Benjamin P. Hardy's Blog, page 12

This 1 Question Made 1 Man $100 Million

Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

David Osborn is an aggressive entrepreneur who owns over a dozen Keller Williams franchises, has dozens of other companies he’s started. He is worth $100 million dollars — and as it turns out, is actually a very humble and down-to-earth guy.

He has a very powerful and insightful question he invites people to consider.

It’s a question he’s asked himself over and over at all stages of his journey and life.

“WHY NOT ME?”

“There are people who are billionaires out there. Therefore it is a possibility. ‘Why not you?’” he recently stated.

This question can be applied to all areas of life.

Money doesn’t have to be your goal.

Being happy.

“Why not me?”

Being healthy.

“Why not me?”

Having the life of your choice.

“Why not me?”

Living your dreams.

“Why not me?”

The more specific your visualization and imagination — the more emotional and beautiful becomes the question.

Why Not You?

When you see a huge opportunity and sense that you can actually maximize on that opportunity — motivation and excitement become your organic state.

Napoleon Hill stated, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve.”

Obsorn’s single question helps open that emotional door — where you can begin to believe.

Why not you?

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +420,678 people.Subscribe to receive our top stories here.

This 1 Question Made 1 Man $100 Million was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Want To Become A Multi-Millionaire? Do These 15 Things Immediately.

Musk“The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire.” — Jim Rohn

Most people wish their circumstances would magically change for them. They don’t have the desire to become better themselves so they can proactively improve their own circumstances.

Unlike most people, who simply wait and wish for luck, you can seek to become the kind of person equipped with the skills and abilities to do brilliant things.

You can become the kind of person who does highly influential work. Your work can solve pressing problems, improve people’s lives, and get noticed by important people who share your work not for your sake, but for theirs! Sharing your work makes them look good because of how great it is.

The quality of who you are as a person, and the work you do, is completely within your control. But you can’t wish for it to happen. You must become the kind of person who naturally attracts the success you seek.

Here’s how:

1. Invest At Least 10% Of Your Income In Yourself

If you don’t pay for something, you rarely pay attention.

Most people want stuff that’s free. But if you get something for free, you rarely prize that thing. You rarely take it seriously.

How much do you invest in yourself?

How committed are you to yourself?

If you aren’t investing in yourself, then you don’t have any skin in the game of your own life.

If you aren’t invested in your business, you probably won’t do high-quality work.

If you’re not invested in your relationships, you’re probably more focused on what you can get than what you can give.

When it comes to self-improvement, investing 10% of your income on yourself will yield a 100X or more return on that investment. For every dollar you spend on your education, skills, and relationships, you’ll get at least 100 dollars back in returns.

If you want to do something extremely well, you need to surround yourself with the right mentors. Anything that you’ll ever do well will be the result of high quality mentoring. If you suck at something, it’s because you haven’t received quality mentoring in that thing.

The best mentorships are the ones where you pay your mentor. Often, the more you pay the better because you’ll take the relationship far more seriously. You won’t solely be taking in that relationship. You won’t purely be a consumer. Instead, you’ll be invested, and as such, you’ll listen more carefully. You’ll care more. You’ll be more thoughtful and engaged. There will be higher consequences for not succeeding.

I invested $3,000 to get help writing my first book proposal from a highly successful writer. That $3,000 got me maybe 4 or 5 hours of his time. But in those 4 or 5 hours, he taught me what I needed to know to create an amazing book proposal. He provided me with resources that dramatically enhanced and sped up my process. With his help, I was able to get a literary agent and eventually a multi-six-figure book contract.

Had I been overly concerned about the $3,000, I’m confident that to this day, I’d still not have written a book proposal. At the very most, I’d have written a terrible one. I would not have been as motivated or invested, so I would have been far more likely to procrastinate needed action.

If you don’t have much money, surely you can afford to buy a book. How much money and time do you spend on entertainment, clothes, or food? It’s a matter of priority.

It’s only when you invest in something that you have the motivation to make it happen.

Beyond mentorships, you should invest in education programs such as online courses, books, quality products such as food and sleep.

Your level of success can generally be directly measured by your level of investment. If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s because you haven’t invested enough to get those results.

Your number 1 investment must be yourself.

Who you determines:

the quality of marriage you’ll havethe quality of parent you becomethe quality of work you producethe level of happiness you have

Here’s what you’ll find when you financially invest yourself in something. You become very committed to that thing. Economists call this sunk cost bias. But you can leverage this to your benefit. If you want to escalate your personal commitment to something, invest heavily in that thing.

Eventually, it will become a point of no return.

You’ll become so fiercely committed that withdrawing will seem ridiculous.

Hence, you’ll need to truly know WHAT you want and WHY (see #14 below). If you don’t know these things, then over-committing could be a huge and irrational problem.

However, if you are certain about WHO you are/want to be, WHAT you want, and WHY, then you need to invest yourself.

2. Invest At Least 80% Of Your “Off” Time Into Learning

Most people are consumers rather than creators.

They are at work to get their paycheck, not to make a difference.

When left to their own devices, most people consume their time as well. It is only by investing your time that you get a return on that time.

Nearly every second spent on social media is consumed time. You can’t have that time back. Rather than making your future better, it actually made your future worse. Just like eating bad food, every consumed moment leaves you worse off. Every invested moment leaves you better off.

Entertainment is all well and good. But only when that entertainment is an investment in your relationships or yourself. You’ll know if it was an investment if that entertainment continues to yield returns over and over in your future. That may include positive memories, transformational learning, or deepened relationships.

Even still, life isn’t purely about being entertained. Education and learning is also key. And although both are essential, education will provide far greater returns in your future.

The world’s most successful people are intense learners. They are hard readers. They know that what they know determines how well they see the world. They know that what they know determines the quality of the relationships they can have and the quality of work they can do.

If you are constantly consuming junk media, how can you possibly expect to create high-value work? Your input directly translates to your output. Garbage in, garbage out.

3. Don’t Work For Money, Work To Learn

“When you are young, work to learn, not to earn.” — Robert Kiyosaki

Just as a large majority of your downtime should be spent learning, so should a great deal of your “working” time.

Wealthy and happy people work to learn. Unsuccessful and unhappy people work primarily for money.

Only 20% of your energy should be spent doing your actual work. The rest should be spent learning, improving yourself, and resting.

It is by “sharpening your saw” that you’ll continue to become a better and more capable person. Thus, as you dedicate large portions of time becoming a better thinker, communicator, and better at your craft, the quality of your work will continue to increase. Eventually, you’ll be able to charge VERY VERY high fees for your work, because no one else can do it like you.

When you prioritize learning and recovery, then during the hours you are actually working, you’ll be in a deep flow state. You won’t be distracted like most people are when they work. You’re either 100% on or 100% off. While working, you can get more done in a few hours than most people get done in a number of days.

Your time is spent well because your priorities are clear, you’re well-rested, and your mind is stimulated.

4. Don’t Learn For Entertainment, Learn To Create More Value

“The key secret to success is not excessive expertise, but the ability to use it.Knowledge is worthless unless it is applied.” —  Max Lukominskyi

In our media and information age, there are a million things you could learn. But if you don’t put that learning into immediate practice, it becomes shallow information.

Information and knowledge are two very different things.

Knowledge and wisdom are also two very different things.

It takes wisdom to determine what you should learn, why you should learn it, and when you should learn it.

Unless you’re invested, you probably won’t learn with the intensity needed to maximize that knowledge.

Unless you understand the value of your time, you probably won’t have the discernment to ignore almost everything while learning that which will bring the highest return.

When you learn something, you should get a return on that learning. Far too many people read books now just to say they’ve read lots of books. If you’re not applying what you’re learning, your consuming and wasting your time.

5. Invest At Least 10% Of Your Income Into Vehicles That Will Generate More Money

Very few people create true wealth.

Even those who have high incomes are not truly wealthy. Most people’s lifestyles match their incomes. When they make more, they consume more. In fact, most people make money solely to consume.

Very few people make money to invest that money.

It’s best to think of your business as only 1/2 of your income equation. You have your business which brings income. Then, you have your investment entity to turn your income into even more money.

Like anything, how well you manage your money is determined by how well mentored you are. If you want to become brilliant with money, invest in education and mentoring.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The best time to start investing was also in the past. If you haven’t started yet, don’t sit and wallow in regret. Tomorrow doesn’t exist for people who don’t do something today.

Start today. Get yourself educated. Create a vehicle, or several vehicles, where you put at least 10% of your income. Eventually, your investment vehicle may even start producing more profits for you than your actual business.

Compound interest is a real thing. If you put 10% of your income into your investments over a long enough period of time, you’ll be set. Unlike the majority of high earners out there, you’ll be able to STOP WORKING whenever you want, because your money is making more than enough money for you to comfortably live with.

6. Shift Your Motivation From Getting To Giving

“The world gives to the givers and takes from the takers.” — Joe Polish

Most people are only focused on what they can get out of life.

Me, me, me.

However, once you become more consciously awake to the world, your desire will shift from merely receiving to giving.

You’ll realize that it’s actually far more satisfying to give than to get. Moreover, you’ll be driven by a cause you fully believe in.

The truth is, you really only have 1 of 2 orientations towards people (and life).

Either you are in relationships as TRANSACTIONS, or as TRANSFORMATIONS.

