Articles - Page 10 of 37

How do you set business goals, NOW?

You have no idea what will happen in a business!

That’s what I most learned as a distressed investor at the Carlyle Group.

Investing in public securities you convince yourself that the management team and you can somehow predict where this quarter or year is headed.

Yet, as a control investor, sitting on the board, with more information, you quickly see how little you know.

And the nothing you can actually predict.

The illusion of predicting the future

Yes, yes, we all know our world is based on guessing the future.

Economic forecasts.

Revenue projections, all the way down to EPS.

It all seems smart and thoughtful and precise, and rationalized by data…

And then, well, for any number of reasons, the world doesn’t behave according to our models!

As we’ve seen this year…

Man, our predictions would have been right on if it wasn’t for Covid!!

For better and worse, btw. (e.g. Amazon vs. United Airlines)

I saw the same in 2008.

The credit crisis and recession blew up many businesses, and completely blew out all projections and cash flow models.

The question we were forced to ask is…

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remove the block and all lives matter

“You can only push yourself to the wall,” I said to him.

“What do you mean?”

“Push, push, push, push will only get you so far,” I said.

So what takes you all the way?

I drew him this chart

I draw a lot of charts for myself.

There was a time in my old apartment where every wall was covered with charts.

Laughing about it, but being serious, my friend Liz used to say, “hmm, I hope you don’t bring people over here…”

That apartment I saw as my lab—like a scientist scribbling all over a chalkboard looking for a solution, it was where I did my work solving the mind.

When I moved and took all the charts off the walls I counted some 36 charts, just in my office, and I won’t tell you how many in total.

The point being that I’ve always been able to “see” developing more clearly than saying it.

So I showed him this chart that you see above.

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quick note on happiness

I keep hearing how much more unhappy Americans are now.

It’s no surprise.

Locked in your home.

Many people’s income cut off.

Businesses dying.

Kids futures looking like, what?

All the stresses and strains that are now upon us.

Yet…

You know from all the stuff we talk about here that…

NONE OF THAT causes happiness or unhappiness.

The ONLY cause of how you think and feel is you.

Admittedly, this is really really not easy to learn nor do.

Because our society has tricked you to believe that how you think and feel is caused by what you have or do.

This is the biggest lie perpetuated to keep humans in misery.

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the hardest part to winning

System For Winning

A client had a huge breakthrough this week.

Something we’ve been working on for a while really clicked in him.

It’s f’n cool to see.

When after all the ways we’ve been triggering this, boom!

He could see exactly what he needs to do.

That’s the hardest thing

Knowing what to do.

Meaning, if you have a job and your boss says to you—do these 5 things and you will succeed.

OK, well, that can still be hard, because these things might be hard to do.

But by far the harder thing to winning is when you have no clue what to do.

When you’re looking at your goals, and you literally have no idea how to win at them.

See, a lot of the time I talk about pro athletes, but in some ways that’s an easy game.

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practicing one simple feeling

How are you doing?

I want to share with you something real simple I’ve been deep in this week.

It’s for getting yourself feeling your absolute best.

You might see this as a valid goal in itself.

Coz, let’s face it, if you can feel 7 out of 10, or 10 out of 10, how do you want to feel?

But I’ve been using it more to drive what for me is a very hard goal.

There’s something about the brain…

That is full of trickery.

In some ways I think it is set up to deceive you.

Yet in other ways this deception is all part of the play.

Meaning, if you just woke up every day and had everything you want and your life was absolutely grand, well, how would you be?

It’s a bit of a trick question, isn’t it?

Coz on the one hand you might say, well I’d be chilling, I’d lack motivation.

But then on the other hand you might say I’d be fired up to just be living this life.

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4 steps to showing up like a pro athlete to win

One thing matters to top performance—

You.

One thing matters to you delivering top performance—

You being in a top performance state of mind.

That’s the difference between an amateur and a pro.

An amateur just shows up, but a pro shows up their best every time.

Why the mind of an athlete?

Because they are hardcore, of course.

Perhaps the most conditioned minds on the planet.

A reason I say this is because unlike say a military mind that has been forged in a system of conditioning.

The mind of an athlete is forged as a force of will.

Choice. Discipline. Routines. Used over and over again.

Not in theory, like the many who pretend to meditate…

But in practice, every day getting your mind game ready to drive top performance.

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“Always give 100% UNLESS…”

…you’re giving blood or getting a divorce.”

hahahaha.

That cracks me up every time.

It’s a line from one of the Pitch Perfect movies.

I don’t know if you’ve seen any of them, but they are good for a laugh.

And there’s some real clever stuff in there too.

Playing with motivation

One reason I enjoy the movies is they take the piss, as we say in England.

And you see it in this quote.

It’s coming at a hardcore topic of motivation and being your best in a fun way.

Right?

How often do we say arrgghh, you’ve gotta give it your best shot.

