Articles - Page 26 of 36

"No Wonder Your Life Is Falling Apart"

The other day a CEO said to me, “I’m not into that personal development stuff.”

“No wonder your life is falling apart,” I replied.

Shocked, he fired back, “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” I stated. “You asked my client to introduce us because your business is stalled, you are living in worry, your marriage is suffering, you fear your life is falling apart, but it’s not about your business. It is about you.”

Now I had his attention.

Almost every single human on the planet wants more.

We want more success in our careers, more money in the bank, more love at home, more time to do what we want, and so on.

But how many of us are “earning it?”

Every year in their careers many people expect to keep getting paid more and promoted, yet how are they every day becoming more valuable?

Business people, like my client’s friend, expect their businesses to keep growing, yet how are they getting better at driving that growth?

Our so-called leaders expect our economy to keep getting better yet by most standards—education, waistlines, financial, etc.—we keep getting worse.

Why should anything get better if you aren’t? If you’re not learning. If you’re not growing. If you’re not investing in yourself. If you’re not getting better, why should your life?

A professional athlete knows that if they train less they will get worse results.

Someone on a diet knows that if they eat worse they will get fatter.

A kid in school knows that if they don’t study they will fail.

How is life any different?

If you want a better career, life, marriage, whatever, get better!

I've made every mistake, but ONE

In preparation for releasing my next book, a few weeks ago we launched a new website.

This got me reflecting on the steps I have taken and the many, many mistakes I have made along the way.

Let us count some of them together.

When I left Wall Street to share the ideas that had transformed my own career and life, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I couldn’t write. I didn’t know how to share my ideas, and more generally I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Not only was I in over my head, I was far from ready. My mindset was weak relative to what it takes to do what I do and I was a shadow of the man I needed to be.

I’ve never wanted to be a public figure and I was uncomfortable just having up a website, let alone sharing my ideas publicly. It took me four months just to email my own network to tell them what I had left Wall Street to do, and another four years to write consistently.

My first foray into sharing my work was a bunch of videos that likely hurt my cause more than helped it. And with only a small number of people watching, my weak mindset was beaten down even more.

After I painstakingly spent five years writing my first book (on top of the ten it took me to research it…), I wasn’t ready to share it. Rather than make a book I could stand behind I make a low-grade version that I pushed out the back door.

Even after I spent a bunch of time and money making a beautiful book, I still wasn’t ready to promote it and stand for my ideas.

These are just some of my big mistakes and along the way I have made many, many more, but one.

I never let anything stop me from doing what I am here to do.

I got started.

I kept moving.

And all I do is get better and better.

As one of my teachers puts it, “Take massive imperfect action and improve as you move.”

Who Wants to Get WORSE?

Some twenty-five years ago when I got serious about my grades in school, I thought success was easy.

If you had told me to read a book on it, I would have told you all I needed to know— Work at it all the time.

Back then my grades were all that mattered to transforming my life, and I conditioned myself to believe that if I wasn’t studying I was putting my future in jeopardy.

That’ll get you moving.

Throwing Hours At It

It didn’t feel great but I got top grades and I got a top job because I worked at it all…of…the…time.

Back then I just threw hours at the problem. I was a hammer, brute force was my tool.

Today I would pick up different tools.

What “Truly” Drives Success?

My grades were mostly exam-based so “success” was contingent on my ability to read and memorize mostly useless information for regurgitation under exam conditions.

For me, that meant countless hours of reading and note taking through the semester, and then exam preparation and review beginning even months ahead of exams.

Back then I had no idea that you can easily train yourself to read fast, nor that you can learn to easily and quickly memorize lists and ideas.

These are basic tools, but I had no idea they existed, when they should be the first thing that you learn in school…

Getting Better Every Day

When I got into personal development it was because I wanted to find better ways to get what I wanted in my career, but quickly it overtook my life.

Once I started, I didn’t know how to not do it anymore.

Reading faster, memorizing lists, whatever. That’s all old hat to me. Once I got deep into learning more skills and making my life better and better, it just became how I live.

I couldn’t imagine not getting better every day.

That’s like skiing, and trying to get worse.

Elon Musk, Larry Page, YOU

I read a great article (that I can no longer find) by Wharton Professor and best-selling author, Adam Grant.

