Benjamin P. Hardy's Blog, page 13

If It Doesn’t Suck, It’s Not Worth Doing

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According to psychological research, the anticipation of an event is almost always more emotionally powerful than the event itself.

The dread of asking your boss for a raise is paralyzing and can last months. Yet, once you get yourself to finally do it, it’s over before you know it.

The excitement of attaining some object or objective can become obsessive.

Yet, shortly after you obtain your desire, you’re bored and in search of something else. “We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them,” says Dr. Thomas Gilovich, Cornell psychologist.

Interestingly, your mind can seduce you so much so that the idea of something becomes more satisfying than the thing itself, so you stop at the idea and never make it real. Thus, in his new book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday explains that a primary obstacle to success is the idea of success.

It’s so easy to dream.

It’s easy to tell people about your ambitions. It’s easy to create vision boards and write down your goals. It’s easy to stand in front of a mirror and declare affirmations.

And that’s where most people stop.

The very act of dreaming stops you from achieving your dreams.

You’ve played it out in your mind with such intoxicating detail that you become satisfied enough. You become numbed. And you deceive yourself into believing you’ve actually done something productive.

Consequently, when you attempt the activity itself, you immediately hit a stone wall of resistance. More often than not, you quickly distract yourself from the discomfort with some form of momentary pleasure.

Yet, Robert Greene explains in his book, Mastery, that you can learn to love this internal resistance. In his words, “You find a kind of perverse pleasure in moving past the pain this might bring.”

There’s a joy in feeling discomfort and even pain — knowing that you’re proactively putting yourself through a purifying and transformative emotional fire.

Fire can purify and refine all of the impurities out of gold — and embracing the discomfort of growth does the same.

Again from psychology, the notion of “psychological flexibility” is instructive — define as: “contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values.”

As will be shown throughout this article, we are now living in a social culture with decreasing moral values. Without values, there is no reason to live beyond the present moment. Without values and vision to strive for, “self-control” simply becomes a matter of willpower, which is a low-level form of motivation that doesn’t take you very far.

How To Get Out Of Your Rut

In his book, Living with a SEAL, Jesse Itzler tells the story of being inspired by a certain Navy SEAL and consequently inviting him to live at Itzler’s home for a month. Itzler admitted being in a personal rut and wanted to shake himself out of his routine.

Day 1: “SEAL” asked Itzler, “How many pull-ups can you do?” Itzler squeaked out eight shaky pull-ups.

“Take 30 seconds and do it again,” SEAL said. 30 seconds later, Itzler got on the bar and did six, struggling.

“Take 30 seconds and do it one more time,” SEAL said. 30 seconds later, Itzler got on the bar and did three, at which point his arms were exhausted.

“Alright, we’re not leaving here until you do 100 more,” SEAL stated. Itzler was puzzled. “Alright, we’re gonna be here a long time. Cause there’s no way I could do 100.” However, Itzler ended-up completing the challenge, doing one pull-up at a time. Thus, SEAL convinced Itzler that he could do way more than he thought he could.

The principle SEAL taught is what he calls the 40% rule — which essentially means people feel maxed-out mentally and physically, and thus stop when they are at only 40% of their actual capacity. Going past this 40% capacity is when it becomes uncomfortable. Thus, SEAL’s mantra, “If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it.”

The Power Of Objective-Based Pursuits

“The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents — will you learn how to focus and move past boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?” — Robert Greene

Like Itzler who shattered a mental barrier by completing 100 pull-ups, you too can get out of your rut by pursuing tangible objectives.

The concept is: Do something and don’t stop until it’s complete, no matter how long it takes.

Your goal is to learn how to accomplish hard things without continuously distracting yourself. You want to develop what Greene calls “A perverse pleasure” in experiencing internal conflict, and sitting with it.

This concept is embedded in Crossfit. Unlike most people, who check their smartphones between exercise “sets,” at Crossfit, you have a specific objective and you kill yourself until it’s done.

If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it.

You can apply this principle to anything and everything. You can do a homework assignment and just do it until it’s complete. You can write an article and stick-to-it until it’s published. You can do 100 pull-ups, or run 5 miles, and go until you’re done. Wake up at 5AM, even if it hurts to pull yourself off your comfy bed.

Proactively putting yourself through emotional trauma and pain is how you “callus your mind” according to David Goggins in Can’t Hurt Me.

Most people are soft. And as will be shown, we live in a culture that is increasingly weakening people’s emotional maturity in large part because of the complete collapse of moral values, in addition to an extreme exaggeration of self-absorption.

The Greatest Opportunity In History

In his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport states the following:

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence,the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

Without question, we live in the most distracted time in human history. It is almost impossible to remain focused on a single task for more than a few minutes at a time.

The law of opposites is in effect. With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While most of the world is becoming increasingly distracted, a select few are capitalizing on this fact.

Hence, Economist Tyler Cowan has said, “Average is over.” The middle-class is gone. Either you’re among the select few who are thriving, or you’re like most people who are distracted, overweight, and struggling.

The choice is yours.

When something sucks, do you quit? Or do you push through and eventually enjoy the satisfaction of growth and success?

Anything worth doing is going to suck at the beginning. Anything worth doing is meant to require pain and sacrifice. Herein lies the problem facing America, which originally was built on the moral of impulse control. What once used to be a country filled with people sacrificing momentary pleasure for a better future, the overpowering message of today is live for the moment.

And that’s exactly what people do. They live for this moment. Consequently, when something sucks or becomes hard, most people quit. Most people indulge themselves in momentary satisfaction at the expense of a better future.

To make matters worse, the twin “truth” of today’s culture is to love yourself for who you are. The self-esteem movement of the late 20th century is an enormous contributor to America’s faltering success.

People are taught to love themselves regardless of their performance. Thus, they justify mediocrity. Yet, Asian’s and other immigrant groups who often are considered to have low self-esteem consistently outperform American’s who have high self-esteem.

Unlike in other parts of the world where hard work is seen as a virtue, the repeated phrase in America is: “Don’t work too hard!” Success these days is to get as much as you can for as little work as possible.

In the book, “The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America,” Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld explain that most successful people not only control their impulses but also have an implicit sense of inferiority.

These people may have confidence, yet, they remain unsure of themselves. They have a chip on their shoulder due to being oppressed in some way. So they continuously push themselves, regardless of how successful they become, to prove themselves. They are never satisfied with what they’ve done. They continue to feel inferior.

These very traits are awarded in today’s economy because they are so rare. Again, few people control their impulses but instead live for the moment. And few people, especially in America, have any sense of inferiority. Rather, most people have bought into the myth that you must first love yourself before you can become successful.

Garbage.

True confidence is earned. It’s earned by succeeding. Not by wishing for success.

True confidence emerges when you consistently push-through things that suck. You can’t be confident without already having been successful. True confidence is the byproduct of looking at your present circumstances and knowing that you are the one who has intentionally designed those circumstances.

Hence, Ryan Holiday explains in an interview with Lewis Howes: you are rewarded for the work you actually accomplish. Not the promises you make.

Doing the work is hard.

Getting into elite physical condition is brutal.

Building deep and committed relationships is nearly impossible. Most marriages end in divorce.

Developing deep spiritual maturity requires giving-up who you want to be for who you really are.

All of these things “suck,” at least initially, and in-the-moment. However, if it doesn’t suck, it’s not worth doing. And you absolutely can learn to endure the discomfort of the moment to build a life worth having.

If you’re stuck in a rut, like Itzler, challenge yourself to complete specific objectives — no matter how long they take.

Pleasure Vs. Happiness

“A life that doesn’t include hard-won accomplishment and triumph over obstacles may not be a satisfying one. There is something deeply fulfilling — even thrilling — in doing almost anything difficult extremely well.

There is a joy and pride that come from pushing yourself to another level or across a new frontier. A life devoted only to the present — to feeling good in the now — is unlikely to deliver real fulfillment.

The present moment by itself it too small, too hollow. We all need a future. Something beyond and greater than our own present gratification, at which to aim or feel we’ve contributed.”

— The Triple Package

True happiness — joy — is fundamentally different than momentary pleasure.Not to say momentary pleasure is inherently bad. However, it often gets in the way of something more real and lasting.

Anything worth doing brings a satisfaction that distraction never can. Don’t give into the resistance. Push through the difficulty. That’s where a joy that those who stop will never taste.

Said Geologist James Talmage:

“Happiness leaves no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it brings no regret, entails no remorse.

True happiness is lived over and over again in memory, always with a renewal of the original good; a moment of pleasure may leave a barbed sting, [as] an ever-present source of anguish.”

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 It Doesn’t Suck, It’s Not Worth Doing was originally published in The Mission on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

3 Exciting Facts About Goals That No One Talks About

#1: Luck shouldn’t be a factor in your mind

The first of the three exciting facts is that “Luck” shouldn’t be part of the equation in your mind when setting a goal.

When you’re thinking about something big you want to pursue, it can almost feel impossible from where you’re currently sitting.

Especially if tens of thousands — or potentially even millions — of other people want the same “dream” you are wanting.

I felt this way when I decided a few years ago that I wanted to become a professional writer. With literally millions of people attempting to write for a living on the internet, it seemed like luck had to be involved.

It seems like some magic incident had to occur. Something completely out of my control. The same is true of other goals I’ve since set, and goals I’m even now pursuing.

When you have something HUGE you want to do, it can feel completely impossible from your current vantage point.

There are only a few people TRULY doing what you want to do. And somehow they got there. But certainly, you couldn’t do the same. Right?

That feeling is completely natural and leads us to believe LUCK is an integral part of achieving goals. And whether it is or isn’t doesn’t really matter.

A much more important FACT is that there actually is a pathway to your goal. At this present moment, you probably don’t know what that path is.

But it does exist.

From where you currently are to where you truly deeply want to go. No matter how far away. No matter how “dreamy” and seemingly impossible.

There actually is a path. And even more interesting is that the behaviors you need to DO to achieve your goals are not rocket science. They are probably very simple and non-complex.

Of course, you need to practice and fail and eventually master. But the behaviors and skills to achieve your wildest dreams are not beyond you. In fact, if you actually got to work on them, you’d be surprised how “do-able” it actually is.

There is a tangible, practical, and walkable path to achieving whatever goal you want to achieve.

There is a tangible, practical, and walkable path to becoming a millionaire in a way that resonates with you.

There is a tangible, practical, and walkable path to having deeply impactful and intimate relationships — to having whatever form of freedom or experience you want in life.

