Because I’m feeling fired up.
And I want you to be extra fired up.
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Limited quantities are available, so I expect this to shut down fast.
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Within minutes of Kobe Bryant’s reported death, wikipedia was updated.
People were tweeting about him.
Talking about how tragic it is.
Musing on how precious life is.
While many people talk about it…
Some time ago I wrote about something special that Kobe showed is inside us all—
I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.
What’s so special about folks like Kobe is they have all the same foibles as the rest of us.
It’s just, they never let it hold them back.
They’re maniacally focused on what most matters to them, and go after it HARD every day.
How many people will spend a few days talking about Kobe.
Talking about how life is precious.
How quickly it can all end.
And then get back to wasting many of their precious 86,400 seconds every day?
Kobe would never waste precious seconds on the clock that way.
It’s extreme to ask yourself, how many seconds a day are you wasting your life?
To ask yourself, if this was your last year on the planet, what would you cut out?
150,000 people die every day—roughly 2 every second—so what makes us think this won’t be our unlucky day?
We’ve been wary of putting out this video coz I still try to hide my extreme…
But Kobe made me think fck it, this is how I strive to play the game of life.
And it seems to me that Kobe lived much the same way.
Mamba Mentality.
You’re either focused on what truly matters or wasting your precious 86,400 seconds on the clock.
Monster headline, right?
That’s coz it’s a monster topic.
Perhaps this is the biggest monster that eats away at achieving our biggest goals.
The faces all around me they don’t smile they just crack
Waiting for our ship to come but our ship’s not coming back
We do our time like pennies in a jar
What are we saving for? What are we saving for?
So give me something to believe
‘Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe
A founder said to me last week he still doesn’t believe he’ll get his business to work.
“If I believe it more,” he said, “I know I can find a way.”
“That makes sense to a brain waiting to see pigs fly doesn’t it?” I responded.
Puzzled, he murmured, “What do you mean?”
I told him that for years I tried to convince myself that my outrageous goals were possible.
“And you know what I learned from tens of thousands of hours invested in mental conditioning? “I asked him.
It’s very difficult to get that brain of yours to believe what’s possible.
No matter how much you do, it’s mostly a see-believe faculty, isn’t it?
I’ll believe it when I see it, we say.
But believing gets easier when you see it the other way.
Because it can be hard to convince your brain that your goals are possible…
Many of us never take the actions that make our goals possible.
It makes sense to think, If only you can get yourself to believe it is possible, then you will do those things.
But if instead you can just kick the belief can down the road a little bit…
And take your best action anyways…
The more you believe your goals are possible!
“Shoot for the moon and if you miss,” Norman Vincent Peale said, “You will still land among the stars.”
Powerful idea, right?
But, to shoot for the moon we of course need more than nice sounding ideas.
“There’s nothing easy about going for that moonshot,” someone said to me this week.
She’s right.
Which means, if you’re gonna really go for it, you want powerful methods to propel you all the way.
Stands for 80/20 Mind and Actions.
It’s just one of the many acronyms I use for unleashing your top performance.
See, there’s lots and lots and lots of noise on top performance.
Yet, in the end, there’s only two things that matter to deliver your absolute top performance:
And beyond knowing the crucial importance of getting your mind and actions on target…
Is, actually, well, being able to do it every day.
It’s how you show up and do it that drives you all the way.
Hence, this notion of 80/20 M&A is built into my System For Ultimate Days.
For, if you’re shooting for the moon…
You want a way of showing up your absolute best every day.
That’s what I rant about in this video.
Shooting for the moon by unleashing your 80/20 M&A.
What do you think about Harry’s choice?
It’s a big one, isn’t it?
Of course many kids leave home way before their mid-thirties.
Plenty also move overseas and it’s no big deal.
But giving up your royal title and effectively getting a divorce from your family…
Whoa, that’s a pretty big deal, right?
Harry politely says he had no other option, but of course he chose.
What does it say that he would choose to separate from his family to be with the woman he loves?
I don’t know.
I pay so little attention to all this that I may be completely wrong but it seems to me he’s giving up a lot for his woman.
That’s pretty special to me.
In some ways I romanticize the idea of meeting a woman who could get me to walk away from all I know.
But in other ways I’m much more like Meghan.
The woman who got everything a little girl dreams.
Her prince.
The castle.
Royal title and all that stuff.
But she was like, screw that.
Hardly getting the Cinderella life one might dream, she opted for doing what she wants.