Discussing his new book on people who champion new ideas and change the world, he provocatively states—when I asked people like Elon Musk and Larry Page about starting their own companies their answers caught me off guard.

As he wrote, “They all felt the same fear of failure that the rest of us do. They just responded to it differently.”

In effect, they don’t allow the fear of failure to hold them back from taking action, but they are more concerned about failing to take action.

In his original Personal Power program recorded some thirty years ago, Tony Robbins talks about the rules we invent for ourselves that govern our lives.

Discussing a corporate training session he was running, he asked the CEO, “Do you consider yourself successful?”

Surprisingly to Tony and the room, he said, “No,” before going on to state his rules for what it means to be successful—I must have more money, less body fat, and so on.

Then Tony turned to another man in the room, a much more junior employee and asked, “Sir, do you think you are successful?” The man immediately responded, “Yes, every day I am above ground I am successful…”

Tony then went on to share his own personal rule for failure—I can only fail if I give up, as long as I keep working at it, I am successful.

Do you see how by just changing a rule you have previously invented that you can change the way you perceive major things in your life?

And, now, here’s the key to this topic of rules.

Just because Tony Robbins or Larry Page or Elon Musk or anyone else live by certain rules doesn’t mean that they are the right rules for you.

It’s up to you what rules you live by, what matters most is that you know the rules you have already set and that you are in charge of changing them.

Become Color Blind

Riding his bike on the mean streets of Los Angeles, my buddy’s friend was hit by a car.

It was a serious accident and he was lucky to survive, but as it turns out, he was also lucky to have almost been killed.

As he was lying in hospital a routine check detected a cancerous growth on his thyroid, which at this early stage was easy to remove.

If he hadn’t been hit by that car, it might not have been discovered until it was serious.

There’s a Taoist story about a wise Chinese villager who had a wild horse stray onto his property.

His neighbors said to him, “You’re very lucky.” Shrugging his shoulders he responded, “I don’t know, it just is.”

A few days later as his son was breaking in the horse, he was thrown and broke his leg.

This time the villagers said to the old man, “That’s terrible.” Again, he responded, “I don’t know, it just is.”

A few weeks later on their way to battle the Chinese army came through the village and recruited all of the healthy young men to take to war, leaving behind the young man with the broken leg.

Again the villagers said, “You’re very lucky,” and the wise man responded, “I don’t know, it just is.”

Too often in life our emotional states are blown around like a kite dancing in a hurricane, when we rarely know whether something is good or bad in the end.

Those of us with a spiritual path might see it’s all part of God’s plan, others believe things happen for a reason, yet for all of us the first step is accepting what is.

It is said that an optimist sees green lights everywhere they look, a pessimist sees red, and the truly wise person is color blind.

"You fight like a younger man, Mr. Wayne"

There’s a well-known Wall Street story of, as Vanity Fair wrote it, Billionaire Bill Ackman’s ill-fated Bike Ride.

Riding with a group of strong cyclists, Ackman, a highly competitive hedge fund manager, set off hell for spandex tearing out ahead of the group.

Some thirty miles down the road, however, out of gas, and screaming with pain, he struggled to finish the ride.

It happens.

Sometimes we get off too quick when we are best to choose a sustainable pace.

There’s a scene in The Dark Knight Rises where, while beating him down, Bane says to Batman, “You fight like a younger man, nothing held back, admiral, but mistaken.”

In a quick melee you might come out hard and fast, but against a strong opponent you want to keep plenty in reserve.

Success is rarely about how quickly you go after it, but whether you are able to persist long enough to reach your goal.

Some of us are naturally better starters.

Others are good at keeping moving.

But fewer of us are strong finishers.

Getting it done often requires hunkering down for the miles, picking a pace you can sustain, and consistently turning the pedals until you get there.

For larger projects, you best do this by structuring your time to make even the tiniest progress every day.

Live in the Flow

I haven’t written this week because I’ve been too busy writing.

A week ago I got swept up in an idea for a book and I’ve been absorbed ever since.

It’s quite an amazing experience to me.

You know what it feels like when you become so absorbed in an activity that hours might pass by and it only feels like minutes.

