Benjamin P. Hardy's Blog, page 2

21 Things Ridiculously Successful People Do That You Should Do Too

Photo by Semina Psichogiopoulou on Unsplash1. Define success yourself

“All progress starts by telling the truth.” — Alcoholics Anonymous

Success is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from seeking a reward, praise, or validation. It withers when there is no external source to provide those things.

Intrinsic motivation is the only path to ridiculous success, because ridiculously successful people literally do things nobody has done before. They also do them without anyone telling them when, where, how, or why to do it.

They just act.

Success has to be defined completely by you. No one else can define success for you.

Success is an “inside” game. Intrinsic motivation means you’re doing what you most believe in, what you most value, what you most want to do.

It takes massive amounts of self-honesty, self-awareness, and commitment to decide what you really want.

You’ll be unstoppable when you do.

2. Ignore outside expectations

“We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” — Robert Brault

The pygmalion effect in psychology states that we rise and fall to the expectations of those around us. Why?

Because typically as people we let outside forces dictate who we are.

It’s true that we end up becoming the product of the five people we spend the most time with, but too often we don’t even choose those five people.

There are many outside forces, voices, and pressure in the world to succumb to the “well-beaten” path. There’s so much pressure to essentially become a chameleon of what everyone else is doing.

To be successful, you have to have the courage to hear your own voice. To maybe even hear the voice of God, and to start to follow that voice.

Do what you most want to do, and what you most believe in.

Do what you literally think is your life’s purpose. Start to define that purpose for yourself.

It takes courage to block out the noises and opinions of other people, even well-intending people, and carve your own path.

When you choose your five people, you’re doing what you most value, what you most believe in, and you’re doing it your way. Sometimes this means having to let go of certain, even close relationships.

You’re also acting despite the fear of failure. People with a fixed mindset are trapped by a fear of failure and a fear of other people’s opinions.

3. Stop needing and start wanting

In our newest book 10x is Easier than 2x, Dan Sullivan makes the distinction between wanting and needing.

If you’re operating out of need, then you’re doing what you think you need, what other people think you need, or what you think you “should” be doing.

When you’re operating from want, you don’t feel the need to justify your goals. Get to the point the point where you’re operating out of want.

What you most want, not what you think you “need,” will be the most deeply resonant with your soul.

4. Transcend freedoms

There are two types of freedom philosophically: freedom from and freedom to.

“Freedom from” is a liberation from external factors:

IgnorancePovertyTyranny

These freedoms can be bought for others with sacrifice.

“Freedom to” is something that no one can give you. You can be living in a great environment with great choices available, but you have to be the one to make that choice.

Freedom to go for what you most believe in.

Freedom to do what you most value.

Freedom to do what you most want.

No one can “to” somewhere for you. Freedom to is something you create yourself.

If you have “freedom to,” you can blow past pretty much any obstacle.

When the “why” is strong enough, you will find the “how,” and you will find the “who’s” to make it happen.

When you become committed, the universe will conspire to make it happen.

But you have to choose.

5. Believe in our own agency

Do you really believe in choice? Or do you believe in chance?

At the end of the day, if you want to be successful, you believe in choice.

You believe that you have choices, that those choices matter, and that they have an impact, not only on you, but other people.

You can choose your life.

In psychology, this is an internal locus of control. It’s the opposite of having an external locus of control, where you believe that outside forces determine who you are and what you have. Internal gives you freedom to choose. External makes you a victim.

Do you believe you can choose your life?

This belief is a necessary pre-requisite to any major accomplishment.

6. Plant “thinking trees” more often

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

If you go deep into the study of success, a lot of it comes down to your mind.

Your mind is a garden, and you’re always planting seeds. Whatever seeds you plant are going to grow into the fruit of your life.

To be successful, think about your own thinking. Design and improve upon your thinking and learning processes.

In psychology, this is called selective attention. What you focus on expands.

Albert Einstein said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” Learn how to think about the things that you want to create more of. Elevated thinking produces elevates results.

7. Create mentally before spiritually

“Mental creation precedes physical creation.” — Stephen R. Covey

Emotional development travels from seeing to feeling to knowing.

Seeing is imagination. Seeing is thinking about the life you want, and not limiting what’s possible. Then, develop the knowledge within yourself that you can create new thoughts.

When you realize you have this power, you’ll go to feeling and knowing.

If you want to build a house, start with the blueprint, and create that. Then, feel what it would be like to build it. Knowing comes when you’re so confident in the blueprint that the house is guaranteed to work.

If you want to write a book, create it in your mind first. After you create the outline, you start to see things in your mind and then you create them in living reality.

Thoughts do become things.

What you think about is what you’re going to become.

8. Courage is the catalyst

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are…or, as we are conditioned to see it.” — Stephen R. Covey

You don’t see the outside world, you only see your own reaction to it.

Dr. David Hawkins did an enormous amount of research in the realm of emotional intelligence. He created “the map of consciousness,” which shows where you are in your emotional development.

This map goes from 20 (shame), all the way up to 1,000 (enlightenment).

Anything below 200 on this map is a negative emotion, or what Dr. Hawkins would call a “force” emotion. When you’re operating from force, you’re trying to force things rather than knowing they’re already coming to you. You’re continually generating more negative results.

The transition between positive and negative energy, Hawkins argues, is courage. Courage is the starting point of all transformation. Courage is the difference between operating out of fear and avoidance of what you don’t want, to the proactive attainment of that which you do want.

From studying hundreds of thousands of people, Hawkins found that 80% of the population operate between fear and anger (120–150). He also found that typically, the average person only goes up by five points on this scale throughout their entire life.

That means most people, throughout their entire lives, are driven by anger, fear, or even lower things like shame and grief. They’re not spending a lot of time being courageous. They’re not going to the higher levels of acceptance, peace, love, and enlightenment.

How incredibly sad.

The reason for this is that most people don’t learn from their experiences. Most people are repeating the same experiences over and over. Lessons are repeated until they’re learned.

To get out of repeating the same mistakes, act courageously.

9. Heal faster

In psychology, the amount of time it takes to heal from a negative emotional reaction or state, is called a refractory period.

Sometimes, when we go through a hard experience, the refractory period extends for weeks, months, or even years to decades.

When we have a refractory period this long, we are caught up in the same story.

You can know if you are caught in a refractory period when something bad happens, and you continue to blame your present circumstances on that past thing, whatever it is.

Successful people shrink this period far more than most.

10. Become antifragile

“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” — Nassim Taleb, Antifragile

If you want to do any form of deep work, you have to become “antifragile.”

If you want to overcome obstacles, you have to become antifragile.

If you want to become successful, you have to become antifragile.

Antifragility is learning how to respond rather than react. This is also very similar to “psychological flexibility.”

Becoming psychologically flexible means that you can handle difficult emotions without being destroyed by them.

This applies across your entire life. Emotional development = spiritual development.

Instead, you’re like an elastic. You can be stretched, handle difficult emotions, handle difficult situations, move forward thoughtfully asnd powerfully.

You observe yourself rather than becoming reactive.

11. See time opposite from the norm

It’s not your past that determines your present. It’s always your present that determines the meaning of your past.

Our memories are not a retrieval mechanism, they’re a reconstruction. During the present, you shape and proactively determine the meaning of the past.

The more you take agency of your own life, the more you frame your past in a way that empowers you rather than disables you.

When going through something challenging, you’ll approach it, and proactively shape the meaning of it in such a way that you’re more grateful for it.

When you do this, you’re turning your past into an asset rather than a liability.

Your future determines the meaning of the present and your present determines the meaning of your past.

12. Change the words you tell yourself

“Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, it becomes your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” — Unknown

Language is huge. Language is the level after thoughts and emotions.

Mastering your language is learning how to speak success into existence.

You can get very powerful at using words.

Speak in such a way that your words create the success you want.

You can use your language to create positive emotions.

You can use your language to create great experiences.

Your words are powerful, so use them in a powerful way.

When you catch yourself speaking in a low, negative way, change it. It’s your words that are actually shaping largely your experience.

Your words shape your experience and your perception. Use words to create the life you want and use words to create the day you want.

13. Journal every single day

Journaling is written language and written words.

Journaling is actively writing your thoughts down on paper and expressing your emotions.

Journaling is crucial to mental development, emotional development, creativity, imagination and more.

Successful people journal.

14. Re-write your ‘default’ future

“Once we learn language, we can never again see the world without its influence.” — Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance

In the book The Three Laws of Performance, the authors make the case that our language is actually what shapes our view of our future.

They call it the “default future.”

If you really listen to the language of most people, you’ll learn something fascinating. Most people’s language is very complaining, and you can see in their thoughts, feelings, and what they’re focused on. You can see that their language is disabling them, rather than enabling them.

Your language is what shapes your life, your views, your story, your energy, and your emotions.

One of my favorite psychologists, BJ Fogg, wrote a great book called Tiny Habits. In the book, he shares a daily habit that he calls the Maui habit.

When he gets out of bed, every time he puts his feet on the floor, he says, “It’s going to be a great day.” He does this every single day. He’s combined these two habits of feet hitting the floor and saying, “It’s going to be a great day,” so that it’s automatic.

By doing so, he’s priming himself and prepping himself for his day to be framed in a positive way. Your language shapes your selective attention. When BJ hits the floor and says, “It’s going to be a great day,” his mind begins looking for evidence of that, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can use language to create a great day, positive success, positive environments, and to fix problems. You re-write your default future by using words to shape it.

15. Say “thank you,” “I love you,” and “I’m sorry” often

The most powerful words in life are “I’m sorry,” “I love you,” and “thank you.” Use these as much as possible.

We all make mistakes. Say you’re sorry. You don’t have to have pride or ego.

Say “I love you” and ultimately say “thank you.” Thank you goes a really long way.

16. Change your story

Your identity is the story that you’re living out as a person. This is one of the most fundamental truths about life, success, and psychology.

As people, we are all living out a story.

There’s a broad story we all have about the meaning of life as a whole, but there’s also a more specific story as to whether we and each of the people we know are heroes or villains. We have stories about other people, whether they’re in our life now or people from the past.

You have a story about reality and the very meaning of life itself.

I have a story. I believe in God. I believe we lived with God before we came here. We chose to come here. This life is essentially education, and we get to continue after this life.

You also live through the story of your identity. Your identity is how you frame yourself. It’s the story you have for yourself. It’s the narrative.

There’s an entire field of psychology on this called the theory of narrative identity. This fits with language, thoughts, emotions, and language. You have a story for your past, a story for your present, and a story for your future.

To evolve your identity, change the story. Change the frame and operate from your future self.

There’s a great quote on this that says that lessons are repeated until they’re learned.

There are no mistakes in life, only lessons, but lessons are repeated until they’re learned.

Most people would rather cling to their current view, story, and identity, rather than have that story shattered.

Changing your story means newness. Change. Openness to new ideas. Wisdom. Knowledge. Perspective.

Most people would rather hold onto the safety net, the security blanket, the comfort zone of their current story, their current ideas, and their current identity.

17. Raise your standards

Your standard is that which you say yes and no to, and the filter through which you live. You can know what your standards are by what you say yes to. We all have a standard, and that standard is your current life.

To change your life, change the standard. Your standard starts with commitment, fueled by courage. Courage comes after commitment.

It can be pretty intense to commit to a new standard, especially if it’s above anything you’ve ever done before. It means you’ve got to start saying no to things that are below your standard.

You’ve got to start saying no to things your past self said yes to, and start operating from your future self.

Let your future self be the standard.

18. Do the impossible, because nothing is

“You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.” — Deepak Chopra

Nothing is impossible. People who become successful have done it again and again.

In his book Unreasonable Success, Richard Koch details the lives of people who are not only successful, but unreasonably successful. These are people who have literally changed the course of the entire world.

Koch teaches that every one of these people had what he calls a “breakout success.”

This is something that opened up massive doors, something that was a seemingly impossible achievement.

You need your own breakthrough success. You need a breakthrough result in your life. You can’t just have it in your mind. Determine to achieve the impossible.

What seems impossible for you may be different than what seems impossible for someone else.

Growing up, I had a tough situation. I barely graduated from high school. For me, just getting to college, let alone graduating from a really good college and then getting into a Ph.D. program, would have been viewed as “impossible” if you had seen me in high school.

Accomplishing the impossible again and again comes from vision and faith. When your “why” is strong enough, you will find the “how.”

When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

19. Find deep meaning in worthy goals

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” — Viktor Frankl

In the book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl teaches that a worthwhile goal gives life meaning.

It gives your life hope.

It gives you purpose.

It gives you resilience.

It gives you a reason to move forward.

20. Become comfortable being an outlier

“We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.” — Mother Teresa

You must accomplish stuff that makes you an outlier.

You can’t just put it on paper. It can’t just be in your head. You actually have to start creating unreasonable success.

Create impossible achievements, whatever that means to you. Realize that you will be very different from most people because of this.

It’s going to be relative to you, but over time, you will become an outlier, and you can achieve the impossible again and again.

I can attest to that. I’ve done it many times.

21. Strive to hit huge goals every 90-days

Even as a psychologist, I don’t believe in SMART goals. Yes, I believe goals should be specific, measurable, and time-bound. But I don’t think that they should be reasonable or realistic.

I think that anyone who is wildly successful understands this, and they don’t go for what is reasonable. Instead, they want to test their outer boundaries.

Every 90 days, I pursue impossible goals. A 90-day time frame is such a powerful amount of time to transform your life. You can go for goals that you think are impossible.

One of the benefits of going for something you think is impossible is that you don’t know how to do it. If you don’t know how to do it, you’re no longer operating from your past assumptions.

You also simplify the pathway to get there. If you’re going for linear progress, there are a thousand pathways there. For example, there’s a thousand ways to grow your income by 10%. There’s maybe one or two ways to grow your income by 10X.

Going for impossible goals forces you to be a lot more honest. It forces you to use the future as the filter, rather than letting the present dictate the future.

Conclusion: Good is the enemy of great

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.” — Jim Collins

There will be a million reasons, internal and external, not to go for what you most deeply want.

You can be “good” at a thousand things, but to be GREAT, you have to fully commit to that which you most want.

When you commit to greatness, you commit to a constant cycle of this.

You choose to create impossible, unreasonable results. What’s more, you choose to do it again and again and again.

You can’t just do it once and stop. Oftentimes, people will succeed once, and then that success, as Greg McKeown has taught, becomes the catalyst for future failures. This is because they become overconfident and complacent. They stop using the future as a tool.

Success is about being constantly true to your future self, your beliefs, and the purpose inside your heart.

It’s about aligning your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge, and ultimately reaching a place of knowing.

This is something to continuously work on. You can do something significant, and important. It’s a beautiful thing.

Go be successful.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get access to the FREE “Future Self Toolbox,” which will enable you to rewire your mindset to achieve the unthinkable.