Most people have transactional relationships. They’re focused only on what they get out of the relationship. It’s all about furthering their own agenda. It’s rooted in scarcity. It’s selfish.

This isn’t how you get far in relationships and life.

It’s also how you get stuck in your own small-mindedness.

Transformational relationships, on the other hand, are completely focused on giving and gratitude — the hallmarks of abundance. In these relationships, the whole becomes more than the sum of parts. Both parties, in vulnerability and trust, transcend their own small-mindedness and become something more.

At the core, this requires being a giver, not a taker. As Adam Grant has explained in his book, Give and Take, when two givers come together, the results are astronomical.

Here’s a pro-tip: don’t surround yourself with takers.

When your motivation is to give, you’ll often get insights into how you can improve your relationships. Random thoughts will pop into your head to send “Thank you” texts to various people.

You’ll have more ideas about how you can improve other people’s lives and businesses.

You’ll start contributing more, which will lead to far more opportunities and deeper relationships. People will come to love and trust you. Your work will be motivated by a higher cause and thus will be far more inspired and impactful.

7. Openly Acknowledge How Dependent You Are On Other People

Just because your primary motivation is to give, doesn’t mean you don’t also seek a lot of help.

Actually, you are constantly seeking and receiving help.

The truth is, everyone is highly dependent on other people to do what they do. But it takes wisdom and humility to openly acknowledge that dependence. Rather than seeing it as a weakness, realize that it’s a strength.

Beyond acknowledging your dependence, constantly express your appreciation to the people in your life. That which you appreciate appreciates. Relationships are assets that can and should grow bigger and better over time. As the brilliant entrepreneur Michael Fishman has said, “Self-made is an illusion. There are many people who played divine roles in you having the life that you have today. Be sure to let them know how grateful you are.”

If you don’t appreciate and give to your relationships, your relationships will suffer. All relationships are like bank accounts, and if one person is constantly depositing and the other person is constantly withdrawing, eventually all of the resources become depleted.

In such relationships, 1+1=less than 2.

Conversely, in synergistic and healthy relationships, 1+1= far more than 2.When two people are continually giving and receiving, the relational bank account continues to grow and expand, providing several intended and unintended benefits.

For example, I was recently at the gym with my brother. At the beginning of the workout, he was struggling mentally. He wasn’t adding to my energy and helping my workout become better than if I was alone, but instead, he was sucking my energy and requiring me to exert more energy and effort than if I was alone.

I made him aware of what was happening, and he immediately shifted his emotional posture. He realized how dramatically his mood was impacting me. His motivation shifted from consuming an experience to creating something great.

Our shared mental state heightened, taking us into group flow. Our workout becomes far superior to anything I could create on my own. Not only that, but we began to engage in an inspired conversation. This led to brilliant insights and connections that were relevant to the book I’m writing.

The amazing workout was the intended outcome of our synergy. The insights for my book were unintended benefits. This can only happen when both parties are actively giving and receiving from the relationship. Where both are focusing on creating rather than consuming. Where both have the primary motivation of helping the other person succeed.

8. Create Win-Win Strategic Partnerships To Achieve 10X or 100X Goals

“All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.” — Peter Thiel

Most people are in a state of competition rather than collaboration.

Collaboration is a much higher level than competition.

Competition is focused on the self. It’s also very low-level thinking because what you can do on your own is very limited.

People who are competing are grinding. They’re more focused on winning than creating real solutions.

However, when your thinking becomes expanded, you realize you could do so much more with other people. Collaboration creates unique connections working by yourself never could.

You have skills and knowledge that are awesome in your field. There are other people in different fields who have skills and knowledge completely outside of your current awareness. These people also have assets you don’t have.

If you want to get 10X or 100X the results of other people in your field, you need to develop strategic “win-win” partnerships. This generally happens when you devise a plan where your skill sets and assets merge with the skill sets and assets of someone else.

What you can do well, someone else may struggle with. What you struggle with, others can do extremely well.

Who can you partner with that could speed your process?

Who has assets and resources you don’t?

How could you help these people?

What types of partnerships could you develop, that would allow you to more quickly achieve your goals and help them more quickly achieve theirs?

When you collaborate with other people, 1+1=more than 2. The whole becomes DIFFERENT from the sum of its parts.

This is how TRANSFORMATION occurs. Only those who engage in collaboration actually experience true transformation. People who only work well by themselves are stuck in their own narrow worldview and agendas.

When you merge with others, your ideas and goals change. They become bigger and better. They become DIFFERENT from what you could ever create on your own.

The only way to have these types of partnerships is to think long-term. You must be invested and have skin in the game. It can’t be transactional. It’s can’t be this for that. It must be about something a lot deeper. When it is, you’ll have far more integrity in the work you do. You’ll express greater appreciation. You’ll consistently do the right thing, even if that right thing is difficult and uncomfortable.

Don’t seek transactional relationships. Only seek long-term TRANSFORMATIONAL relationships.

9. Set 10X Goals and Face Your Fears

Look at your current goals.

Why is that your metric for “success”?

Why is that your target?

What would happen if, in all seriousness, you 10X’d that target?

What if rather than earning $3,000/month, you pursued $30,000/month?

Is that even possible?

Of course, it’s possible. There are several people doing it.

The only difference between them and you is their education, relationships, and strategy.

When you set a 10X goal, you’re required to think very differently about your daily behaviors. You’re required to be more serious in all aspects of your life. You’re required to eliminate limiting thinking and consumptive distractions.

Setting a 10X goal will be one of the best things you’ve ever done for yourself. This goal should be created while you are in a peak state. You get into a peak state by doing something powerful, whether that be exercising, learning, or being in a unique environment, such as a foreign country. You can even get into a peak state by being around certain types of people, the ones who inspire you to be the best version of yourself.

Only you know what gets you into a peak and passionate state. So, do whatever it is that gets you there, and then write down your goals. Declare what you’re going to do. Then write that goal down and visualize it’s achievement every single day until it becomes your reality.

When you think about this goal, don’t deviate from the natural flow of ideas that follow.

You can’t 10X your results by engaging in the same thinking and behaviors you’re currently performing. Consequently, while thinking about your goal, you’ll also get ideas about what you need to do, realistically, to achieve that goal.

Chances are, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you’ll need to start really educating yourself about how you could conceivably achieve your goal. You’ll need to get bolder about the work you’re doing. You’ll need to create more, and fail more. Over and over, in fact. Quantity is often the fastest path to quality.

Not only that but when you think about your 10X goal, you’ll probably have ideas that scare you. When you do work that scares you, you cross a boundary that most people never cross. Scary work is often highly profitable and valuable work.

10. Get Really Really Good At Marketing

Marketing is nothing more than applied psychology.

It’s about connecting with people, persuading them, and helping them.

Many people think marketing is a nasty or immoral thing.

Many “artists” don’t learn marketing because they don’t want to “sell out.”They want their work to be pure.

Academics are not better. Their work is not accessible to the common man.

Marketing is nothing more than making your work easier and better to find and use.

People aren’t magically going to appear and buy your stuff.

People aren’t going to magically appear and read your stuff.

Even right now: How did you land on this page? Look at the title of this article. I could have just as easily called it, “Advice for becoming successful.”

But would you have clicked on that article?

Probably not.

But you clicked on this one.

Why did you click on this one?

How did you get this far down?

Think about the experience.

Marketing is the “HOW” to whatever it is you do.

The reason most people aren’t successful is that they either fear or avoid marketing. For the same reason, most people are bad teachers. They’re more focused on content than the delivery and design of that content.

But the delivery — the HOW — is just as important IF NOT MORE IMPORTANT than WHAT you’re doing or WHY you’re doing it.

You could have the cure for cancer. But if you don’t market it well, you’ll never get your cure out there.

You could have the world’s most important message or greatest story, but no one will see it if you don’t promote and package it intelligently.

11. Don’t Focus On Time And Effort, Focus On Results Instead

Founder of the exclusive entrepreneurial coaching platform, Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan distinguishes between those who are in the “Time-and-Effort Economy” with those who are in the “Results Economy.”

If you’re in the time and effort economy, you are focused on being busy. You actually believe the amount of time and energy you put into something merits praise. Conversely, when you are in the results economy, you are only focused on achieving a specific result.

The bottom line is what matters, and thus, it becomes very important to find the most effective way to get there. This is a key difference between entrepreneurs and employees. As Sullivan says:

Entrepreneurs have crossed “the risk line” from the “Time-and-Effort Economy” to the “Results Economy.” For them, there’s no guaranteed income, no one writing them a paycheck every two weeks. They live by their ability to generate opportunity by creating value for their clientele. Sometimes, they — and you — will put in a lot of time and effort and get no result. Other times, they don’t put in much time and effort and get a big result. The focus for entrepreneurs always has to be on results or there’s no revenue coming in. If you work for an entrepreneur, guess what! This is true for you, too. Though you probably have a guaranteed income, it’s important to understand that the business you work in exists inside The Results Economy, even if you’re sheltered somewhat from seeing that. I say this not to make you feel insecure, but to show you how to succeed in this environment: by maximizing your results while minimizing the time and effort it takes to get them.

Most people don’t think in terms of results because their security is in a paycheck. However, when you shift your focus from how little you can do to how much you can do, you change how you work.

You start learning ways to accomplish more faster. You take on greater responsibility. You change your environment. And you also realize just how important sleep and rest are to achieving the highest possible results. Hence, you begin to take more and more time off and rest.

