Let’s get back to basics.
In the last few months our community has exploded and I want to give you a quick recap of what we are about.
One thing—How do you get what you want?
As you read these newsletters, you will see the same themes recurring over and over again.
Having spent a decade reading thousands of books and transforming my own career and life, I left Wall Street to share a simpler and better way.
You shouldn’t have to read thousands of books to get what you want, and, in fact, in my world, you only need to be willing to do four things:
1. Focus on what you want
The dirty secret of getting what you want is that you don’t need to know what you want. Instead, you just need to get serious about the step you are now taking that is moving you in the right direction.
If you are in a career, that might be positioning yourself for your next promotion. If you are looking to leave you might focus on creating just one more option. If you are building a business, stop thinking about how you can sell to dumb money for $19 billion, and simply focus on—What is the next step that keeps you moving in the right direction?
And get serious. Have definite purpose. Commit yourself to getting what you want.
2. Build a system for getting it
Forget about the millions of junk ideas, junk books, junk tweets, junk blogs, junk podcasts, and junk everything else. Instead, step back, and develop for yourself a serious process, a plan, a system, that is designed to take you from where you are today to where you want to be.
If you are building a business, forget about how other people think you build a business. Make it your mission to figure out: How do you build your business? What matters to winning? What steps must come together? How do you make it happen?
3. Build yourself into the person who can do it
In 1894, Orison Swett Marden wrote, “While many are surprised in their lack of success, few appear to attribute this to the fact that they are doing little to pursue growth.”
Look, let’s call a zombie a zombie. Most people are going nowhere in life because they are unwilling to grow. They are not reading. They are not training their skills. Most of them are the walking dead; they are barely even living.
To get what you want, you must build yourself into the person who can get it. You must look yourself in the mirror and ask, To get what I want, who must I become?
Then you must do it! If you want to get strong in the gym, you don’t think you want it. You don’t develop a plan to get strong. You hit the gym and lift; you develop strength through taking action.
Become, as Daft Punk says: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
4. Build skills
There is a simple formula for all success—Build wicked skills.
If you are Webb Simpson, ranked 39 on the PGA Tour, you only have one path to success: Get better at golf. Build your mental skills. Improve your game.
No matter what your goal. Whether it be a better career, a better life, a better body, a better whatever, build badass skills and you will get what you want!