the price, do what you need to do, and never give up.

Who should read this book?

This book was written for ambitious, determined men and women who want to achieve everything possible in life. This book is for people who are hungry to do more and to make more. This book is for the Top 20%!

Perhaps the most valuable insight of all concerning success is that the Top 20% have learned to be better and completely different people. It is not the material things you acquire that matter in the long run, so much as the quality of the person you must become to live in the Top 20%. And the development of self-discipline and persistence is the high road that makes everything possible for you!

As you begin your journey through each chapter of I Dare You, please know I’m excited that you are joining me. I Dare You will be your step-by-step guide to becoming that rare person capable of unbelievable achievements! The very best thing about this book is that you can pick out chapters you feel pertain to you, such as:

Have Big GOALS and DREAMS

HUNGRY—Desire

Focus on the NOW!

Doing this will allow you to gain internal energy as you experience the entire book.

Your Worst Enemy!

Just as will-power and self-restraint are the keys to success, a lack of will-power, self-control, and self-discipline are the primary causes of failure, frustration, underachievement, and general unhappiness in life. Once you get excited about the chapters that you seem to be interested in, you must have the self-discipline to study, take notes, write in the margins, and highlight lines in the book. Pay attention to anything that gives you that Aha or Holy crap moment. I hope that as you read, there will be places where you stop and say, That’s amazing, or That’s what I’m dealing with at work.

The key to winning and victory is the ability to persist and prevail toward your life’s goals, regardless of the many setbacks, failures, totally unexpected events, and bad news that you will receive along life’s journey. Your ability to ignore all the naysayers who are continually telling you, You’re always pushing too hard, or You’re just doing this for yourself, is KEY number 1! You must continue to fight for the course of action and the direction you feel is right, despite the roadblocks in front of you. Mastering this trait is what the Top 20% are continually learning and doing to stay on top.

I can tell you that I am more persistent than I am smart or talented! I believe some people have more of this trait than others, but I also think that persistence and self-discipline can and must be developed for you to be in the Top 20% or to be among the winners in life.

My three sons all have this trait, which I am very proud of. Of all the characteristics I was able to pass down to them, the quality of persistence is the key to all their successes. This trait alone is necessary to make any of your dreams come true, whether in your personal or business life.

In Brian Tracy’s book NO Excuses, he explains the key to the Common Denominator of Success. He refers to a businessman named Herbert Grey, who conducted a long-term study searching for what he called the common denominator of success. After eleven years, Grey finally concluded that the common denominator of success was that "successful people make a habit of doing the things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do."

What were these things? It turns out that the things that the Top 20% don’t like to do are the very same things that the bottom percent don’t like to do either. The Top 20% do them anyway because they know this is the price they have to pay if they want to achieve greater success and rewards in the future. They persist!

According to Tracy, what Grey found was that successful people are more concerned with "pleasing results, whereas the bottom percent were more concerned about pleasing methods." Successful, happy people were more concerned with the positive long-term consequences of their behaviors, whereas unsuccessful people were more concerned with personal enjoyment and immediate gratification.

Whether you are an employee for someone or an entrepreneur in your own business, you will have to learn how to endure through all types of situations. It can feel like planet Earth has some kind of force, like gravity, that is always challenging your ability to persist. I believe life has a way of trying to find out what you are made of as it continues to hit you head-on while you pursue your dreams and goals.

Any endeavor you or I tackle will require both of us to persist with all our determination. In chapter 3, Have Big GOALS and DREAMS, we will talk about the Pederson Synergy Rule, which comes from an understanding of how much effort and thought are required to get anything in life done successfully.

So when I say 1 + 1 + 1 = 150%, I am talking about the Pederson Synergy Rule or the Hunt, Williams, Johnson, or Jones Synergy Rule (or your own synergy rule):

1 average person + 1 extraordinary goal + 1 DNA of determination and desire = 150% in the form of unbelievable success!