Whether you see it in a kid playing video games, an athlete in the zone, or you’ve experienced it for yourself running, swimming, driving, playing golf or doing other things, I’m sure you know this flow experience.

As we’ve covered before, flow, best described in the book, Flow, is considered the peak experience for happiness and performance.

Flow is by far the best state to focus and get things done, to tap into your peak potential, and perhaps most importantly, the peak feeling of being alive.

Many of us have experienced this wondrous feeling of flow, and many people want to know how to best consistently tap into this experience.

Whether I am typing, skiing, running, reading, boxing, doing my stupid-hard SEALFit workouts, or most other things, I am training myself to live inside the flow.

There are a number of rules for the type of tasks in which you are more likely to achieve flow, yet I suggest you train flow the same way you train every other skill—

Choice and practice.

You first decide to fully commit to a task. You choose to eliminate other distractions (like email) and thoughts that cross your mind. And like a runner who might be rickety to begin with, you keep going until you enter flow.

Even just practicing a task in this way for say 30 minutes at a time you quickly train this potent skill.

For those of you who are more serious about training flow, listen to this podcast a handful of times and every chance you get practice Living Inside the House of Flow.

HEE-O

That’s not my innovation. My client came up with that one.

It’s an acronym that he uses as one of his Continuous Practices—meaning he reminds himself to do this all the time, sometimes every few minutes.

If he starts to get frustrated or negative or otherwise go into a less ideal mental state, he hits it—”HEE-O: Happiness, Energy, Enthusiasm, Optimism.”

As soon as he does, these pleasurable feelings shoot through him like a needle in the vein, only carrying good brain juice.

Now, here’s the trick. To use a tool like this, you can’t just say, “HEE-O!” or “YEAH!” as I like to say. You must load up your mantra with all the energy you can muster, infusing as much feeling as possible.

It also helps to have some type of gesture—like thrusting your fists in the air—so every time you use this tool you engage your entire body.

I know this might seem odd to some people—even though we see athletes do it all the time—but here’s what we know.

All the thoughts that we have in our heads. The feelings we have in our bodies. None of them are “real.” The things that trouble you from the past, or bother you today, or you worry about in the future can EASILY be replaced by better thoughts and feelings.

Unfortunately, for many of us however, “easily” doesn’t come so easily, which is why you want powerful tools.

My client has a big job with a lot of responsibility. Working around the clock and constantly traveling he doesn’t always bounce out of bed excited for his day.

But, with “HEE-O!” he knows, in an instant, he can change his state. He knows that he doesn’t need his job to get “easier,” or the stresses at home to go away, simply by using tools like “HEE-O!” he can change how he feels.

Try it for yourself.

Pick “HEE-O” or another mantra that works for you. Add a gesture to go with it. In your entire body load up as much positive energy as you can.

Now hit it a dozen times…

And notice how this transforms how you feel right now, and all day every day.

Tear into your day!

This week I attended the book launch for Charles Duhigg’s new book, Smarter Faster Better.

You might know Charles as a Pulitzer prize winning journalist at the New York Times and as the author of The Power of Habit which spent a whopping 60+ weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

I admire the depth of Charles’ research, and his new book is full of many stories and ideas on being more productive and getting things done.

One topic he discussed in his presentation fits a broader theme that I have written about before—morning rituals. That is, how do you get yourself going in the morning?

If you have read my favorite book on time management, Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, you will have come across a crucial obstacle that holds many of us back.

When we are faced with over-whelming days—which nearly everyone I know is nearly every day!—our brain can avoid or resist the things that we want to get done.

The solution, as Tracy puts it, is to ask yourself, if you had to eat a frog every day, when would you do it? Would you wait until 5:00pm, ruing it your entire day and losing valuable productivity, or instead, wouldn’t you just wake up and eat that frog?

How we start sets the tone for our day and in his presentation Charles discussed three powerful steps for getting cranking in the morning:

1. Visualize your day: Our lives are determined by the stories we tell ourselves, and Charles suggests starting your day visualizing what you want to get done.

2. At the top of your to-do list, write your stretch goal for the day. That is, in your best scenario, how much will you get done?

3. Use SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. Get clear on what you want to get done and specific to how you will do it.