Keeping her man formerly known as Prince but divorcing his family and the responsibilities of the title.
That’s a woman who does what she wants.
I may have it all wrong.
I’m no royal watcher, and I rarely read more news than a headline.
Yet, from a vantage point of doing what you want, it’s an interesting case study, right?
Coz, see, here’s the thing.
Doing what you want isn’t about those things that other people want.
Or want for you.
Sometimes it’s not even about knowing what you want.
You can go for what you want, realize it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and then set your sights on another want.
Who says you can’t keep choosing what you want?
Living a life of doing what you want?
Why would you settle for so-called living any other way?
Especially when you have a powerful method like this for doing what you want?
It’s that time of year where some receiving bonuses are over the moon.
And many others are disappointed, feeling left behind.
There’s of course a lot that goes into how we’re paid that we can’t control.
But then there are those things that we can.
Do you get disappointed, and then do nothing to change?
Or do you use your comp as a signal to change your job or to drive more value where you are?
In this video I talk about:
We’re off to the races.
Time flies whether you’re having fun or not, doesn’t it?
How many of us feel shocked looking at the calendar seeing we’re already half way through the month.
Then you’ve got MLK.
Before you know the month is done.
Of course many people lack goals anyways.
And others will soon be tapping out of their New Year’s Resolutions 🙂
But those of us with our dominant intent, clear on what we’re achieving this year…
Are focused on what does it take to keep driving forward?
We all know momentum is everything, right?
And building momentum is my answer to how you’re getting your year started right.
In this video I talk about two powerful ways:
Building momentum these ways, how aren’t you crushing your year!
How many of us wake up fired up for our day?
How many people do you think woke up fired up for the first Monday of the year?
Did you?
It’s understandable if you didn’t.
Coming out of the holidays.
Many people we know dislike their job anyways.
Even many who like their work would prefer to be doing something else.
Yet, they’re not…
And even those who absolutely love their job can find themselves dragging out of bed some days.
How would you be different?
How much more effective would you be every day?
How much more would you enjoy your days?
Would others enjoy being with you?
Some people I know woke up on Monday like a kid on Christmas excited to bounce into their year.
They had great holidays.
Loved their time with their families, but their work is their stadium and they’re fired up to play their game.
Not saying that’s for everyone.
Many people are comfortable in their ugh.
But for those of us who want a simple, powerful exercise for waking up fired up every day…
In this video I walk through it.
A common theme in the year-end survey was that some people lacked 2020 goals.
Others had them, but it wasn’t clear they were focused enough on crushing them.
In this video I talk about what was missing—
Dominant Intent.
Get your year off to a CRUSHING start!
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This article I wrote last new year—New Year’s Resolutions Are Stupid. Set Goals
Has been getting a lot of play.
It makes sense.
Many people are seeking a new temporary goal that will be long forgotten by Feb 15 🙂
I jest.
There’s some real good things that come from New Year’s Resolutions.
But only if they are done right.
Which is to say…
Instead of making up resolutions that will soon be forgotten.
Set real goals instead.
In this video I talk through 5 ways for turning stupid New Year’s Resolutions into powerful goals.
Yes, you get to see me in person on this one!
It’s part of how I’m reflecting on 2019 and focused on crushing 2020.
How about you?
How was your 2019?
REALLY, how was your year?
How much thought have you given to it?
Have you written up some notes?
Reflected on what you did well?
Not so well?
How you plan to propel yourself into your 2020 campaign?
Well, if you’re looking for a way to easily do this, here’s a simple way.
I’m cooked.
That’s all I have left in me for the year.
I hope you too left it all on the field this year.
And you’re taking some time to enjoy your holidays.
To chill, restore, before getting yourself fired up for another year.
Sometimes we look back thinking about what more we could have done or achieved this year.
It’s done.
If this was your last week on the planet, how good do you want to feel about your year?
Leave it there.
Next week I’ll share with you a survey for charging into 2020 making it your absolute greatest year.
Love to you and your family for the holidays.
Do what you want!
I met with a CEO who had a problem with one of his lieutenants.
The guy was super smart.
Excellent at the technical aspects of his job.
But he was near impossible for others to work with.
Negative mindset. One upping teammates. Seeking more leadership without first proving his performance.
The CEO didn’t know how to manage him, so he just kept rambling on about developing his “soft skills.”
I asked him.
“What do you mean by that?”
He looked at me blankly, “You know, those soft skills.”