Whatever it is you want, there is a path from where you are to where you want to go. Luck may be involved, but it’s not actually necessary. What is necessary, though, is:

knowing where you want to go,knowing how to get there, andknowing you can do it.

All three of these things become increasingly clear as you begin walking your path. They are the three things required to experience deep motivation — according to one of the most well-researched theories of motivation.

Indeed, all three of these things are actually feedback loops which fuel each other.

As you become more clear on what you want, you’ll discover how to achieve itAs you study how to achieve it and begin moving forward, your confidence in your ability to walk the path will increaseAs your confidence increases, your vision and clarity of that vision will also increase, thus fueling this whole process over and over — a virtuous cycle upward!

Eventually, momentum and motivation take completely over and you’ll have a hard time stopping yourself from achieving your goal. Eventually, your identity shifts and you become what it is you’re seeking. You attract your goals and dreams by the person you are.

In every instance, you become the person who can have the goal before achieving it. It is BECAUSE your identity fully embraces your future results that those results become yours.

As you learn and act and move in the direction you want to go — you’ll change as a person. The more aggressive you act toward your goal, the faster and deeper will be your change.

FACT #1: DON’T WORRY ABOUT LUCK. THERE ACTUALLY IS A PATH FROM WHERE YOU ARE TO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO. JUST WALK THE PATH. YOU CAN GET THERE. IT’S NOT AS COMPLEX AS YOU’RE MAKING IT.

It may seem impossible from here. But it’s not. Soon enough, you’ll start to realize that it’s actually not as hard as it seems. And you’ll wonder why so few people strive for big and amazing things in their lives.

You’ll wonder why so many people sell themselves short.

One of the main reasons they do is because they genuinely believe LUCK is a core factor. It’s not.

FACT #2: When You Set A Goal, Your Brain Will Immediately Begin Producing Obstacles Pointing The Way

Your brain is a brilliant organism.

When you set a new goal — one in which you truly want — then your brain and body will immediately begin conjuring up obstacles to achieving that goal.

These obstacles could be financial, time-based, skill-based, relationship-based… they could be anything. The obstacles are what you must successfully pass through in order to get to where you want to go.

You’re never pre-qualified to do something great. It is by passing through the obstacles that you become great. Passing through the obstacles is how you are transformed and changed as a person.

If you’re not willing to pass through difficult challenges, then you are what psychologists would call, emotionally inflexible. You’re emotionally immature if you won’t deal with challenges and obstacles. Childish stuff.

It takes emotional flexibility to take on challenges you’ve never taken on before. Most people avoid hard emotions and most people evade true learning — which is the essence of passing through obstacles upward.

Your success becomes inevitable when you stop avoiding growth and instead, it becomes your quest, joy, and obsession. Indeed, you can get to the point where you THRIVE under pressure. You can learn to LOVE doing things which produce anxiety and even awkward emotions.

For example, I needed to film an add for a promotion I’m currently running. I decided to film the add from my cell phone in a grocery store surrounded by several people. It was totally awkward for me, until it wasn’t. I had people looking at me and wondering what I was doing.

And this is exactly why I did it. As the saying goes, “It’s easy to learn to meditate out in nature. Try learning to meditate on the back of the bus.”

You get to choose how steep your learning curve is. When you face big obstacles head-on, rather than from the side or avoiding them for years, then you steepen your learning curve.

As you make your learning curve steeper through increased external difficulty and pressure — your inner resilience, confidence, and capability increase.

Rober Brault once said, “We are kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clear path to lesser goals.”

It’s not actually obstacles that stop you from getting from where you are to where you want to be. Instead, it is by avoiding those obstacles and by opting for an easier path with fewer obstacles.

Fear is the direction of your ideal future.

Everything you want is on the opposite side of fear and obstacles.

The obstacle IS the only way forward.

FACT #2: YOUR BRAIN IS A BRILLIANT MACHINE. WHEN YOU SET A GOAL, YOUR BRAIN WILL IMMEDIATELY POINT THE WAY TO ACHIEVING THAT GOAL IN THE FORM OF OBSTACLES. IT IS BY PASSING THROUGH THOSE OBSTACLES THAT YOU TRANSFORM YOURSELF INTO A PERSON THAT CAN HAVE YOUR GOALS.Fact # 3: If You’re Not Pursuing A Bigger Future, Then You’re Living In Your Past

If you’re not currently pursuing goals that challenge and excite you, then you’re not an exciting or interesting person.

People who aren’t striving for something bigger are boring.

People who aren’t striving for something bigger have “run out of future,” in the words of Dan Sullivan. When you run out of future, then you have nothing to live for in the here-and-now. You’re not actively trying to change things. You’re simply existing and dragging your feet. Your brain has nothing to engage it. You’re atrophying as a person.

People are very quick to get into subconscious patterns. This is easy to spot in relationships. The longer a relationship exists, the more “past” there is to draw from in that relationship, and the more likely patterns are likely to occur — keeping the relationship from going to new and exciting places.

Having a goal gives you something exciting to focus on. It gives you a future to pursue. And only by pursuing a bigger future can you create different results from your past.

If you’re not creating a new and exciting future, then you’re living a pattern from your past. If this is the case, then your life and relationships are dull, boring, and sub-par.

Your life doesn’t have to be dull and boring.

Your life should be filled with excitement and surprise. You become more spontaneous and flexible as a person by pursuing a new and different future.

What do you want your romantic relationship to look like?

What do you want your environment to look like?

What do you want your income to look like?

What do you want your body to look like?

You get to decide all of these things. You get to decide your lifestyle, happiness, success, connection, and joy. If you don’t create these things, then your past and/or environment are creating them for you.

Set goals and begin living a new and exciting future. Create new emotions. Allow yourself to have more surprise and spontaneity in your life. Stop repeating the patterns of the past.

Stop living a boring life.

Stop living a boring day, today.

Do something different.

Use a little imagination.

Embrace some crazy emotions by taking new action.

Surprise yourself and others by doing something totally different.

Your brain needs 2 things to thrive: nutrition and novelty. Novelty is “NEWNESS.” Your brain literally needs you to do something new or it gets old. An old and atrophied brain is not going to produce inspiring or interesting ideas and outcomes.

Break the habit of the past.

Break the patterns of the past.

Upgrade your relationships today.

Upgrade your confidence.

Upgrade your environment and income.

Have fun.

Play more.

Embrace surprise.

Embrace success.

FACT #3: PURSUING GOALS SHIFTS YOUR LIFE FROM BEING BORING AND REPETITIVE TO EXCITING AND SURPRISING.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!

3 Exciting Facts About Goals That No One Talks About was originally published in The Mission on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why Most People Will Never Be Successful

Photo by LoboStudio Hamburg on Unsplash

“Success” isn’t just having lots of money. Many people with lots of money have horribly unhappy and radically imbalanced lives.

Success is continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve, and how you relate.

So why won’t most people be successful?

Why don’t most people evolve?

The more evolved you become, the more elevated becomes your thinking, expectations, and standards.

Becoming evolved means:

You no longer major in minor things — As Jim Rohn said, “A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.”You are intentional about every moment of every day — even when that means being fully unplugged and present with your loved onesYou know that you become the product of what surrounds youYou know that everything you put in your mind and body shapes the person you become — As Zig Ziglar said, “Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.”You realize that your behaviors shape your personality and identity — therefore you recognize that EVERY CHOICE YOU MAKE signals to yourself the type of person you areBalancing The Few Essentials

The more successful you become — which is balancing the few essential things (spiritual, relational, financial, physical) in your life and removing everything else — the less you can justify low quality.

Before you evolve as a person:

You can reasonably spend time with just about anyoneYou can eat just about anything put in front of youYou can justify having terrible evenings because you don’t have anything meaningful to wake-up for anywaysAs Your Vision For Yourself Expands

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer

As your vision for yourself expands, you realize you have to make certain adjustments. You need to cut back on spending all of your money and time on crap and entertainment. You have to save more, and invest more in your education and your future.

The more successful you become:

The less you can justify low quality and the higher your standards become for yourself — As Tony Robbins said, “Remember in life we get what we tolerate! Where in your life is it time to draw the line in the sand and say no more! To yourself? To others?”The more you value your time — and how that time is spent. When you’re at work, you’re 100% at work. When you’re at home, you’re 100% at home. You begin living in the “results-economy,” where you’re less worried about how long something takes you, and you’re more concerned about achieving your desired results more effectively and efficiently.Thus, no longer are you willing to work on a time clock.Instead, you only work and get paid for what you results you produce.You have skin in the game. And because you get paid for your results, you create environments that force you to get your desired results faster.You apply the 80/20 rule. You only focus on those things that produce the best outcomes, and you ignore all else.You get the best mentoring.You work when your energy levels and brain-power are peaked, which for most people is during the first 3 hours of their day.You figure out how to get 2X the results you’re currently getting in half the time.You the re-invest that time you just saved into rest and recovery. You’re totally unplugged spending quality time with your friends and family.You’re investing more and more into your self-improvement. You get to the point where 20% of your time is spent working, and the other 80% is spent either learning or resting. You’re sharpening your saw so that during your work hours, your rested, fresh, and powerful.You’re continually upgraded your mindset, mentorships, skills, abilities, and income.

Your life and your identity are a product of your choices. Your personality doesn’t shape who you are. Your behaviors shape who you are.

The most powerful choices you can make is to put yourself into environments that force you to rise to new standards. Said historian Will Durant, “I think the ability of the average man could be doubled if it were demanded. If the situation demanded.”

You surround yourself with people who have higher standards than you do. Because you know that as a person, you are not a fixed and unchangeable entity.

Instead, you know that you are highly flexible and fluid. Your input shapes your mindset and worldview, which shapes your output. That output creates opportunities for the future.

As you continually improve your world around you — and as you consistently make better and better choices, your identity changes. Your environment changes. Your confidence and abilities change.

You begin taking on much bigger goals.

You begin recognizing and appreciating how far you’ve come.

You begin collaborating with brilliant people. You transform yourself over and over, all the while continually going deeper and deeper into your “why.”

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything

If your daily behaviors are consistently low quality, what do you expect your life’s output to be?

Every area of your life affects every other area of your life. Hence the saying, How you do anything is how you do everything. This is very high-level thinking. It only makes sense for people who have removed everything from their lives they hate. To actually live this principle: your daily and normal life can only be filled with those things you highly value.

Your “new normal” needs to continually exceed your previous ideals and dreams.