(These tools are based on my book Be Your Future Self now, which was recently the #1 book in Korea.)

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These 3 Questions Will Transform Your Productivity And Relationships

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash“KNOWING YOURSELF IS THE BEGINNING OF ALL WISDOM.” — Aristotle

Here’s a painful but liberating truth:

Whatever you see in the outside world is a reflection of you.

You can know who you are by what you’re seeing in the outside world.

The food in your pantry is a reflection of you.

The apps on your phone are a reflection of you.

The content in your newsfeed and on your social media is a reflection of you.

Becoming aware of these things, and then shifting them, will change your life.

Asking the hard questions of these things will enable you to make MASSIVE leaps and bounds in your life.

You’ll completely transform.

1. WHAT IS IN MY ENVIRONMENT?

“If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.” — Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

“You become what you think about most of the time” — Brian Tracy

What’s in your environment?

Everything in your environment is something that you’re “continuing” to let into your life.

If you have certain friends, it’s because you have allowed those friends into your life.

If you have movies or TV shows you watch, it’s because you have allowed those shows into your life.

Everything in your life is based on what you’re committed to. If you uncommitted to it, it would not be in your life.

If you want the power to change your results, choose to become aware of absolutely all of your current results.

What do you spend time thinking about?

What is your financial situation?

How much money do you earn?

How much money do you spend?

What bills do you pay?

Do you save and invest money?

What’s on your calendar?

What situations are you saying yes to?

What situations are you saying no to?

What friends do you have?

What hobbies do you have?

Recognize and take note of whatever you see. These things reflect you.

These things reflect what you’re interested in and what you want to see more of.

These things are all a catalyst for what you are bringing in more of.

If you’re seeing something over and over, it’s because you’re actively bringing it into your life.

To change the things you see, be aware of what they even are.

2. WHAT DO I WANT TO SEE?

“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” — William James, father of American psychology

When you understand your environment, you understand your filters.

When you understand your filters, you can adjust them to your desired future self.

What do you want more of?

Filter for that.

Whatever you focus on, you create more of. In psychology, this is known as “selective attention.” The twin opposite concept is called “intentional blindness.” This is the concept that there are many going on around you which you don’t even notice, because you’re not filtering for them.

You need both principles to become successful.

Your brain is a filtering tool. Your can train your brain to see situations, opportunities, people, and opportunities that you didn’t see before, and you can also train your brain to ignore things that don’t meet the standard of your future.

“Your eyes can only see and your ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.” — Dan Sullivan

These factors come into play when you set a seemingly impossible goal.

Dr. Alan Bernard, one of the world’s leading experts on constraint theory, has discovered the following:

There are two main benefits to setting impossible goalsThe first benefit is that you’ll be attracted to something exciting, intrinsically motivating, and something outside the scope of competition with anyone else.The second benefit is that if you don’t know how to do it, your brain will start filtering for the goal, and for ways to fill in that knowledge gap.

When you set impossible goals, the people, opportunities, information, and pathways will open up for you.

You’ll be able to become more aware that almost everything in your current life won’t get you to that impossible goal.

This is the 80/20 principle that Dan Sullivan and I taught in the book 10x is Easier Than 2x. When you go for a 10x-level goal, at least 80% of what you’re doing right now won’t get you to that goal.

As a real and practical example of this, in the book I share the example of my son Kaleb. He’s 15 years old, and he wants to play college tennis.

His coach recently asked him, “Kaleb, what’s your goal?”

Kaleb said, “My goal is to play college.”

His coach said, “Well, why isn’t your goal to play pro?”

Before that conversation, Kaleb honestly didn’t think that was a possibility, and so he had never even thought about it.

If you’re not thinking about it, you’re not filtering for it.

If you’re not filtering for it, you won’t find it.

If you’re not filtering for it, you won’t be able to find the needles in the haystack. You won’t be able to find the pathways, the people, and the process.

But if you do, everything changes.

Once Kaleb started to think about going pro, it suddenly became a real and tangible possibility.

This is why your future self is so important. It is the lens through which you bring things into your life. As that future and as that lens changes, so does your life.

When you set a seemingly impossible future self, your brain recognizes all of the current things in your life that simply aren’t in alignment with who that person is.

These are the 80% of things that got you here but won’t get you there.

Here’s a litmus test:

You can know you’re making progress when you stop seeing things that you used to see in your life.

When there are things in your newsfeed that you used to see, but now you don’t.When there are workouts you used to do, but now you don’t.When there are people who influenced you negatively, whom you no longer spend time with.

When you filter out things that are no longer congruent with your future self, they no longer become a part of your life.

Then, because they’re no longer a part of your life, you stop attracting them into your life.

Instead, you’re thinking about your future self. You’re seeing and creating things that are powerful evidences of your future self.

As you evaluate your life, you can see if you want to let something go, and learn a lesson in the process, or keep expanding something.

3. WHAT SHOULD I FILTER OUT?

“You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” — John C. Maxwell

Do you see smoke in your life?

If you see smoke in your life now, you will see fire in the future, unless you put out the smoke and remove it from your life.

This happens when you set much higher goals. All of a sudden, most of your life just became incongruent with your future. Because of this, you’ll have to become aware of the smoke.

See the red flags, and fix them NOW rather than kicking the can down the road until things get much, much worse.

The smoke is in your life for a reason. Become aware of that reason. Then, get rid of it, filter it out, let it go, or change it.

Look in your life for people, situations, and places where you seem to repeat the same cycles. This is typically an evidence that you’re kicking something down the road and accidentally repeating it rather than learning from it.

If you’re not learning a lesson, you’ll continue to repeat the experience until the lesson is learned. You’re going to create more and more problems but at higher doses in the future until you fully acknowledge the smoke, appreciate it, and say, “I’m the one creating this.”

For example, certain people play the victim over and over and over in their relationships or in their work.

They’re not actually the victim, but rather it’s a role they chose to put themselves into.

Where do you keep creating a similar pattern, and what is that trying to teach you?

Again, lessons are repeated until they’re learned.

In psychology, you either approach or avoid your challenges. If you’re willing to approach your challenges, you can let them go as soon as you learn from and are transformed by them.

Then, it’s no longer a part of your reality, and your future self dictates your reality.

There’s no need, by the way, to have anger or frustration when you’re letting things go.

Everything is a beautiful tool. Life is beautiful. Everything right now in your life is happening for you, not to you.

Write down all the ways you’ve transformed over the past year.

How are you different from who you were a week ago?

How about 90 days?

How are you different from who you were a year ago?

When you write down ways in which you’re no longer the same person you were before, you train the outside world to create more of that. You train your subconscious mind that change is acceptable, tolerable, and even desirable.

When things seem to be falling apart on the way to your bigger goal, (at times they will), ask yourself: “Why is this EXACTLY what I need right now to learn a crucial lesson? What is this doing for me?”

The faster you can do this, the faster you close what psychologists called the refractory period, or the amount of time it takes to emotionally recover from, reframe, and transform an experience.

You’ll start to have an anti-fragile mindset as you weed things out.

You’ll start to see obstacles and say, “This is exactly what I need. Obviously, it’s in my life. I’m aware of it because I need it. It’s exactly what I need. I’m going to use it. How can I use this to benefit me? How can I learn from this? How can I be grateful for this?”

And then, you’ll let it go.

Conclusion

You can filter out things that are no longer congruent with your future self.

You can change the creation of what you’re doing and who you’re becoming.

You can raise the bar.

You can change your character.

You can stop being aware of so many things that previously consumed your life.

You can look forward to the future.

You can see more and more of your future self.

You can see more and more peak experiences.

You can have more and more incredible opportunities.

It’s a beautiful process.

What do you see?

What do you want to see?

What should you no longer see?

Go write down the answers to these. It’ll change your life.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get access to the FREE “Future Self Toolbox,” which will enable you to rewire your mindset to achieve the unthinkable.

(These tools are based on my book Be Your Future Self now, which was recently the #1 book in Korea.)

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5 Practical Reasons You Should Set Impossible Goals

Elon Musk“You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.” — Michael Jordan

If your goals are too small, your life will be complicated.

You’ll be doing a hundred things at a mediocre level rather than doing a few things at a high level.

The only way to break this “busy-ness” cycle is to pursue goals so big and seemingly impossible that they force you to simplify things.

I pursue impossible goals every 90 days.

For me, impossible goals are a much better filter than possible goals.

In this article, I will share why.

You’ll learn how having “impossible” goals makes your life:

SimplerHappierEasier

You’ll also learn how to truly accomplish the impossible.

You’ll amaze yourself.

1. Impossible Goals Reveal Hidden Treasures

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” — Unknown

You get what you’re looking for. We are all filtering for certain things.

Imagine a street filled with many types of coins. Are you so busy looking for bronze coins that you can’t see the gold coins?

Oftentimes, we miss the gold coins in front of us because we are looking for the bronze.

If you’re not achieving the impossible, it’s likely because you’re not even thinking about it. If you write off your dreams, visions, or ideals, because they’re too “unrealistic,” you won’t be filtering for the ways to get there.

Most people are filtering for what psychologists call the “default future.” This is the future that is most expected if you continue travelling in the same linear path of your current life.

Is that the future you want?

What future do you want?

What are you filtering for?

Here’s a powerful litmus test: you can know what you’re filtering for simply looking at what’s in your life right now.

To shift what you filter for, shift your commitments.

Committing to massive, seemingly impossible goals will trigger your mind to change your filter.

You’ll start looking for evidence that you can achieve your goals.

You’ll start finding solutions that you didn’t see before.

You’ll start finding the relationships you need to accomplish the impossible. You’ll start finding gold coins.

The teacher appears when the student is ready because the teacher has become observable.

The interesting thing is, the opportunities and the people were there the entire time. You were simply filtering to see different things beforehand. You weren’t committed to the impossible, yet.

Commitment to an impossible goal will completely change your life.

“Commitment is a statement of what is…you can know your commitments by your results, not by what you say your commitments are.” — Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp

“Without commitment, nothing happens.” — Les Brown

“Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again.” — Michael Jordan

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.” — William Hutchinson Murray

2. Impossible Goals Filter Out Almost Everything

“10x is so big and seemingly impossible that it immediately forces you out of your current mindset and approach. You can’t work 10x harder or longer. Brute force and linear methods won’t get you to 10x.” — Excerpt from 10x is Easier than 2x

At the same time that you start filtering for the gold coins, you’ll have to weed out all of the bronze coins that were previously cluttering your focus and energy.

This is the core framework of chapter 1 of my third book with entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan, 10x is Easier than 2x:

If you’re going for 2x growth, you can keep 80% of what got you here.

You can keep 80% of your existing clients, relationships, habits, and beliefs.

You only need to change 20% of what you’re doing to go 2x, because you’re already well on your way to getting there.

10x, on the other hand, is massive. 10x is seemingly impossible.

Most of what you are doing right now won’t get you to 10x.

10x is such a big filter that 80% of your life needs to change to get you there.

80% of everything you are doing is a distraction to the 20%.

Most people take their present and life and use it to extrapolate a 2x future.

In reality, it is far more realistic and fun to take your desired 10x future and work backwards.

When you create a 10x future, the future becomes your filter for acting in and interpreting the present, rather than your present being the filter for your future.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

The bigger your goal, the more intense your filter becomes. 80% of who you think you are is your old self, not your new self.

Most people are scared to go for the impossible because that “80%” is our security blanket. Shedding that blanket opens us up to an entire world of new, and often scary, things.

As an example, when I left on a mission for my church, I had to stop many things that were holding me back.

I had to stop playing World of Warcraft for 15 hours a day.

I had to let go of friends who were negative influences in my life.

I even had to let go of my physical environment and move to a new location.

When you let go of the 80%, it can feel scary. It can feel like you have no support and no foundation. It can feel like you’re cutting loose all of the ties that helped you become successful and like you’ll plummet to the ground without the support of your 80%.

In reality, rather than eliminating the floor, cutting the 80% RAISES your floor.

You’ll ascend to new levels when you cut the 80%.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Your 20% of activities will quickly expand to fill all of your time.

The new standard for how you live, work, and play, will become totally different.

Your floor and your filter are the same thing: your minimum standard of what you find acceptable. When you commit fully to cutting the 80%, you’ll have higher standards.

Don’t be afraid to let go of the security blanket.

You’ve changed before.

In his TED Talk “The Psychology of Your Future Self”, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert said, “Who you are now is as present and fleeting as the present moment.”

You’re not who you were 10 years ago.

You’re not even who you were 10 months ago.

You don’t have to keep holding on to things just because they were useful to your past self.

You can embrace the future with an open mind. You can learn to approach everything with a growth mindset.

You actually seek out failure.

You seek learning.

You enjoy the process.

You love the experience.

You’re curious, not defensive.

You’re flexible, not fragile.

You let go of what got you “here” because you want to get “there.”

This is how you go 10x.

Even huge companies doing hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in revenue have to let go of their past identity.

They have to let go of a lot of what got them here.

Yes, letting go of the 80% can be difficult. Yes, it means letting go of a piece of who you were. However, you can know what you’re committed to by your results. And one of the most powerful things you can do for your life is let go of the things that no longer meet your standard.

When you raise the standard on who you are and on what you do, you no longer say yes to what you used to.

You start saying no to things you used to say yes to.

You raise your entire identity.

You start evolving your psychology.

You start to become your future self.

The 80%, you pass off to other people whose skillsets make those things their 20%.

Or, you simply eliminate them entirely.

3. Impossible Goals Provide Tremendous Clarity

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. — Viktor Frankl

As people, we really need a future. In other words, we really need hope.

Hope is a crucial aspect of psychology. When people have no hope, they literally wither.

There’s a lot of research on what hope means, but it really comes down to 3 things:

A compelling goalFlexibilityAgency

A compelling goal gives you reason and purpose. Purpose is essential to hope.

The second aspect of hope, flexibility, is also known as “pathways” thinking. This is where you are 100% committed to the goal, but flexible on different ways of getting there. Your “why” will continue to guide you through whatever path you ultimately take to reach your destination.

“When the why is strong enough, you will figure out the how.” — Attributed to Bill Walsh

Thomas Edison had pathways thinking. It’s obvious in his mindset and in his hope. He was psychologically flexible on the way to achieving the impossible. He had an extreme amount of hope in achieving his goals.

“I never once failed at making a light bulb. I just found out 99 ways not to make one.” — Thomas A. Edison

The third aspect of hope, or agency thinking, is the belief that you can choose your own goals. It is also the belief that you can and will find the way to achieve those goals.

When you have agency, you believe fully in your own capacity and capability to make decisions.

You know that you can achieve the impossible.

When you have an impossible goal, there are far less pathways of getting there, which paradoxically makes it far easier to find those pathways.

If there are a thousand potential pathways to achieving your goal, that’s very complex and confusing. This makes it hard to actually figure out where you want to go.