When you dedicate 80 percent of your energy to rest and self-improvement, then you have a lot of fodder and a very sharp saw to use during the time you’re actually working.

You’re thinking 10X bigger than everyone else. You’re operating under short timelines and high pressure. You can tax yourself to extremes while you work because you spend lots and lots of time resting and preparing.

12. Shift Your Environments Regularly

The environments you work in should reflect the work you’re doing.

Doing several types of work in the same environment is ineffective. But people do it all the time. They sit in the same seat and mentally shift from one task to another.

A far better approach is to BATCH your activities and to do those activities in a relevant environment.

For example, when I write a blog post, I work in a quiet library where I have no distractions. Because my environment facilitates quality writing, and because I knew I’d be writing that day, I write a lot. It’s easier to write 2–5 blog posts in one sitting than to try writing one post at a time.

Ari Meisel, author and entrepreneur, batches his activities and alternates his environments to match the work he’s doing. On days he is recording podcasts, he goes to a studio and records about 5 podcast episodes in a single session.

On other days, he spends his whole day in meetings or on calls. He does this work at his friend’s apartment because it’s a much more engaging environment.

He also does a lot of writing, and does that at the SOHO HOUSE in New York City, because it’s a quiet environment with poor internet connection. The lack of connection stops him from surfing the web and even using his phone because he has bad reception.

13. Define “Wealth” And “Success” For Yourself

Success and wealth are not all about money.

There are a lot of people who have money and have little “capital” in the other key areas of their lives.

Money, obviously, is very important. It solves a lot of problems. It speeds processes.

But money is a tool. It’s a means to an end. For those engaging in work they truly believe in, money is simply a tool for doing more work.

14. Know and Operate From Your Deepest “Why”

What is your WHY for what you’re doing or pursuing?

How could you possibly know your why?

More importantly, how could you know your REAL WHY?

It’s actually quite simple.

But it takes some radical honestly.

There’s an exercise I’ll walk you through to get to your WHY. And more importantly, once you know your deepest WHY for what you’re doing, you should operate FROM THAT STATE, not from your lower and base-level reasons.

When trying to understand why you do something, it’s better to ask “What” questions than “Why” questions, because “Why” questions tend to put people on the defensive.

Here’s a solid question you could ask yourself to understand your WHY.

What about ______________ is important to you?

Let’s say you want to start a business, or get a new cellphone, or go to the gym…

It could be big or small.

But put that thing in there.

What about “going to the gym” is important to you?

Then, you just write the first thing that comes to your mind: because I like feeling good.

Then you take your answer, and put it in the same question: What about ______________ is important to you?

So, given the previous answer: What about “feeling good” is important to you?

A simple way to structure this exercise is shown in the images just below.

So, you want to try to go 7-layers deep. Once you get to layers 5, 6, and 7, you’re going to have to be really honest with yourself.

Usually, you can answer layers 1–4 with your head. However, if you’re being really honest with yourself, and I mean REALLY HONEST, you’ll need to come from your heart to answer layers 5–7.

It’s at the deepest levels that you’ll discover your TRUE WHY for what you’re doing. Even if that something is as simple as getting a new cellphone or going to the gym.

But you want to remind yourself of your DEEPEST WHY when you’re doing something. And you want to operate from THAT LEVEL, because at your deepest level, you’ll be operating from your heart, not your head. Thus, your performance will be much deeper, more authentic, and powerful.

The stakes will be higher.

Suddenly, you’re not just going to the gym to “feel good,” but because you have a higher calling to perform and need to be as healthy as possible to make it happen (or whatever your deepest WHY is).

Your DEEPEST why will almost always expose something very personal about you, and about your fundamental beliefs about life.

You want to be aware of these things, and how/why they drive you to do what you’re doing.

If you truly go through this exercise in a genuine way, you should get some mental and emotional breakthroughs.

You should discover something about yourself, and why you are the way you are, and why you’re pursuing the specific things you are.

Know your why.

Then act from the DEEPEST and most powerful WHY you have.

You’ll be far more brilliant at what you do.

15. Have A Firm Stand, It Becomes Your Brand

In order to be successful, you must believe in something.

You must have a stand.

All successful people and brands have a clear WHY. As Simon Sinek explains in his book, Start With Why, people don’t buy what you sell, they buy why you sell it.

Apple is a great example. In all of their marketing, they don’t explain the technicalities of their products, they define and share their core values. They believe technology should be both easy to use and cool.

If you want to be compelling and interesting, you must truly believe in something. You must have a clear stand. That stand becomes your brand. It becomes your trademark. It becomes how you distinguish yourself from others.

When you have a clear stand and brand, you stand out. You are no longer neutral. You believe in something, and are fighting to make a specific change.

As a result, people will either love you or hate you. That’s what you want. Lukewarm means you have nothing to say. Lukewarm means you’re trying to appeal to everyone.

The riches are in the niches. Your niche is your audience. They are a small group of people who agree with the stand you’re trying to make. They are your evangelists.

If you try to appeal to everyone, your message, marketing, and products will be terrible. You won’t be clear on your why, and neither will anyone else. Thus, you’ll be average like everyone else and your work won’t stand out.

Only people with firm stands get really really good at marketing. They care enough about their message to get it out there. They realize that the HOW is just as important as the WHAT and WHY.

Conclusion

Are you doing these 15 things?

How aggressively are you doing them?

Do you want to become a multi-millionaire?

Are you ready to think and act bigger?

You’ve got this.

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

Want To Become A Multi-Millionaire? Do These 15 Things Immediately. was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How To Develop Mastery At Any Skill

ImageA simple list of inter-connected ideas.

When you’ve developed mastery of something, you own that thing. You’ve learned the rules inside-out and now you have the ability, as an artist, to create your own rules.

You have the ability to create a new game.

Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, calls people with this level of mastery, “Game Changers,” because they don’t just play a game, they change the game.

People with this level of mastery don’t compete with others, they make others compete with them. They are light-years ahead of the crowd and are setting the context of the future that others will either consciously or unconsciously follow.

Becoming a game changer is something that very few people aspire to. Most people are relatively comfortable being good at what they do or paying the bills.

For a select few people, though, there is not only a desire to succeed and do well but to create and to fail. To stretch the possibilities of learning so far that they enter what some would call a “no man’s land.”

Going to places where no one else has thought to go.

Stretching their imagination so far that they can only share their ideas with a very tight “inner circle.” As Peter Diamandis said, “The day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.”

Once you reach a certain level of mastery, and if you have the creative spirit to change the game and world entirely — then you play in the realm of crazy ideas.

Here is a brief run-down of key steps in the development of this level of mastery. This list is far from exhaustive but will be useful to you if you intend to leave the world of competition behind and go to places only your imagination can take you.

Study only those whose work truly inspires and touches the deepest level of your soul.Ignore almost everyone around you, particularly those who are competing for the bottom of the barrel.Of this fact, Tim Ferriss stated in 4HWW — “It’s lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”Study the craft of those who are truly craftsmen — who are brilliant and nuanced at what they do. Peel back the layers until you begin to see how the sausage is made — why did they make the decisions they made in what they were doing? Why that ordering of decisions?Begin creating or performing at the level you intend to reach — don’t start as a “beginner.”Before you ever reach a goal, already have the next mountain or two in mind.Never “arrive” where you plan to go.The moment you arrive is the moment you’ve lost your edge. As Steph Curry recently admitted, the Warriors have to rediscover their “edge.”You can only have “an edge” or “chip on your shoulder” when you have something to prove — to yourself.You already know you could destroy the competition if you wanted to, but you want to test your own internal limits.The only way to have this level of the edge is to be attempting something so big it somewhat scares but also excites you.You can’t have “the edge” if you’re not pursuing a fundamentally bigger and different future.The moment you attach yourself to the success or failure of your past, then you’ve lost the edge.The moment you stop being emotionally committed and intellectually stimulated by a future possibility, you’ve lost your edge.The moment you stop approaching with courage a new future, and instead, seek to avoid losing your current position — you’ve lost your edge.The moment you become satisfied with what you’ve accomplished, you’ve lost your edge.Interesting, Michael Jordan never lost his edge. In every possession — whether practice or a game — he always imagined the score to be 0 to 0. Even if his team was winning by 50 points. Most players, when they’re either winning or losing by a landslide begin to mentally check-out.Imagination is fundamental to having a creative and competitive edge. When you’re pursuing something that you know has never been done before — at least by yourself, but also probably not by anyone else — you can have a level of humility and excitement that spurs innovation.When you think about where you plan to be in 12 months from now — how imaginative is it?How exciting is the future you’re striving to make?When you’re playing at the razor’s edge, you have a small margin for error and distraction. Are your goals big and exciting enough to keep you from being distracted by stuff that doesn’t really matter?When you have goals that are so exciting that you no longer have time or interest in distractions like social media, then you know you’re onto something.When you have achievements or benchmarks you’re sprinting toward that require you to be at a powerful mental and emotional place — where you’re just throwing out creative output at a level you’ve never done before — then you’re on the right track.Nothing great has ever come out of someone trying to maintain their current position or status.All of the best innovation and evolution comes from a small group of people who are attempting stuff that is only real in their imagination — yet deeply connected in the soul and heart.Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”In order to experience wild levels of mastery, you need to have “practices” or “performances” that test your ability and focus. For example, at a certain level, most people get caught into a routine where they start going through the motions. When you begin going through the motions at anything, you’ve lost the edge. Once the edge is gone, all creative innovation goes out the door. As a result, you need to push yourself always to expand your current perspectives and abilities. You do this through focused, difficult, and time-bound performances. An example could be an NBA player practicing for a full week with only their left hand. This would push their brain and creative abilities.Have clear-cut goals that are focused on numbers and events. The clearer your benchmarks, the easier it is for your brain and mind to see it. Crystallize what you’re trying to accomplish and make it on the outer edges of possible. Your goals should be beyond anything you’ve ever done, yet still within the realm of believability. No one else has to believe you can do it but yourself. Then you focus on output.Beyond measurable and numeric goals, you need to have an emotional EXPERIENCE you’re striving to create as well. This is where you become emotionally committed to your future. What would it feel like 1 year from now to have what you plan to accomplish?People who are distracted do not know what they really want. They aren’t being pulled forward by a beautiful and exciting future. Instead, they are maintaining their own status quo, and have either lost their edge or have never found it.Pivoting is one of the most beautiful ways to recreate your edge. Sometimes “bigger” isn’t the answer, but rather, different. Often, for example, a company thinks they simply need to grow. This isn’t always the answer. Instead of growing, evolution and change is likely the better solution. Change what you’re doing. Change what you’re pursuing. Change why you’re pursuing it. Play a different and better game, rather than merely a bigger game.

