Famous guitarist, Carlos Santana, has produced legendary music known worldwide. However, a few years ago his career took a very surprising turn. And in doing so, it proved a concept I learned many years ago: if you don’t care who gets the credit, you’ll be unusually successful.

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

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

By making this strategic move, the shoe company is doing something extremely wise… yet most people would never consider doing this. They don’t care who gets the credit for the design of the shoe! The person 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 shoes.

See, you have to weigh your ego against 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 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 their success is all about the individual.

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 don’t get their panties in a wad, saying, “I want my name on that shoe!” They know their names don’t mean squat 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 put in all the hard music industry work to pay his dues. He probably made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot in his 45+ years in the industry. He probably lost friends and had people tell him he would never make it, and he should just give up.

Then, here’s this shoe manufacturer who understands the highly-competitive market, and a shoe carrying Carlos Santana’s name and brand, WILL sell better.

I hope you’re getting this idea. 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 as a result have become unusually successful.

If you do not care about who gets the credit – at work, in your business, in your community or 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 this could 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 actually leverage other people’s knowledge, gifting and success to create success for your own team. And speaking of success, share your thoughts on how this message could help you to increase your success in the comments below!

Then join me today for The Dani Johnson Show, when we discuss more strategic tips to use in leveraging your success! You can tune in on your TV and radio or you can always stream today’s show right here on our website.

In great faith,

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