Impossible will weed out 80% of the pathways, processes, and people in your life that are holding you back. Because the goal is so high and the goal is the filter, the pathways become very clear.

There are only a select few ways to achieve seemingly impossible goals, and when you find, filter for, and optimize those ways, you start living your life based on quality.

Your relationships start to make a lot more sense.

The people required to help you achieve 10x or impossible goals will be very different from the people that can get you to 2x goals.

If you’re going for 2x goals, you’re probably going to hold on to the same friend groups, mentors, team if you’re an entrepreneur, and other connections.

When you start going for impossible goals, the filter becomes a lot more intense.

In his book The 80/20 Individual, Richard Koch explains there are always just a few people who are the force and factor behind almost all results.

I’ve recently been training a franchise company that’s doing hundreds of millions in revenue, looking to jump to over a billion as fast as possible. One of the lessons they’ve discovered is that to double your business, you really have to find those 20% individuals.

Once you start going for impossible goals, you’ll filter for and find those 20% individuals.

If you want to go 10x and for impossible goals, you have to find those few people that are the best in the world at what they do.

You’ll find people who you don’t have to train. In fact, they’ll train you. If you have to train them, they’re probably the wrong who.

When you raise the bar and go for the impossible, you’ll develop the confidence to start finding and partnering with people who can change your life.

That’s when it’s game over.

That’s when you’re no longer competing with anyone else.

That’s when you start creating dream teams.

4. Impossible Goals Create Abundance

“Going for 10x growth means you must eliminate 80 percent of your existing clients, roles, behaviors, and mindset. 10x requires a full-scale transformation of yourself as well as everyone and everything around you.” — Except from 10x is Easier than 2x

You can start achieving impossible goals once you start really clarifying it.

There are three levels of this.

First, you clarify it, which means you imagine it and you see it.

Level two is to feel it and get emotionally connected to it. This is where you have a why.

Level three is leveraging that why to find the “how.”

In this way, you travel through these phases:

Seeing → Feeling → Knowing

Once you get to a place of knowing, then you start operating fully as your future self.

5. Impossible Goals Simplify Your Life

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci

If you’re going for small goals, chances are your life is very complex. Chances are you’re doing a thousand different things and you’re not doing any of them well.

When you’re going for small goals, you’re caught in the thick of very thin things.

When you start going for impossible goals, you will start operating by faith.

When you start going for impossible goals, you will start filtering for and finding the few pathways and people that have the big upside.

When you start going for impossible goals, you will filter out the 80% of things that you’re holding onto out of psychological security.

This simplifies everything.

It simplifies your focus.

It simplifies your strategy.

It simplifies your attention.

Rather than doing a thousand things mediocre, you do one or two things at a very high level. You hire world-class experts who are really good at what they do to do what you don’t do.

Conclusion

“Try to do the things that you’re incapable of.

If you think you’re unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that you aim.

If you think you’re incapable of running a company, make that your aim.

If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there.

Make your vision of where you want to be a reality. Nothing is impossible.”

— Paul Arden

You can achieve the impossible.

I know you can do this.

I can tell you this because I do this on a regular basis.

Your future self could be massively different than you.

You could be 10x better, 10x wealthier, and 10x happier.

You could even reach the impossible in a short period of time because you’re finding and filtering for it.

You’ll happily let go of the things that are holding you back.

You’ll raise the floor.

You’ll go 10x.

Go for impossible.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get your FREE Future Self cheat-sheet and bonus resources immediately.

(These are tools built on the frameworks from my book Be Your Future Self Now, which was the #1 book in South Korea for 2 weeks)

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3 Books You Should Read This Year If You Want To Be Highly Successful

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

What is the greatest book you ever read?

What made it great?

What things did you learn?

What things did you apply?

How is your life now different because of that book?

There are thousands upon thousands of books. I myself have dozens of books that I am preparing to read and study all the time.

A few key books, however, can fundamentally transform and change your life.

You’re far better off reading 1 great book 10 times than 10 mediocre books 1 time.

There’s a massive difference between reading and studying.

There’s a big difference between skimming and absorbing.

There’s an exponential difference between the good and the great.

In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about the transforming power of keystone habits. These are habits that can be applied to see massive results and miracles in many areas of your life.

There are similarly “keystone books,” which can transform your life and perspective.

The books I’m sharing with you in this article are such books.

These are books I am inviting you to study 4–5 times in the upcoming year.

If you truly deeply integrate these books into your life and make them a part of who you are, you will be amazed. You will be stunned.

A few months from now, you’ll be humbled where your life is at if you truly take these 3 books and their accompanying lessons to heart.

Here’s the first one.

1. Think And Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill

“Riches come, if they come at all, in response to definite demands, based upon the application of definite principles, and not by chance or luck.” — Napoleon Hill

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve read this book already. You possibly read it a few years ago. It’s the quintessential book on self-help. I myself have read it 5–10 times.

But here’s something to consider. Here’s why this book has stood and will continue to stand the test of time for 80+ years.

Here’s why it has a different energy about it.

Here’s why I will continue to go back to it.

Think and Grow Rich is full of many powerful ideas that have been regurgitated in a number of different places throughout the years, but Think and Grow Rich is different because Napoleon Hill states them far more directly than anywhere else.

Here’s the core thesis of the book:

Imagine what you wantNobody can tell you what you want (you have to decide what you want and value yourself)It does not matter how seemingly impossible what you want isContinually feed hat thought of what you want with through prayer, meditation, visualization, journaling, routines, and relationshipsSee what you want fulfilled

Whatever you think about is what you ultimately create and become.

In the very beginning of the book, the story is told of Edwin Barnes, who wanted to be business partners with Thomas Edison.

Edwin had a seemingly impossible goal. At the time that he set it, he didn’t even work at Edison’s company.

He was willing to ride trains, work jobs, build relationships, and find connections in order to see his goal become a reality.

He became business partners with Thomas Edison. After some time working for Edison, he found an opportunity to sell a new product, the Ediphone, and Barnes and Edison became business partners.

As Napoleon Hill said in the book,

“How much actual cash that original desire of Barnes was worth to him, I have no way of knowing. Perhaps it brough him two or three million dollars. Whatever the amount, it becomes insignificant when compared to the greater asset he acquired, the definite knowledge that an intangible impulse of thought can be transmuted into its physical counterpart by the application of known principles.”

As an example from my own life, I remember distinctly in 2015 wanting to write books with the entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. At the time, I was studying entrepreneurial courage as part of my graduate work at Clemson University.

This was a seemingly impossible goal.

Our 3rd book came out earlier this year.

Once I set the goal, everything that I knew I needed to do to make it happen began to materialize and take place.

I knew what people I needed to surround myself with.

I knew what skills I needed to develop.

I knew who I needed to become.

This wasn’t actually that difficult. When you’re fully committed to your future self, the process will unfold and flow before you as you discover and create the pathway.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Impossible goals form a pathway and a forge to your future self.

Do you have a definiteness of purpose?

Do you have an impossible goal?

Do you have tremendous faith in that goal?

Think and Grow Rich is ultimately a book about having tremendous faith. Faith to move mountains and to achieve the impossible. Whatever your religious beliefs, I challenge you to read this book. It will train you to think in ways and think far bigger than you ever have before.

Following the process outlined in this book requires a price.

It will require you to separate the “signal” (what is guiding you towards what you want) from the “noise” (distraction pulling you from what you want.)

This sounds simple, but it’s incredibly difficult.

If you want to achieve a goal, you have to strip away anything that isn’t helping you to accomplish that goal.

You have to be willing to apply to 80/20 rule. Most people hear this and start with the 20%.

They start making a big “to-do” list and start focusing on all the extra things they need to check off and do in order to reach their goal.

In reality, you need to start by getting rid of 80% of activities you’re doing and information you’re consuming. This 80% is everything that you don’t truly want most. It’s no longer serving you, even if it did at one point.

Find what you want. Accept it, visualize it, and embrace it. Then, act with power and courage and cut off everything else.

This is the true meaning of the word “decision.” To decide means you’re willing to forgo other choices.

If you’re going to “decide” to be rich, or any other goal you’re pursuing following this formula, you’re going to have to say no to a lot of things.

Which brings us to our next book.

2. Go For No — Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

“If I fail more than you, I win.” — Seth Godin

What’s the size of the most recent rejection you got?

How about the one before that?

Are you comfortable getting bigger and bigger rejections on the way to your future self?

Have you been getting rejected at the level of your future self?

What level is your future self getting rejections at?

Eventually, could you turn those no’s into yes’s?

The stressors and the “load” in your environment are actually determines the level of success you’re going to have.

While we are apt to think that what we need is freedom from responsibility and restriction, it is actually the challenges, rejections, and disappointments on your path that will teach you the most. I actually gave a TED talk on this subject several years ago.

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” ― Viktor Frankl

Babies understand this. They learn to walk by falling over and over and over again.

But when we become older, success pads our comfort zone. We become hesitant to invest in loss because it feels like there’s more to lose.

We stop being willing to go for no.

Yet, that’s the only pathway that works.

The subtitle of Go For No is highly insightful: “Yes is the destination, No is how you get there.”

This is because going for no introduces a fitness function into your life, where you’re willing to optimize and filter everything you do to your vision.

As an example, my sons wants to play tennis in college. But he doesn’t just want to go to any college. He wants to go to a very specific college. As a result, his training process is by default far different than it would be otherwise. There are many, many things he has to say “no” to in order to achieve his goal.

You get to decide.

Who do you want to be?

Be hyper-specific about this. Don’t compromise on it at all. Be completely unashamed, straightforward, and focused on who you want to be.

Remember, it doesn’t matter how many no’s you get. As a salesman, it doesn’t matter how many rejections you get. Once you find the yes, none of the previous no’s matter. They were learning opportunities to get you to the yes.

When you go for no, you’re choosing to say no to the 80% in your life.

You’re also comfortable getting told “no” on the way to achieving and realizing your 20%.

You’re only as good as what you say yes to.

Having a definiteness of purpose and ultimate faith comes from your willingness to go for no in these two areas.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

When you’re in the space of going for no, you’re a lot more receptive to inspiration and new ideas. You’re willing to call down the powers of heaven. You’re will to be a lot more innovative in what you’re willing to do.

When you need to accomplish something no matter what, you’re willing to try whatever it takes in order to get there.

In Carol Dweck’s research on mindset, one of the biggest differences between people who have a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset is that growth mindset people embrace failure, past mistakes, and obstacles as opportunities for learning.

They’re willing to keep failing bigger to keep getting better.

They’re willing to fail in the future because they’re not worried about being right. They’re simply concerned with getting it right.

If you’re trying to be right, you’re avoiding failure. You have a fragile identity that can be shattered the first time something doesn’t go as planned.

If you’re overly defined by where you are at right now, you have a fixed mindset. If you’re flexible and objective about your current results, you have a growth mindset. You’re willing to grow, experiment, learn, and adapt.

You’re flexible to new pathways and new opportunities.

If you have a growth mindset, you’re more interested in learning.

To apply this principle, my wife and I have started asking this question to our kids:

“In what ways did you fail today?”

And more deeply, what did you learn from those failures?

What feedback did you get?

What experiences did you have?

Josh Waitzkin calls this principle of failing to succeed “investment in loss,” which he wrote about in his book The Art of Learning.

Josh was a Tai Chi student, and he found that often when his class was doing partner drills, most students in the class would pair themselves with another student of similar or lower skill level.

People like to win. But winning is not where the most aggressive learning happens.

Josh was the opposite. He would always pair himself with a student 4–5 skill levels above him, and he learned very quickly. He was “investing in loss.” In these matches, he was far inferior in skill to his opponent and would often take a beating.

However, his brain adapted much quicker as a result of this. He became much more powerful and focused very quickly.

He became who he wanted to be much faster because he was willing to go for no.

Failing at the level of your future self is how you become your future self.

Going for no is how you get to your future self.

3. Antifragile — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.”

— Douglas Malloch

Fragile things break. A glass is fragile. A delicate antique is fragile. A very young plant with low support is fragile. Fragile things are harmed by outside forces.

Resilient things withstand pressure. Boards are resilient. Steel is resilient. These things are strong, but they don’t become actively better when exposed to trauma and stress. They survive it but aren’t made better because of it.

Things that are antifragile become better with stress. As an example, Navy SEALs are antifragile. Their training with all of its stressors actually makes them far better soldiers.

Antifragility leads to post-traumatic growth.

Post-traumatic growth means that you are actively becoming better because of each experience, rather than worse.

In the book Antifragile, one of the things that Nassim Taleb talks about is “via negativa,” or the act of removing things that are preventing you from being anti-fragile.

The fastest way to practically become anti-fragile in your life right now is to remove things. The things you need to remove are keeping you fragile.

Stop eating junk food before you start exercising.

Stop consuming junk media before you start reading quality books.

With a long enough timeframe, almost everything breaks down with age.

With antifragility, you become stronger with age.

This comes through being accelerated towards your future self. Which comes from being more and more committed to cutting away whatever doesn’t align with what that person wants and who they want to be.

Remove everything in your life that is causing a future debt to be paid to the pied piper.

Time is always on the side of the anti-fragile.

Be patient. Be strategic.

Make tremendous leaps and bounds towards your future self and watch yourself grow in ways you didn’t think were previously possible.

Conclusion

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass

If you read these three books…wow.

These three books can take you very far.

There are dozens and dozens of books you could read. But a few good books, positioned correctly, can make all the difference.

With these three books, you can train your thinking very differently.

With these books, you can build a very different future self, and a very definite purpose.

With these books, you can have a lot more faith and power.

With these books, you can begin going for no.

When you seek an impossible goal you truly want, are willing to go for no on the path to get there, and you remove everything fragile in your life, you truly become unstoppable.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get your FREE Future Self cheat-sheet and bonus resources immediately.

(These are tools built on the frameworks from my book Be Your Future Self Now, which recently became the #1 book in Korea.)

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15 Ways To Use Your Journal To Become Absolutely Unstoppable

Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash“A personal journal is an ideal environment in which to become. It is a perfect place for you to think, feel, discover, expand, remember, and dream.” — Brad Wilcox

When I was 20, I was serving a humanitarian church mission in Pennsylvania.

This included working 80+ hours per week. It was highly fulfilling but also highly taxing. There was one day I was in a very low point emotionally. I was facing extreme challenge and difficulty in this experience.

During this time, I experienced a divine intervention.

I found an article written by a person who explained that journaling had changed her life and brought her tremendous insight. She had experiences filling hundreds of journals over 30 years.

I was amazed. For some reason, this article hit me like a ton of bricks.

I don’t know if anything has impacted my life any more at any point in time than reading that single article.

She was referring mainly to spiritual insights and connections she had gotten while writing in her journal, but I realized the far-reaching implications that my journal could have on everything in my life.