If you want to achieve mastery, you need to be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated.

You need to regularly perform and attempt stuff you’ve never done.

You can never plateau or begin “going through the motions.”

You’ always need to be sharpening your edge — and playing just beyond that edge where creativity, faith, uncertainty, risk, and excitement exist.

You need to have a future so big, exciting, and different that you simply don’t have time to be distracted.

You need priorities so clear that you’re always laser-focused on what matters most, while most people are caught in the think of thin things.

You need to build a life and environment to facilitate optimal performance, expansion, and creativity in your core priorities and relationships.

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

52 Mis-Understood Truths That Create Incredible Success

Photo by Paul Talbot on UnsplashVery few people grasp these simple principles.

When you “get” these ideas, they open you to a whole new world of possibility and potential.

You get these ideas deeper and deeper with experience and success.

The more successful you become, the more these ideas become real to you.

How many of them have you learned and understood?

How many are still a mystery to you?

Bullet-ArticleYour “potential” or level of “intelligence” is not innate or fixed.Albert Einstein said, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to achieve.”Dr. Carol Dweck explained in Mindset that “potential,” “personality,” and “intelligence” are not fixed structures, but rather, should constantly be changing.Your potential in one situation is different from your potential in a different situation.After you’ve had certain experiences, your “potential” can expand and change.Your level of intelligence can’t be measured at birth, but can only be measured in how much you transform your life.The more you grow and transform, the more “intelligence” you have — it’s up to you.If you believe that certain people are “special” — such as those who have achieved great and amazing things — then there is no chance you could ever be like them.The most successful people in the world view themselves and EVERYONE else as “ordinary” — and being ordinary, there is no focus on status or separateness or uniqueness, but instead, only a focus on making the choice to get to whatever level you choose to play at.When you make life a game, you get to design the rules.Most of the “rules” people play in their lives were designed by someone else to cripple them.If you want to get good at something, you need to throw yourself directly into situations that will cause pain and growth.If you haven’t failed big in the past 90 days, then you don’t have a future you’re striving for.If you aren’t embarrassed by who you were 12 months ago, you didn’t take on a huge future.If you need the outcome to be certain in order to pursue a big dream, then you’ll never achieve it.You can only be free if you’re willing to jump off the cliff of certainty into the emotional whirlwind of uncertainty.Courage is the doorway to achieving anything great in your life — and courage is the willingness to attempt something that might not work.If you want to upgrade your life, you need to attempt stuff that might not work.“At some level, ‘this might not work’ is at the heart of all important projects, of everything new and worth doing… it is either a curse, something that you labor under, or it’s a blessing, a chance to fly and do work you never thought possible.” — Seth Godin“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” — Sir Ken RobinsonIf you’re overly studying and watching someone else perform, then you are playing their game, and you’ll have to play their game better than them.If you want to transform your life, you must be willing to give up the one you have.Keep what has worked, and leave the rest behind.Do something in the next 90 days that petrifies you.“Measure the GAIN, not the GAP.” — Dan SullivanIf you look back at your day, week, month, quarter, and year — and measure the GAINS you’ve made, you’ll see change. When you see change, you’ll feel movement and confidence — when you feel movement and confidence, you’ll experience excitement and imagination.Confidence fuels imagination.The greater your imagination, the greater your learning.“To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” — Stephen R. CoveyYou haven’t really “learned” if you aren’t doing.You can’t be unhealthy and truly “understand” health.To know and do are synonymous.Therefore, your imagination and action must reflect one another in order for your reality to match your imagination.Most people’s future is a reflection of their past.Few people’s past becomes the reflection of the future they proactively and consciously design.The more clear you get on what matters most to you, the less time you have for nonsense.The most successful people in the world focus on only a few priorities — their family, faith, craft, contribution .At the highest level of performance, you are separated by what you don’t do. It is only by un-learning other people’s ideas, rules, and games is how you become the most original version of yourself.When you wake up every morning, you have one of two choices — you can 1) live other people’s game, or 2) you can create your own.The only way to create your own game daily is by giving yourself space every morning to tap into your subconscious mind through prayer, meditation, journaling, and fitness.The more successful you become, the less you allow mindless distractions to enter your life.The more successful you become, the more you focus on a few key relationships that move your dial 100X to 1 million X.The highest level thinkers don’t see themselves as “correct,” and as a result, are constantly updating their perspective through collaboration, new experiences, and creativity.If you do something courageous today, then you’ll create new experiences and new emotions. If you do this every day, you’ll rewire your brain and become a new person. If you become a new person, you’ll have new circumstances that match your new inner reality.If you have people around you who are holding you back, then you must be stubborn about what you want. Being judgmental and critical of others isn’t the answer. Instead, you stand up for what you believe in and want, and you love every other person, whether they agree with you or not.The more emotionally and spiritually developed you become, the less critical you are of your former self and of other people, and the more empathetic and hopeful you become.Your success in life comes from helping the right people achieve their dreams.If you have a spouse and kids, they should come before your work. If they come after your work, then your work will be less inspired. You’ll have internal incongruence, and you’ll be ineffective. If you put your spouse and kids before your work and give them your best energy and attention, you’ll work will be far more inspired, thoughtful, and impactful.You miss every shot you don’t take.The shots that go in and make the biggest impact on your life are usually unexpected.You’ve already missed endless opportunities for success. But guess what, there are endless other opportunities every single day. The only race you’re running is your own.There is no “competition” if you’re running your own race.Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

52 Mis-Understood Truths That Create Incredible Success was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This 10-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Clarity And Creativity

Photo by Tim Arterbury on Unsplash“Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep.” — Napoleon Hill

Your subconscious never rests and is always on duty because it controls your heartbeat, blood circulation, and digestion. It controls all the vital processes and functions of your body and knows the answers to all your problems.

What happens on your subconscious level influences what happens on your conscious level. In other words, what goes on internally, even unconsciously, eventually becomes your reality. As Hill further states, “The subconscious mind will translate into its physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical method available.”

The goal, then, is to master how to utilize your unconscious mind. When you learn how to master your unconscious, you quite literally become the creator of your world.

Take a second to look at your life, your health, your relationships, and your money. This is all influenced by your unconscious.

When you change your unconscious, EVERYTHING in your world immediately shifts to meet your unconscious level.

This short article will help you learn how to not only tap into your subconscious to increase your clarity and creativity. You’ll also learn how to access your unconscious to heal yourself of blocked emotions, and ultimately, become the creator of your own story.

Ten minutes before going to sleep:

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” — Thomas Edison

It’s common practice for many of the world’s most successful people to intentionally direct the workings of their subconscious mind while they’re sleeping.

How?

Take a few moments before you go to bed to meditate on and write down the things you’re trying to accomplish. Write down your goals and dreams and ambitions.

Meditation and journal writing have two core purposes:

self-awarenessimagination

You gain self-awareness and clarity as you reflect and ponder on your life and your goals.

You increase your imagination by allowing yourself to see possibility in your life beyond your current circumstances. Albert Einstein said:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Right before bed, play with possibility in your mind and on paper. Then, let your subconscious mind turn that imagination into reality.

While you sleep, and particularly in REM, your subconscious rewires itself. You can train your brain to rewire itself to match your future desires, so that organically and naturally, they unfold in your life.

Ten minutes after waking up:

Research confirms the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is most active and readily creative immediately following sleep. Your subconscious mind has been loosely mind-wandering while you slept, making contextual and temporal connections. Creativity, after all, is making connections between different parts of the brain.

In an interview with Tim Ferriss, Josh Waitzkin, the former chess prodigy and tai chi world champion, explains his morning routine to tap into the subconscious breakthroughs and connections experienced while he was sleeping.

Unlike 90 percent of people between the ages of 18–44 who check their smartphones within 15 minutes of waking up, Waitzkin goes to a quiet place, does some meditation and grabs his journal.

In his journal, he thought-dumps for several minutes. Rather than getting sucked back into a mindless distraction — which is how most people start their day — Waitzkin is highly mindful of himself and his psyche.