And maybe this sounds strange to some people but I haven’t heard that term in years.
I’ve certainly never used it in the context of my work.
I do remember back in the day people using that phrase.
But no-one whose serious about winning thinks about skills that way.
When you think about it, it’s a strange phrase, right?
Are the skills themselves “soft” in some way?
We diminish them as though they are.
Like they’re skills that don’t really matter, that perhaps maybe you might want to learn.
Yet, when you look at what “soft skills” actually are, you see they’re the…
Of course the political cycle is well in the swing of 2020 campaigns.
With many people tuned into all those hopefuls chasing their most ambitious goal.
But what about the rest of us?
How many of us are focused on our own 2020 campaign?
Certainly people will “invest” millions of hours in the 2020 political campaigns.
And they already have.
Like debating football statistics, or reading celebrity gossip, countless hours have been spent tuned into candidates who’ll never win.
But how many hours do we invest in our own 2020 campaigns?
Many of us humans are content to spend our lives watching others chasing their dreams.
Yet those of us focused on our own dreams want a 2020 campaign too.
A reason I wrote the book on Trump was to be clearer on exactly how he won.
Going deeper into Barack Obama’s campaign I was focused on the same.
Something powerful I noted in top political campaigns is…
First and foremost the candidates use their campaigns to rally themselves.
A political campaign is a massive undertaking, and being clear on why your campaign matters, massively motivates you.
From there of course, a political campaign is all about how you bring other people along with you.
In most of our goals the same is true.
Certainly if you’re a CEO or leader, your winning campaign is ultimately about your team and customers.
But even if you’re not a leader, almost always your goals are about deeply impacting others around you.
So what does it take to rally yourself and others?
There’s lots of ways to look at your goals for 2020.
And seeing them through the lens of a political campaign can give you some interesting angles.
Here’s five foundations of a political campaign that you can use too.
The absolute most obvious element of Obama and Trump’s winning campaigns was a powerful slogan.
Hope. Change. Yes We Can.
Bar none might be the best slogans a candidate has run. (side note: ask yourself, do any of the current candidates actually have a powerful slogan?)
Trump’s We Don’t Win Anymore and Make America Great Again rank right up there too.
These slogans were used to rally massive movements and take over the country!
And you can use the same powerful device too.
What’s your slogan for 2020?
Really, if you had a slogan to capture what you’re setting out to do, what is it?
Mine is Do What You Want.
Closely followed by Fck Yeah!
A client is using, “Now is my time.”
Another says to her team, “In 2020, we’re Driving It All The Way.”
What do you say?
And how do you make it a constant mantra you echo all day every day?
The hallmark of great leaders is having a compelling vision.
And being able to communicate it too.
As I write about a lot in the Trump book, pain is a powerful way to sell and activate your base.
But it’s an optimistic compelling vision that drives leaders to victory.
And we’re not just talking goals here.
We’re talking VISION!
What you see. What you feel. What you get yourself and others completely bought into.
What’s a compelling 2020 vision for you?
How do you best capture it?
Perhaps you have many visions, and that’s all good.
Do you see them on a series of screens in your mind? Do you print them up and stick them on the wall?
Do you have a phrase that you use to keep capturing your vision in words?
Wherever you’re at, how do you develop this vision for you?
The power of a slogan is that you can constantly keep repeating it.
Hope. Change. Yes We Can.
Were such powerful ideas Barack kept repeating that his movement echoed too.
But that’s just the headline.
What’s the messaging that comes after it?
I write a lot about Trump’s messaging in my book, because you saw him constantly unpacking the same ideas.
On the pain side, ideas like—We don’t win anymore. We don’t win at the borders. We don’t win at trade, etc.
And on the optimistic side too—We will win, win, win, win, win…
Think about the power of messaging for a football coach rallying his team.
And consider how you might use powerful messaging in your context too.
What ideas are most impactful?
How do you distill them down into ideas you can repeat over and over again?
My client keeps telling her team, Look at what we’ve done in the last 10 years and see 2020 we’re driving it all the way.
What might you say to yourself and others in powerfully driving your 2020 campaign?
The first chapter in my book on Trump is about the way he powerfully grabbed attention.
AOC has built such a dominant franchise the same way.
Driving a powerful campaign requires first grabbing the attention of constituents and moving them along with your messaging.
And you might think of your 2020 campaign the same way too.
As a leader, how do you really grab the attention of your team?
Of your customers?
To get the attention of the market for what you do?