Or you’ve gotta really go for it.

Or leave it all on the field…

While having a laugh about it.

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have you seen this one?

Hey there,

How you doing?

Today I’m sharing with you one of the most valuable articles on my site.

If you’ve been hanging with me for a while you know these topics well.

All the time we talk about MIND CONTROL…

But REALLY, how skilled are you at this?

It isn’t just about having more success, or getting more of what you want, or top performance, or being happier, etc.

Nor is it about making more money, or having more options, or crushing your business, etc.

It’s about ALL of these things!!!

Coz, it comes back to the most fundamental thing that you do all day every day—

Think!!!

This article isn’t just about taking control of your thoughts.

It’s about optimizing your thinking to drive “anythink” that you want.

And it’s not just ideas, but 4 simple, practical steps you can do right now for taking control of your thoughts.

btw, if you don’t have it, you might get tons of value from this free book for Building Your Limitless Mind which is full of ways to ACTUALLY do this.

Raising a fund? Now is the time to prepare for a hard fundraise

I know that not many of you are money managers raising funds.

But I thought I’d share with you this free video program for Raising Your Fund Bigger, Faster, Easier.

Perhaps you are raising a fund.

Or you might know someone who is.

And now is the time they could really benefit from this program.

Yes, I know I’m OTT

Yes, this program is over the top.

I get that I’m extreme.

But as I often say that’s because I’m only focused on extreme goals.

It’s certainly true that trillions of dollars of capital has been raised by managers who lacked a winning method.

Or for that matter, had no method!

Yet, raising a fund can be incredibly hard.

And particularly now, if you’re looking to raise capital you want all the edge you can get.

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Do your best for humanity by taking control

How you doing?

These are challenging times, aren’t they?

The era of outrage.

Tensions boiled over.

A history of human oppression laid bare.

Terrorizing mob behavior from cops and protestors.

And here we are…

In the middle of a pandemic that has lost its front page status.

Social distancing given way to social unrest.

Locked up, with no end even talked about anymore.

In the phase of curfews, police and mob rule.

Hopefully this will be short.

And soon give way to opening up the economy and your life.

Or maybe not.

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This one thing is what matters most in life

Ultimate Days

Waking up I think I’m alone.

There’s no woman wrapped around me.

No body pressed up against me, face full of hair.

And then I see him at the end of the bed.

Green eyes staring at me, as if he knew I’d soon be waking.

We lock eyes.

I motion for him to come over.

He doesn’t want to, so I drop into trance.

Drifting back to wake

Staring at a point on the wall is how I used to do it.

Like the Heightened State of Awareness exercise in Focus Tools, fixating your attention is the simplest way to get beyond that mind.

But I no longer need that.

I simply blank the mind.

Years ago, what feels a lifetime ago, I’d wake up to a mind that was racing.

And then like chasing a horse after it’s bolted out of the gates I’d be running around after it all day.

I suspect you know what I mean.

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3 truths how to feel happy that few of us want to hear, let alone can or will train!

When I’m doing what I want, then I’ll feel amazing.

I didn’t tell myself that.

If you had asked me all those years ago when I was just so desperately scrambling to escape my life and be living the life I truly wanted…

I would have said I was happy.

Running like mad to figure it out, sedating myself with escapes, thinking that was “happy.”

Knowing, not just believing, but knowing, with certainty…

When you’re doing what you want, then you’ll feel how you want to feel.

The biggest human lie

It’s the lie your brain is constantly telling you.

The lie our consumer economy is selling you.

The lie our society spoon feeds you from cradle to grave.

The lie that nearly everyone will live and die by.

The lie that keeps nearly every human on the planet at some low level of what you might call happy.

The lie that—

Something in your life needs to change is how to feel happy.

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How to get more energy, without coffee

Do you know how coffee works?

How about what it does to spiders as you see on the chart above?

Of course most of us know how it works in you.

You drink it, feel more energized for some time, then it wears off like booze.

Or if you’ve habituated to it, perhaps you don’t even get much buzz anymore, but you still habitually drink it.

So most of us know the effect, but do you know how it works in your brain?

And why it leads you to crash?

Caffeine gives you “not-energy”

What I mean by “not-energy” is knowing how caffeine tricks your brain.

Many of us want to know how to get more energy.

Yet, we’re never taught the things that give and rob energy from you. (e.g. thinking steals tremendous energy)

Caffeine doesn’t somehow stimulate more energy in you.

It merely mutes the natural chemical in your brain, adenosine, that accumulates between sleep cycles.

In effect, caffeine blocks the receptors in your brain from detecting this natural sleep agent, which fools you into thinking you have more energy.

That is until the caffeine wears off after its average half-life of 5-7 hours, and in one big rush your brain realizes how sleepy it really is.

This is the caffeine crash.

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How to land a job in this market?

