Learn to Love doing the Boring Things- the Flight Plan
Last week, I did something I hadn’t done in more than 30 years: I dedicated an entire day, no social media and email, to mapping out my “flight plan” for 2025, one that will significantly impact many people and help me move toward a 10x expansion of my business.
I spent that day immersed in strategy sessions with my friend and coach, Debbie Allen. It was a fantastic opportunity to zero in on what truly matters in my business rather than being consumed by the urgent.
During the flight home to Charlotte from Phoenix, I reflected on our 2025 action plan and wondered if I could simplify the steps I’ve followed so others could craft their own flight plan to achieve a limitless life.
My thoughts immediately drifted back to my first formal sales training in 1989—encouraged by my mentor—right after attending a Jim Rohn event (which wasn’t directly focused on sales). Ironically enough, the first real sales training I attended was also held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
That session was Tom Hopkins’ “Boot Camp,” where I had to memorize over 20 closing techniques, word for word, to qualify for a contest. At that stage of my life, I was driven by significance and achievement. I spent the entire night rehearsing those closes. Although I didn’t win, I walked away with a wealth of tools that powered me to become District Manager of the Year and reach President’s Club in my rookie year.
Every day, as I drove from one appointment to the next, I practiced those closes until it became repetitive—and boring. Yet it was precisely this boring repetition that took me from good to excellent, eventually helping me become a top producer for some of the world’s largest sales teams.
I learned a critical lesson: never get tired of doing the boring tasks.
Over the past 36 years, I’ve consistently applied that same principle in both my business and personal life.
On January 15, 2009, that principle was on full display—not just in my own actions but also in the cockpit of US Airways 1549.
That day, the training and repeated drills that allowed the Captain and First Officer to command an Airbus 320 came into sharp focus. The Captain’s repetitive practice flying a glider translated directly into landing an Airbus 320 successfully, preserving 155 lives. Meanwhile, the First Officer stepped back, referring to the “book” to provide methodical step-by-step instructions.
My own mindset drills—those countless “boring” exercises—ensured I stayed calm and logical during a life-or-death crisis. My mother had insisted I earn a Junior Lifeguard certificate at our local pool in Hillsboro, Ohio, drilling that boring 500-yard swim again and again so I’d be prepared if I ever had to swim in near-freezing water, fully clothed.
The flight crew’s annual training regimen, which must have seemed tedious at times, proved decisive that day, transforming a potential tragedy into a miracle. The same can be said for our first responders—by refining their emergency skills until it was second nature, they played a pivotal role in achieving the outcome everyone now calls the “Miracle on the Hudson.”
My own version of this principle resurfaced during the past four years when I trained to swim again in the Hudson River with Navy SEALs and in the Pacific Ocean with Special Ops units. Waking up daily at 3:50 a.m. to practice swimming, doing those identical old boring laps over and over—these “boring” routines laid the foundation for successfully completing the 3.1-mile swim with my wingman Suzanne in the Hudson River and later in the Pacific Ocean with our Special Ops heroes.
On the flight home from Phoenix last week, I became emotional as a simple yet powerful realization washed over me:
The road to building your flight plan and living a limitless life can be boiled down to mastering the art of doing boring things—even learning to love it.
As you move into 2025, think back to the times in your life when you were not just good or excellent but genuinely outstanding. What thread ties those moments together?
I bet you’d see that you learned to embrace tedious, boring, repetitive work so that, when life called for you to perform in a critical moment, you were both ready and capable of executing flawlessly.
Over the last year, I’ve talked with more than 50 CEOs and CFOs from various large and small companies. In each conversation, I’ve asked what they look for in top producers.
They commonly mention three qualities:
- Confidence – Built by repeatedly doing the unglamorous tasks that others skip.
- Competence – Gained by mastering boring processes until they become second nature.
- Creativity – Fueled by pushing through the mundane process of repeated failure (think of Thomas Edison) until you finally find the right solution.
So, as you draft your flight plan for 2025, remember that the key to a limitless life—one where you can do what you want, when you want, with whomever you want, without fretting over the cost—is to:
Learn to love being bored doing the boring things.
If you’d like more insights on how to do this, feel free to email me at dave@davesandersonspeaks.com—we can schedule a time to discuss creating your personal flight plan toward a limitless life.