As an example, here’s the process Charles described for himself:

On the subway heading to work he begins visualizing his day, seeing exactly how he wants it to play out.

Then, when he hits his desk, he completes steps 2 & 3 in all of about 45 seconds. The trick is to spend as little time as you need to get organized and focused.

Then, tear into your day!

How is Trump Winning?

Since his YUGE campaign launched, I’ve been paying careful attention to Mr. Trump.

Despite all of the obvious backlash and his tendency to put his foot in other people’s mouths, all he does is win, win, win…

And like he has done with Jeb and every GOP candidate, I can see him easily dismantling Hillary (although that might not translate into swing votes).

With one of my political clients I’ve done a lot of work on The Donald, and I wanted to share with you five key lessons you can use from his winning formula:

1. Stay on point: He started clearly: “We don’t win anymore” and “Make America Great Again.” Then his message drifted, but after Iowa, in his closing remarks in New Hampshire he went right back to it—”If I am elected president we will win and we will win and we will win.” Who doesn’t want to win?

And just like Barack Obama, he doesn’t make the patently obvious mistake of thinking that elections are won on policy details…

Lesson 1: Know what leads you to win and stick to it.

2. Be more skilled: Fact is, it’s a game of influence and he’s better at it. Take Cruz, he’s incredibly eloquent but like Romney he fails to use language that GRABS people. If you go deep into what led Barack Obama to victory you see a highly methodical and skilled influencer, all the way down to the specific words he used in each district. Donald is a master wizard of manipulation: Short sentences. Powerful imagery. Emotionally provocative. He’s an expert at stealing attention (positive and negative) and using it to drive his message.

Not to mention, go back to that first question in the first debate and watch him annihilate with three words a question that would end most candidates.

Lesson 2: Know what skills lead you to win and master them!

3. Powerful messaging: The Donald is always optimistic all of the time. He doesn’t get dragged into problems but quickly moves to solutions using what I call The Donald Four-step: 1. State the problem: We don’t win anymore. 2. Go deeper into it: We don’t win in the military. 3. Get optimistic about the solution: We will support our troops and help them win. 4. Exit frame to how America will be great again.

And of course he constantly comes back to his programming anchors: “We Don’t Win Anymore,” “Make America Great Again,” and anything related to winning, like “We will have so much winning you may get bored of winning.” Contrast that to Hillary’s self-centered messaging: “I’m with her” and “Make Herstory.” Remember Dale Carnegie 101, appeal to self-interest…

Lesson 3: To lead, drive a powerful and seductive message.

4. Keep it real: Bernie Sanders got a lot of traction because we all feel the passion behind his wild ideas. With him and Trump you see people fighting for what they truly believe, and that’s infectious. Trump speaks his mind. He changes his opinions (like we all do). He says things many of us think but few say (e.g. we debate rights of terrorists while they behead). He’s able to sound more convincing making stuff up than others sound highly scripted (e.g. the border guard he spoke to…).

Not all good qualities for a president, but relative to the carefully scripted Washington-types you think you are seeing the real Donald.

Lesson 4: Be yourself and speak your truth.

5. Play the part: He might say things that are far from presidential, but watch him in the center of the stage, chin in the air, gripping the lectern, never looking sideways when his rivals are going after him, as if to say, I’m beyond this.

Wearing his customary scowl and smirk, he doesn’t look like a boy who has gotten his shot on the big stage trying to impress the audience, but a man who is there to speak his mind and win.

Lesson 5: Don’t just be yourself, be the version of you that wins!

Call me crazy…

My friend texted me, “What you up to tonight?”

“Talking to myself pretending to be sane,” I joked.

As I did, I said to myself, “That sounds about right…”

I had just finished making a hypnotic recording, one of thousands I have made for me to listen to each day.

Someone said, it’s not crazy to talk to yourself, it’s only crazy when you respond back.

Yep, by that standard I passed crazy a long time ago.

It’s a professional hazard. You can’t observe and model human behavior, let alone change yourself and other people unless you are willing to get out of “normal” thinking.

I must be able to look at myself (take an observer position) and interact with that version of me like you would imagine rearranging the furniture in your living room.

I must be able to see Geoff Blades as an object and to interact with the doer as though it is not me.