When your days are filled with only those core essentials that mean the world to you — and you’re succeeding in those few areas — you absolutely will dominate in all areas of your life.

Because the only things in your life are the things you highly value. You’re intrinsically motivated by what you’re doing.

The stakes are very high for you. Because everything in your life matters. Your behavior is consequential in every area of your life. If you don’t show up, you get called out. Whether that’s at work with your partners or at home with your kids.

You’ve created an environment that expects you to be present. That expects you to show up. And you rise to that expectation. You rise to that expectation because your behavior is increasingly consistent with the person you intend to be.

Because your behavior is continually improving, your confidence continually improves. As your confidence improves, your expectation to continue to succeed continually improves. As your expectation to succeed improves, your ability to manifest your dreams and desires becomes powerful.

Even more powerfully though, you understand that you should expect everything yet attach to nothing. Regardless of the outcome, your security is internal. You expect the best, and that is generally what happens for you. When things start to fall apart, or when you fail, you let it go. You don’t over-attach to any outcomes, whether success or failure.

You are fluid and adaptive. You seek data through action, and then take that feedback and continually emerge into something new and better. Continually providing more value. Continually maintain the beginner’s mind. Continually seeking feedback and openness.

You have no ego in this game.

Your life is increasingly congruent.

You’re continuing to learn — which means you are becoming more effective at producing your desired results and then replicating those results. Learning, after all, is a making a permanent change in how you see and operate in the world. If you can’t consistently produce better results, you’re not learning.

Getting information in your head is not learning. There must be a change in behavior, or else there is no true understanding. The difference between knowledge and wisdom is that wisdom is the proper application of knowledge.

Knowledge isn’t power — it’s potential power. Knowledge only becomes powerful when it’s properly applied and becomes wisdom, experience, and understanding.

T.S. Elliot once asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

We now live in the information economy. Information is not scarce. Information has actually become one of the biggest distractions in our current environment.

Spending your time-consuming information won’t set you apart in today’s environment. Filtering through the vast sea of noise and finding the right information, then properly and immediately apply that information to produce better results is how you set yourself apart in today’s word.

And not applying that information in a vacuum or echo-chamber. But applying it in the form of collaborations with different types of people — where the whole becomes different from the sum of its parts.

Are You Living Intentionally?

Saying “No” to great but irrelevant opportunities is hard.

Giving up bad habits is hard.

Changing your belief system and expanding your vision takes courage. It’s so easy to revert back to small and mediocre thinking.

However, as you come closer to living on a daily basis with your values and ideals, amazing things start to happen. You’ll feel happier. You’ll be more present with those you love. You’ll spend your time better. You’ll pursue bigger dreams and ambitions. You’ll be more resilient during challenges. You’ll live at a higher frequency. And everything around you will reflect that.

But to repeat Jim Rohn, “A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.” Said another way, most people are caught in the thick of thin things.

Hence, most people won’t be successful. Most people won’t evolve and progress.

But you will. You know it, and you can feel it. You’ve already begun. And every day, you’re taking one step closer.

Soon enough, you’ll fully commit to being who you know you can be. Once you pass that point of no return, nothing will stop 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!

Why Most People Will Never Be Successful was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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How To Get Precisely What You Want

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

“Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives.

Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities — it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true.

It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships.

When people are constantly and compulsively pulled back into the past to the last time they felt deep involvement in deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of mental flexibility.

Without imagination, there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach.”

― Bessel A. van der Kolk

Dr. Carol Dweck, the prominent Stanford psychologist did something profound. She changed the way the entire field of psychology is explained and popularized an idea that is so powerful.

In her research, primarily among students but also among professionals, she drilled down two core mindsets that people generally fall under:

Fixed mindsetGrowth mindset

A “fixed” mindset means that you don’t believe you can learn or develop in a certain area. You are literally stuck and “fixed.”

A “growth” mindset means you believe you can learn and develop in a particular area.

People who have a fixed mindset have a complete lack of imagination. They lack emotional flexibility. They are trapped in a story. More than likely, they have experienced some form a “trauma” that has them literally living in and repeating the past, day in and day out.

When you’ve experienced some form of trauma in your past, you develop a completely bloated and exaggerated fear of risk and failure. You begin living in a very small bubble. Going out of the bubble will push too hard on the emotional pain of whatever happened in your life.

So you continue living in the past.

You build your life around AVOIDING pain, rather than embracing growth and learning.

According to the Nobel Prize-winning research done on what is now called “Prospect Theory,” behavioral economist Dr. Daniel Kahneman showed that people are extremely terrified of LOSS.

Losing a possession.

Losing a relation.

Losing all of the work you’ve put into something.

When we have ownership over something, we exaggerate its value by 500 to 700%!

Again in psychology, there is another extremely helpful model for understanding behavior and motivation. According to the theory, we learn that people are motivated by either loss or gain by having what is known as an “avoid-orientation” or an “approach-orientation.”

Those with an avoid-orientation focus on the risks involved in a venture. They fear failure. They don’t want to lose. They are trying to maintain their current position. They are worried about what other people think about them.

Conversely, those with an approach-orientation are far more growth-oriented. They’re willing to play life on offense. They’re willing to RISK THEIR CURRENT POSITION — no matter how much hard work and effort went into getting where they are — for the opportunity, not the guarantee, of a better future.

People with an avoid orientation want things to be guaranteed. They won’t take risks if the outcome isn’t totally guaranteed. They need security because, in truth, they lack internal freedom. They lack the freedom to play big.

They lack the freedom to play.

They lack the freedom to fail.

They lack the imagination to wonder what is possible.

They are emotionally inflexible.

They are living from their past.

The Mindset Involved In Getting Precisely What You Want

With that beautiful backdrop of psychological explanation, I offer you a mindset for getting exactly what you want.

Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach — which is the #1 entrepreneurial coaching program in the world — has a saying: “Your eyes can only see and ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.”

Dan’s observation happens to be rooted in neuroscience. A concept known as “selective attention” shows us that we can literally train our brains to focus on certain things.

You can train your brain to focus on the positive in life.

You can train your brain to focus on the negative.

Hence, Dr. Stephen Covey said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.”

No one has an objective perspective of the world. We all have subjective perspectives. Each and every one of us has a different brain that has been TRAINED to focus on certain things in the world.

What you focus on EXPANDS and becomes real for you. You are, quite literally, attracting into your world everything you are focusing on.

Most people have NOT trained their brain to focus on WHAT THEY WANT. Instead, their brain is focusing on what culture, society, and their own history have led them to focus on.

If you’ve had hard experiences in your past — which we all have — this may have led you to focus on how things will go wrong. Such “trauma” — no matter how big or small — has you stuck living a shell of existence.

So how do you train your brain to get what you want? You imagine your absolute ideal.

What is it you want?

Where do you want to be?

Who do you want to be?

Can you see it?

Can you see that place you want to be?

Can you imagine it?

If you can imagine where you want to be, then what you MUST do is trigger that imaginative state DAILY. You must trigger it OVER AND OVER. You must trigger it every morning.

You must trigger it and connect it emotionally to your identity, your worldview, and everything about you.

If you don’t trigger your imagination every day, then you lack imagination, and if you lack imagination, then you are living in the past and have a fixed mindset.

But if you’re willing to play by a different set of rules than others and even by your own past, then you can play by the rules of your future — the rules of imagination.

If you play by the rules of your future, then you can operate RIGHT NOW — and every single day — from the notion that WHAT YOU WANT will happen.

As an example, when I started blogging 3.5 years ago, I started writing NOT AS A BEGINNER. Instead, I started writing from my imagined END.

Stephen Covey explains that we must BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND. That’s imagination at work. But we need to do more than simply “begin” with the end in mind. We need to operate from the end in mind in ALL that we do.

If you CREATE and live from the perspective of your ideal end, then you can START as a pro!

How so?

Because your imagination and growth-mindset will give you the willingness to learn and fail over and over. You won’t see learning as a failure, but as EXPERIENCE.

But you won’t just be failing in the way most people fail in the beginning. Because you’ll see where you want to go AND KNOW that you can get there. So your failure will look quite good to most observers — even if you’re falling flat on your face from your own perspective and emotional experience.

There is a big difference between “failure” and “learning,” and it has everything to do with your future and your past.

If you don’t evolve beyond your past, then your “failures” will remain a failure and so will you. But if you’re willing to embrace a bigger future, then any failure in your past will immediately transform to “learning” and “experience.”

Thomas Edison failed over 1,000 times inventing the light-bulb. But none of us consider those “failures.” We consider each one a step forward.

However, we only see his “learning” as experience because he ultimately succeeded. Hindsight bias is real. Edison would not be denied. He continued operating from the notion of his ultimate ideal.

He made his future bigger than his past.

Anyone who has done ANYTHING powerful in their lives or in the world at large operates out of imagination.

They operate FROM their future. They know that what they want CAN be theirs — and this internal security and freedom gives them the peace of mind to relentlessly pursue bigger and bigger obstacles and risks to achieve their dreams.

When you have HUGE DREAMS you’re pursuing, you will fail a great deal. When you fail a great deal, you learn very quickly.

If you’re not embarrassed by who you were last year, you didn’t learn much.

But most people aren’t embarrassed by who they were last year.

Why?

Because they aren’t pursuing big dreams.

Instead, they are living highly predictable lives that reflect their past, not their future.

When you are actively and aggressively pursuing BIG DREAMS, you will learn a HUGE AMOUNT.

You’ll ride high-highs and low-lows. And you’ll be fine with the emotional journey because you know that as you embrace difficult emotions, you are literally rewiring your brain circuitry.

When you rewire your brain circuitry, you change yourself. You change your memories. You change your identity.

Conclusion

So…

How much imagination has brought you to where you currently are?

Do you have a fixed or growth mindset?

Do you have a big future full of dreams you are pursuing?

Do you see where you want to go?

Are you ACTING from the victory of your highest ideals?

If you ACT AS IF what you want will be yours — no matter how big — that action will be bold and powerful.

You’ll quickly succeed.

I’ve watched it in my life. I’ve seen it in my mentors.

You can act now FROM your wildest dreams being completed.

But will you?

Will you TRIGGER your deepest imagination on a daily basis so that your brain literally rewires to become that new and imagined self?

Will you act powerfully toward your dreams every day, and thus shatter your subconscious blocks?

Will you live from your future? Or, will you repeat your past like most people?

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!

How To Get Precisely What You Want was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why You Should be Planning for 2020, Not 2019.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Before writing the first chapter of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling planned for seven years at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is one of the most read books of all-time.