He is focused on being proactive and creative with his life — where most people are distracted and reactive to their environment and chemical addictions.

While writing in his journal, Waitzkin gets all sorts of creative ideas and insights — what he calls, “crystallized intelligence.”

This is how you connect your conscious mind with your subconscious mind. And you should be doing it every single day. Research has shown that by age 12, most children lose the connection between the conscious and subconscious. The world becomes so busy and fast-paced and stressful that we keep ourselves stuck at the conscious level, and then our lives become a repeating pattern.

However, you can bridge the conscious and subconscious by doing this 10-minute routine every evening and morning.

While writing in your journal in the morning, immediately following sleep, you have amazing access to your subconscious. As you write things down, whatever comes to your mind, you’ll begin to become more self-aware. You’ll also be able to become more creative and powerful.

When you write your goals down on paper first thing in the morning, you are speaking directly to your subconscious mind. You can get to the point where you have strong neural connections throughout your brain that reflect your future dreams and desires.

In other words, while “giving requests” to your subconscious before bed, and while meditating on them and writing them down in the morning, you are literally rewiring your brain.

You’re creating a new brain with new connections and memories of FUTURE EXPERIENCES that you plan to create.

Yes, you can create a brain and subconscious of your ideal future. And once the subconscious is onboard, your external reality will immediately begin shaping itself to match your subconscious.

Conclusion:

“The unconscious will allow us to have only what we believe we deserve. If we have a small view of ourselves, then what we deserve is poverty. And our unconscious will see to it that we have that actuality.” — Dr. David Hawkins

Right now, there is a ceiling effect on the amount of success and happiness you can have. That ceiling is your subconscious mind.

The current ceiling of your income is your subconscious.

The current ceiling of your romance and passion in your love-relationship is your subconscious.

At or around age 12, the brain becomes highly “beta” focused, where it operates very quickly. You stress your system out and activate your brain into a beta state by jumping straight into your phone when you wake up.

Instead, you want to utilize an “alpha” brain state, where your brain isn’t as stressed and focused, but instead, can drop into the subconscious.

You need to become epic at not only connecting with your subconscious — so you don’t keep repeating unhealthy patterns — but also, you need to learn to SHAPE your subconscious according to your desires, so you can create the future self and life you want.

This is how the most successful people in the world achieve their goals and dreams.

I’ve been using this method myself for going on a decade and can speak with complete boldness and confidence — it works. If you combine this process with prayer, it works even better.

What future will you create?

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

This 10-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Clarity And Creativity was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You Make Or Break Your Life Between 5–7 AM

Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash

While serving a humanitarian and ecclesiastical mission at the age of 20, I learned potentially the most important lesson of my life.

How you spend your morning determines your success in life.

How you spend your morning determines who you will become.

How you spend your morning determines whether you become world-class at something, or remain merely average.

How you spend your morning is the difference between making tens of millions of dollars and making less than 100 grand.

How you spend your morning determines how well you:

thinkstrategizeprioritizespend your timechoose your friendschoose your loverchoose your careerperform in your workinfluence the world

I didn’t understand how important my morning was at the beginning of my mission. But it quickly became very apparent.

As a missionary, the first several hours of the day are dedicated to getting ready, studying, and planning.

After a few months in “the mission field,” I noticed that most missionaries dragged themselves out of bed, and dragged themselves through their studies.

My experience was different. For the first time in my life, I experienced the power of learning. I felt the nourishment of feeding my mind and soul. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.:

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

I started waking up earlier than prescribed to read more and more. Rather than reading one hour each morning as recommended, I was reading three or four.

Within six months, it became apparent that my thinking and teaching abilities were accelerating at rocket speed. I began to stand out as a missionary.

The following quote by Jeffrey Holland became crystal clear to me:

“I frequently say to missionaries in the field, ‘You make or break your mission every morning of your life. You tell me how those morning hours go until you are on the street in your mission, whatever time it is; you tell me how those hours go, and I will tell you how your day will go, I will tell you how your month will go, I will tell you how your year will go and how your mission and your life will go.’”

Photo by Rose Erkul on UnsplashYou Make Or Break Your Life Between 5 and 7 AM

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” — Richard Whately

If you lose an hour in your morning, you’ll spend your whole day looking for it.

If you spend your day looking for the most important time you’ve lost, you’ll be spending your whole life on a lower-level path than you could have had.

If you don’t prioritize and maximize your morning hours, you’ll always be left wondering what your life could have been.

You’ll never know what you could have had.

You’ll never watch yourself accelerate and advance at rates that are possible but from your current vantage point, seem impossible.

You’ll always settle for less in your choices, relationships, eating, environment, income, and life.

Given the fact that most people reading this article operate on a 9–5ish schedule, the hours before 9AM are significant.

Moreover, many people reading this article have kids and other responsibilities that are immediately pressing upon them, usually around 7AM.

I can speak from experience. My wife and I have 5 kids, including two infants under 7 weeks old.

Lauren, my wife, with our two new girls (Zorah in pink; Phoebe in blue)

Life is busy.

I get it.

It’s crazy.

But the question is — do you still have the fire burning within you? Or, are you letting life burn out your flame?

If you start your day at 7AM, you’ve already lost the most important hours of your day. You’ve already lost your chance to radically separate yourself — intellectually, emotionally, spiritually — from the masses.

Stephen Covey explains the importance of “Sharpening your saw” as fundamental to becoming a “highly effective person.” It is usually during your morning hours that you are sharpening that saw — your mindset, your vision, your skills, your physical body.

If you don’t do a morning routine, then you are probably repeating the past over and over, every single day.

The purpose of a morning routine is to stop the repeating past. It’s to put yourself in a position of growth and development so that you have a new and consciously-developing future — one that you are writing the script to, regardless of what has happened in the past.

Without the morning routine, you will be far less equipped to deal with the challenges of life.

Without question, life can beat you down at times. My wife and I are currently doing therapy to process the events of 2018. In 2018, we adopted three beautiful kids, had twins, moved to another state, launched a book (which can age you a decade), tried to grow a business and many other things.

It is through our routines and spiritual practices that we are equipped — emotionally, relationally, and spiritually — with all we are striving to do.

When you seek rapid growth in your life, you invite rapid pain and complexity. True growth and learning can be traumatic — but it doesn’t have to lead to the fixed-mindset and stunted development of trauma. Instead, you can put yourself through the fire and come out a different person.

You can come out a far more organized, mature, and humble being.

Alain de Botton, the British philosopher said, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”

I dare you to make extreme progress in your life without intentionally utilizing your evenings and mornings.

I dare you to take on the biggest growth, challenges, and risks of your life without having practices for clarity, creativity, and productivity DAILY.

If you’re someone who dislikes or avoids evening and morning routines, then you simply are avoiding the greatest growth of your life. You’re still holding onto an old identity. Still holding on to a fixed-mindset. Still telling yourself that you don’t need stuff like that to make great progress.

What Do You Do Between 5 and 7 AM?

If you could give yourself two hours, every morning, solely dedicated to learning, thinking, planning, meditating, praying, and writing in your journal, your life would change.

These are the best things you could do with your morning time.

How a person spends the hours of 5 to 7 AM are a pretty clear indicator of how successful they’ll be. Is this always the case? Of course not. Are there certain circumstances, such as people who work night shifts, when these exact hours don’t apply? Sure.

But for most people, the hours of 5 to 7AM make or break their entire life. (A warning: if you think this doesn’t apply to you, it probably does… your trigger points the direction of your most needed change)

How do you spend the hours of 5 to 7?

Do you spend half of that time sleeping?

Do you sleep the entire duration?

Do you spend that time working out?

How you start something is very important. Prevention is far better than rehabilitation. Starting right is much easier than correcting course.

There have been many studies done on the costliness of course corrections in life and business. If you don’t get things dialed at the beginning, your chances of success plummet. The cost of correcting a project is often more than simply starting right.

Likewise, how you start your day is extremely important. It is indeed possible to correct your course mid-way through the day, but let’s be honest, it doesn’t often happen. Momentum — good or bad — is hard to reverse.

Waking up at 5AM isn’t enough, then, if you wake up at that time and you start yourself down a non-optimal path.

First things should come first.

Some things are good, other things are better, and other things are best.

Given that your morning hours are your most important, you shouldn’t dedicate those golden hours to activities which are merely “good.” As Jim Collins has said, “Good is the enemy of great.” Similarly, Dallin Oaks has said, “We should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best.”

Every person has 24 hours per day.

However, what each person does with those 24 hours determines who they become and what they do.

How you spend your 24 hours is the difference between making tens of millions of dollars and living paycheck to paycheck.

How you spend your 24 hours is the difference between being happy and being miserable.

There are endless choices you could make. Endless activities you could engage in. Endless people you could surround yourself with. Endless goals you could pursue.

John Maxwell has written, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

Most choices are bad choices.

Most activities are unimportant.

There are a lot of things which are “good.” But those activities should NOT come first thing in the morning.

Research confirms the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is most active and readily creative immediately following sleep. Your mind is clearest in the morning. Your energy is highest.

A lot of people wake up first thing and head to the gym. This is certainly a good activity — it will wake you up and get you moving.

But fitness is not the most optimal thing you could do in the morning. Research confirms that you workout better with food in your system. Your workouts will be far more productive and powerful if you do them in the late morning or early afternoon, as opposed to first thing in the morning. Lunch-break workout.