I must be able to observe the thoughts in the head and feelings in the body independent of me, and ignore (apply equanimity) or change them at will.

I know some of these notions might sound crazy, but at least I’m in good company.

Every enlightened thinker that has ever walked the planet has lived this way—crack open the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness and you’ll see it on every page.

Besides, I just do professionally what we all do anyways.

We all talk to ourselves in our heads. We all create mental pictures. We all have these internal dialogues going on all of the time.

And the real question is, how are they serving you?

Does your thinking make your life better?

Are the ways that you see yourself helping you be all you can be? Helping you live the life you truly want?

Is your self-talk making you more or less happy?

More or less empowered?

Does it get you thinking you can take on the world, or does it get you shrinking from your boss, spouse, or own shadow?

When you walk, talk, carry out a conversation, how do you see yourself? How do you imagine seeing yourself through the eyes of another? How do you want to be seen?

These thoughts we all have either serve to make us weaker or stronger, and when you become skilled at mind control you get to choose.

Call me crazy but I think it’s crazy to live any other way.

It's Brad Pitt's Fault

Why will the vast majority of people never chase their dream?

The answer is—Brad Pitt.

No, it’s not because he’s better looking than the rest of us or is rich and famous. It’s because most other actors are dirt poor nobodies.

Imagine this.

You’re at a party in LA and Brad Pitt walks in. How do you imagine the room responds? I’ve seen it, you know what happens.

Now imagine you are standing at the same party talking to a fifty-two year-old actor who works five nights a week waiting tables.

How do you feel talking to him?

He’s the same age as Brad Pitt. He’s also an actor. But if you’re like most people you give him very little status.

That’s because our society doesn’t celebrate actors.

Nor do we celebrate people living their passion and going after their dream.

We celebrate people who have already made it.

And that’s why very few people will ever chase their dream.

They don’t look at that anonymous actor as someone who is living his dream, but someone who is failing.

They look at him waiting tables struggling to get by and think they are better off settling for a mediocre job that they can’t “fail” at.

Inhibited by the fear of going after what they truly want and failing, the vast majority of people will settle for celebrating others.

Shouldn't YOU be Happy by Now?

Imagine after years of striving you finally move into your dream home. How amazing would you feel?

What about if you made a ton of money all in one go, like winning the lottery. How happy would you be?

If you’re like my cousin’s friend, you’ll be just as miserable as you were before.

Why? It’s obvious, right?

We all know that money and stuff doesn’t make you happy, but why?

The technical answer is—this is known as a sequential incongruity.

The logical left hemisphere of your brain believes that if X happens then you will feel good, but unfortunately the rest of your brain doesn’t think this way.

It’s more like—you dream to get something, then you get it, then you adapt to it, and then you feel how you did before.

We have all experienced this psychological adaption, but there’s a simpler answer to my cousin’s friend’s problem.

Money and stuff don’t make you happy because nothing makes you happy.

The only thing that can make you happy is you!

And while most people will never accept this (hence their happiness is contingent on bad things not happening), students of the mind know that happiness has little to do with what you have or don’t have or what is or isn’t going on in your life.

We know that happiness is mostly a matter of choice and your skillfulness at interacting with your thoughts and feelings.

Believe me when I say that I didn’t come out of the womb with this knowledge, but for fifteen years I’ve been learning and training these skills for myself.

In fact it has taken me so much research and effort to master these ideas that I am writing a book on being happier, better, and becoming who you choose to be.

While over time I will share more ideas with you, for now I will leave you with these five questions for unlocking more happiness right now:

1. If what you are doing isn’t making you happy, what are you willing to change?

2. If you could change one way of thinking and one behavior that will most improve your happiness, what are they?

3. What has held you back from making these changes already?

4. What will get you to make these changes now?

5. How do you imagine yourself joyously happier having already made these changes?

Get In Over Your Head!!

I love this quote from T.S. Eliot— “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”

It reminds me of this quote from Mario Andretti— “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”

There’s a common theme here, right?

The other day my buddy Paulo threw a backflip off a jump in Vail.

He landed it near perfectly but he blasted off the bindings on the backs of his skis, which apparently weren’t built for his type of crazy.