Before creating the first Stars Wars movie in the 1970s, George Lucas planned for at least six films and started at episode four, rather than episode one. Almost 40 years later, the entire world continues to be excited with the release of a new Star Wars film. This would not be possible if Lucas hadn’t thoughtfully and largely planned ahead.

The principle is simple: Don’t just plant a tree, plant an orchard.

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

How different might Harry Potter have been if Rowling started the book without any intentions or plans beyond the first book? It may have just been a book about a boy who went to school and killed a bad guy. Perhaps, at the conclusion of that story, Rowling might or might not have decided to write a sequel.

Yet, by “beginning with the end in mind,” Rowling was able to direct and position the first book much differently. The first book, although amazing in itself, was a means to an end, clearly leading the reader to the next book.

Not only that but by having a long-term objective, Rowling was able to create a much bigger story. She was able to foreshadow to things the reader wouldn’t learn about for sometimes several years!

But she planted those seeds early and thoughtfully, and as a result, each book was a continuation of the next, rather than several disconnected and random stories.

Similarly, consider how different Star Wars would have been had Lucas created one film, without planning what would come next, or before! Vader may have just been “the bad guy,” not Luke’s father.

Very Few People Live like This

You are the writer of your own narrative. Yet, how often do you plan each year based on what you intend to do during the next year or the one after that?

What if, like Rowling, you were living this year based on what you intend to do in 1, 3, and 5 years from now?

It’s all in the setup.

Goals are means, not ends.

Everything you do is positioning. Are you positioning yourself to do AMAZING things in 1, 3, or 5 years from now?

I can already hear your mental wheels spinning.

But you can’t plan for the future! The real world isn’t Hogwarts!

Obviously, the world is changing fast. You can’t plan for everything. Hence, Tony Robbins has said, “Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

And that’s the difference. Most people don’t make committed decisions, which is why only 8% of people go on to accomplish their New Years Resolutions.

In an interview between John Assaraf and Lewis Howes, Assaraf shared what his first mentor taught him about goal setting.

After setting his goals in several areas of his life (e.g., health, spirituality, finances, relationships, service, etc.), and for 1, 3, 5, and 25 years out, Assaraf’s mentor asked him, “Are you interested in achieving these goals, or are you committed?” to which Assaraf responded, “What’s the difference?”

His mentor responded:

“If you’re interested, you come up with stories, excuses, reasons, and circumstances about why you can’t or why you won’t. If you’re committed, those go out the window. You just do whatever it takes.”

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

Clearly, Assaraf’s life probably isn’t exactly how he planned it to be when he set those goals in 1982 at the age of 19. However, I’m confident those goals propelled him to where he is today.

He was playing and planning a much bigger game than most people and writing a much different story.

The Science Doesn’t Lie

If psychological science has found anything in the past 30 years, it’s that people with high self-efficacy and an internal locus of control radically outperform others.

Self-efficacy = your belief in your own ability to achieve your goals. Think “confidence.”

Internal locus of control = a belief that you, not external circumstances, determine the outcomes of your life.

External locus of control = a belief that factors outside of you determine the outcomes of your life.

The majority of the population have low self-efficacy and an external locus of control. According to several research studies, people with these two traits:

Don’t set challenging goalsDon’t take on leadership rolesExperience learned helplessnessHave a higher chance of depression and anxietyLack motivationHave a pessimistic view of the futureHave low job satisfaction and low job performanceHave low life satisfactionHave low engagement in both work and lifeHave greater health problemsExperience more stress

The list goes on. You get the point.

Reverse everything on that list for people with high self-efficacy and an internal locus of control.

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/Living a Consciously Designed Life

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln

Pulling it all together, here’s how it works:

You must believe YOU ARE IN CONTROL of what happens to you (i.e., internal locus of control)You must believe in YOUR OWN ABILITY to make things happen (i.e., self-efficacy/confidence)You must believe you, and only you, are RESPONSIBLE for the choices you makeYou must have HOPE that what you seek will come about.

According to psychology’s Hope Theory, hope reflects your perceptions regarding your capacity to:

clearly conceptualize goalsdevelop the specific strategies to reach those goals (i.e., pathways thinking)initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (i.e., agency thinking).

From a spiritual perspective, hope is far more than wishful thinking. It’s a sense of confidence, even assurance, that what you seek is a foregone conclusion — what Tony Robbins calls, “Resolve.”

“Resolve means it’s done,” said Robbins. “It’s done inside your heart, therefore it’s done in the real world.” Hence, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

Few people make committed decisions. Instead, they state preferences such as, “I’d like to be healthier and happier.”

To quote Assaraf’s mentor, “Are you interested or committed?

5. You are MOTIVATED, even when life is difficult.

According to one of the core theories of motivation, motivation involves three components:

the value you place on your goalyour belief that specific behaviors will actually facilitate the outcomes you desireyour belief in your own ability to successfully execute the behaviors requisite to achieving your goals

If you don’t truly value the goal, you won’t be motivated. If you don’t believe you have an effective means of achieving your goal, you won’t be motivated. If you don’t expect yourself to do what it takes, you won’t be motivated.

This theory is known as “Expectancy Theory,” and it highlights that what you expect to happen often does. Hence the term, “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Interestingly, there is a related concept known as “The Pygmalion Effect,” which shows that what other people expect of you in large measure determines how well you do.

The principles are simple: Expect amazing things to happen and they generally will. Surround yourself with people who have high expectations for you and you’ll generally live up to those expectations.

Be → Do → Have

You have to ‘Be’ the right kind of person first, then you must ‘Do’ the right thingsbefore you can expect to ‘Have.’” — Zig Ziglar

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

Living a consciously designed life is completely possible.

Perhaps the most fundamental decision any person can ever make is this one:

You can choose to believe that the people who succeed, like Michael Jordan, for example, were born to become what they didOr, you can choose to believe that at some point, they chose to become what they did

That is the most fundamental decision you can make about life as a human being. It is what some would call a “watershed issue” — whichever side of the equation you pick will put you down a course that will influence all of your other decisions, mindsets, and beliefs.

Do you believe you can choose what you become?

Or do you believe your course is set for you at birth?

Do you “discover” yourself or do you “create” yourself?

Whichever perspective you choose, your brain will go about finding any and all information it can to support that bias. As Dan Sullivan has said, “Your eyes can only see and your ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.”Psychologists call this “selective attention.”

What you focus on expands.

You see what you believe is real — and then it becomes real for you in a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Dr. Stephen Covey said, “You see the world, not as it is, but as you’ve been conditioned to see it.”

Making this shift starts by recognizing that for quite a while, you’ve been going through the motions. Your thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and even desires are the product of your environment.

Thanks to a global world that makes information abundant, it isn’t hard to become exposed to other ways of life. However, you must realize quickly that most of the information online is complete trash. Which is why Basecamp Founder, Jason Fried, has said, “I’m pretty oblivious to a lot of things intentionally. I don’t want to be influenced that much.”

Once you begin upgrading your mindset and environment, and once your priorities and goals are clear — then you don’t want to be swayed or distracted by most of the low-level information out there.

A key strategy for making any jump is to, “Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled,” meaning, you assume the posture, attitude, and emotions of the people operating at the higher level.

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

You affirm to yourself who you are and then operate from that affirmation. This may sound like “acting as if,” and it actually is.

But it’s important to realize that we are always “acting” in a role. All of life is acting. In every situation, you are assuming a character. You’re playing a role based on the other people around you. In some situations, your role may be an employee, while in others it may be a parent, or child, or friend.

In all cases, you are acting a part.

You can change your role.

You can change the stage.

You can choose to be different. But it must start in your state of being. Rather than operating subconsciously as the majority of people do, you must make a conscious decision about who you intend to be and where you intend to go. You must then BEHAVE from that decision. When you act from that decision, then you create the outcomes you are seeking. You will become the person you intend to be, rather than the person your circumstances led you to be.

Conclusion: Humility and Awe

“My dreams are my dress rehearsals for my future.” — David Copperfield

Does everything in life go exactly how you plan it? Of course not.

Here’s the principle: Expect great things to happen, be happy even when they don’t.

“Expect everything and attach to nothing!”  — Carrie Campbell

https://www.gapingvoid.com/culture-wall/

However, just because things don’t go exactly according to plan doesn’t mean you aren’t in control. It is your decisions, not your conditions, which determine your destiny.

When you take up the responsibility to live your life according to design rather than the default, you will constantly be humbled and in awe. You’ll be blown away as you watch life unfold as you saw it in your head — as your physical world conforms itself to your thoughts.

You absolutely can live your life how Rowling wrote Harry Potter and how Lucas wrote Star Wars.

You can dream and live BIG.

You can live by design.

Your world can continue to expand.

But you must think further ahead. 2019 shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. It’s an obvious continuation of 2018.

So what will your life be like in 2020?

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!

Why You Should be Planning for 2020, Not 2019. was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Want To Become A Multi-Millionaire? Do These 20 Things Immediately.

Elon 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 determine:

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

Do you have unnecessary debt?

Do you know how many dollars you spend each month?

Do you know how many dollars you make each month?

Are you making as much money as you’d like to be?

What’s holding you back from creating more value in other people’s lives?

Most people don’t track their expenses. But if they did, they’d be shocked how much money they waste on stuff like eating out.

I wasn’t able to become financially successful until I made finances a priority in my life. If something isn’t happening in your life, it’s because you haven’t made it a priority.

So how do you make finances a priority?

You set extremely clear and high financial goalsYou have powerful reasons (“WHY”) for achieving those goalsYou begin studying how to become financially successful (reading books, getting mentors, learning from other people’s mistakes)You learn how to sell something (as Joe Polish says, being “good” and “getting paid” are not correlated) — you need to learn how to sell and market or you’ll always be a starving artist or working for someone elseYou need to start investing money in 1) yourself and your own personal/professional development, 2) your future via retirement or some other investment tools, and 3) your key relationships — if you’re not investing in your relationships, then they probably aren’t getting better

If you can start to get yourself organized, you can begin making lots of money. You can make many thousands of dollars passively on a monthly basis.

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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Learn In Public (Even when you’re scared)

“I’m not talking about rehearsal. I’m talking about doing what musicians and boxers and lion tamers all do in order to get ready for their work. To become awesome at their crafts. They practice in public.”— Jeff Goins

“Obviously, there is a huge difference between abstract, theoretical knowledge and knowledge developed and tested in the crucible of experience”— Lorin K. Hansen

If you want to learn something fast, learn in public.