I got out my own journal after reading that article, inserted a copy of the article, and wrote something like this:

“I just read this article. I believe this is going to be a life-changing thing for me. From this point on, I will journal every single day.”

That was 15 years ago.

I have journaled nearly every single day for the last 15 years.

Sometimes, I journal for an hour at a time. I have filled hundreds of journals during that time.

Doing this has completely changed my life, probably more so than any other single practice. Doing so can change yours.

I would not have a PhD without journaling. Nor would I have published 6 books.

As you may guess, I journal very differently from the way most people do. Over the last 15 years, I’ve compiled 15 lessons that will fundamentally transform the way you look at pen and paper. I’m excited to share these lessons with you.

In this article, you will learn:

How to optimize writing in your journal to get bigger and better insights each dayHow to re-shape the way your see yourself, others, and the world to become healed emotionallyHow to become a much better writer, planner, thinker, and strategistHow to think in better ways that will dramatically increase your income

Let’s get started.

#1 — Ignore And Discard The “Right” Way

There is no “right” or “wrong” way to journal.

Most people get so caught up in the “right” way to journal that they never start. In reality, there are thousands of different ways to journal, and they are all very subjective. How you journal is completely up to you.

I just take a plain piece of paper and start writing. Honestly, every journal session I have is different. There are core models, frameworks, and questions that I ask myself (which you’ll learn in this article), but ultimately there is no right or wrong way to journal.

See your journal as a “private tool-kit.” Your journal is a space and a place for you to write down your thoughts, ideas, goals, and challenges.

Let go of the need to find the perfect way, and just start writing every day.

#2 — Only Write To Yourself From Now On

When I first began journaling on my mission, I was writing with others in mind. I was writing with the thought process that someday, someone would read the record of what I had written in my journal.

While that can be very valuable, simply cataloging your history for somebody else to discover later on is very different from the type of journaling I am inviting you to do.

The type of journaling I am inviting you to do is both highly therapeutic and can transform your entire life.

From this day forward, only journal for yourself. Your journal practice will become more effective, powerful, and enjoyable when you solely write for yourself and not for other people. You’ll become a lot more honest and flexible in what you’re willing to write down.

Consider that psychologists have studied the practice of “writing and burning,” where people write in their journal and then burn or throw away what they wrote.

While you don’t have to burn or throw away your journals (I keep my journals and don’t throw them away), it’s important to recognize the immense benefits that come to those who do.

They learn, grow, and benefit tremendously from their journal regardless of if they or anyone else ever comes back to it. Even if the ability to come back to their journal is intentionally destroyed, they benefit from letting their thoughts out on paper.

The benefit is gained through the act of journaling itself, not an unspecified moment in the future. The same is true of you.

Someday later, an older version of yourself, your children, or their children may find what you wrote.

Don’t worry about that for now.

Your journal is for you.

Write whatever you want. Be completely honest.

(Paradoxically, your posterity will likely find your honest and open entries far more fascinating and valuable than any other form of journaling.)

#3 — Don’t Feel The Need To Re-Read Your Journals

I don’t really re-read my journals. I have hundreds of them.

Once again, your journal is for you.

It’s for helping you heal, emotionally regulate, think, plan, strategize, and create.

Your current journal is the best tool for this.

Your previous journals don’t need to be re-read to have inherent value. The value that you gained was by using them in the present moment, whenever that was.

You can go back and re-read your journals if you want, but that’s not the primary purpose of journaling and certainly not an obligation. Such an obligation would require enormous amounts of time and emotional energy.

I very rarely read old journals except in specific cases. As an author, I will often strategize new ideas and insights for upcoming books in my journal. If there’s an idea that I created in my journal, I will go back to that idea so that I can add it to my book.

There is also one key page that I re-read. In the front page of every journal, I answer 5 key questions.

1 — Where am I now?

Here, you can literally write down whatever you are doing in your life. What projects am I working on? What are we doing as a family? What did I recently buy or do? What are the challenges that I’m solving and the things I am thinking about? The purpose of this section is to give a clear snapshot that will help you picture what stage of life you were in at the time.

2 — What are my wins in the last 90 days?

Here, I put personal and professional wins, whatever they may be. This is whatever happened between the day I started the new journal and 90 days prior to that.

3 — What are the key wins I want to have in the next 30–90 days?

What would make an absolutely amazing month for you if you did all of those things? Write it down.

4 — What are my goals for the next 12 months?

Put the biggest three things here. As Jim Collins said: “If you have more than 3 priorities, you have none.”

5 — What are my goals for the next 3 years?

This is where you can think and strategize imaginatively about a really big future that’s still close enough to focus on.

I keep these 5 questions and their answers in the front of my journal where I can easily access them and go back to them. Besides this page, there’s very little time I need to spend re-reading old journals.

The primary purpose of journaling is to re-frame the way that you think, and to re-shape how you view yourself, others, the world around you, and God.

Focus on the journal you’re creating right now.

#4 — Journal Every Night For 5 Minutes

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

Most people procrastinate sleep. This sets them up for less sleep, poorer sleep, and a poorer day tomorrow.

Rather than procrastinate sleep by engaging in distracting activities before bed — what if you proactively prepared for sleep by writing in your journal?

At night, simply spend 5 minutes journaling. Start by writing down three things you’re grateful for, which can transform the quality of your sleep.

You get to choose how you frame each day.

Frame the day in a positive and useful way so that you can use it, rather than be used by it.

What I write that proactively prepares me for sleep is the answer to this question:

“What are the main ways I am different than who I was the day before?”

This question helps me see how I truly am different from who I was even 24 hours before.

This question helps me to document and remember important experiences I might have glossed over otherwise.

Here are some other variations of that same question to get you started:

What were the important experiences that I had today?What things did I learn today?Where did I see the hand of God today?How am I different because of the things that I learned today?How am I now better and more informed that who I was yesterday? What do I now know?

Simply writing the answers to these questions will help you find, analyze, and reflect on different things.

You’ll realize a lot more happened than you originally thought. You’ll view the events of the day positively, and then imprint them deeper into your memory.

You’ll begin to view each day differently, and you’ll have a higher expectation and vision of success tomorrow.

#5 — Journal Every Morning For 5 Minutes

Journal before input.

Inputs include your texts, emails, social media, phone notifications, and even books and courses.

All of these things are adding more things to your brain.

Before this, journal. Give your mind space to let new insights and new connections come as you learn new things for the day.

Rather than opening your phone like most people do and

Put thoughts onto paper while your brain is creative, and while your subconscious is primed.

While you are asleep, your brain and your subconscious mind are working. When you wake up, capture the ideas that your subconscious has already been working on all night by journaling.

When you’re asleep, your brain formulates new memories and re-shapes your worldview based on new things that you learned the day before. It’s also letting go of old ideas, beliefs, and worldviews that are no longer relevant or useful to you.

When you journal in the morning for 5 minutes, you take advantage of all of this growth that happened during the night.

Write about what you’re grateful for. Write down your goals. If you just give yourself the space to receive insights, they will come.

So many times in those morning journaling sessions, when I am in a fresh environment clarifying my thoughts through writing, the greatest and biggest insights have hit me and come to me.

Life-changing insights will come through this morning time.

Give yourself the space to connect.

#6 — Get Yourself Into A Specific Environment

There’s a lot of research about the role your environment plays in your behavior. In fact, the entirety of my first book, Willpower Doesn’t Work, is devoted to this.

When you put yourself in an environment that encourages you to have the right mindset, the way you think changes.

Create a “sacred space” to journal. Rather than journaling just anywhere, create a special and protected place for this to happen.

This doesn’t have to be fancy.

For me, I get hydrated, drive my car down the road, park, and journal in my car. My car has become a sacred space for journaling. Create a sacred space and begin to journal from the right environment You can also prep further by saying a prayer or meditating (more on that soon).

Journal where nothing and nobody can distract you for those precious minutes.

Doing this will increase the perceived value that you have of your journaling experience. Ritualizing your journaling to a sacred environment will make it an experience that you look forward to every single day.

#7 — Meditate And Pray Before You Journal

Before I journal, I pray to God. I seek inspiration. I ask for guidance, for insights, and to learn things that I didn’t know before.

I ask Him to see things differently that I didn’t see before. I ask for help to be aware of things that I should be aware of. I ask Him to help me focus my ideas, my energy, my intentions, and my thoughts.

Whatever your specific beliefs on prayer or meditation may be, doing something beforehand to slow down and get your mind in the right frame of mind before journaling, can massively multiply the results you get. For me, prayer is very powerful. It gets me to a place of open inspiration and free-flowing ideas.

8— Journal From A Grateful State

Gratitude is the mother of all virtues. Gratitude can create abundance, excitement, and insight.

Be grateful when you journal. Get yourself into a grateful state.

Prayer and meditation beforehand help with this, but you want to continue to amplify that state while you actually are in the process of journaling.

One of the things I do to deepen the right frame of mind is to write down things I am grateful for.

Write down, feel, and review your progress from the last couple of weeks or the last few days. Measure your momentum. Become humbled and grateful for the AMAZING things you’ve already accomplished in your life.

Become grateful for your goals, and your future self, when you journal.

#9 — Learn That The Past And the Future Are Simply Drafts

This lesson is both crucial and massive.

The past and the future are simply drafts which you can refine and re-purpose in the words of your journal.

Write about your past, and re-frame it.

Your past is a reflection of your present self, rather than your present self being a reflection of your past self.

It’s who you are in the present that shapes the meaning of what your life. The past is a draft. You control the meaning of that draft.

As an author, I’ve learned that more drafts you’re willing to write, the more insight, clarity, and connection you get.

Your past is a draft, it’s not solidified. Your future is also a draft. You can change your future and refine it slightly each day. Yes, you should have goals and a vision, but you don’t need to have it all figured out.

A few weeks from now, you may see your past differently than the person you are today. Your future self will view your past differently than you do now.

Bit by bit, you can chisel away at learning who your future self is by refining your “draft” in your journal. Your vision, goals, and plans will be a little bit different 3–4 weeks from now, even if your overarching vision is the same. It’s helpful to continually update the draft of your goals.

Always treat your past and present as drafts when writing, reflecting, and journaling. When you view the past and future as drafts, you’ll be in a great place here and now.

Doing this frees you and gives you the comforting reassurance that you don’t have to have it all figured out right now. You just need to commit proactively to the very next step, every morning, while you journal.

Your drafts are things you’re getting better and better at.

#10 — Learn That You Are Not Your Past Self

When you’re journaling, regularly reflect on how you are different than your past self. This goes back to the evening question, “In what ways am I different than who I was the day before?” This also goes back to the questions I answer in the beginning of every journal measuring the past 90 days of wins.

You are different from who you were 10 days ago, and also different from who you were 10 years ago. By acknowledging that you are not your past self, it allows you to continually see how you are evolving and changing.

By acknowledging and learning those changes, you’ll set up your brain to change faster.

Be empathetic towards your past self. There’s no reason to be mad at your past self.

You know things that they didn’t know. You have resources that they didn’t have.

Have compassion, love, and understanding for your past self.

Measuring how much you’ve changed will reinforce your brain’s belief in your capability to continue to change. You’ll have the capability to believe bigger and better things about yourself when you measure how you have changed in the past.

#11 — Learn That You Are Not Your Present Self

“The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been.” — Dr. Daniel Gilbert

One of the core differences between people with a fixed mindset and a growth mindset is that people with a fixed mindset are overly attached to who they are in the present moment.

With a fixed mindset, you overly identify, and overly label yourself.

With a fixed mindset, you say “this is who I am.”

With a growth mindset, you’re a lot more open to change. As Brene Brown would say, you’re more focused on getting it right than being right. You’re open to questioning your own assumptions and ideas.

This is what happened to Andre Norman, whose full story I share in Personality Isn’t Permanent. Below is a brief section of his story from the book.

“Initially, he decided he wanted to get out of prison. He didn’t want to be there anymore. But then he thought to himself that just ‘getting out’ wasn’t enough. Seventy-five percent of people who leave prison come right back. Lessons are repeated until they are leanred. Instead of ‘being free,’ Andre made his goal to ‘be successful.’

‘Where do successful people come from?’ he thought to himself.

‘They come from college. If I go to college too, then I’ll be successful,’ was his reasoning. Having grown up in Boston, he knew of only one school by name, Harvard. Sitting in his cell, rethinking his life…he decided he was going go to Harvard…That single goal, his new purpose, gave Andre a path to getting out of prison and becoming a new version of himself.” — Excerpt from Personality Isn’t Permanent

Today, Andre has an fellowship at Harvard.

He wasn’t defined by his present as a prisoner.

Your present isn’t who you’re going to be.

Your future self tomorrow is going to be a lot less ignorant than who you are today.

Journaling every day helps you to avoid being overly defined by your present. You’re continuously and creatively adapting your ideas, goals, mindsets, and approach when you journal every day. You’re not overly defined by one specific circumstance or event.

#12 —Learn That You Are Not Your Future Self

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

Most people project who they are now into the future, rather than realizing just how different that person is going to and can be.

Recognizing that who you will be in the future is different from who you are now is very healthy.

The past and the future are simply tools for operating more effectively in the present.

Your journal is where you can become connected to, become grateful for, and start acting from your future self. This goes back to the concept of “drafts”.

You can determine frames for your future in your journal.

The more connected you are to your future self, the better decisions you will make in the here and now.

#13 —Your Past + Present + Future = Tools

“The only way to make your present better is by making your future bigger.” — Dan Sullivan

Time is not sequential. It all exists here and now.

As you take these (past, present, and future) to your journal, remember the following principle.

Are these helping you? Are they healing you?

The way you use these tools in light of what you learned in #10-#12 is fully up to you.

#14 — Psychologically And Emotionally Heal With Your Journal

Your journal is a safe place. It’s a place where you can become healed emotionally.

Your journal is the place to build psychological flexibility.

Be continually becoming better at using the past, present, and future as tools, and by continually re-framing your past, you will become transformed by your journal. You’ll have freedom and space to make better decisions. You’ll become more inspired and more excited every day.

Your emotional flexibility will increase. You won’t be rigid and dogmatic if you’re willing to use your journal.

From this place of emotional flexibility, you can have the space to win really big. You can also easily recover if and when things don’t work out the way you originally thought.

Your journal will help you be more flexible every day.

#15 — Strategize And Make REALLY Important Decisions

Your journal is a place to make very important decisions.

In my journal, I have planned and strategized my career. I have written connections of who I need to reach out to. I have connected ideas and creative insights in ways that have propelled me forward.

When you’re journaling, you are able to map out ideas more objectively. You’re able to increase your own self-awareness.

If you’ve gotten this far, you’ll have begun to see your past, present, and future very differently and strategically.

You’ll be on a plane where you can make BIG and BOLD moves towards your future self and receive what you truly want.

Write your biggest goals. Write your biggest dreams. Remember, nobody needs to read this except for you.