Now, truth be told, while it is pretty nuts to throw a backflip on skis, when you understand the process behind it, it’s not that crazy.

Some years ago Paulo and I were hanging out in Manhattan with his buddy Nick who is pretty handy on a motorcycle.

Both guys were having a good laugh about how Nick used to jump his dirt bike over one of the neighbors houses.

“WHAT?” I said to him. “I used to ride dirt bikes, but I never did anything that crazy.”

He went on to say that it’s not that crazy when you simply build up to it over time, a notion he called Raising the Baseline.

He said, at first you start with small jumps, then you get to bigger jumps, and before you know it seems quite normal to be soaring over the neighbor’s house.

Doing a backflip on skis works the same way.

Paulo started jumping with skis on a trampoline, then down a ramp into a pool, then into an air bag, and once he built the confidence and competence to not kill himself, he raised the baseline to go vertical on snow.

While these two examples are extreme, we all have plenty of our own experiences of just how far we can take it when we are first willing to get in over our heads.

feeling stuck? try these 5 questions

A mate asked me to speak with his brother who feels stuck at a crossroad in his career.

Ahead of speaking I sent him these five questions that might be helpful to some of you:

1. What do you want? Not right now, but what is your grandest vision for your career and life?

2. What is holding you back from moving towards it? What would change that?

3. How do you dream your career and life will look after you’ve navigated this crossroad? Imagining looking back from that point now, how did you do it?

4. What skills or other capabilities would enable you to keep moving forward?

5. If we were talking two years from now, what would have needed to happen for you to be on track creating the career and life you truly want?

As you see, all of these questions are forward looking and specifically focused on what he might need to change to keep navigating his career.

While sometimes we can feel stuck where we are, when you “directionalize your mind” to the future and focus on the things that you can change, somehow new solutions magically appear…

One shot…Don't Blow It!

In three minutes Marco Rubio went from media darling to out of the race.

You don’t recover from flubbing your lines and the beating he got from Chris Christie.

When you are on the world stage you only get one shot.

Last week in New York, to set up a meeting with an incredibly busy person I told his assistant that if he didn’t think I delivered on my promise to share ideas that will transform the business, he could kick me out and never let me in again.

I think that’s a reasonable standard when you are using someone’s valuable time, and I accept that often you only get one chance to deliver.

Besides, if you fail in execution, really you have failed in preparation.

That’s where Rubio went wrong.

He has obviously done an inordinate amount of preparation for his campaign but he still blew it in execution.

First of all, he shouldn’t have picked a fight with a brawler like Christie, but that’s not where he failed.

It’s one thing to rehearse your favorite Obama-bashing lines when you are standing in front of the mirror feeling confident, but to master your preparation you must rehearse under battlefield conditions.

You see, when we feel threatened the most animalistic part of the brain, the so-called Reptilian complex, goes into fight or flight mode and we lose access to those higher brain functions that you need to say, not get crushed by Chris Christie.

This is the same problem that many people face in exam preparation, where the stress of sitting in the exam can block access to the answers they know and need.

Hence, to the greatest extent possible, to nail your preparation, you want to train yourself to perform optimally under stressful, real-world conditions.

For most things in life this level of preparation is unnecessary, but when it really counts, when you get your shot, you want to avoid blowing it like Rubio.

Pay attention: It can save your life!

Last week at breakfast in Tribeca we were around the corner from the crane that collapsed, crushing a row of cars and sadly some people.

My buddy Samuel said that the crane looked a little dodgy when he passed by a day earlier, and it was a devastating reminder to always pay attention.

We often take for granted that we live in safe cities (not you, Paulo) and we can walk the streets oblivious to what’s going on around us.

I once read the late Vince Flynn’s character, CIA assassin Mitch Rapp, lamenting that he didn’t have the luxury to walk down the street listening to music, because he needed to pay attention to who might walk up behind him with a gun…

In his profession paying attention on the streets keeps you alive, and the same can be true for all of us.

By far the best way to train your skill of awareness is daily meditation, but even without all that zenness you can simply practice paying more attention.

Like right now, what are you thinking while you are reading this? Is your mind jumping to other things? Do you notice how bringing your awareness back to this sentence you are already practicing this skill?