In applying the Pederson Synergy Rule, I don’t try to eliminate resistance by people. I merely keep going until they change their course, and my ideas are maintained instead of defied. For example, I had a bottom percent business owner just recently reject all common sense when it came to running his business successfully. What I’m always looking for in a successful business are the "five success factors" applied with the CANEI Principle (constant and never-ending improvement) to help a business owner or manager succeed and grow. These five success factors are:

Successful Revenue Growth

Successful Profit Growth

Successful Managerial Growth

Successful People Growth

Successful Culture Growth

In this case, this business owner couldn’t get out of his own way to see that generally proven business principles and systems work. If he would have incorporated the tools provided in the book you are presently reading and my previous book Blueprint to Your Success, he would have become more successful than his wildest dreams!

Rather than rejecting or ignoring this business owner, I simply persisted as his consultant with energy, drive, kindness, and positive activity. Any remaining resistance, in time, will cease to exist as his behavior changes to mirror other successful business owners in the Top 20% or until he realizes that he is unable to compete.

Persistence is the best lever for anyone who wants to multiply his or her success because most other people have given up on their innate ability to persist. When you retrain yourself to do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are in the best mental, emotional, physical, and financial position to persevere, you will find yourself on the list of the most successful and Top 20% of Winners!

If you can’t fly then run if you can’t run then walk if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE IN THE TOP 20%?

Do you have the willpower it takes? If so, describe how you emulate this trait:

Do you have the persistence and self-discipline to be in the Top 20%? If not, what will it take to get there?

When describing the Common Denominator of Success, the Top 20% make a habit of doing the things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do. Describe the traits that you do to put you in the Top 20%:

Your level of ACCOMPLISHMENT will

rarely exceed your level of PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT because PROSPERITY and HAPPINESS is something you attract by who you BECOME! (Dan Pederson)

Chapter 2

HUNGRY—Desire

MILITARY SERVICE

The year was 1968, and my senior year had been as much fun as everyone said it would be. Football, basketball, and baseball encompassed my life with the thrill of competition and comradery! Well, almost, as there was the homecoming dance, the prom, the Sadie Hawkins dance, and Friday night movie nights in the school cafeteria. I no longer rode the school bus as I had a brand-new single-stroke Harley Davidson 250cc that I rode to school every day. And of course, my favorite girl in the world was Connie, this good-looking, athletic blond that was a sophomore.

I had already decided to go in the Navy early in my senior year as the Navy recruiter had been to our high school to talk to us seniors that were not going on to college. It was pretty much a forgone conclusion that I would be going in the Navy as I would be the third generation of sailors in my family. My dad served in World War II, and my grandpa served in World War I. I was sworn into the Navy July of 1968 after graduating from high school and was on the Navy’s 120-day delay program shipping out to San Diego for bootcamp on November 26, 1968.

Well, that was the start of my love for the military, especially the Navy and the Marine Corps. Here’s what my time in the Navy and the Marine Corps would look like for the next eight years:

Signalman A School—Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

USS Albert David (DE 1050)—Western Pacific

USS Ajax (AR 6)—Western Pacific

Dental Technician A School—San Diego, California

Field Medical School (Fleet Marine Force), Camp Pendleton, California

Marine Corps Air Station -MAG-26—New River, North Carolina

Dental Technician C School—San Diego, California

Brooklyn Naval Clinic, Brooklyn, New York

But the time I spent in Fleet Medical School at Camp Pendleton and the Marine Corps Air Station, New River, North Carolina, held the best memories for me. Having a designation of Fleet Marine Force was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever accomplished. I was very proud to receive my Fleet Marine Force caduceus.

Okay, you ask, what is a caduceus? So here’s the definition for those that don’t know:

Definition of a caduceus by Merriam-Webster:

A medical insignia bears the representation of a staff with two entwined snakes and two wings at the top—the emblem of a medical or dental corps or a department of the armed services.

I wore that emblem proudly on my collar and was very excited to be supporting the Marine Corps as a Navy sailor.

I graduated from Field Medical School at Camp