If you’ve already accomplished more in your morning than most people do in a month, you’ll be SO PUMPED to workout. You’ll push yourself so much harder. You’ll feel so much more fulfilled. You’ll feel so good it will feel like beating the system — which is actually what you’re doing when you live on your own terms.

Your workout should be a mental break — a way to break up your day. The physical and mental can push each other upward. Once you workout, you give your mind a rest and allow your subconscious to synthesize and organize all the work you’ve done throughout your morning.

Another benefit of working out later in the day is that it does energize you — and thus you can add a couple extra hours of good mental energy that you won’t get if you exercise first thing in the morning.

So What Should You Do First Thing In The Morning?

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want to quickly set yourself apart in life, you should make it your first priority to read lots of really good books. If you spend 1–2 hours per morning reading, you’d read 50–100 books per year. Do this for 5–10 years, and as they say, you’ll become an “overnight success.”

In our incredible age of information and technology, it’s never been easier to access information. Of course, it’s also never been more distracting.

There are many REALLY REALLY good books. There are also MILLIONS of books that aren’t that great.

The quality of books you read matters. To quote Ryan Holiday, “If you read what everyone else reads, you’ll think like everyone else thinks.”

Some books are “milk,” some books are “meat.”

Some books will change your entire life. Others are hardly worth the paper.

Do you read deep, or shallow?

And when you start really reading, you’ll be guided by the books themselves. The right books will pop-up and stir your heart. You’ll intuitively know — I need to read that book, which will then lead you to the next book and the next.

You’ll begin making important connections that other people haven’t made.

You’ll be able to shape culture yourself.

You’ll be able to make influential change — first in your own life, then in your family, then in your circle of friends, then in your work and community, and eventually, you’ll be able to influence and shape the whole world.

Reading isn’t enough though.

You need to spend plenty of time thinking, meditating, praying if so inclined, and writing in your journal.

Rather than just reading for 1–2 hours straight, it’s good to shift between reading, thinking, and writing down your insights. Listening to audiobooks makes this process even easier.

While either listening or reading, it’s good to allow spaces of time to really think about what you’re learning and to measure what you’re learning against your current worldview, priorities, and goals.

Hopefully, if you’re open to learning, you’ll allow what you’re reading to alter and enhance your current mental model. You’ll allow your learning to hone and improve your current priorities, goals, choices, and daily behaviors.

If you have the same priorities and goals you had last year, then you didn’t learn very much in the past 12 months.

Emotional Transformation Through Reflection

Thus, while you’re learning, it’s good to ponder and think about the goals you’re currently pursuing. Writing your goals down in the morning, and emotionally visualizing their completion is powerful. It’s awe-inspiring and humbling to read old journal entries and realize that many of your former goals have since been attained and accomplished.

You’ve changed as a person.

You’ve moved forward.

This is why you must take the time to MEASURE THE GAIN, not just the GAP. Taking time to reflect on where you currently are, and how far you’ve come is humbling and beautiful. In fact, it is often through this form of reflection that you are brought to tears — realizing how much your path has been guided. Realizing how good God has been to you. Realizing how much other people in your world have been patient and beautiful and generous with you.

Intellectual Transformation Through Learning And Journaling

While listening to or reading powerful information — your mind will be primed to get lots of really good ideas. Especially if you’ve developed skills in meditation, thinking, and prayer.

While listening/reading, you’ll get lots of REALLY GOOD ideas about how you can better accomplish your goals. Ideas will come to your mind about how you can better help the people in your network accomplish their goals.

You’ll want to immediately act on these ideas. The longer you hesitate, the more likely you will be to forget about your key insight. The longer you wait, the less power your idea will have.

When a brilliant idea sparks, start writing. Don’t just put it on the back-burner. Follow the idea and see where it takes you.

It’s usually the idea after the idea that really matters. But most people take their ideas for granted, or they just continue their reading.

No.

When you get a core insight, pause and reflect. Pull out your journal and begin connecting that idea with your most pressing goals and priorities and relationships. Quickly, another connection will be made. A deeper insight will present itself. Eventually, you’ll stumble upon something very practical. Something you’ll need to act on immediately.

That “something” may be a conversation you need to have. It may be an article you need to write that morning. It may be something you can do for someone to dramatically move the needle.

Act Immediately Upon Every Prompting You Get

You need THAT insight. The one that leads to immediate action and makes an immediate impact on what you’re trying to do.

This is how you make quantum leaps, day-by-day, in your progression. When you’re getting powerful insights that improve how you live, your life changes. That’s why learning every day is so important.

If you read good books every morning, visualize and strategize your goals, and write your insights in your journal, you’ll have an amazing life.

You’ll become a highly creative person.

You’ll be a brilliant decision maker and strategist.

You’ll become financially successful.

You’ll learn from your mistakes, and not continue the same unhealthy patterns.

You’ll elevate yourself while most people continue small lives of regret.

What do you do between the hours of 5–7AM?

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

You Make Or Break Your Life Between 5–7 AM was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Accountability Partners Are Great. But “Success” Partners Will Change Your Life.

ImageThe difference between “accountability” and “excitement.”

Even though most people avoid it, accountability works. It really works.

Actually, if you do not measure and report your progress, then you’re probably not making much progress at all. According to Pearson’s Law — when performance is measured, it improves; when performance is measured and reported, it improves exponentially.

Research studies have shown that publicly committing your goals to someone gives you at least a 65% chance of completing them. However, having a specific accountability partner increases your chance of success to 95%.

When most people think of an accountability partner, they cringe. It’s not something they feel excited about, unless they are highly motivated individuals.

One of the reasons “accountability” has a slightly negative energy is because it feels like you have to do something. And accountability partnerships can give off that vibe even though, as a functioning adult, you get to make your own choices.

By adding an accountability partner to your life, you’re simply increasing your odds of success. You don’t want to lie to someone you respect. So when you tell them you’re going to show up this week, you’re more likely to do so.

It’s actually quite crazy, but we’re far more likely to lie to and let down ourselves than someone else.

Accountability is Great — But “Success” Partners are More Powerful

“Surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future than your past.” — Dan Sullivan

Having an accountability partner is an unfair advantage. For those seeking major success in their lives, it’s an incredible opportunity.

The mere fact that most people avoid accountability is a powerful reason to create LOTS of it in your life.

Even still, there is another form of relationship that can take your life much further than accountability partnerships.

Rather than simply having someone who holds you accountable, you want a “success” partner who is heavily motivated themselves.

You want to have someone who is already pushing their own boundaries and taking huge psychological leaps forward. They are taking big risks, moving forward, and continually upping their game.

If you’re doing the same, then you can join forces and push each other further and further than you could ever go on your own.

A “success” partner is someone who is already motivated. They don’t need someone to “hold them accountable.” Instead, they need someone to push them further.

Becoming a “Transformational Leader” for Yourself and Others

One of the core theories of leadership is called, and it involves four specific behaviors of the most successful leaders:

Inspirational motivation: developing and articulating a powerful vision and high expectations that are motivating, inspiring, and challenging.Idealized influence: being a role model, someone who themselves is moving forward in their lives and achieving a bigger vision. You cannot be a leader of others if you’re not powerfully leading yourself.Intellectual stimulation: challenging existing assumptions, connecting deeply with those you’re leading, and helping them re-frame their limitations.Individualized consideration: treating everyone in a cookie-cutter fashion, but instead, “seeking first to understand and then to be understood.” In other words, you develop true connection and trust by listening first and coming to understand the person you’re working with as a unique individual.

You can be a transformational leader. And the only way you can become a powerful “success” partner is by being a transformational leader.

When two people come together and act as transformational leaders to each other, explosive growth happens.

I’ve had many “success” partnerships in my life. Recently, I met an amazing guy named Alex. He’s been through a lot in his life. He grew up with a stutter, which led him to over-compensate in his attempts to feel worthy of love and friendship.

His desire to be loved led him down some bad paths, ultimately getting him arrested and expelled from his college.

But then Alex started investing big in himself. He started envisioning a much bigger future. Now, people pay him over $100,000 to work with him one on one. He is a highly-paid public speaker despite having a stutter.

And here’s what I love about Alex: there are no limits on where he’s going. He’s just getting started.

He’s willing to push himself further and further — mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.

I’ve recently met him and we hit-it-off. We come from totally different backgrounds, have different skill-sets, and different ways we can help each other.

More than just helping each other be motivated and accountable, we push each other to go beyond anything we’d do on our own. We’ve both challenged each other to take needed action on things in our personal lives and business that we 1) either have been procrastinating, or 2) didn’t even realize we should take.

That’s what happens in “Success” Partnerships — you help each other take immediate action on what is most important. No more procrastination. You also help each other get new insights, and then to immediately act on those insights.

This is where psychologist, Robert Kegan, comes in. According to Kegan, the highest level of “conscious evolution” is what he called the “transforming self.” Similar to Maslow’s notion of “self-actualization, very few people make it to the conscious-level of the transforming-self.

It takes courage.

It also takes a different way of thinking.

Rather than thinking “how” you can achieve something, you think in terms of “who.” According to Kegan, the transforming-self is a stage of being wherein two or more individuals go beyond their perceived notions and open themselves up to new and bigger ideas through collaborative ideation and connection.

The whole becomes more than the sum of its pats.

A third party emerges out of the two people — a new super human that is distilled in each individual. Newness. Vision. Relentlessness.