This is a crucial question for a lot of people right now.

Many people will be laid off and forced to get back to work.

Others will see their career has massively changed—compensation, promotion, culture, long-term trajectory, etc.

What does it all look like now?

Also it’s a time when many people are stepping back seeing life’s too short, asking what truly matters.

As my buddy put it, “If you’re not gonna go for what you truly want after all this, when will you?”

But how do you land a job in this market?

The same way you do in any market.

You go crazy!

At least that’s how I do it.

And how my clients do it.

You can do the same basic preparation that even many people fail to do!

But if you’re serious about getting an advantage in how to land the job you truly want, don’t you want to do everything you can?

And look, to be honest, I’ve started to accept what some people have been telling me for years.

Sure, OK, I can be a little intense 🙂

Yes, it may be true that my 17 hour program to Land That Crazy Job is extreme!

But that’s because it’s built to do extreme things.

And is it really extreme to do everything you can to land the job you truly want?

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Focus on what you can control, especially NOW

Hi, how you doing?

How are you faring in the lockdown?

Of course it’s not all rosy, but hoping it’s working out at least OK for you.

Today I want to be more direct with you on something.

Because I think it’s important that I’m clear on where I’m coming from and what advice I’m giving clients.

Some have called BS on me

Some clients and buddies are talking to me about what I think of this situation.

I’m giving them certain advice.

Then they’re reading what I write publicly, and they see a disconnect.

“You’re skirting the issues,” one said.

“Trying to sanitize it,” said another.

A blunt Aussie mate put it—”Painting lipstick on a pig.”

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A little Bond whispering in your ear

What do you know of that little voice inside your head?

Technically, you likely know it’s called an “inner voice.”

But oftentimes it isn’t only a voice, is it?

It’s pictures. Feelings.

Ultimately, it’s the way that you communicate with yourself “inside.”

For a long time I’ve been deeply exploring the technology of what I perceive this inner voice to be.

What I believe it is, and what it isn’t, might be surprising to some of you.

Yet, here I only want to keep it real practical.

Is your inner voice positive?

People say all the time that you should listen to your inner voice.

My question is—which one?

Coz you certainly don’t want to listen to your inner voice that makes your life worse, do you?

The question here being—is your inner voice making your life better?

The answer for many of us of course is “sometimes.”

Sometimes that inner voice is “telling” you good things.

Like a good friend it’s helping you feel more resilient or happy or energized or focused or “let’s do this,” etc.

Yet, for many of us, perhaps too often your inner voice is more like what?

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“What’s your path to success NOW?”

System For Winning

That’s a question I keep getting.

With all the uncertainty in the world.

The real tough economy that we’re headed out into.

All the things changing in the way you work and interact.

Lots of things you’ve done in the past might not work now.

Yet, in my book, your path to success is EXACTLY the same.

Navigating your path to success

When I first stepped back from my career nearly 20 years ago, and began this work I had no idea where it was headed.

I really liked my job, in some ways really loved it, yet I was asking the bigger question—

What do you truly want?

I didn’t know.

And I had even less of a clue on how you figure it out and get it!

How do you chart a path forward if you don’t know where you’re headed?

Also, like today, those were highly uncertain times, after the Internet bubble burst and 9/11.

Yet I came to discover that you can navigate it all the same.

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live your ultimate days, even when the world has gone to sh*t

This situation has obviously thrown a spanner into our year.

Boom, crash, there go the goals you had for the year.

Or worse, many people are scrambling just figuring out how to get by.

What it means for our years is still a mess.

Yet, we’ve all seen what it’s done to your days.

Has your daily routine gone to sh*t?

How’s it looking for you?

For most of us it’s gotten harder, hasn’t it?

Getting up at a certain time, into that rhythm you used to have.

Having your setup, those things that would set the cadence of your day.

A clear set of tasks to get done.

And what about your mind?

How’s all this had you thinking and feeling?

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Re: indomitable

Definition: incapable of being subdued; unconquerable.

This was word of the day.

Love it.

Got me asking.

How are you indomitable?

In what ways are you this way?

Where in life have you been unconquerable?

When were you incapable of being subdued?

Why did it matter you being this way?

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Even in lockdown, feel how you want

“Are we having fun yet?”

Today I woke with these lyrics playing in my head.

I’ll get to the song in a bit.

It’s not even that relevant, but the theme is very much one thing I’ve been focused on in quarantine.

Let me ask you something—

Have you gotten happier in quarantine?

It’s not a trick question, btw.

I’m being totally serious.

And I know for some friends and clients it’s been true.

Of course for lots of reasons it’s a crappy time, and it’s not just how they’ve chosen to see it.

But all this has slowed down our lives.

Given them more time with their pets and family.

To focus on the things that most matter to you.

So whereas some people seem to be really spiraling down in this hard time.

Others seem to be using it to spiral up.