Your journal is where you can become extremely vulnerable, humble, and creative with what you are willing to and what you want to accomplish.

Your written insights will inform the strategy of your life.

What could you do?

Conclusion — How Will You Change?

With your journal, you can:

Attract money, people, circumstances, and ideas into your lifeDeepen your relationship with GodBecome psychologically flexible and emotionally unstuckRe-frame even your biggest challenges and traumasAbsolutely change your life

The vast majority of people don’t know these things. But you do. You can help them and yourself. You can become your future self.

How will you journal?

Have a beautiful day.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get your FREE Future Self cheat-sheet and bonus resources immediately.

(These are tools built on the frameworks from my book Be Your Future Self Now, which recently became the #1 book in Korea.)

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15 Ways To Use Your Journal To Become Absolutely Unstoppable was originally published in Better Humans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tell Me About Your Gratitude, And I’ll Tell You The Course Of Your Life

Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” — Cicero

Why gratitude?

Gratitude transforms your perspective.

Gratitude directs you to see things differently.

Gratitude helps you to appreciate the good in your life.

Gratitude helps you know what you want and create more of it.

Gratitude triggers you to see benefits and create them when you didn’t see them before.

Gratitude can not make the mundane into something amazing and gorgeous.

Gratitude causes post-traumatic growth, not stress.

Gratitude is essential to having an amazing, healthy life.

Gratitude builds an amazing personal situation, and an amazing, happy, past.

Through gratitude, you will:

Be enormously happierSleep betterBe way better in your relationshipsThink enormously better thoughtsCreate a better past present and future

In the remainder of this article, you will learn how to apply proven applications, models, and processes to have far more gratitude in your life.

Gratitude Transforms Your PastRe-Frame Your Valleys

Research shows that post-traumatic growth is most likely to occur when you “reframe” an experience with gratitude.

Gratitude can reframe experience and even terrible trauma.

My father was a drug addict when I was growing up. Because of gratitude, I know that this experience happened for me.

Life has peaks and valleys. Peaks are your high moments. Valleys are difficult experiences in your health, relationships, or emotional well-being.

The peaks are amazing, but the valleys are just as important.

Here’s why:

The future peaks in your life will happen because of what you learn from, and do, while in your valleys.

(For more on this, read Peaks and Valleys by Dr. Spencer Johnson.)

Everything in life is a lesson.

If you approach life with a gratitude for the past, your paradigm and perspective will shift. You’ll have a positive-past approach to life.

Use The Past To Live Longer

Gratitude can literally make you live longer.

Research from multiple different populations and studies shows that gratitude increases longevity. People with a positive view of things live for many years longer than those who don’t.

In the book The Biology of Belief, Dr. Lipton teaches the science of epigenetics. The field of epigenetics shows that our genes and health are not static.

Our genes can not only be shaped by our environment, but also by our perception of our environment and life events.

If someone has an experience which they frame negatively, their body is continuously being broken down by the stress of holding on to that negative memory.

In contrast, if someone has an experience which they frame positively, their expectation towards life and the future will be bright. Physically, they’ll become much healthier.

If you frame things positively, your health will be a lot more vibrant. You’ll have much more energy. You won’t be holding onto baggage. You’ll be a lot lighter, and you will live much longer.

You’ll also want to live longer when you’re grateful. If you’re pessimistic and negative about the world, you won’t have confidence in the state of the world many decades from now.

Gratitude Transforms Your PresentHappiness Is Now

The false idea that things will only be better in the future perpetuates itself.

In The Gap and the Gain, Dan Sullivan and I shared this concept: if happiness isn’t now, then it’s never.

If you think that happiness is only something you can pursue, then it’s always going to be something you’re pursuing. Like the horizon, it will be impossible to catch.

If instead, happiness is something you already have, you can expand it.

Grateful People

Think about someone you know who is always grateful. Grateful people are not artificial, false, awkward, or weird. They’re just constantly in a state of gratitude, and it suits them well. They express their gratitude often, and they transform their world.

When I bussed tables for a restaurant in high school, I remember one customer who said thank you, every time, to everything.

It was not overt. It was not loud. It was just “thank you.”

That had an impact on me.

Grateful Relationships

People who are grateful have much better relationships. People who have better relationships have much better well-being physically, mentally, and emotionally.

In this way, your physical health is deeply impacted by gratitude, because your relationships are one of the biggest factors contributing to your health. As human beings, we are relational.

Increase your gratitude in your relationships, and both those relationships and your overall physical health will increase.

Write letters of gratitude. Send gratitude texts. Call someone and tell them you’re grateful for what they’ve done in your life. If you want to change your life this very hour, send a bunch of texts (shoot for at least 10) with something specific that you appreciate about someone, or something they’ve done.

The quality of our health and mental well-being rests largely on the quality of our relationships.

Prayer

Gratitude in prayer has been shown to enhance people’s well-being and their health and their happiness.

Gratitude to God will transform your present in ways nothing else can.

One of the most powerful forms of prayer is prayers of gratitude.

Decision-Making

Gratitude’s been shown to help people with problem solving and making better decisions.

There are numerous studies surrounding this where people are placed in stressful situations and then challenged them to make difficult decisions from that situation.

Often, when stressed, people will get narrow.

When you’re stressed out, you get narrow-minded, and you don’t see alternative options.

You don’t have mental flexibility, and you get caught in one way of doing things.

You become emotionally and mentally rigid, rather than flexible.

Gratitude, in contrast, primes you for better decision making and better emotional flexibility.

When you’re in a stressful situation, and you’ve got to make high-stakes decisions, gratitude is your biggest ally.

You can easily weigh alternative options, and make better strategic decisions, when grateful.

Sleep

Gratitude at night has been shown to not only directly positively impact happiness, but also to literally impact the quality of your sleep and the quality of your brain while you’re sleeping.

To increase your gratitude, put your phone on airplane mode and have a wind down.

Write down three things you’re grateful for from that day.

You might have had a day that felt absolutely terrible and like everything fell apart, but you see what you’re looking for.

In the beginning, you might have a hard time finding things you’re grateful for. However, if you start looking for something, your brain is going to start finding more and more of that thing. You can get the point where you find 10, 20, or 30 things to be grateful for each day.

Start with one. Over time, you’ll find infinite things to be grateful for.

Gratitude is a skill.

While visualizing and meditating on the good, you will sleep better during the night.

If you want, you can even combine this with prayer and express gratitude at night as you go to bed. Having just written about and prayed about the things you are grateful for, that’s what your brain will focus on all night.

Gratitude Transforms Your FutureMental Creation

Your brain doesn’t know the difference between something you mentally visualize and feel versus something you’re experiencing outside in the real world.

Mental creation is mentally visualizing and then thinking about what you want.

Think about something you would absolutely love to have, and then think about how you will feel the moment you get it.

What kind of gratitude would you feel once you get that experience?

Start feeling gratitude for that event right now.

That takes you to a place of acceptance and allowance and knowing.

This is where you know that what you want is already yours.

You’re grateful for it.

You’re feeling it.

You have that sense of feeling, acceptance, and allowance right now.

This ultimately makes it enormously easier for you to have it.

I challenge you to think about something you want, think about how it would feel to have it, and then to start to feel that now.

Thinking → Feeling → Knowing.

You’re Not An Island

Express gratitude in all of your relationships. This is how you create transformational relationships. The best relationships I’ve ever formed and developed, and the reputation I’ve built in various networks, have come through direct gratitude. Acknowledge where people have helped you, acknowledge where you’ve been served, and acknowledge that you’re not an island. You’re not the only person who’s the sole source of your success.

Did I create this writing platform? Or the computers, cameras, microphones, upon which my content is built? No.

I’m very grateful for these things. They’re gifts that I can use.

As you express and give gratitude, acknowledge where respect and credit are due.

Gratitude to people who have helped you helps you to be seen very differently.

Humility

“A great man is always willing to be little.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the book Peaks and Valleys, Dr. Spencer Johnson points out that many people during a peak get overly egotistical, and then they drop into valleys because they create unnecessary failure.

If you’re in a state of humility and gratitude, you avoid this.

You continually having a bigger vision and a sense of purpose. You know that what you want is already yours. You’ve accepted it. You allow the vision to happen and you become more grateful.

Gratitude isn’t just mental. Allow yourself to feel it. Allow yourself to get to the place where you are humbled by what you’re grateful for.

Humility is a very powerful strength.

When gratitude truly does bring you to tears, you have gone from thinking to feeling and knowing.

Gratitude, humility, commitment, and courage are the things that allow to have a phenomenal past, present, and future. They open you up to faster growth and transformation, so that in the future you stop resisting lessons and you’re open to feedback.

Gratitude makes it so that on your peaks and valleys, you go from peak to peak to peak.

Accept that you are not the vehicle of your success, merely the driver.

Gratitude for the future is not just something you do, it’s who you become.

It’s who you are.

Conclusion

“Change the way you see things, the things you see will change.”

— Wayne Dyer

Gratitude allows you to be in a state of acceptance, allowance, and receiving.

Eventually, you’ll reach the point where you’re literally grateful for everything.

Everything happens for you, not to you.

Do something today that is grateful for your past. Re-frame a trauma. It happened for you, not to you.

Do something today that is grateful to yourself now. Write in your journal. Pray and express your gratitude to God.

Do something today that is grateful for your future. Visualize an experience you anticipate and know is coming. Become grateful for it.

Gratitude is who you are, not what you do.

Will you use gratitude to transform?

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to get my Future Self Cheat-Sheet and other bonus resources.

(This is based on my book Be Your Future Self Now, which recently came out on paperback and was the #1 book in all of South Korea for several weeks.)

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How To Quickly Read And Remember 150+ Books Per Year

Photo by Siora Photography on UnsplashTransform your mind through active learning

Every year, I read over one hundred and fifty books.

People often ask me, “how do you remember so much of what you read?” And recently, I’ve been asked in the comments of my YouTube channel:

“How do you get so much out of your books when you read?”

“Could you make a video on how you learn things?…I watch and read a bunch of books on self-improvement but have no idea how to apply them.”

This article will answer these questions. In this article you will learn the 4 crucial steps to apply to both read and master 150+ books per year, without needing large amounts of time.

These principles will help you read more books, transform your mind, and remember FAR more of what you read.

Let’s get started.

Really quick: there are actually 3 ways to enjoy this article:

1. Watch this YouTube video: How I Read (and Remember) 150 Books per Year — 4 Tips for Reading More — YouTube

2. Listen to this episode of the Dr. Benjamin Hardy Show (available on any podcast streaming service)

3. Continue reading this article (includes bonus content not available anywhere else)

1. Listen to Books

“Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.” — Zig Ziglar

I use the Audible app to listen to about 90% of the books I read. I increase the speed substantially beyond the base narration, which is usually very slow.

As you develop reading skills, you will be able to comprehend and enjoy continually faster levels of listening speed on Audible.

If I find a very, very, good book, I will then get it on Kindle and comb through it, looking for specific quotes and sections.

Where do I find time to listen to so many books?

I listen to books on my commutes. I listen to books while walking around my neighborhood every day. I choose to spend my time on books, far more so than any other form of input.

Research shows that most people spend 5+ hours on their phones every single day scrolling through social media or other inputs.

Garbage in, garbage out.

If you spend your time consuming junk media, your brain’s performance will be affected accordingly, just as your body would in response to junk food.

I invite you to let go of at least 80% of the things you’re listening to. By the 80–20 rule, 80% of the inputs you are consuming are beneath your standard and not helping you progress.

When you raise your floor and do this, you’ll instantly have that time to devote to audiobooks instead.

You’ll begin to have higher thoughts, goals, and ambitions.

You’ll begin to spend time with higher-quality people.

You’ll have a higher sense of purpose and personality.

Your standard is that which you are most committed to. Your standard is how you raise the floor.

You literally train your brain and mind with the inputs and worldview you give it. When you raise the floor and increase the quality of what you consume, you train and optimize your brain for completely different things.

Different ways of thinking.

Different goals.

Different identity.

Why books specifically?

In The Rise of Superman, Steven Kotler explains the inherent value of reading written, published, books, as opposed to other forms of information and content. He explains that books are far more valuable because they are far more refined and edit than the typical YouTube video, podcast, or even blog post like this one.

Books are far more compressed in wisdom and depth than any other form of content. The barriers to entry to write a book are much higher. The effort required is much deeper.

Books are worth probably 5–10x as much as an article like this, or any other form of short-form content you’ll find on the internet.

2. Focus On Books Relevant To Your Goals

“People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. It’s as simple as that.” — Earl Nightingale

I don’t study books that I think I “might” use 5–10 years down the road from now.

I study that which will help me now.

“What am I trying to understand and apply right now?” guides every decision with regards to what I read and listen to.

This usually leads me to a few key books during any particular period of time.

Going really deep into a few key books goes a really long way.

As an example, one book that I have studied very thoughtfully and thoroughly over the last 1–2 years is Antifragile by Nassim Taleb.

This next time I read it, it will be with a different lens and a different perspective. I am working deeply in the concept of “raising the floor” shared earlier in this article, and that’s one of the core principles of Antifragile. I’ll be writing about raising your floor in my next book. I’m also training concepts on this concept in my leadership trainings and keynotes.

Thus, reading this book multiple times is very interesting to me and very useful and relevant to my current goals. I’ll be going through this book looking for just this one idea and filtering everything I read from that specific perspective.

What are your current goals?

What is the pathway to getting there?

It is very powerful to understand a concept deeply. I’ve gone through many books multiple times, just looking for one idea.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” — Bruce Lee

This is mastery rather than the shallows.

When you go deep in one idea, you will develop mastery in that concept or idea.

Our brains are really powerful. They can filter for specific things.

Even reading this article looking for a singular idea and from different angles will transform the way that you read and learn.

This is how you develop innovativeness in your thinking.

A final thought: sometimes it’s very useful to occasionally go WAY outside your typical sphere. As an example, I’ll sometimes read fiction, even though usually I’m reading books in deep conceptual psychology, systems theory, business, and leadership.

Going way outside your typical reading space will get the gears of your mind churning in a different way. It will lead to new ideas and new insights.

3. Drop Books That Don’t Meet Your Standard

“It doesn’t take long to figure out if something is worth reading…Quit books quickly and without guilt or shame. Life is too short to waste it on average books. The opportunity cost is too high. There are so many amazing things to read.” — James Clear

I’m often asked, “do you finish all of the books that you read?”

The answer is NO.

If I’m not captivated by a book within the first hour of listening, I usually toss it.

I have no regret throwing away stuff when I know that it’s just not a good fit.

Continuing to read a book that doesn’t help you is to fall prey to sunk-cost bias. Sunk-cost bias is when people continue to invest in something just because they’re already somewhat invested into it. This leads people to continuing on bad paths, even when they know it’s a bad path.