Learn through raw experience.

Learn through failure.

But put yourself in a position where you’re getting actual coaching. Surround yourself with a support system of people who love HELPING YOU and INVESTING in you.

You do this by both being a giver, and also, by being a good receiver.

When people help and teach you, be an incredible student.

When you take what people teach and get incredible results, people want to help you more. Your results become a reflection of THEM.

It takes courage to learn in public.

It takes courage to practice in public.

Most people won’t do it.

But if you do, your courage will be rewarded 10X. Because you’ll both learn 10X faster, and you’ll also garner huge respect.

7. Decide What Kind Of Life You Want, Then Figure Out How To Get It (When the ‘why’ is clear, you’ll figure out ‘how’)

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”— Oscar Wilde

Very few people live within their means.

Most people, particularly in Western Culture, have bought heavily into consumerism. They live paycheck-to-paycheck.

For most people, the notion of “living within your means” is the best advice that could be given.

And indeed, living within your means should be the foundation of a healthy financial life.

But that’s where most financial advice stops.

Rather than basing your lifestyle on what you’re currently making, a far more powerful and creation-based approach is to proactively decide what you want, and then figure out how to get it.

When you’re a giver, it’s not about HAVING more solely for the sake of it. Although having more is certainly not a sin.

The problem is becoming absorbed in stuff, trying to keep up, etc.

In an interview at the annual Genius Network Event in 2013, Tim Ferriss was asked, “With all of your various roles, do you ever get stressed out? Do you ever feel like you’ve taken on too much?”

Ferriss responded:

“Of course I get stressed out. If anyone says they don’t get stressed out they’re lying. But one thing that mitigates that is taking time each morning to declare and focus on the fact that ‘I have enough.’ I have enough. I don’t need to worry about responding to every email each day. If they get mad that’s their problem.”

Ferriss was later asked during the same interview:

“After having read The 4-Hour Workweek, I got the impression that Tim Ferriss doesn’t care about money. You talked about how you travel the world without spending any money. Talk about the balance and ability to let go of caring about making money.”

Ferriss responded:

“It’s totally okay to have lots of nice things. If it is addiction to wealth, like inFight Club, “The things you own end up owning you,” and it becomes a surrogate for things like long-term health and happiness — connection — then it becomes a disease state. But if you can have nice things, and not fear having them taken away, then it’s a good thing. Because money is a really valuable tool.”

Money is a tool. The more you make, the more good you can do.

Rather than fitting your dreams into your current lifestyle, fit your lifestyle around your dreams.

Decide what you want. Create a bold vision for your life. Decide how you want to contribute, how you want to live. THEN, figure out the means of making that happen.

When your WHY is clear and powerful, you’ll figure out the means to make it happen. That’s how faith as a principle of power works.

8. 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 then “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 cell phone, 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 cell phone 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

Courage is always required to get from where you currently are to where you want to be. As Mastin Kipp has said, “Unless you’re in mortal danger, fear is a compass showing you where to go.”

11. Be a GIVER, Not A Matcher Or A Taker (“Life gives to the givers and takes from the takers .” — Joe Polish)

“Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.”— Adam Grant

Many people are TAKERS, especially those who desperately want success.

They engage in relationships solely for what they can get out of those relationships. Put bluntly, these people are TRANSACTIONAL.

Everything in their life is a transaction or an exchange.

Takers operate out of SCARCITY.

They don’t TRULY give. Their giving only goes to a certain point. Moreover, they are only grateful when they get what they want. They undervalue what others give.

If the relationship isn’t giving them what they want, there is no appreciation. The relationship ends.

12. Serve & Give As Much As You Can (Not to boast or put others down, but to have a clear conscious)

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”— Winston S. Churchill

“Give, but give until it hurts.”— Mother Teresa

There are two reasons to be a giver (all other reasons stem from these):

Because you genuinely want to help other peopleTo have a clear conscious

You don’t give to boast.

You don’t give to put others in debt to you.

You don’t give to get ahead.

You don’t give to make others feel inferior.

You give because you MUST. You can’t not give. You give of yourself, and organize your life to give so you can have a clear conscious about how you’re living your life.

You give because you understand the law of abundance.

You give because you believe in humanity.

When you have a clear conscious, you operate better in all areas of life. You sleep better and deeper. You’re more present in all situations. You digest food better. You’re more present to the needs of others. You learn faster. You’re more guided and inspired in your course of life. You’re more discerning about decisions and relationships.

13. Give 10X The Value Of What You Say You Will (Blow people’s minds)

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”— Warren Buffett

“The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your reputation or your profits.”— Katharine Paine

How do you get to passive income?

How do you create a sustainable and incredible business?

You GIVE WAY MORE than people pay for. You focus on value, not price.

When you focus on value, you can actually charge very large sums of money, because you know people will get at least 10X the value of what they paid for.

When you’re a giver, you MUST give more value than people pay. You do it because you find joy in doing your very best work. You do it because you value the fact that people came to you.

It’s really not about price.

People care about value.

Take this quote by musician, Fergie, for example:

“For me, it’s not about price. It’s about necessity, quality, and usefulness. Like, I have my Wet N Wild 666 lip liner. It’s 99 cents and always has been. I started using it when I was in high school, and it’s great.”

If you can blow people’s mind’s for less than $50, it won’t be hard to get them to pay you more. You have to earn people’s trust.

You have to genuinely create stuff that HELPS them.

What if you didn’t make a penny until people got the results you promised them?

How would that change your work?

How would that change the quality you put in?

That should be your benchmark. And then you should help them EVEN more.

14. Give Away Most Of Your Work For Free

“With the price of life these days, you’ve got to get everything for free you can.”— Carl Rogers

We live in what some have called the “Thank You” Economy.

Here’s how the THANK YOU economy works:

People are getting more used to having everything at their fingertipsPeople are getting used to having their needs met quickly, and cheapInterestingly, people are also lowering their standards for the quality of services they are getting (and information they are consuming), because so much stuff is now available for free

If you want to build an enormous clientele, you also need to give away LOTS for free. But your free stuff should be so valuable that it makes people want to come back for more. And even after people have become paying customers, you should give them lots for free.

You build trust and community through SERVING PEOPLE.

Transformational relationships begin with giving, not a transaction. Do transformational relationships involve transactions? Absolutely! Usually far bigger ones than transactional relationships.

But those transactions are done for an entirely different purpose.

They’re done as a win-win. Not as a win-lose.

These transactions usually occur after one or both parties have been abundant benefactors. Why else would someone invest?

15. Make More Stuff (But only really good stuff)

Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly.

Skip meetings. Often. Skip them with impunity. Ship.

Trick the lizard if you must, but declare war on it regardless. Understand that the only thing between you and the success you seek in a chaotic world is a lizard that figures out that safe is risky and risky is safe. The paradox of our time is that the instincts that kept us safe in the day of the saber tooth tiger and General Motors are precisely the instincts that will turn us into road kill in a faster than fast internet-fueled era.

The resistance is waiting. Fight it. Ship.— Seth Godin

Your behavior is what alters your identity.

Most people raised in Western Culture have this idea exactly backward. We’ve obsessed ourselves so much with the mind that it’s become everything.

We think the mind is the cause of everything. It’s not.

Mountains of research in Social Psychology portray that self-perception is the product of choices and environments.

This is VERY good news.

It means you can change your identity by simply changing your behavior and environment.

If you want more creativity, you simply need to do more creative work. You battle the resistance and get to work. Then, creativity becomes non-stop.

If you want to be a morning person, start getting up early. Before you know it, you’ll identify as a morning person (both to yourself and other people).

Make more stuff and your creativity will increase.

Give more love and your ability to love and receive love will increase.

Be more successful and you’ll become more successful (lol!).

16. Only Engage In Transformational Relationships (Because all transactional ones will end soon anyway)

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”— Anaïs Nin

When two givers come together, transformation can occur — where the new WHOLE becomes infinitely more than the sum of its parts.

When a giver attempts to work with a taker, that relationship will only last until the taker has what they want. Or, until the giver realizes what is truly happening.

According to research from Wharton professor, Adam Grant, givers are both the least and most successful types of people. Some people give to a fault. They give everything they’ve got and, most importantly, they give to the WRONG TYPES OF PEOPLE.

When you give to takers, the pie gets smaller and eventually becomes exhausted.

When you give to givers, the pie continually gets bigger and bigger.

Thus, being a giver isn’t enough. You need to give to the right people if you want your success and relationships to last. Who you surround yourself with, and who you work with, really matters.

I’ve engaged in many business relationships over the past few years — some with givers and some with takers.

Takers are very hard to spot in the beginning, because they are very manipulative and cunning.

Strategic Coach founder, Dan Sullivan, says he can spot a taker within 10 minutes of being with them. Takers are motivated by greed, not growth. You have to be really intuitive to spot the subtle cues.

I’ve decided that, to the extent I can, I’m no longer going to engage in long-term relationships with takers. I’m done with transactional relationships. I prefer relationships that lead to growth and transformation.

In order for these types of relationships to exist, you must be willing to face brutal truths. Transformational relationships are messy. If you trust someone, you’ll be willing to engage in ideological conflict with that person. That conflict is NOT about the person, but rather, about moving past breakthrough and toward clarity.

Conflict is rough.

Most people quit relationships when conflict arises.

You’ll know someone is a giver when they genuinely help you without asking for anything in return. And they are truly, genuinely, happy for the success they help you have.

Those are the types of people you want to work with.

Givers also stay with you when you’re at a low point. They stick with you through conflicts and challenges.

17. Don’t Overvalue What You Contribute To Your Relationships While Undervaluing What Others Contribute (This is what basically everyone does)

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience, a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.”— Carl G. Jung

Think about your relationships.

In most of those relationships, do you OVERVALUE or UNDERVALUE what you contribute?

Moreover, do you OVERVALUE or UNDERVALUE what others in the relationship contribute?

Usually, people overvalue what they contribute and undervalue what others contribute.

If you’re a giver, you value and appreciate what others contribute. You’re genuinely grateful. You don’t take others for granted.

You don’t KEEP SCORE in your relationships.

18. 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 the 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 it’s 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.

19. Get Really Really Good At Marketing

According to Joe Polish, there is no correlation between being “good” and “getting paid.” There are lots of starving artists out there who will never learn marketing or business.

Similarly, there are lots of people out there who are employees who want to be entrepreneurs — but never will make the leap. The reason is that they don’t learn how to market what they’re doing.