Otherwise, no matter your goals, who must you compel in driving your 2020 vision?
How do you grab their attention? And keep grabbing it?
See, this is the thing, having a powerful slogan, compelling vision, dominant messaging really matters…
But it’s useless if you don’t keep bringing attention to it!
It’s like goals.
On January 1 many people will pretend to set goals for the new year they call resolutions.
Not only will most of those faux goals be forgotten by January 15…
But many who keep their goals will fail to look at them again until the end of the year.
The power of goals is in the way you constantly use them to motivate your best mind and actions.
So, how do you keep bringing attention to your 2020 campaign?
Do you proclaim it, repeat it, in some way?
Write it down where you and perhaps your team look at it over and over again every day?
What other ways might you keep bringing attention to your 2020 campaign?
“Put someone in the lane next to me, “my buddy, a professional runner says, “And I run faster.”
“Put me on the clock and I shoot faster,” says one of my shooting trainers.
You study your butt off for an exam because you’ll be tested on it.
And you get the best from yourself and your goals when you are serious about testing yourself.
A powerful motivator for all 2020 candidates is that they are constantly tested on their performance.
Polls.
Votes.
Donations.
If they’re not passing the tests, their campaign is over.
What about you?
It’s one thing to do these 4 things above, and another to be willing to hold yourself to it.
What’s your test?
How do you keep yourself accountable and hold yourself to it?
If you’re serious about driving your 2020 campaign, how else might you come at it?
What other things might you develop?
To rally yourself?
And rally others?
How do you best establish your campaign for making 2020 your year?
This week I re-read my book on Trump and listened to a bunch of tracks from the Masterclass… (which you can download free)
Which reminded me that just a small number of the right elements can powerfully drive your 2020 campaign.
You’re absolutely right…
Plenty of people might say that about me…
And I guess what really matters is…
Do I suck less than you want to learn a powerful, simple, two-step method to…
Many people think they already know how to sell.
They speak eloquently.
Are fine at persuading people.
So they figure, that’s the craft, they are good at selling.
But in one question you can expose their faux skill—
What, specifically, is your process for destroying objections?
To be sure, if you lack a process for destroying objections, you lack a process for selling.
They push you until they find the point which you break.
They can’t break me.
I don’t have a breaking point.
Says CIA operative Valerie Plame in the movie Fair Game.
You may remember the story of Valerie Plame.
A covert CIA operative in some of the most dangerous theaters in the terrorist world.
When she and her husband got on the wrong side of politics, questioning the obviously questionable existence of Iraq’s WMDs…
Overnight, by our own government, her cover was blown.
Career ended. Friends shocked.
A life of secrets exposed, she and her husband didn’t back down.
They stood for what is right and pushed forward into their new life.
“If I can’t build this business faster I fail,” a startup CEO wrote me.
From my time in Silicon Valley I know it’s often true.
Get big fast is a mantra because in a world of innovation there’s no rewards for slow.
“Unless we get harder, better, faster, stronger, we lose,” he echoed.
Is a beautiful thing, right?
See, one of the reasons I’m so deep into these topics is because when I began asking, How do you get what you want?
I had no clue what I was looking for.
People say, you’ve gotta have goals.
OK. Great, but what if you don’t know what you want?
And once you’ve got goals, how do you make them happen?
You’ve just gotta keep working at it.
Real helpful, thanks…
I wanted a method.
A simple and powerful approach I could put to work every day in getting what you want.
On Thanksgiving we went around the table and talked about what each of us are most thankful for.
Everyone had lots of good stuff to say.
I shared some things that were on my mind, but afterwards I realized I was missing something big.
Actually, it was more like I was missing many small things.
I hope you too had a happy Thanksgiving.
Or if you’re in another part of the world, just a happy Thursday!
Thanksgiving here in America is a special holiday.
Not just an American tradition.
But there’s something special about giving thanks, isn’t there?
Whether it was Thanksgiving or just Thursday where you are, what is thanks-worthy for you?
What do you most give thanks for?
Was a question that started all this for me.
It seemed such a strange question at the time.
Before, I thought I knew the answer.
But when I started thinking differently, it wasn’t like a bolt of lightning, some epiphany.
More like over time my brain kept coming back to my question…
What really matters to you?
What’s your life about?
Is this what you dreamed it would be?
What you want it to be?
Who you want to be?
Do you even know?
Back when I started asking these questions I had no clue.
And even less clue where it would lead me.