“[Sunk-cost bias is] our tendency to continue investing in a losing proposition because of what it’s already cost us.” — Dr. Margie Warrell

Don’t force yourself to finish books. There is absolutely no compulsion to finish a book just because you started it.

4. Teach And Experiment With What You Read

Speaking and writing are output forms of learning, forcing your brain to act in much more creative ways than simply listening or reading alone (which are inputs).

While I’m listening to a book, I’m thinking about how I would actually use it in my life. I write my thoughts down, and then I try to explain them to other people.

Talk about and teach what you’re reading. Take notes as you listen and as you read. Use what you are leaning in your life. Above all, combine what you’re learning with new ideas.

Creativity simply means the combining of concepts and ideas in a new way.

Think through what you’re learning and think through it in different applications.

As an example, while listening to Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, I immediately learned new ideas directly relevant to my work.

In his book, Grant shares the stories of different educational systems. He states that in superior educational environments, the “floor” is very high. There’s a smaller range of variance between the ceiling and the floor, or between the competence of students. Both the floor and ceiling of expectation are very high, with a smaller gap in between them. Whereas in bad educational environments, the ceiling may still be high due to some outliers, but the floor or minimum expectation required is very low.

I starting sending audio clips regarding this concept to different people in my life. I also started writing on my whiteboard how the different ideas Grant was sharing in his book apply to the “floor” concept I’ve been studying.

If you proactively test new ideas and knowledge, you will get very far in life. You’ll remember far more of what you read.

Conclusion: You’re One Book Away

One of the best books in the last year that I have read is The 80/20 Individual by Richard Koch. It’s a book that I wish I had read while writing 10x is Easier than 2x.

By simply reading that one book, I have learned countless ideas that have helped me train leadership teams of large organizations. Through one book, I learned that you are only one “Who” away from going 10X. This one idea has been transformational in my work.

Books can give you that one idea. Books hold power.

I challenge you to read (or listen to) more books, and to weed out 80% of the media that you’re consuming.

80% of how you’re spending your time is likely a waste of time. Reading really good books, especially if you’re applying and digesting the ideas shared towards your goals, and trying to use the ideas you learn, is one of the best uses for your time.

You can make leaps every year. If you apply these principles, in a year from now your mind, your knowledge, your vision, and your understanding of your field will be in a totally different place.

Ready To Upgrade?

Click here to download my free morning routine cheat-sheet to live in a PEAK STATE, every day.

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This 127-Page Book Will Change How You View Success

Photo by mohit suthar on Unsplash(It’s Not What You Think)

This book is absolutely amazing and just might change your life.

I first came across this book 6 or 7 years ago. I’ve read it many times, and every time I read it, I’m shocked by how good it is.

I’m shocked by the insight, the clarity, and the excitement it gives me.

It helps me look at my current life and what I’m doing very differently.

In this article, I’m going to share with you my favorite 10 ideas from this book.

However, a quick word of warning.

This book was written only for people who want to be extremely excellent at what they do. Maybe even bold enough to be the best in the world at what they do.

If you’re someone who wants to be mediocre at what you do, don’t read this article and definitely don’t read Paul Arden’s book.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

Really quick: there are actually 3 ways to enjoy this article:

1. Watch this YouTube video:

https://medium.com/media/a60960835b728fe3b01bcaaaa095f847/href

2. Listen to this episode of the Dr. Benjamin Hardy Show (available on any podcast streaming service)

3. Continue reading this article (includes bonus content not available anywhere else)

1. Success Comes From Wanting Success

“Nearly all rich and powerful people are not notably talented, educated, charming, or good-looking.

“They become rich and powerful by wanting to become rich and powerful.” — Paul Arden

Success and even money don’t come by having talent or grit. They come by wanting success and money.

Largely in life, we get what we want. We get what we’re pursuing and what we are after.

If you want to be successful, wealthy, and great at what you do, you have to want it.

2. Most People Are Going For Mediocre

“There is little demand in the commercial world for excellence. There is a much, much bigger demand for mediocrity.” — Paul Arden

Ask yourself this honest question:

In a world that demands mediocrity, why would you go for excellence? Do you really want to be excellent when mediocrity is the bar?

You have to make the choice. Are you going to be mediocre like everyone else, or are you going to choose excellence?

If you choose excellence and quality, you have infinite upside. Most people are in a race to the bottom.

“In a world where everyone is racing to the bottom, your choice is to race to the bottom with everyone else, or race to the top. The way you race to the top is to be the best in the world at what you do.” — Seth Godin

3. You Can Achieve The Unachievable

“Firstly, you need to aim beyond what you are capable of. You much develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end. Try to do the things that you’re incapable of. If you think you’re unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that you aim. If you think you’re incapable of running a company, make that your aim. If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there. Make your vision of where you want to be a reality. Nothing is impossible.” — Paul Arden

Most people don’t go for the unachievable. Most people are going for average or mediocre.

If you go for the impossible, however, virtually all competition is eliminated and virtually all ways of getting to the goal are also eliminated.

There’s a concept in psychology called your “default future.” Your default future is the future that is going to happen unless something dramatic and unexpected happens.

This isn’t necessarily the future you want. In fact, it’s often not the future you want. It’s rather the future you most expect.

Go for a seemingly impossible future.

Your future is your future.

What you focus on expands.

What expands will determine what you develop mastery in.

The achievement of your impossible goals will depend upon what you focus on.

Step 1: Start with a Goal that you, your team or a client think is “simply impossible.”

Hint: If you or they don’t have such a goal, take one of your or their life or business goals, and either keep increasing the magnitude of the goal, or reduce the time to achieve it, until you or they say “Now It’s impossible!”

Step 2: Ask yourself or them this simple question: “It’s impossible [to achieve your goal]… UNLESS…?”

Something fascinating will happen.

Asking this simple question (UNLESS…?) will automatically shift your or their brain into problem-solving mode. This disruption “forces” our brain to start exploring what the specific conditions are that will make the impossible, possible. Often, this is the only thing you, your team or your client, needs to get unstuck, and to enable you or them to identify exactly how to achieve very ambitious goals considered to be impossible just moments before. — Dr. Alan Barnard

Most people don’t even go for ‘impossible’ goals because they think it is impossible, so instead they lower their standards, and they go for average or mediocre. Most people and most businesses are going for mediocre goals.

If you make your goal impossible, as Paul Arden and Dr. Alan Barnard are inviting us to do, your brain will become selectively focused on that goal.

If you’re going for something impossible, or for something that you at least think is impossible, you can’t use your own conventional wisdom. You’re no longer operating from past assumptions, because you don’t know how to do it yet.

Impossible goals are also so big that MOST things you are doing right now, won’t get you there.

This makes impossible goals a very good filter between the signal and the noise.

It’s hard to determine what aspects of your life or business right now are actually working if you focus only on the realistic or the achievable.

If you’re going for mediocre, you’re allowing the present to dictate your future rather than letting your future (and a seemingly impossible future at that) filter and determine your present. If you go for the goal that is “reasonable,” there is a lot more competition and scarcity.

Bigger goals are really useful because they simplify things. Most things won’t get you to an impossible goal, and so they force you ask the question posed by Dr. Alan Barnard earlier.

“This would be impossible unless…what?”

The “what” is a select few things.

Those few things are the 20% of the things that make 80% of the difference. They help you to weed out most of the things you are doing, because most of the things you are doing right now won’t get you to an impossible goal.

Largely, you get what you are aiming for. Why not go for the impossible? If you go for it, you just might hit it.

If you make the impossible your aim and your standard, you will figure out how to do it, and most people just aren’t going for that.

This is how you become excellent. This is how you go from good to great.

4. Seek Criticism Rather Than Seeking Praise

“[If] you produced a piece of work, [it] is probably ok. But then it’s probably not great either. If, instead of seeking approval, you ask ‘what’s wrong with it? how can I make it better?’, you are more likely to get a truthful, critical answer.” — Paul Arden

This is what psychologists call DELIBERATE PRACTICE.

Deliberate practice is how you become aware of your weaknesses, rather than shielding yourself from and ignoring them.

“If I spend every day working with a guy and he goes out and has a lousy game, I don’t blame him for the lousy game. I know everyone else is blaming him for the lousy game, but I’m wondering if something we did in the gym affected his shot. That’s my job; the pressure is on me to ensure he doesn’t have two lousy games…” — Tim Grover, Michael Jordan’s performance coach, from Relentless

As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, all progress starts by telling the truth.

In sports, a big aspect of deliberate practice is watching your own film. Put a spotlight on your weaknesses and allow them to become better.

Another thing to note: just because you get criticism doesn’t mean you have to believe it or take it.

You have the final say with your work, but you should be open to feedback. This is part of having a growth mindset.

People with a fixed mindset avoid any and all forms of failure and/or criticism. Whereas, if you’re really open and honest and expose yourself to feedback, you can get massively good really quickly.

5. Everything That’s Your Fault, Is Your Fault

“If you are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame others. Blame no one but yourself. If you have touched something, accept total responsibility for that piece of work. If you accept responsibility, you are in a position to do something about it.” — Paul Arden

This is a great mindset. This creates an internal locus of control.

If you take responsibility and ownership for everything in your life, you can move things forward. You’re not blaming other people for your life. You’re saying, “this is on me,” and then you can change things.

To again quote Tim Grover’s book Relentless:

“You tell me you messed up, take responsibility...now you’ve gained my trust. As soon as you start giving me reasons and rationalization, I know you have something to hide, and you’re not ready to take ownership.”

This is the difference between people who are mature and people who are immature. People who are mature take responsibility for their lives, they take responsibility for their outcomes, for their circumstances, and for every single aspect of their lives.

They put everything on themselves. They don’t put anything on other people. They put it on themselves and ultimately use that to move forward.

6. Give Away Everything

“If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. Somehow the more you give away the more comes back to you. Ideas are open knowledge. Don’t claim ownership. They’re not your ideas anyway, they’re someone else’s. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.” — Paul Arden

This idea has impacted me personally the most out of the ten I’m sharing with you.

I have been in many situations with people who hoard their ideas, to the extent of causing massive legal battles. When you’re hoarding things, you put yourself in a scarcity mindset.

As someone who creates ideas for a living, I find that the more you give freely, you’ll be empty.

Being empty is a beautiful place to be.

When you’re empty, you’ll start looking for and you’ll start receiving the next ideas.

If you’re hoarding ideas, your brain doesn’t have the space to create new ones. You’re living off of your old ideas and it’s very much clogging the system.

7. Focus On The Current Opportunity

“Don’t look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity. We are always waiting for the perfect brief from the perfect client. It almost never happens. You’re probably working on a job or project right now and saying, ‘This is boring, let’s just deal with it and get it over with. We’ll make the next one good.’ Whatever is on your desk right now, that’s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.” — Paul Arden

This is the difference between people who are very successful and people who are not.

People who are not successful are still waiting for the “right” opportunity, whereas people who succeed take what’s in front of them RIGHT NOW and use that as a springboard to the next big thing.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Regardless of what job or position you have right now, don’t wait for the next opportunity.

Make THIS your big opportunity.

Make the thing you’re working on right now become world-class.

You can turn what you are working on right now into the rocket ship of a HUGE future for yourself.

Take what you’re focused on right now and make it the best that you possibly can.

8. Make Mistakes

“The person who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.” — Paul Arden

This idea has given me huge permission.

When you have a growth mindset, you aren’t afraid of making mistakes. You also don’t overly define yourself by who you are and what you do right now. After all, Dr. Daniel Gilbert pointed out that:

“The person you are right now is as fleeting as the present moment.”

Your future self is going to be a different person. You’re also not the same person as your past self.

If you’re going to move forward and create things, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, and that’s a great place to be. That’s a growth mindset.

“Rather than try to be right, it’s much better to get it right.” — Brene Brown

If you’re willing to make mistakes, you’re willing to learn. You’re willing to make things better and better rather than trying to prove yourself. As Paul Arden goes on to say,

“Knowledge comes from the past, so it’s safe. It is also out of date. It’s the opposite of originality…this is lazy. Experience is the opposite of being creative. If you can prove you’re right, you’re set in concrete. You cannot move with the times or with other people. Being right is also being boring your mind is closed. You are not open to new ideas. You are rooted in your own rightness, which is arrogant…It’s right to be wrong. Start being wrong and suddenly anything is possible. You’re no longer trying to be infallible.” — Paul Arden

Rather than trying to be right all the time, try to be wrong. Figure out the ways in which you have it wrong. This is an emotionally open, psychologically flexible mindset. This allows you to be in a creative space where you get better and better at what you do, rather than trying to cling to what you already have.

9. It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know

“It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know. You all know this old maxim but do you ever think about it. Consider: I am a talented architect working for a prestigious company. Richard Rogers Partnership, for instance. The company knows my value, respects me and pays me accordingly, but nobody outside the company knows me. I have buried myself in my work. you, however, are a first year student at the architectural Institute. You print a business card with the word: Anthony Taylor. Architect. Or even better Architects. You are in the bar chatting, you talk yourself up and present your credentials i.e. your business card. You will be accepted as an authority or practitioner of architecture. I, on the other hand, with my lack of social skills and reluctance to push myself forward, will be unnoticed. A nobody. Unfair as it may seem, this is the reality of life.” — Paul Arden

It’s all about relationships.

Specifically, it’s about positioning yourself in a certain way such that your work can get out there.

Position yourself so that you get the best opportunities. Oftentimes, it is not the person who is the best at what they do, but the person who is the best positioned.

As an example, I have written books such as 10x Is Easier Than 2x with Dan Sullivan. I am now positioned as an expert in entrepreneurial and business transformational processes, even though I may not be the best in this topic.

I am positioned differently, and therefore get all sorts of opportunities. Even though I might not be the best at this topic, I am positioned better.

This is about playing your cards right. Position yourself in such a way that people know who you are, rather than just what you know.

10. Work With The Best

“The best people can be difficult. They are single-minded, they have tunnel vision. That’s what makes them good. They are reluctant to compromise. They can be intimidating, especially to the young, but if you approach them with an attitude that you want to do something well, they will respond positively. Because they want to do something well too. And if you are clear about what you want and strong about getting it, though there may be arguments, they will respect you.” — Paul Arden

This brings us to another concept from Dan Sullivan; the concept Always Be the Buyer.

In every situation there are buyers and sellers. Buyers have very clear standards, they know what they want, and most importantly, they are willing to walk away if they don’t get everything they want.

On the other hand, a seller is constantly trying to sell themselves, they don’t have clear standards, and they’re willing to accept whatever they can get. This is the meaning of the phrase “to sell out.”

If you want to be excellent at what you do, work with the best. Work with other buyers. Place yourself in situations where you can both get everything you want. These types of relationships operate very differently from the average.

One of my favorite books on this topic is The 90/20 Individual by Richard Koch, which profiles some of the most influential people in world history.

In any situation, massive transformation can occur through a few key people.

“Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft will become an unimportant company.” — Bill Gates

20 people.

For reference, there are well over 200,000, or 1000 x 20, Microsoft employees as of 2023. It’s estimated that there were 120,000 at the time of this quote.

The people in the literal 99.99% percentile of Microsoft make all the difference, according to Gates.

To be the best, you have to be willing to work with people who have a single-minded focus. People who are the best in the world.

Be willing to work with the Top 20. A lot of people are pretty good at what they do, but they’re distracted, and they don’t want to be the best. They’re not the Top 20 people.

In working with the best, you also need to be willing to humble yourself instead of trying to dominate over others.

As an example, I want to be the best, but I also want to work with the best. Together, we can create massive opportunities. If we’re too focused on competing with one another, that can’t happen. People who don’t want to work with the best have huge ego that gets in their way.

Don’t be afraid of the best.

Ready To Upgrade?Here’s It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be on Amazon.If you enjoyed this article, you’ll find a much deeper analysis of many of these same topics in my book, 10X Is Easier Than 2X. Get the kindle version for FREE here.Click here to download my FREE peak-state checklist and live in a peak state every day.[image error]

These 4 Habits Will Make You Happy And Successful

Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash(The Recipe For Daily, Science-Backed Growth)

This article will show you not only how to become successful, but also how to sleep better and have a more fulfilling life.

Let’s jump in.

Really quick: there are actually 3 ways to enjoy this article:

1. Watch this YouTube video:

https://medium.com/media/d24f2d0450049fe87af2f8c0aaaf30cd/href

2. Listen to this episode of the Dr. Benjamin Hardy Show (available on any podcast streaming service)

3. Continue reading this article (includes bonus content not available anywhere else)

1. Turn Off Your Phone 60 Minutes Before Bed

Research shows that over 90% of people are looking at their phone in bed in the ten minutes just before going to bed.

Most people are scrolling reactively through social media, literally procrastinating their sleep.

In the book, Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill, he explains the difference between being “definitive” and being a “drifter.” You’re either being definite about your purpose and your future, or you’re being acted upon by outside forces.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

If you are a drifter, you’re letting outside forces dictate and control your life.

When you randomly scroll through your phone, you’re drifting.

When you’re drifting, you’re a ship without a sail.

Staring at your screen will not only negatively affect your sleep, but also negatively impact your subconscious mind while you sleep. Your subconscious forms your memories, perspectives, and identity while you sleep.

The habits you form right before bed impact what you’re going to do the next day. If you go to bed wandering, scrolling, and drifting, you’re going to wake up and start doing that exact same thing. Your next day will be reactive, not proactive.

So what do you do instead?

Rather than scrolling through your phone and postponing sleep, pull out your journal.

Research shows that if you will simply just write down 3 things you’re grateful for every night, you will be physically happier and sleep better.

Rather than staring at a screen, hyping up your brain, and scattering your mind right before you go to bed, train your mind to slow down.

Output, not input.

In addition, Dan Sullivan and I wrote about an even more powerful practice Dan created in our book The Gap and the Gain.

“Writing what you’re grateful for is very powerful. But perhaps even more powerful is writing down specific “wins” you had that day. Writing three wins from the day not only boost your gratitude but simultaneously boosts your confidence. In his book Tiny Habits, the Stanford behavior scientist Dr. BJ Fogg explains that feeling good and feeling like you’re making progress are essential to growth and happiness. Dan Sullivan has been teaching his entrepreneur clients to write down three “wins” at the end of each day for decades. He even had an app created called WinStreak where you simply enter three wins each day. Writing down three wins daily is one of the most effective ways to stay out of the GAP. You feel like you’re always winning and making progress. It keeps you in a state of momentum and confidence.” — Excerpt from The Gap and the Gain

In psychology, there’s a concept called selective attention. Basically, selective attention dictates that whatever you focus on, you create more of.

Recording 3 wins each day will shift your attention and your focus to those wins.

If you’ve had a challenging day, you may not immediately see very much good. However, if you don’t record your wins, you’ll go to bed with a negative frame and filter on your experiences.

Even if you didn’t accomplish all of your goals, write down the 3 wins you got for the day. In this way, you’ll train your brain to start looking for wins.

Once you start looking for wins, you’ll find that there were a lot more of them in the day than you initially thought.

How you frame the past determines whether or not it was good or bad.

Your wins can be anything.

It could be saying hi to your son.

It could be making your bed.

You get to choose what a win is. And as you write them down, you’ll start to see more and more of them.

“Most of us have trained ourselves to brush off compliments and never appreciate our progress. The more you practice it, the more specific you will get at seeing, appreciating, and framing GAINS…you’ll be able to see innumerable GAINS in even the smallest experiences. For instance, you will get to the point where you can list dozens of GAINS in a single day — such as waking up, going on that run with your friend, etc.” — Excerpt from The Gap and the Gain

From a psychological standpoint, having a positive mental experience in the present means you have an increasingly better past and an increasingly bigger future.

You’ll begin framing your past in the positive. You’ll begin to see that it is happening for you, not to you. You’ll begin to see your memories and experiences of that day in an entirely new light.

“We reinterpret or reconstruct our memory in light of what our mental set is in the present. In this sense, it is more accurate to say the present causes the meaning of the past, than it is to say that the past causes the meaning of the present.” — Dr. Brent Slife, Time and Psychological Explanation

The past doesn’t dictate who you are now. It’s who you are now that gets to dictate what the past means.

Recording your wins will increase the value of each day. Think of what it would mean to you to have a daily record of all of your wins from EVERY day from a full year or even a decade.

What you focus on expands.

When you start creating more wins in the past, you’ll be free to create more wins in your future.

Put your phone away. Instead, give yourself 3–5 minutes to record wins you had that day, and 3 wins you’re going to do tomorrow.

What are the 3 most important wins you’re going to achieve tomorrow?

These could be professional or personal. These should be focused on importance, not urgency.

If you have more than 3 things, you have too many. 80% of your results are determined by 20% of your actions.

Focusing on 3 wins for the next way and ignoring everything else will allow to operate from the 20% of results that really moves the needle.

You’re changing your behavior right before sleep.

You’re going to bed feeling like a winner.

You’re seeing your wins for tomorrow.

You’re seeing your past differently.

You’re seeing an increasingly better past and an increasingly bigger future.

You’re sleeping differently. You’re shaping your subconscious to see, expect, and CREATE more wins in a momentous and continuous cycle.

This habit will change your life.

2. Have A Daily Accountability Partner

“What is measured, improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.” — Karl Pearson

Daily, I send to my assistant my top goals for the day. At the end of the day, I send her my results and my wins.

Simply by reporting your progress to someone else, you feel more accountable. By feeling more accountable, you actually start to become more aware of your behavior.

Writing your behaviors down in this way will make you aware of them. Self-awareness is a large part of being successful.

Having accountability will boost your motivation to achieve the things you said you would. Achieving the things you said you would do is how you build confidence. Confidence comes from by making and keeping commitments to yourself, and by making and keeping commitments to others.

Find someone who matters to you.

Each night, text them the 1–3 things you plan to accomplish tomorrow and your results from that day. This should take no more than 2-minutes per day.

It’s also okay if you didn’t achieve all 3. The fact that you’re reporting your progress forces you to be honest with yourself and also boosts your motivation for the future.

3. Create Something Daily

“Always be working on something” — Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday has published a dozen books because he doesn’t allow for time “in between” his projects. He lives what he teaches in always working on something.

People who are creative are continuously working on projects.

If you put gaps of time in between projects, your mind isn’t actively working on something.

Your brain is always looking for what you’re trying to accomplish.

“Your eyes can only see and your ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.” — Dan Sullivan

When you’re always working on a project, your brain is filtering all the information you receive towards that project. You’re using your experiences to progress constructively towards something.

If you’re not actively working on something, the things you’re learning are not being channeled towards anything. Your “learning” is essentially wasted energy, and the opposite of applied learning.

Learning information that’s not filtered towards a goal is wasteful. This is how people end up filling their heads with information, but not knowledge and wisdom.

Always be constructively taking your experiences and turning them into something.

Whether that’s writing, filming, coding, or whatever is particular to your skillset, you should be outputting daily.

This will help you to channel your energy a lot more effectively, and to become a creator rather than a mindless consumer.

Cultivate the habit of creating daily.

4. Improve Your Key Relationships Daily

Most of the research in positive psychology shows that our relationships are one of the biggest indicators of our happiness as a person, our physical health, and our longevity. In fact, a 75-year Harvard study tracking life successes of men found that by far, their personal relationships contributed to their well-being more so than anything else.

“I think happiness makes an enormous amount of difference in terms of longevity. And I’m happier when I’m drinking Coke or eating hot fudge sundaes or hot dogs.” — Warren Buffett

For Warren Buffett, he recognizes that he derives physical health from his happiness and his relationships, in spite of what he eats. He is 93 years old. It’s not about what he eats for him, it’s about his state of mind and state of being.

Send gratitude notes. Send gratitude letters. Make a phone call. Be interested, more than trying to be interesting, in the lives of others.

Consider what religious leader Henry Eyring learned from a man he once volunteered with.

“More than once, as we were driving to our little branches [small religious congregations], he said to me, ‘Hal, when you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.’ Not only was he right, but I have learned over the years that he was too low in his estimate.” — Henry B. Eyring

If you assume everyone you meet is going through something really difficult in their life, you really are going to be right more than 50% of the time.

The truth is, even if it doesn’t look like it on the surface, everyone is dealing with something.

If you’re interested, emphatic, compassionate, grateful, and loving in your relationships, you will become happy and successful.

Having healthy, positive, and happy relationships is one of the keys to having a great successful life, and to having longevity.

Your relationships are also within your control.

A lot of people are overly focused on things they can’t control, like what is going to happen to the stock market 3–6 months from now. Forecasting things you cannot control is what create unhappiness. Focus on what you can control, your relationships, and you will find better connection and meaning in your life.

There’s a great book on this subject called Antifragile. Nassim Taleb’s main argument is that rather than trying to overly predict the future, you should continuously set your life up to gain and benefit from it no matter what happens.

Anti-fragility is turning everything into a gain.

Anti-fragility means everything is happening for you, not to you.

Focus on what you can control and let go of all the outside factors. Improve your relationships every day. Be more focused on being interested than interesting. This is anti-fragility.

Genuinely care about people. Be grateful for them. Express gratitude for them. Be interested in what they’re up to.

Rather than it always being about you, let it be about them. Understand what’s going on in their lives. Genuinely be compassionate and empathetic.

Be a support to others. Bring joy, love, and laughter into their lives. Text a few people you love, right now. Send them a joke. Bring laughter into their lives.

As Joe Polish says, be someone who others always want to answer the phone for.

Conclusion

These 4 habits are science-based.

If you do these things, your life will be better, and you will be happier.

You’ll weed out most of the trash in the world that doesn’t matter.

You’ll start living your life proactively.

You’ll set yourself up for success.

You’ll create more of a life you want.

Have a beautiful day.

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Want To Upgrade Your Brain? Stop Doing These 7 Things Immediately.

Steve Jobs — (wallsdesk.com)“Your eyes can only see and your ears can only hear what your brain is looking for.” — Dan Sullivan

Your brain is a phenomenal tool.

Your brain will find whatever it is that you are looking for.

If you use your brain to chase impossible goals, you will attract the right methods and the right people to accomplish those goals.

You can transform yourself through your brain. You can give yourself skills, languages, and abilities, that are completely unfathomable to your current self, with your brain.

You can also get trapped in very slow and counterproductive rhythms with your brain.

How you use your brain is up to you.

You have greater capability and autonomy to build your own habits than ever before in the world we live in today, and yet most people are living a life of distraction.

Most people’s habits are literally destroying their brains.

With these destructive habits, you won’t be able to progress.

In this article, I will help you become aware of the 7 toxic and destructive habits that are destroying your brain. I’ll then give you the tools you need to train your brain how to get the results you want.

Really quick: there are actually 3 ways to enjoy this article:

1. Watch this YouTube video:

https://medium.com/media/824c7309f288379eaa95a1f93b8a3e5b/href

2. Listen to this episode of the Dr. Benjamin Hardy Show (available on any podcast streaming service)

3. Continue reading this article (includes bonus content not available anywhere else)

1. Starting Your Day Too Slow

“If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it will be a hard matter to get right.” — Joseph Smith, Jr.

The first toxic and destructive habit destroying your brain is starting too slow.

Most people train their brains to be slow.

Think about your brain in the beginning of your day.

How long does it take you to get out of bed in the morning?

What do you do first once you’re up?

What do you think about?

What do you read?

What do you watch?

What do you eat?

What do you look for?

There’s a large probability that your morning is keeping you stuck. Your brain can’t be in flow when you’ve conditioned it to be slow.

Most people are slow to start anything. Because our society is trained and wired for consumption, most people spend their morning consuming things on their phone. Because of this, they never get into a “FLOW” state during their day. Most people are so trapped in consumption they’re dependent upon it just to get going in the morning.

Do you wake up starting your brain FAST? Or do you wake up consuming junk that then (literally) scatters your brain?

Consuming junk in the morning puts your brain into a state of over-analysis. Over-analysis is crippling. Think about how many different ideas and bits of information you can find within 5 minutes on Instagram. Starting your day like this will leave your brain confused and scattered. You will be trapped in a state of over-analysis for the rest of the day.

Involving yourself in too many things before you start your real work cripples your success and creates unnecessary distractions. Being distracted makes you busy. Being busy makes your brain slow.

Rather than being busy, it’s far more powerful to have clarity about the #1 task, and then spend your energy in the morning doing that thing.

If you train your brain fast, get into a flow state, and do really important work, you can produce results at an astonishing rate.

Do you want to train your brain to be fast, in a flow state? Here’s how:

Wake upGet out of bedMake your bedGet hydratedMove on to your #1 task AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE

When I say your #1 task, I mean important work that can change your life. Train your brain that you are capable of doing that task first. Because you are!

As an example, for me, it’s writing my books.

I wrote several books while I was still a PhD student and having 5 kids (now 6). This is because I woke up, did the first thing first in the morning, and then was primed to go fast all day. I was producing rather than consuming.

Start working on your #1 task first thing in the morning, and your brain will build its way to genius.

By following this process, you’ll start getting wins FAST in the morning. You’ll intentionally prime your brain to look for more ways to succeed and WIN that day. Your brain will be filtered to your goals and focused on doing, rather than consuming. You’ll train your brain to wake up along with your body, so that you can create massive progress. You will accomplish so much more, because you are going fast first, before anything else.

You’ll begin moving in the RIGHT direction as soon as you wake up.

If you get this piece right, you can accomplish more halfway through morning than most people do in a week because their brains are so slow.

2. Consuming Too Much

“Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.” — Cal Newport

The world has never had more information. Most of that information is like candy to your brain.