Marketing is nothing more than applied psychology — it’s storytelling.

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.

20. 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.

Conclusion

Are you doing these 20 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 20 Things Immediately. was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

6 Things You Must Organize To Be Healthy, Wealthy, And Happy

Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash

Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping airplanes off-course 90 percent of flight time, most flights arrive in the correct destination at the intended time.

The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple — through air traffic control and the inertial guidance system, pilots are constantly course correcting. When immediately addressed, these course corrections are not hard to manage. When these course corrections don’t regularly happen, catastrophe can result.

For example, in 1979, a passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. However, the pilots were unaware that someone had altered the flight coordinates by a measly two degrees, putting them 28 miles east of where they assumed to be.

Approaching Antarctica, the pilots descended to give the passengers a view of the brilliant landscapes. Sadly, the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of the active volcano, Mount Erebus.

The snow on the volcano blended with the clouds above, deceiving the pilots into thinking they were flying above flat ground. When the instruments sounded a warning of the quickly rising ground, it was too late. The plane crashed into the volcano killing everyone on board.

An error of only a few degrees brought about an enormous tragedy.

Small things — if not corrected — become big things, always.

This flight is an analogy of our lives. Even seemingly inconsequential aspects of our lives can create ripples and waves of consequence — for better or worse.

How are you piloting your life?

What feedback are you receiving to correct your course?

How often do you check your guidance system? Do you even have a guidance system?

Where is your destination?

When are you going to get there?

Are you currently off-course? How long have you been off-course?

How would you know if you are on the right course?

How can you minimize the turbulence and other conditions distracting your path?

Organizing Your Life

I don’t think I’m alone in being slightly scattered and sloppy about certain areas of my life.

Life is busy.

It’s hard to keep everything organized and tidy. And maybe you don’t want to have an organized life. But moving forward will require far less energy if you remove the excess baggage and tension. Everything in your life is energy. If you’re carrying too much — physical or emotional — your progress will be hampered.

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey explains that some things are important, and some things are urgent. Most people spend their life prioritizing urgent and “shallow” activity (e.g., answering emails, putting out proverbial fires, and just day-to-day stuff).

Very few people have organized their lives to prioritize almost exclusively important and “deep” activity (e.g., learning, health, relationships, travel, and goals).

No one cares about your success more than you do. If you’re not a meticulous accountant about the important details of your life than you aren’t responsible enough to have what you say you want.

So how do you organize your life?

1. Organize Your Environment

Is your living space cluttered and messy or simple and neat?

Do you keep stuff (like clothes) you no longer use?

If you have a car, is it clean or just another place to keep your clutter and garbage?

Does your environment facilitate the emotions you consistently want to experience?

Does your environment drain or improve your energy?

Call to Action:Clean your physical environments (home, car, office).Purge everything that no longer brings you joy (clothes you don’t wear, people who bring you down, etc).Invest in art and other ways to beautify your environment.Focus on simplicity and energy.2. Organize Your Money (and become wealthy)

Do you have unnecessary debt?

Do you know how many dollars you spend each month?

Do you know how many dollars you make each month?

Are you making as much money as you’d like to be?

What’s holding you back from creating more value in other people’s lives?

Most people don’t track their expenses. But if they did, they’d be shocked how much money they waste on stuff like eating out.

I wasn’t able to become financially successful until I made finances a priority in my life. If something isn’t happening in your life, it’s because you haven’t made it a priority.

So how do you make finances a priority?

You set extremely clear and high financial goalsYou have powerful reasons (“WHY”) for achieving those goalsYou begin studying how to become financially successful (reading books, getting mentors, learning from other people’s mistakes)You learn how to sell something (as Joe Polish says, being “good” and “getting paid” are not correlated) — you need to learn how to sell and market or you’ll always be a starving artist or working for someone elseYou need to start investing money in 1) yourself and your own personal/professional development, 2) your future via retirement or some other investment tools, and 3) your key relationships — if you’re not investing in your relationships, then they probably aren’t getting better

If you can start to get yourself organized, you can begin making lots of money. You can make many thousands of dollars passively on a monthly basis.

Call to Action:Set large financial goals.Decide to become a millionaire (As Jim Rohn said, “Become a millionaire not for the million dollars, but for what it will make of you to achieve it”).Track your finances.Decide what you’re willing to spend money on and what you’re not.Invest big in your future (at least 10% of your income).Invest big into your self-improvement, relationships, and business (at least 10% of your income).Begin donating to causes or organizations you believe in (at least 10% of your income).Develop a strong relationship with an accountant and get your taxes organized.Get a financial advisor or something similar where you begin investing in your future.3. Organize And Invest Big In Your Relationships

Are your relationships the most meaningful and enjoyable part of your life?

Do you spend enough time nurturing the relationships that really matter?

Do you maintain toxic relationships that no longer serve you?

Are you authentic and honest in your relationships?

Like money, most people’s relationships are not organized in a conscious manner. But with something so critical, we should take better stock of our relationships.

When it comes to our romantic partner, we should be incredibly thoughtful about this relationship. Yet, as with most relationships, the moment the “honeymoon phase” is over, then we get lazy. We take the relationship for granted. We stop investing in it.

We stop imagining how incredible it could be.

We get sloppy.

We stop creating magical moments and memories.

We stop playing by our own rules and we start slowly becoming average.

Don’t do this with your relationships.

An amazing quote from Thomas Monson is, “Choose your love, then love your choice.” Find the person that magnetically pulls you in. Do everything you can to serve and create a deeply beautiful relationship and vision with that person. Then never stop investing in that person’s joy and never stop creating a bigger and more powerful vision.

Don’t get disorganized in your key relationships. Track them.

Know where they are. Know where they’re going. Know exactly how you’re improving and investing in those relationships this week. Have a vision that is driving your daily behavior, mindset, and service you’re giving.

If it’s not on your calendar, it’s not a priority. If you don’t have goals for it, you’re probably not thinking about it. If you’re not thinking about it, then it’s probably falling apart.

Call To Action:Make a list of the top 10 relationships in your life.Write down why these relationships are so important to you.Where are these relationships at right now?Are you taking 100% responsibility for the quality, collaboration, and future creation of this relationship?How have you invested in this relationship in the past 7–30 days?Set specific goals about how you are going to improve this relationship.Have a vision for this relationship and what could ideally come out of it.Go out of your way to do something incredibly thoughtful and creative for these people in the very near future.Never stop investing in these relationships.Always treat them like you did when you were first trying to establish them.

The last bullet above is of particular importance. I’ve been able to develop several amazing relationships in my life, including mind-blowing mentorships. I’ve been able to turn my mentors into friends and now even people who I spend lots of time with and create businesses with.

Last week, an opportunity came up to see one of those mentors. He had a full-day layover in Miami. I live 3.5 hours away in Orlando.

2 years ago, I would have driven across the country just to have lunch with this man. But now, at this point, our relationship is very established. Also, I just had twins less than three weeks ago, and our lives are hectic and busy. Not to mention the holidays and end of year busyness.

It would have been very easy for me to just say, “I’m going to be seeing him next month anyways” (which I am for a business meeting).

But instead, the idea came to me: I need to invest in the relationship. I need to treat it like I would 2 years ago when I only knew this person through their books and podcasts. Back when I was humbler and hungrier.

So I immediately jumped in my car and made the drive.

I made the decision and shot him a text message: I’m coming down man! Super excited to see you.

I then called my wife and told her I needed to have a beginner’s mind. And that I needed to nurture and serve this relationship. She totally got it and supported my decision.

It was a no-brainer.

But it’s crazy what happens when you begin investing in your relationships. It’s crazy when you make the relationship about THEM and their success. It’s crazy when you “transformational” and not “transactional.”

Beautiful and rare opportunities come up. Deep connections are created.

In both romance and business, invest in your relationships. Be a creator and not a consumer. Have a vision and goals. Be thoughtful and helpful. Invest. Be transformed.

4. Become Extremely Healthy And Fit (and have compelling reasons for doing so)

Do you eat with the end in mind?

Are you conscious of and in control of the foods you put in your body?

Does the food you eat improve or worsen the other areas of your life?

Does your body reflect your highest ideals?

Is your body as strong and fit as you want it to be?

Are you healthier now than you were three months ago?

Are you excitedly getting in better and better shape, not only for yourself but primarily to please your lover?

Does your health motivate and inspire those around you, or does it cause them to question how you’re handling the other fundamental areas of your life?

How you do anything is how you do everything. If your health isn’t a priority, then what the heck is?

If your health doesn’t translate to more creative and powerful work in your business, then your business is doing enormously less than it could be.

If your health doesn’t translate to more passionate, pleasure, and love in your romantic relationship, then your romantic relationship is probably not as inspiring as it could be.

Health is wealth. If you’re bedridden, who cares how organized the other areas of your life are? It’s so easy to put our health on the side, such as foregoing sleep, over consuming stimulants and making poor eating habits.

Little things become big things. And eventually, everything catches up. But when you get your health right, you’ll not only have greater confidence and clarity. You’ll also be more motivated and inspired in all areas of your life.

Making your health about yourself AND others is key. Becoming completely refined sugar-free was impossible for me until I had a compelling reason to do so — to get into the best shape I could as a way of deepening my relationship with my wife.

That WHY made all the difference. Now, avoiding stupid decisions is far easier. Every time I say no to something bad, I know my body and brain are improving — as is my clarity and motivation for the future.

Call To Action:Take an honest look at your health and don’t sugar-coat it.Think 20–30 years out — focusing on longevity will help you make better and more informed decisions in the here-and-now.Make a commitment about how you can improve your health over the next 3–12 months.Have a compelling reason (that goes beyond your own happiness) for getting into the best shape of your life.Every time you get triggered to self-sabotage, remind yourself of your purpose.Say “no” to crap food moving forward and proclaim your purpose.Change your health, change your life.Stop eating reactively based on the situations you are in.Stop eating filler foods right before bed.Go on more walks.Drink tons of water.Excitedly watch as your abs start showing up and getting more refined.Excitedly watch as your confidence levels surge.5. Connect Deeply With Your Spiritual Side And Develop A Clear Purpose For Your Life

Do you have a sense of purpose in life?

Have you come to terms with life and death in a way you resonate with?

How much power do you have in designing your future?

In reality, people are far more afraid of not having lived than they are by dying. Death isn’t scary for people who have a sense of peace and purpose in their lives. Death isn’t scary when you are living your daily life in alignment with what you feel your purpose and priorities are.