Both parties synergize and collaborate and motivate and push each other. The relationship becomes a vehicle for transformation and growth.

Self-Leadership is Key to Being a “Success” Partner

You can’t be a “success” partner if you’re not actively and aggressively moving forward in your own life. Hence, self-leadership is essential. Accountability on many levels is implied.

You don’t avoid accountability. You embrace it in all aspects of your life. Your whole world and environment reflect accountability to higher ideals, values, and aims.

But, you also know that with the influence of other people who are likewise pushing themselves in profound ways, that you can push them and yourself further and faster.

This is why “success” partners are so exciting. Individually, they are already motivated and achievement-oriented. Collectively, they push each other to new limits of courage and commitment. They serve as sounding boards to each other. They not only listen to each other’s account progress, but they really challenge them.

Transformational leaders challenge assumptions. They really ask the hard questions.

Is this what you really want?

Why do you want it?

Are you playing small?

What do you really want?

Why are you waiting to get it?

What could you do that would get you there in the next seven days?

What huge failure are you avoiding?

Do You Have a “Success” Partner?

“Success” partners are all about extreme action, helping each other to take on extreme courage, and coaching each other through the process.

Do you have a “success” partner?

You shouldn’t just have one. Instead, you should create a network of people who are constantly pushing you to up your game.

“Success” partners are all about excitement and fear — and according to Dan Sullivan, those are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have excitement without fear.

If you really want to play a bigger game, you need to start making bold moves. And then you need to be a giver and help other people make bold moves in their lives.

Your network is your net-worth. When you begin surrounding yourself with people who remind you of your future — and you not only engage in the relationship, but inspire those around you to QUICKLY get to the next level — then your life will begin accelerating very quickly.

You can increase your income by 10X in a year with the right network.

You can achieve goals that would normally take a few years in a few months with the right network.

Taking on huge goals and change is inherently stressful. So having someone to buffer that stress and help you through the process is key.

Having someone who excites you about moving forward because you inspire each other is an unfair advantage.

It’s also incredibly available.

You must start by being an inspiring person yourself. Lead yourself to a better life. Then excitedly help others improve their lives.

Use the relationship to propel each other forward.

Every week, share your huge wins and courageous leaps. Then, really dig into helping each other to move beyond fears and to commit to bigger leaps.

Here’s what’s fascinating. You’ll often get more clarity and inspiration for your life while helping your “success” partner get clarity, than while directly trying to get clarity for yourself. The synergistic partnership is key. Giving and receiving.

Every week, you should be attempting something you’ve never done before. You should be failing and learning, and growing in new and powerful ways.

Hard-Truth Questions to Consider

Do you have a “success” partner?

Are you growing like crazy?

Are you excited?

Is your future bigger than your past?

Is your brain growing through novelty, risk, learning, and excitement?

Are you shattering subconscious blocks?

Are you consistently improving all aspects in your life, and thus developing confidence?

Are you making bold commitments and seeing those commitments to the end?

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

If You Don’t Get Your Priorities Straight, Your Life Will Fall Apart

Photo by Jasper van der Meij on Unsplash

I have a friend, who, on all outward appearances, is doing extremely well in his life.

He’s making millions of dollars. His fame and reputation are spreading far and wide. He is brilliant and seems to know all of the answers.

But then, I just found out last night that he’s been going through a major divorce.

He has a few kids whom he loves but hasn’t been around very much to play with.

There is a common notion that you can “have it all.” It’s a very seductive idea. But it’s not true.

The fundamental core of the word “decision” means to literally cut-off alternative options. When you choose one thing, you simultaneously close the door on many others.

This is why making decisions is so hard.

A true decision involves risk, opportunity cost, uncertainty, and commitment.

True decisions involve courage — because it takes courage to commit to something beyond your own momentary feelings. It takes courage to commit to a future filled with unknowns.

Thomas Monson once said, “Choose your love, and love your choice.”

I’ve seen over and over in the past year how easy it is for people to walk away from their marriages. The honeymoon effect has long since passed. Their relationship has gotten slightly apathetic. They aren’t investing in the relationship like they once did.

The grass begins looking much greener ALL OVER THE PLACE.

The thrill of a new and exciting relationship (or project) starts to fill the mind.

Why is a new relationship so attractive? Because it’s all future.

The longer you’re in a relationship, the more “past” there is in that relationship, and thus, the more likely you are to fall into patterns. Unless you are continually creating a future that is bigger than your past, then your past will be repeated in the future — and that is how things can get boring pretty quick.

When you first start something out, it’s incredibly easy to be flexible. You’re willing to do practically anything for the relationship. You want it really bad.

But do you still approach the relationship that way?

Or, since you have it now — have your relationship stopped being a priority?

It’s extremely easy to fall into this trap.

It’s easy to fall into patterns where you stop truly investing in a bigger future.

Life gets busy.

You’ve got to pay the bills and do all the stuff. It can be exhausting.

But life was busy before and somehow, you found all sorts of creative energy to invest the relationship.

What if it’s not about the busyness of life if we’re being really honest?

What if you’ve just gotten too busy with other things?

What if your mind is just somewhere else?

It’s easy to drift.

Only when, like my friend, the relationship comes to an abrupt end, does it become painfully obvious about what had slowly been happening over a number of years.

If you don’t pay attention to your life on a daily basis, it will absolutely drift in directions you may not like.

You have to be completely clear on your core priorities.

If you’re not completely clear on what matters to you, then you don’t have direction in your life. You don’t have values. Your life will be a ship in the ocean without a sail or compass — just following the wind.

It is not a priority if you’re not investing in it.

It is not a priority if you’re not thinking about it.

It’s not a priority if you’re not pouring time into it.

It’s not a priority if you don’t love it deeply.

It’s not a priority if you don’t have a vision for it.

What are your priorities?

What evidence is there that what you just thought about actually is a priority?

How much have you invested in those “priorities” in the past 1–2 weeks?

Of all things, relationships are some of the easiest to take for granted over time.

If your key relationships aren’t something you’re approaching with a beginner’s mindset — as you did when you were first trying to establish the relationship — then the relationship is probably not a priority to you.

That may be weird to hear.

It is highly likely that your romantic relationship — no matter how much you say and think you love this person — is not actually a priority to you.

Jim Collins said in Good to Great, “If you have more than three priorities, you have none.”

That may be a little extreme — but it also brings up a good point. If you are focused on many different things, then you aren’t really focused at all.

Focus requires zeroing in. It means making a decision.

If you’re focused on several different things in your life, which direction are you actually going?

If you’re focused on several different things in your life, is it possible you actually have misled yourself? What if you’re not really going where you think you are? What if you’re actually drifting, and you haven’t fully committed.

It takes courage to be committed and to make decisions.

But without courage and commitment, you can never develop confidence.

What are your priorities?

Are you clear on them?

Are you investing in them?

Are you willing to give up a lot of other things to ensure that your true priorities are where your mind and heart are?

If not, then you probably don’t have priorities. And without priorities, you don’t have a clear future that you’re creating.

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

If You Don’t Get Your Priorities Straight, Your Life Will Fall Apart was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here Is A Very Simple Method For Success

Photo by Alex Bertha on Unsplash

As I’m writing these words, I’m at the home of one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, who is the founder of Strategic Coach.

The only reason I tell you I’m here is that, for years, I would have been blown away simply to meet this man.

Now, we not only have a close friendship where he allows me to sleep at his house, but we now work together on big projects.

I tell you this simple story for a few quick reasons:

No matter how big your dreams are, they aren’t big enoughYou need to learn how to create EXPERIENCES that shift and upgrade your psychologyYou need to learn to meet the people you aspire to be likeYour mindset and goals are both probably very limited right nowWhatever it is that you want right now, you can have it — but then, you need to continue stretching your mindset and experiencesThe Truth About Goals

Most people do not know how to set or achieve goals.

Most people don’t CLEARLY know what they want. And they believe they must be clear BEFORE setting goals.

The process of writing your goals down on paper, every single day, is actually HOW you clarify your goals.

You’re not supposed to have the whole future figured out, right now.

You figure it out, more fully, one day at a time.

The purpose of goals is to guide and clarify your thinking.

You get to decide what clarity means to you — and you get to decide what your future looks like.

You do this by intentionally writing down what you would like to see happen.

It’s really that simple.

However, the only truly USEFUL form of goals is in the form of numbers or events. A brain works really well when it is trying to create a specific event or a specific number.

So, when you’re looking at your goals, you want to be sure that they are numeric or actual events in the real world.

Your brain needs to quantify, in the actual world, what it is you’re trying to do.

Simply “Having a better life,” or “Being financially successful,” or “Being a professional author,” are all HORRIBLE GOALS.

You will never get the clarity you need to truly be motivated by this kind of goal setting.

You need SPECIFIC NUMBERS and SPECIFIC EVENTS.

Both of these are very important.

If you want to improve your relationship with your spouse, you need to write down in your journal the exact number of dates you plan to take your lover on in the next 30 daysYou also need to write down SPECIFIC EVENTS that you want to create in that relationship — in the 3-D world, not just in your headIf you want to improve your income, then you need to write down specific amounts of money you will make in the next 30, 60, and 90 days — and even in the next 1, 3, and 5 years.You also need to write down SPECIFIC EVENTS that you will create with your money, such as donating $1 million dollars to your church or buying the house of your dreams, whatever.