Most information is training your brain to have really low standards for yourself.

Most information is training your brain to seek entertainment, not education.

Most people consume WAY too much information, and still believe they need more. This is the mental equivalent of an obese person who thinks they’re hungry all the time. Most people want more and more stimulation and consumption, despite already having too much.

Continuing with the obesity analogy, most information is really low-quality. Most people don’t have a healthy information diet. Most people are after the low-hanging fruit, the “fast food” of information — easy to access and just as easily destructive to your mental focus. High-consumption, high-artificial information diets produce mediocre brain capacity at best.

Most people’s inputs are entertainment-based. Because your input shapes your outlook, most people have a far lower-quality view of the world than what it could be.

“Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.” — Zig Ziglar

Most people are suffering from what psychologists call a low-level default future where they don’t have a big vision or high expectations for their life.

Most people are consuming information, food, and even people and experiences that have created a low-level worldview and identity for themselves.

Low-level becomes the standard for your brain when that’s what you feed it on a repetitive, daily basis.

Your brain is a prediction machine. It will take what you give it.

Your identity will perform with what it has to work with — what you give it. You cannot outperform your identity.

Because most people are overly consumed with information, situations, and people, with really low standards, their brains are expecting more of those very things.

To optimize your brain, consume less, and consume higher-quality information.

The 80–20, or Pareto principle, is true in all components of life. 80% of your results come from 20% of the things you do.

80% of the information you consume right now is literally holding you back from becoming your future self.

80% of the information you consume is lowering your vision of your future self.

Part of training your brain to become effective, phenomenal, and powerful, is to have clear filters and standards for what you say “yes” and “no” to.

Just as you want to train your brain to be fast and not slow, you want to train your brain to seek after quality and not quantity of information.

Whatever you let in signals to yourself that that it belongs within your filter.

If you say “yes” to junk media, that shows your standard.

It you say “yes” to wasting your time, that shows your standard.

What you say yes to is the future that your brain is both predicting and creating.

Your identity is that which you are most committed to. You can know what you are committed to most by your results, not by what you say you’re committed to.

Your current weight, your current income, and your current relationships are all things are things you are currently committed to. They are things you have accepted and said “yes” to in your life.

The 80% of what you learn to being saying “no” to, will leverage and multiply your new, higher standard.

Consume less, and you’ll have a much higher quality filter and standard for what you are willing to consume. You’ll raise the standard, and thus speed up your brain.

3. Doing Too Much

If you have more than three priorities, then you don’t have any.” — Jim Collins

If you’re trying to accomplish more than three things in a given day, you’re focused on shallow and busy work, not deep and productive work.

Every time you switch tasks, you take your brain out of flow-state. Switching tasks shatters your focus and wastes previous energy. Most people are used to task switching. They don’t know how to go deep in ONE thing at a time, because they’re not used to going for something big. Most people are task switching with their brain like a computer that has 50 tabs open.

If you want to accomplish REALLY big things, learn how to focus and go deep in concentration on ONE THING for 3–4 hours at a time. Most people will not do this.

As an example, when I film videos for my YouTube channel and podcast, I spend all day focused on just that ONE THING. I film video after video. I focus on just that one thing, rather than constantly switching tasks between many different things.

This is called batching. When you batch, your brain doesn’t have to spend mental energy switching between tasks. You save incredible energy by going deep in one area at a time.

This state is deep work, or deliberate practice.

The Jim Collins rule of having no more than 3 priorities applies not just to your life, but also to your month, to your week, and to each day.

When you have a thousand different things happening in one day, you’re not really focused on going deep in the few things that really matter.

The only way to vault obstacles and go really deep in your life is to go really, really deep.

This means doing way less in terms of numbers of activities, goals, and priorities, but doing way more in the things you are accomplishing and developing mastery in.

Most people are not clear about or connected with their future self. They don’t have a future self that’s massive and exciting, which keeps them trapped in the surface-level.

“By our nature as rational, conscious creatures, we cannot help but think of the future. But most people, out of fear, limit their view of the future to a narrow range. Thoughts of tomorrow, a few weeks ahead, perhaps a vague plan for the months to come.

We are generally dealing with so many immediate battles that it is hard for us to lift our gaze above the moment. It is a law of power, however, that the further and deeper we contemplate the future, the greater our capacity to shape it to our desires.” — Robert Greene

The more deeply and further out that you contemplate your future, the clearer you will get on your future self.

The more work you do that’s actually important to your future self, the more you put your future self into a phenomenally different position.

You can’t put yourself into a different position if you’re grinding away at the daily minutiae, caught up in the busy and urgent but non-important.

4. Having No Vision Or A 2x Vision

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” — Bill Copeland

Most people don’t have clear goals. They don’t have a clear vision for their future self, and they don’t know where they are going.

If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter how you get there.

Most people’s vision of their future self is basically getting to the next paycheck or getting to the next weekend. They don’t have clarity on who their future self is, and they certainly don’t have a massive and compelling future self.

They don’t have what entrepreneur and founder of XPrize Peter Diamandis would call a Massive Transformative Purpose, or MTP.

“Your Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) is a clear statement that guides, empowers, and inspires you. It helps you decide what to do, and more importantly what not to do. It’s both your fuel and your filter.” — Peter Diamandis

In 10x Is Easier Than 2x, Dan Sullivan and I explain the difference between a 10x vision and a 2x vision. With a 2x vision of your life, you’re using an extrapolation of your current situation to continue your future. It is a continuation, not a transformation. With a 10x vision, you have to change everything.

“10x is the equivalent of going from crawling to walking; from not knowing the alphabet to reading; from living in your parent’s basement to living on your own; from being awkward and shy to a bold and emotionally-intelligent leader. 10x is tantamount to going from horse and buggy to a car. You may be in the same genre — such as transportation — but you’re not comparing apples to apples. A non-linear change has taken place. It’s fundamentally a qualitative shift, more than a quantitative one. The transformation occurs by operating from a seemingly impossible and imagined future, and takes you in a non-linearly and radically different direction and approach than what you (and everyone else) have been doing to this point.” — Excerpt from 10x Is Easier Than 2x

Unfortunately, most people have a 2x vision, even though this is psychologically destructive. In psychology this is actually known as the “default” future. There’s a lot of research showing that because people have a 2x vision, they underestimate who their future self will be. Most 18-year-olds don’t think they’re going to transform that much, despite most older people being in a dramatically different situation than when they were 18. Because of the “end of history illusion” made popular by Dr. Daniel Gilbert, most people think who they’ve always been is who they’re always going to be.

Most people have a fragile identity. They’re not learning and transforming.

To upgrade your brain, you need to have a SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE future self. Decide who you will become (remember, no more than 3 priorities).

You want this to be so high that it feels impossible to get there. When your future self is aligned with a 10x vision, your brain is forced to start operating at a faster and higher level. Your brain will be attracted to the right people, resources, places, and opportunities to dramatically advance towards your future self, and it will start working at a deeper and higher level. Your brain will start saying “NO” to things your previous self was dependent upon.

A 2x vision doesn’t require your brain to transform. This means your neural connections and pathways under 2x will largely remain the same, blocking your brain from growth. If your brain is not being required to create new connections towards new things, your brain is atrophying.

You want a 10x and seemingly impossible future, requiring you to let go of 80% of your current life.

10x is such a high bar and filter that only the best 20% of what you are doing right now really matters.

Find that 20% and go really deep. This is how you will get 10 times better at what you do.

You can get infinitely better, and your brain can become substantially faster, but it will require letting go of what got you here. You are not your past self. The only reason you’re holding onto most of your life right now is out of security and habit. Psychologically, we like things to be predictable and have assurance.

Your 80% is your security blanket.

In fact, in psychology there’s a name for this called “prospect theory,” which asserts that people would rather have a smaller reward with certainty rather than a larger reward with uncertainty.

“People tend to overweigh options that are certain, and are risk averse for gains. We would rather get an assured, lesser win than take the chance at winning more (but also risk possibly getting nothing). The opposite is true when dealing with certain losses: people engage in risk-seeking behavior to avoid a bigger loss.” — Aurora Harley

Most people create their vision from what they “need,” not what they want.

The challenge most people have as soon as they start becoming successful is that they’re no longer operating out of need, and they don’t know how to create a vision of what they want, because all they’ve ever done up until that point was from the perspective of need.

80% of the distractions in your life are held onto out of emotional security and out of habit.

Habits are actually destructive for your brain. Habits are the opposite of deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is the art of having clear goals, and going through a training process that transforms yourself and your abilities around and towards those goals.

The author of Atomic Habits, James Clear, actually clarified that he could have written a book on deliberate practice where he talks about habits, but instead he wrote a book on habits where he talks about deliberate practice.

Because habits is a far more marketable and attractive subject, habits is the subject of the book title, but true deliberate practice is about getting 1% better each day whereas habits will get you 0% better each day.

The purpose of deliberate practice is to stop habitual rhythms and get better instead.

Deliberate practice is the pathway to fulfillment of your 10x vision. Impossible goals will you to stop operating from the habits of your past self.

Stop operating from the assumptions of your past self, and start finding new and unique pathways. Find the people and pathways to get where you’re trying to go.

You can choose the vision you’re looking for. You can choose the standard.

Most people have not trained their brains for imagination. Imagination is a skill. Because most people aren’t training their brains for it, they have actually lost the skill of imagination.

Journaling is a beautiful tool to help you fix this.

learning how to train your brain to get what you want is a skill.

Getting emotionally connected to your future self is a skill. Getting to a place of commitment and knowing is a skill.

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

Training your brain towards goals that seem impossible is a skill.

Go for impossible goals every 90 days. Every 90 days you can transform your life. You can train your brain and your team to start filtering for opportunities to change your life.

Your brain will transform based on what you give it.

5. Failing To Rest

“Rest and recovery are critical for an athlete’s physiological and psychological well-being” — Dr. Karin VanBaak

When I was in my PhD program, my wife and I adopted 3 foster kids. When we first got them, we were shocked at how much sleep they needed. They needed 10–11 hours of sleep every night.

If you study any high performer, rest and recovery are essential to their routine. Because their work is so deep, they need to spend time unplugging and resting.

If you want to transform your brain, give it deep recovery.

Forms of active recovery that are fun, beautiful, enjoyable, and playful will stimulate your brain into learning faster and performing much better when you are at work.

Most people have not trained their brains to be either fully on or off. They’re semi-present at work and never fully recovering.

You want to train your brain to be fully on when you’re working, and fully off when you’re not. This will also impact the quality of your sleep.

If you want really, really good focus, and really, really good sleep, put your phone on airplane mode at night. Completely unplug and go all-in on your rest and your recovery. To start transforming your brain, you’ll have to get your sleep to an optimal level.

Also, find hobbies outside of work. Be immersed in them. Have playful, fun, really enjoyable hobbies outside of work that you get passionate and excited about.

Recovery leads to deep transformation, novelty, and joy.

Recovery leads to a life of immersion, not a life at the surface.

6. Not Taking Time To Reflect

“Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success.” — Richard Carlson

Most people don’t take time to reflect where they’re at.

Reflecting where you’re at is an essential component of deep and deliberate practice.

Review your last week. Review your last month. What GAINS did you make?

Observe, track, and report the things that are helping your brain move and go faster. According to Pearson’s law, what is measured and reported improves exponentially.

Take the last month and actually reflect and review on what you truly accomplished.

Take some time to look at the digital well-being section of your phone and of your social media apps.

How much time did you spend scrolling on your phone? How much time did you spend honestly reflecting and reviewing? How much did you actually accomplish?

Chances are you’ve accomplished some things this month that are really important that you didn’t even realize you accomplished.

Your time to reflect and review is deeply important. Your brain is a reconstruction machine. Your memories are not stored on a retrieval basis. Your memory actually reconstructs in light of the present context each time you remember and reflect on it. This is how you can proactively master your past and allow your future to dictate your present, by proactively shaping these experiences through review and reflection.

In Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins teaches how to adopt the military practice of filing an After Action Report, or ARR, to review and proactively re-frame your personal experiences.

“Break out that journal…log off the digital version and write them out long-hand. I want you to feel this process because you are about to file your own belated, After Action Reports. First off, write out all the good things, everything that went well, from your failures. Be detailed and generous with yourself. A lot of good things will have happened. It’s rarely all bad. Then note how you handled your failure. Did it affect your life and your relationships. How so?” — David Goggins

He actually does what he teaches here when he falls short multiple times in beating the world record for most pull-ups done in 24 hours. He chose to re-frame these ‘failures’ as learning opportunities, which he then leveraged to successfully break the record later on.

Your memories are not stored in objective entities. They are always a living part of who we are in the present.

Your past is a reconstruction.

Memory is a reconstruction.

Memory can just as creative as your vision, when you are planning for your future.

When you reflect and review your progress regularly, your past turns into something VERY useful.

Even trauma can be useful to you if you are reflecting in the right way. Psychologically, this is known as post-traumatic growth.

Just like David Goggins’ pull-up experience, every circumstance can become a gain for you if you choose to learn something from it and choose to imbue value in the experience.

7. Not Engaging in Physical Activity

“[Aerobic exercise] lights a fire on every level of your brain, from stoking up the neurons’ metabolic furnaces to forging the very structures that transmit information from one synapse to the next.” — John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman, from Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

Cardio and weightlifting are so good for your brain. You want to train your body and your brain at the same time.

When you train your brain before mental work, your brain has a lot of endorphins running through it and your brain will be firing a lot faster.

To get into peak mental shape, get into peak physical shape.

If you want a brain that can solve amazing problems, fire neurons really fast, make new connections, and be super creative — you need to train up your body.

Get into peak physical shape, whatever that means for you.

This may mean getting a health coach. I have a health coach.

Eat better nutrition. Put whole foods into your body. Get your nutrition dialed in. Get blood tests and actually make adjustments.

You have to get your body running at a high level to support your brain. Weed out synthetic junk food and train your fitness to the highest level.

You can get your fitness to incredible levels. You can get into much more of an elite physical shape than you may think.

Getting your body to an amazing level is SO GOOD for your brain. Develop performance routines that enable this.

Above all, remember why you are doing this.

“…I don’t think you can do [the] five or six hours of working out a day — if you don’t have a clear goal or know why you’re doing it. If you just hang out at the gym and train for five or six hours a day without a goal, [doing that is] almost impossible.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Getting your fitness, strength, and stamina to a very high level will transfer over to having deep flow and focus in your mental work.

Conclusion

You can transform your body and your brain into peak physical levels and achieve the impossible.

Your brain wants to filter for things that you’re not seeing.

Your brain wants to start finding gold coins instead of the bronze coins that you’ve been chasing.

Your brain wants to develop unique skills, abilities, and connections, today.

Your brain will produce the results that you are the most committed to.

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It’s only 27 minutes and goes away soon.

This training will show you how to achieve impossible goals success BEFORE 2023 is over.

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