When you organize your spiritual life, you become clear on what your life is about. You become clear on what you stand for, and how you want to spend each day. You develop a conviction for what really matters to you, and what is a “distraction.”

Until you’ve developed a sense of spirituality and purpose, then you simply following the norms of your culture and society. Your checking boxes and trying to develop status and “success” in the world — but without a clear and deep reason as to why.

Mark Twain said, “The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education.”

The “second” half of life is when you stop trying to impress and please other people. It’s when you’ve begun asking bigger and deeper questions. It’s when you’ve committed fully to an inner journey of creation, discovery, and serving.

In the book, Finding Meaning In The Second Half Of Life, Dr. James Hollis states:

“If the agenda of the first half of life is social — meeting the demands and expectations our [social environment] asks of us, then the questions of the second half of life are spiritual — addressing the larger issue of meaning. The psychology of the first half of life is driven by the fantasy of acquisition — acquiring a standing in the world, whether it be through property, relationship, or social function. But then the second half of life asks of us and ultimately demands relinquishment — relinquishment of property, roles, status, provisional identities and then to embrace inwardly confirmed values.”

It truly is fascinating watching this play out in the highly successful. As Andrew Carnegie, considered one of the richest people in history, said, “I spent the first half of my life making money and the second half of my life giving it away to do the most good and the least harm.”

The sooner you can make the shift from the first to the second half of life — where you focus goes from getting to giving — the sooner you’ll find joy (and success) in your life.

Call To Action:Get out of your routine environment and out into nature.Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the big questions — Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going?Begin writing down what you believe your purpose in life to be.Begin meditating and praying more.Spend more of your time helping other people.6. Become A Master Of Your Time (as well as each 24 hour period)

How much of your time do you feel in complete control of?

Is your time being wasted on things you don’t intrinsically enjoy?

Are the activities you spend your time doing moving you toward your ideal future?

Are you spending most of your time furthering your own agenda or someone else’s?

What activities should you remove from your life?

How much time do you waste each day?

What would your ideal day look like?

What activities could you outsource or automate that take up your time?

Until you organize your time, it will disappear and move quickly. Before you know it, you’ll wonder where all the time went.

Once you organize your time, it will slow down. You’ll be able to live more presently. You’ll be able to experience time as you want to. You’ll control your time rather than the other way around.

In fact, you’ll actually become shocked by how much time you actually have. Yes, this life is short. But it’s also ridiculously long.

Let’s just say you live to be 80 years old. That is 29,200 days.

From age 20 to age 80 (60 years of being an “adult”), you have 21,900 days.

That’s a lot of days.

What would happen if you knew how to manage those days?

We all have 24 hours each day. If your days aren’t solid, your life won’t be solid. Once you master your days, success is inevitable.

How was your day, today?

Seriously.

Look back on all the things you did today. Did you act like the person you wish to become?

If you repeated today every day for the next year, realistically, where would you end up?

If you are to really accomplish your goals and dreams, how much differently would your regular day need to be than today was?

In order to achieve your dreams, what does a “normal” day look like?

One of the best ways to consciously design your ideal life is to start with your ideal day. What does that actually look like?

What activities must happen daily for you to live exactly how you want to be living? You may have several things in the way of your ideal day right now, but are you getting closer?

Your ideal day should be based on your own view of “the good life.” You are the only one who can define happiness and success for yourself.

My ideal day includes the following activities:

8 hours of deep and healthy sleep.Conscious eating, which includes healthy and simple foods. At least one meal each day is eaten with my wife and kids.30–60 minutes of exercise.15–30 minutes of prayer and meditation (no smartphone).1–3 hours of engaged learning (no smartphone).2–3 hours of non-distracted creating or collaborating.2–3 non-distracted hours playing with my kids (no smartphone).1 non-distracted hours one-on-one with my wife (no smartphone).

It doesn’t matter which order these activities occur. No two days are exactly the same. If I did all of these activities, I’d still have over four hours of “in-between” time to check email, eat meals, drive, spontaneous service, be distracted, talk on the phone to a friend, and all the other things that pop-up.

One thing I have learned, from both positive and negative effects, is that how I wake up in the morning determines, in large measure, the remainder of my day. If I wake up with a purpose, and generally before 6AM, the rest of my day go enormously better. If I wake up reactive, it’s very difficult to recover.

I’m honestly not sure why. I could point to several research studies about how confidence is the product of previous performance. For me, it’s holistic. Waking up, priming yourself for success, pushing your body with intense fitness, engaging in self-directed learning, then getting to work simply has a powerful way of getting the day going.

One thing is for certain. We are all in complete control of how we spend our time. If we don’t believe we are, we have an external locus of control (i.e.,victim-mentality) and will remain so until we claim personal responsibility. Until we can honestly look in the mirror and admit we are the cause of everything happening in our lives, we won’t have the power to change our lives.

What does your ideal day look like?

How often do you live your ideal day?

If you were to consistently live your ideal day, where would you be in one year from now? Where would you be in five years?

Call To Action:Take a few minutes to imagine what your ideal day would look like.Make a list of the activities that would be in your ideal day.Start tracking how you currently spend your days. Once you start tracking your time and become conscious, you’ll be stunned how internally-conflicted you are.

This is all easier said than done. But it’s completely possible to live intentionally and congruently. It’s completely possible to replace bad habits with good habits. And it’s completely possible to become the person you want to be.

Stop What You’re Doing and Get Organized

Getting organized and conscious of your present circumstances (e.g., your environment, finances, relationships, purpose, and time) puts you in a position to build toward the future you want.

The fastest way to move forward in life is not doing more. It starts with stopping the behaviors holding you back.

If you want to get in shape, you’ll make more progress by stopping your negative behaviors than starting good ones. So, before you start exercising, purge the junk food from your diet. Until you stop the damage, you’ll always be taking one step forward and one step backward.

Before you focus on making more money, reduce your spending. Detach yourself from needing more and become content with what you have. Until you do this, it doesn’t matter how much money you make. You’ll always spend what you have (or more).

This is a matter of stewardship. Rather than wanting more, more, more, it’s key to take proper care of what you currently have. Organize yourself. Dial it in. Your life is a garden. What good is planting if you don’t prepare the soil and remove the weeds?

Why do most people stay stuck? They never organize. They just keep adding more, or being more productive, or taking a different approach. So before you “hustle,” get organized.

Conclusion

It’s really easy to get off course in life. Like airplanes, we constantly need to make course corrections.

But we can ensure we get where we want in life by organizing ourselves, planning for our future, tracking our progress, heightening our mindset, and hustling.

Do this long enough and you’ll be shocked.

Go!

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!

6 Things You Must Organize To Be Healthy, Wealthy, And Happy was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 A.M.

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

“We would rather be ruined than changed

We would rather die in our dread

Than climb the cross of the moment

And let our illusions die.” — W. H. Auden

Most people’s lives are a reflection of their past, rather than their future.

For most people, today will look quite similar to tomorrow. 2019 will look similar to 2018.

https://www.gapingvoid.com/

Most people’s lives are highly predictable. And there’s a very good reason. Your brain is quite literally a “prediction machine” designed to keep you from situations and scenarios filled with uncertainty and possibility of failure.

According to several psychologists, the foundation of all fears is the “unknown.” We want our lives to be predictable. We don’t want to deal with the intense emotions involved in doing something new and different.

Trying something new and attempting to change your life will, without a doubt, cause anxiety. But according to the philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, “To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”

https://www.gapingvoid.com/

In order to move forward in your life, you’ll need to embrace difficulty and uncertainty — or what you might typically consider “anxiety” which Kierkegaard called the “dizziness” of freedom.

Embracing a bigger future is how you change. And according to Albert Einstein, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

The only way to change is to stop explaining your life by your past and to start explaining your life based on your future.

You get to design your life and your future. But in order to do so, you must stop living from your past.

Today can’t be the same as what happened yesterday.

https://www.gapingvoid.com/

The food you ate today, if you really want to get healthy, probably can’t be what you ate yesterday.

Stop repeating the past.

Rather than repeating the behavior of your past, you need to act today based on the life you want to have tomorrow.

If you want for tomorrow to start acting how you should today, then you really are just repeating yesterday. As Professor Harold Hill has said — “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”

Developing Confidence And Changing Your Life

You cannot have confidence in your life without positively moving forward toward a bigger and better future.

If you’re days, weeks, and years are a repeating of the past, then you’re not confident.

Living a comfortable and predictable life is actually a clear reflection of your lack of confidence.

You can only have confidence after you’ve begun living a better life — and then, that confidence allows you to think bigger about what is possible.

Confidence is the byproduct of prior success. This is one of the reasons it is completely essential that you begin your morning with a routine.

The purpose of a morning routine is to get yourself moving toward your grand and exciting future. If you don’t have an exciting future that you’re working toward, then you are literally stuck in the past. And when stuck in the past, you cannot change your life, but only repeat the patterns that got you here.

When you repeat the patterns that got you here, you’ll have a lot of empty yesterdays.

When you start the day in a higher and more powerful way, you’ll immediately begin turning your future a different direction from your past.

With this short morning routine, your life will quickly change.

It may seem like a long list. But in short, it’s really quite simple:

Wake upGet confidence and motivationGet inspired and connectedGet perspectiveGet movingAct courageouslyMove powerfully toward your dreamsPut the right food in your body

Let’s begin:

1. Get A Healthy 7+ Hours of Sleep

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders. Not only that, 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.

In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month — with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.

On the flip side, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked to:

Increased memoryLonger lifeDecreased inflammationIncreased creativityIncreased attention and focusDecreased fat and increased muscle mass with exerciseLower stressDecreased dependence on stimulants like caffeineDecreased risk of getting into accidentsDecreased risk of depressionAnd tons more… google it.https://www.gapingvoid.com/

The very act of waking up earlier will create an enormous sense of motivation in your life.

Like confidence, motivation is the byproduct of action. You can’t be motivated without taking positive steps forward toward a desired future.

As Harvard psychologist, Jerome Bruner said, “You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling than feeling yourself into action.”

Waking up early has the power of making you “psychologically bulletproof.”

If you wake up early and — rather than getting sucked into the distraction of your smartphone or the addiction to stimulants — you start vividly imagining your desired future and boldly acting toward that future.

Motivation is something you must create every day. You can only be motivated if you’re moving forward.