If you want to have your dream job, you need to quantify that in NUMBERS. You also need to quantify it in EVENTS.

Numbers are powerful because they are measurable. If your goals are not measurable, then they aren’t actually goals.

If you don’t also have SPECIFIC EVENTS you want to create then you don’t have the creative clarity to produce something significant in the real world.

Me, sitting here at Dan Sullivan’s house, is an event in real time that shows me that I’m actually moving my life in a consciously-designed direction.

Events are happening in the real world that I was writing in my journal 1–3 years ago.

The better you get at this process, the faster you’ll achieve your goals.

One other tidbit.

When you put yourself into powerful experiences, you want to allow those experiences to truly reshape your psychology. While in powerful environments, you want to really stretch your imagination and future.

Don’t play small.

As Napoleon Hill stated, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”

In certain situations, you are more receptive to change. Your subconscious is more fluid and flexible and within your hand’s reach. So you might as well grab it and shake it a little bit.

For example, while at a recent event where I was learning to grow my business, I was feeling really inspired and in what I would call a “peak state.”

I decided to pull out my journal and begin writing goals down that were far bigger than anything I’ve truly imagined.

According to neuroscience — in order for visualization to work, you not only need to be intellectually stimulated but also emotionally committed.

True imagination is both cognitive and affective — mental and emotional.

When you bring the emotional-side into your visualization and goal setting, you begin to reshape your personality, because your personality is based on emotions and memories, not based on intellect.

While writing your goals down in a far more imaginative state of mind, you’ll begin to get INSIGHTS. Those insights are the gold you’re looking for. Those insights are ideas about both the WHAT and the HOW.

You’ll begin thinking about creative solutions to your problems.

You can’t actually get creative solutions if you aren’t actively seeking something bigger and better in your life.

But while you truly entertain an idea, goal, or future event you intend to experience, you give your brain something tangible to begin playing with and solving.

This is a good use of the brain, and very few people have designed systems for getting their brain activated at peak levels.

What You Measure Matters, So, You Should Measure What Matters

What you focus on expands.

The things you choose to measure influence and determine your mindset and mental focus.

For a long time, my core metric of measurement was the number of email subscribers I added to my blog.

This is a picture of my current email subscriber base — those who subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

In the past 30 days, I’ve gotten around 19,000 new people.

The thing is, I don’t really care about this number anymore. I care about something much more important.

While my focus was on email subscribers, I wasn’t actually making any money.

When you set a goal for a specific metric, you then put your brain on track for developing the skills to attain that metric.

Because my focus was on getting email subscribers, I allowed my brain to learn how to get email subscribers. I learned how to develop the skills and abilities that would lead to that particular outcome.

However, in moving forward and evolving in my life, I realize that that particular method, although useful, is not the best metric I should be measuring.

There are better metrics.

There are more powerful and useful metrics.

What you measure determines the goals you set. The goals you set determine the future development of your brain and personality.

Instead of measuring the number of emails I get, I’m now measuring the number of clients I’m getting. I’m also measuring SPECIFIC EVENTS around my work, personal life, and family.

The key events I’m seeking in my work relate to powerful experiences for my clients, as well as key transformational experiences I have in my own life — such as the one I’ve been having this week with Dan Sullivan.

In other words, my focus has shifted to tangible experiences for myself and my clients.

This focus has led to far greater inspiration and insights in my morning journaling than simply focusing on the number of email subscribers I get.

Your brain develops as you focus on attaining specific numbers and creating SPECIFIC events!

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

Here Is A Very Simple Method For Success was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You Can Never Change Your Life Through Willpower. Here’s What Actually Works.

Photo by Justin Luebke on UnsplashThe opposite of addiction is connection.

Last week, I did one of the hardest workouts of my life with one of my friends. We were getting pushed by a very good trainer. And we were pushing each other.

I’ve never felt my legs burn as they did. I barely walked out of the gym. It was 30 minutes of pain followed by several hours of psychological ecstasy and insight.

While driving back to my friend’s house, he said, “There’s no way I could’ve done a workout like that by myself.”

The Problem of Willpower

When you think of the word, “Willpower,” do you think of “individual” or “together”?

Willpower is a solo-battle.

Willpower is all about the individual.

Willpower is trying to go it alone. Willpower is an attempt to win a silent battle. It’s the opposite of vulnerability. It’s the opposite of connection.

You’re As Sick As Your Secrets

Addiction expert and founder of Genius Recovery, Joe Polish, often says, “A person is as sick as their secrets.”

In the book, THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE, Bessel van der Kolk M.D. explains that traumatic experiences halt or “freeze” a person’s development. When a person experiences trauma, they usually keep their pain to themselves. Very rarely do they open up and share what they’re going through.

As a result, their pain gets suppressed. Hence, Dr. Gabor Maté explained in a recent interview with Tim Ferriss, “Trauma isn’t what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you.”

Trauma isn’t necessarily caused by tough experiences. It’s caused by keeping those experiences and the pain or confusion of those experiences to yourself. It’s caused by fighting silent battles. It’s caused by trying to go at it alone.

Addiction therapist and researcher, Arnold M. Washton, Ph.D. said, “Many people think that what the addict needs is willpower, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

Willpower is focused on the self. You can’t overcome addiction on your own. As Johann Hari explains in his famous TED TALK, the only way out of addiction is through connecting with other people.

Addiction is all about context. So is all behavior.

The problem we face is that Western Culture is highly individualistic. We often ignore the power of environment and focus on individual traits we believe are key to success: such as willpower, mindset, grit, etc. Dr. David Hawkins explains in his book, LETTING GO, “It is the illusion of individuality that is the origin of all suffering.”

Most people fail to make positive change in their life because they are trying to do it all themselves. Their silent battles and attempts at willpower only suppress their pain further down.

We All Have Multiple Personalities

According to neuroscientist, Candace Pert, PhD, in her book, YOUR BODY IS YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND, we all have multiple personalities. Bessel van der Kolk M.D. agrees, explaining that certain sides of us are very well-developed, whereas other sides are radically under-developed.

Something may trigger you and all-of-a-sudden the scared 3-year-old version of you shows up. You don’t know how to cope, and you do anything you can to avoid the pain and confusion you’re experiencing. Addiction, then, is a solution to a problem. It’s a solution, albeit an unhealthy and temporary solution, to pain.

When a person gets stuck in their pain and individuality, Bessel van der Kolk M.D. calls it having a “frozen personality.” Which brings up another huge myth and misconception in Western Culture: the idea that we have a fixed and static personality — one we’re born with and one we die with.

We place a lot of emphasis on personality. We believe it’s the “real us.” It’s not.

Your personality is an adaptation to your environment. It’s also an adaptation to the suppressed emotions you have.

When you learn to connect with other people and learn to get the help you need to heal your suppressed pain, your personality will change. You’ll no longer rely on your crutches. You’ll experience much deeper sides of life.

Beyond that, when you learn to connect with others, you open yourself up to growth and opportunity that could never be available to you with the “lone ranger” mentality.

Connection is the key to growth.

Connection is the key to overcoming addiction.

Connection is required for going much further than you could ever go on your own.

According to Harvard Psychologist, Robert Kegan, there is a 3-step model of “conscious evolution.”

Socializing-self = a person who is highly DEPENDENT. Everything they do is out of fear and anxiety. They do whatever they think other people want them to do.Authoring-self = a person who is INDEPENDENT. They have their own goals, beliefs, and agendas. They engage in relationships so long as those relationships get them where they want to go. They get much, much further than people stuck in a state of dependence. This level of conscious evolution is most prized in Western Culture because we’re very individualistic. We’re not as focused on collaboration and connection. Instead, we’re obsessed with what individuals and “super-heroes” can do on their own. Additionally, as a society, we’ve become very addicted, and we’ve lost much of our ability and confidence to truly connect and be vulnerable. Which is why people like Dr. Brené Brown’s work is so important on vulnerability, connection, and courage.Transforming-self = the highest stage of conscious evolution, which is far more reflective in Eastern Cultures, is where a person becomes INTERDEPENDENT. They no longer try to fight silent battles. They don’t attempt willpower to change their life. They recognize the importance of context and connection. They have their own goals, and views. But they can also see beyond their own mental frame and compare it with other mental frameworks, allowing them to continually weed-out unhealthy and limiting beliefs. Additionally, at this stage, a person has embraced vulnerability and collaboration — connection — so they are constantly doing work with other people where the whole becomes fundamentally different and better than the sum of its parts. According to Kegan, only this stage of conscious evolution is conducive to faith, because the actor trusts and expects that the best outcomes will come about, all the while not being obsessed or tied to a certain outcome.Conclusion

You don’t just have one personality. You have multiple. And the more holistic you can live your life, and seek connection over willpower, the more you’ll be able to overcome past traumas, and the more you’ll be able to create a much bigger future.

According to Strategic Coach founder, Dan Sullivan, when two people come together who are living in their “unique ability,” they can go 100X bigger in their goals.

As Stephen Covey explains in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

“Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.”

Are you fighting silent battles?

Are you still trying to change their willpower?

Or, are you open to context and connection?

If you’re ready, you’ll surround yourself with other people who will help you go far beyond what you could ever do on your own. As Helen Keller said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Similarly, Jim Rohn said, “Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.”

Ready to Upgrade?

I’ve created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.

Get the cheat sheet here!

You Can Never Change Your Life Through Willpower. Here’s What Actually Works. was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.