There is a famous musician named Carlos Santana. He’s a Mexican guitarist who has produced some great music that is known all over the world. He has done something that is very interesting, and it really proves a concept I learned many years ago. That is, if you don’t care who gets the credit, you’ll be unusually successful.

Carlos Santana has licensed his name to a shoe company who design and manufacture shoes and then sell them. The shoe company couldn’t care less about who gets the credit for the design of the shoe. Did Carlos Santana design them? No way! The company bought the right to use his name. And why? To leverage their product.

The shoe manufacturer is leveraging the fame and success of Carlos Santana’s name with their shoes. Nobody knows who the designer or the manufacturer is. Everyone who buys Carlos Santana shoes knows that Santana is not in some warehouse somewhere making these shoes.

This shoe company is doing something that is extremely wise, but most people will never do. They don’t care who gets the credit for the design of the shoe. The one who is at the drawing board actually designing the shoes isn’t sitting there whining and crying, saying, "But I’M the designer! Why don’t I get any of the recognition? It’s not fair!" No way! All they care about is selling the shoe.

See, you have to weigh your ego with your bank account and see which one weighs more. Ego says, "I want the credit for what I’ve done! I want everyone to know that I did this!"

But nobody ever becomes successful by themselves. We all have a team. And if you’re not successful, it’s probably because you either don’t have a team, or you don’t know how to work in a team. Your team will not succeed if they think the success of the team or organization is all about you.

People will not work as hard to make you successful as they will to make themselves successful. But they will work even harder to make an entire team successful. Those are the facts. That’s how people work. If they think it’s all about one person getting the credit, they will not give it their best shot.

So learn from this partnership between Carlos Santana and the shoe company. The shoe designers and manufacturers do not have their chonies in a wad, saying, "I want my name on that shoe!" They know their names don’t mean anything and will not carry the brand as far or as fast as it does having Carlos Santana’s name attached to the shoe.

That’s called leveraging! Leveraging other people’s talent, success, reputation, and hard work to create success for an entire team. Carlos Santana had to go through all the hard stuff in the music industry and pay his dues. He probably made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot in his 40 years in the industry. He probably lost a lot of friends and had a lot of people tell him he would never make it and he should just give up.

Then here’s the shoe manufacturer who understands this is a very competitive market, and shoes that carry Carlos Santana’s name, his brand, are going to sell better.

I hope you’re understanding this. The shoe company has their ego in the right place. They aren’t trying to take the credit for the design of the shoes. Instead, they created a win-win situation for themselves and for Carlos Santana, and they have become unusually successful as a result.

If you do not care about who gets the credit – at work, in your business, in your community, and even in your family – you will be unusually successful. If you learn to leverage other people’s success instead of trying to compete with it, your team will be unusually successful.

My friend, can you imagine if everyone inside of your company understood this concept? Can you see how that would help your team become more successful? All you have to do is forward this message to them, or even just share this link on your social media platforms. In fact, by sharing The Daily Fix every day, you are actually leveraging other people’s knowledge, gifting, and success to create success for your own team.

I’ll talk to you live every Wednesday for Double Whammy Wednesday – 12 pm ET/11 am CT on the radio for The Dani Johnson Show, and then again at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT for the Spiritual Equipping Broadcast.

In great faith,

P.S. Like what you read here? Just hit the "like" button at the top of the page! That will help your Facebook friends find this content!