2. Prayer and Meditation to Facilitate Clarity and Abundance

“When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.” — Dr. Wayne Dyer

https://www.gapingvoid.com/

After waking from a healthy and restful sleep session, prayer and meditation are crucial for orienting yourself toward the positive. What you focus on expands.

Prayer and meditation facilitate intense gratitude for all that you have. Gratitude is having an abundance mindset. When you think abundantly, the world is your oyster. There is limitless opportunity and possibility for you.

People are magnets. When you’re grateful for what you have, you will attract more of the positive and good. Gratitude is contagious.

Gratitude may be the most important key to success. It has been called the mother of all virtues.

If you start every morning putting yourself in a space of gratitude and clarity, you will attract the best the world has to offer, and not get distracted.

3. Write In Your Journal For 5–15 Minuteshttps://www.gapingvoid.com/

When you write down your dreams in vivid detail, you begin to engage both your conscious and subconscious minds. Drawing out your dreams in the form of a mind-map is also very powerful for engaging both sides of your brain.

Writing down your dreams and deeply visualizing them will make them more emotional for you. Until your dreams become emotional, they won’t be powerful enough. You need to reconstruct your identity and memory by developing a new and emotionally-driven vision of your future.

As you write your dreams down every single day, write down the ways in which you will actually achieve those dreams.

As you write down your dreams and goals, the right people will start popping into your mind. A key part of your success will be learning how to position yourself such that you can connect and collaborate with the right WHO’s.

You’ll need to first develop lots of personal capability yourself in order to be someone worth connecting and collaborating with. You need to:

Make a firm and committed decision about what you want to become a master ofEmbrace fully the “process” of developmentOnly care about what certain people think and ignore everyone elseBecome so good you cannot be ignoredHelp the right people further their goalsInvest in the right mentorshipsMake it about your mentor’s goalsBe a giverNever lose track of your WHYNever become complacent about the success you experienceMake huge requestsAsk to collaborate with your heroes once you’ve established credibility and helped them in incredible ways

All of this stuff can and should happen in your journal long before it occurs in reality. You then act and continue acting in powerful ways and watch as your journal entries become more vivid and clear. Watch as your goals become realities quicker and quicker and quicker.

4. Hard Physical Activity

Despite endless evidence of the need for exercise, only one-third of American men and women between the ages of 25 to 64 years engage in regular physical activity according to the Center for Disease Control’s National Health Interview Survey.

If you want to be among the healthy, happy, and productive people in the world, get in the habit of regular exercise. Many people go immediately to the gym to get their body moving. I have lately found that doing yard work in the wee hours of the morning generates an intense inflow of inspiration and clarity.

Whatever your preference, get your body moving.

Exercise has been found to decrease your chance of depression, anxiety, and stress. It is also related to higher success in your career.

If you don’t care about your body, every other aspect of your life will suffer. Humans are holistic beings.

5. Act Courageously

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” — Tim Ferriss

https://www.gapingvoid.com/

But you don’t have to constantly be battling your fears. Actually, Darren Hardy has said that you can be a coward 99.9305556% of the time (to be exact). You only need to be courageous for 20 seconds at a time.

Twenty seconds of fear is all you need. If you courageously confront fear for 20 seconds every single day, before you know it, you’ll be in a different socio-economic and social situation.

Make that call.

Ask that question.

Pitch that idea.

Post that video.

Whatever it is you feel you want to do–do it. The anticipation of the event is far more painful than the event itself. So just do it and end the inner-conflict.

In most cases, your fears are unfounded. As Seth Godin has explained, our comfort zone and our safety zone are not the same things. It is completely safe to make an uncomfortable phone call. You are not going to die. Don’t equate the two. Recognize that most things outside your comfort zone are completely safe.

You can’t change your life without courage.

If you start every morning by doing something courageous, then your life will quickly change.

6. Listen to/Read Uplifting Content

Ordinary people seek entertainment. Extraordinary people seek education and learning. It is common for the world’s most successful people to read at least one book per week. They are constantly learning.

I can easily get through one audiobook per week by just listening during my commute to school and while walking on campus.

Taking even 15–30 minutes every morning to read uplifting and instructive information changes you. It puts you in the zone to perform at your highest.

Over a long enough period of time, you will have read hundreds of books. You’ll be knowledgeable on several topics. You’ll think and see the world differently. You’ll be able to make more connections between different topics.

7. Do At Least One Thing Towards Long-Term Goals

Willpower is like a muscle that depletes when it is exercised. Similarly, our ability to make high-quality decisions becomes fatigued over time. The more decisions you make, the lower quality they become — the weaker your willpower.

Consequently, you need to do the hard stuff first thing in the morning. The important stuff.

If you don’t, it simply will not get done. By the end of your day, you’ll be exhausted. You’ll be fried. There will be a million reasons to just start tomorrow. And you will start tomorrow — which is never.

So your mantra becomes: The worst comes first. Do that thing you’ve been needing to do. Then do it again tomorrow.

If you take just one step toward your big goals every day, you’ll realize those goals weren’t really far away.

8. Invest In Your Key Relationshipshttps://www.gapingvoid.com/

In addition to moving your own life forward, you’ll want to deepen the connections with those you love.

Your relationships are a very clear indicator of your quality of life and character.

Relationships should be viewed as an investment rather than a cost. When they are viewed as an investment, then you start putting more into them. You start seeing their potential for growth and development.

When you invest in key relationships — both personal and professional — your life starts to change. According to Joe Polish, “Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker.”

If during your mornings, you proactively do something kind, thoughtful, and useful to someone important in your life, you’ll feel far more joy. You’ll also likely make huge progress toward your goals, because the more successful you become, the more your success depends on your relationships.

Conclusionhttps://www.gapingvoid.com/

After you’ve done this, no matter what you have for the rest of your day, you’ll have done the important stuff first. You’ll have put yourself in a place to succeed. You’ll have inched toward your dreams.

Because you’ll have done all these things, you’ll show up better in life. You’ll be better at your job. You’ll be better in your relationships. You’ll be happier. You’ll be more confident. You’ll be more bold and daring. You’ll have more clarity and vision.

Your life will shortly change.

You can’t have mornings like this consistently without waking up to all that is incongruent in your life. Those things you despise will meet their demise. They’ll disappear and never return.

You’ll quickly find you’re doing the work you’re passionate about.

Your relationships will be passionate, meaningful, deep, and fun!

You will have freedom and abundance.

The world, and the universe will respond to you in beautiful ways.

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!

8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 A.M. was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This 12-Word Quote Entirely Explains How To Be Successful

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash“Hope looks forward. Faith knows it has already received and acts accordingly.” — Florence Shinnhttps://medium.com/media/6b6755bd93fe4231ef939abef706e0d7/href

Getting yourself into the right mindset is your #1 job.

You need to 1) know what you want and 2) know that what you want is already yours. Both parts are essential.

You have to know that what you want is not only attainable but inevitable. You have to really know.

Knowing and faith are the same thing. As one song says, “Faith is knowing the sun will rise.”

Decisions Create Obstacles

“Unless you’re in mortal danger, fear is a compass showing you where to go.”— Mastin Kipp

According to Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, when you set a goal — one in which you truly want and believe you can achieve — then immediately your mind will begin conjuring-up all of the obstacles to achieving the goal.

When thinking about what you want, if no obstacles arise in your mind, then you likely don’t want the thing or don’t actually believe it’s possible.

The obstacles directly point to what needs to be done or altered in order to have the goal. As Ryan Holiday puts it, The obstacle quite literally “is the way.”

One of the primary obstacles is truly making the decision that you will absolutely have whatever it is you seek.

Unless you’ve truly made the decision, then you will not act accordingly. And because you will not act accordingly, you will not have whatever it is you claim to want. I say claim because if you really wanted it, you’d make the decision to have it. Instead, you’re opting for something either lesser or easier. As Robert Brault has said, “We are kept from our goals, not by obstacles, but by a clearer path to a lesser goal.”

Operating From A Higher Plane

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” — Robert Schuller

When you operate with the knowledge that what you want is already yours, you act very differently.

You don’t worry about failure or success in the present moment. You quite naturally flow through the process because you know everything will work out. You don’t have anxiety about money, resources, timelines, or other external factors.

You know that everything will work.

You actually learn to love being in the place of not knowing how things will turn out.

You don’t know exactly how things will turn out, but you know they will turn out. That much is complete knowledge to you. And that knowledge translates into inspired and profound action on a daily basis.

Other people cannot replicate your process, because to them it simply is a “process” or “method” to be replicated.

But you’re not operating from some prescribed method. Instead, you’re operating out of decision and inner knowing.

This inner knowing — or freedom — allows you to attempt things that seem completely illogical. It allows you to know that success is inevitable. It allows you to create results and outcomes that are rare.

You no longer have to operate by the same time-tables as do other people. You no longer have to operate by the same “rules” as do other people. Everything you do, in fact, is an exception to the “rules.”

You don’t judge other people’s journey. Actually, the further you go into your decision, the more empathy and love you have for others.

You love when even small bits of progress are made. You support other people’s progress. People feel comfortable around you because you’re not obsessed with yourself.

You’re interested in something far bigger and deeper.

You have the humility to admit that you don’t have all the answers.

You’re, in many ways, watching as everything around you is unfolding. Yet, you know that you are the initiator of the forward movement happening.

You stop playing small.

You stop setting small goals.

You allow your imagination to run wild far more.

You see, on nearly a daily basis, your life changing all around you. Your outer circumstances are a highly accurate feedback loop of what is going on inside your head.

What do your circumstances say about your decisions?

Conclusion

“Hope looks forward. Faith knows it has already received and acts accordingly.” — Florence Shinn

Hope sustains you while you pursue something bigger in your life. Faith is the knowledge that what you want is already yours — and requires that you act in accordance with that knowledge.

Without powerful and aligned action, there is no knowledge. As Dr. Stephen Covey put it, “To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.”

If you aren’t acting according to your highest goals, then you still don’t know. If you still don’t know, then you aren’t going to have.

You need to know.

If you don’t know, you need to start acting more boldly. Knowing and doing are a continuous feedback loop that supports and strengthen each other. Almost always, the doing comes before the knowing. Eventually, the doing confirms the knowing.

Success is inevitable.

Other people’s opinions no longer matter.

You are free.

The choice is yours.

You are comfortable making powerful choices. You don’t need external “security” to assure you that you will succeed. You already know that if you decide, then you will succeed. And that’s all the assurance you need.

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This 12-Word Quote Entirely Explains How To Be Successful was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.