What is your body doing? Do you have one of those foot tapping things or other unconscious twitches that shows your mind is out of control? Slow it down. Bring stillness to the body and watch it spread to the mind.

What sounds are you noticing around you? Close to you, what do you hear? Further away in the distance, what are those sounds?

How is your breathing? Just paying attention, do you observe that your breathing has slowed down? Take a deep exhale and notice it even more.

Now, bring it all together. Bring your attention to what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling…and for a moment indulge in this heightened state of awareness.

Can you imagine how practicing this skill every day will do a whole lot more for you than keep you safer on the streets?

talent is OVERRATED…

That’s the conclusion from the research on excellence, and it is certainly my experience.

Of course a child piano prodigy has a higher probability of making an excellent concert pianist, but her talent is wasted without any effort…

Consider that Tiger Woods was born with the natural talent to swing a golf club, yet a lifetime of expertly training is what made him exceptional.

Look at Tom Brady.

Sure, he’s a talented guy, but observe the way he prepares and you see why he is one of the best that has ever played the game.

Now, that’s not to suggest that excellence is just a matter of how “hard” you work at it.

In perhaps the most famous study on human excellence, Dr. Daniel Chambliss spent eighteen months living with Olympic-level swimmers determining what separates the fastest from the faster.

In his paper, The Mundanity of Excellence published in Sociological Theory in 1989, Dr. Chambliss makes a number of striking conclusions.

As he writes, “Excellence in competitive swimming is achieved through qualitative differentiation, not through quantitative increases in activity.”

Said differently, excellence has less to do with the hours that you throw at a task (sorry for those of you who buy Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule…) and more to do with the small improvements in quality that you make daily.

As the good doctor writes, “Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities…which have been carefully drilled into habit.”

So you see, excellence is not about what you are born with or even what you do with it, but how you are getting better and better every single day.

one secret, 35 seconds

Yesterday on a lift, a guy from Boston got asking me about what I do.

After telling me that he too wants to do more of what he wants…he asked, “What is one secret that you can give me right now in 35 seconds?”

I told him, it’s easy for me, but you’re probably not going to like it.

That’s because it’s one simple idea, but it requires doing something hard…

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Commit yourself to developing new skills…commit yourself to get better. “

So, I asked him, if you could develop one skill that would have the most impact in getting more of what you want, what would it be?

“What do you mean?” he asked.

From what I knew about his job he needs to be disciplined in how he uses his time, and he drives his path to success by selling himself and his firm.

Naturally I asked him, “If you commit yourself to this year building mastery at managing your time and learning skills of selling, won’t you get more of what you want?

He agreed, so I threw him two shortcuts: Eat That Frog and How To Master The Art of Selling are two books that give you a good start on mastering both skills.

Done. 35 seconds.

That’s the secret. But it’s also the easy part.

Now it’s up to him to put in the effort and practice to learn the skills for doing he wants…

Get more and more excited!!

My buddy emailed to tell me that storm Kayla was coming through Colorado so I checked the snow report—

“Looking ahead, we’ll see a strong storm hit Colorado on Saturday…very heavy snow on Saturday afternoon and Saturday night with double digit (10+ inch) snow totals…”

Woo-hoo!!!!

That’s how I feel, especially given I postponed my trip to New York, again (actually, again, again, again).

Some time ago I set the goal to infuse more and more pleasure into all things.

It really started when my friend Jane got into hypnosis and she showed me how just by imagining a time in your life you can feel that way again.

And in fact, if you really build up this memory and intensify the amazing feelings you had back then, you can feel as though it is happening again now.

When I started writing, the predominate strong negative emotion was ARRGGHH and I had to discipline (force) myself to write by sticking to a schedule.

Over time as I kept writing I learned to enjoy it more, but I wanted to truly love doing it.

I no longer wanted it to be something I forced myself to do, but something that I went to bed excited to wake up and do.

Like as a kid on Christmas Eve barely able to sleep because I was so excited to wake up and tear open the presents, I wanted to feel the same way.

How would it be if you could wake up with this type of excitement?

How amazing would it be to live this way every day?

What would you have to think or do to keep “rehearsing” feeling this way?

Like, for me, just imagining waking up on Sunday to a foot of snow gets me there…