Articles - Page 27 of 36

Stop Doubting Yourself!

In particularly challenging situations my client finds himself doubting his abilities, and he wants to get rid of the problem.

When he described it to me he saw it as pervasive across his ENTIRE life, whereas I suggested that he see it as merely a series of tiny problems.

It’s like the story in Gulliver’s Travels where Gulliver finds himself as a giant on the island of Lilliput, which is inhabited by tiny people.

Upon awakening Gulliver discovers that the tiny people have tied him to the ground with many tiny strings.

And although he could easily break any one of the strings, he remains trapped by the great number of tiny strings binding him.

My client was the same way.

He wasn’t being held back by this big “thing” called “self-doubt,” it was merely an aggregation of small doubts that crept in from time to time.

He saw he didn’t need a big solution to a big problem, he just needed to, every time the problem arises, snip it…

For instance, last week presenting in front of a big group, he began doubting himself.

In the past whereas he would have lamented, “I always doubt myself in these situations,” this time he told himself, “I will present confidently and never doubt myself again.”

Then, after presenting confidently, he reminded himself that earlier he had doubted himself but once again he came through with the goods.

Now, this doesn’t mean the old problem is gone…yet.

Given he’s been practicing doubting himself for some time he might still feel this way in the same or other situations, but every time he changes it, like Gulliver, he’s snipping another of those tiny strings and making himself more free!

You may not be a fish but…

My friend said to me, “You’re obviously very self-aware, so you probably know this…”

I thought, OK, where is this headed?

Then he said, “There is a marked difference in the way that you write when you are in Vail relative to when you are in NYC.”

Hmmm, I’d just come off a site I write at and read some hater comments and I thought, here we go…

Then he said, “Your tone, your timbre, the way you write, it’s all different.”

OK. Good or bad, different?

Then he said, “It’s just more upbeat..it’s more like a…forceful positivity.

It surprised me. I hadn’t seen that.

You don’t notice your nose every time you look out even though it is stuck on the front of your face, but upon further consideration it was all quite obvious.

On my way out to Vail in November I wrote an angry piece about the media 24/7 blasting news about the Paris bombings in order to drive ratings…

When I got to Vail, I paid zero attention to all that.

Just leaving NYC and coming to Vail I stopped talking to people about the noise of the world, the economy, the pathetically JV debates we call an election, the markets, credit bubble, unemployment, and whatnot.

In Vail you don’t talk to people about that; you mostly just talk about how awesome it is.

How awesome was that run? How awesome is the snow? Man, it’s so awesome just to be out here…

You may not be a fish but your environment is your reality.

Don't Stop Believin'

You of course know the song, but do you know the story?

The documentary Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey tells the Cinderella story of Arnel Pineda, a poor Filipino man who was launched to stardom in 2007 as the new lead singer of 80s rock band, Journey.

As the unlikely story goes, having lost a number of lead singers but with their sights set on a new world tour, the band began searching for a new front man.

Sifting through the many videos on YouTube, the band stumbled upon Arnel and his Journey cover band performing in small bars and venues in the Philippines.

Although he barely spoke English—mostly what he learned through singing Journey songs—Arnel had a powerhouse voice and the band invited him to Los Angeles to audition…

Only months later he was headlining shows in front of tens of thousands of die-hard Journey fans!

Even if you don’t yet know how to make your dream come true, never, ever stop believin’.

You can't make your own luck; You can only get better

With a client, we’ve been working on a deal for nearly a year.

It’s a tricky situation and we’ve had to navigate some twists and turns, but it keeps moving in our direction…

That’s because my client is very skillful at what he does, but also because he keeps growing and getting better.

When I spoke to him on Sunday we talked about the newsletter I sent about the Cinderella story of Arnel Pineda and his journey from Filipino obscurity to rock stardom.

“Beneath the obvious message to never stop believing in your dreams,” he said to me, “what I got from his story was the power of continuous improvement.”

We too often forget how lucky we are to have been born in first world countries.

As a poor boy growing up in the Philippines Arnel lost the genetic lottery, but although he wasn’t born with luck on his side he was imbued with something far more valuable.

Again, it wasn’t just to keep believing, and it’s unlikely Arnel was sitting at home every night “manifesting” an email from the rock band Journey inviting him to join them…

Instead he was focused on being the best he could be.

He couldn’t control whether the band Journey would ever come looking for him on YouTube, but he could control how he performed.

Every day he could tell himself that he’s just playing in small venues or he could dedicate himself to getting better and better at his craft…

Every night he could tell himself that it was only a small audience and it didn’t matter how he performed, or he could focus on delivering his best performance.

You can’t make your own luck, but when you get better you most certainly get luckier…

Make Change Easier

Are there changes (or resolutions…) you would like to make but you haven’t been able?

Here’s an insider tip on personal change you can use for yourself.

Whether you want to change an old habit or pick up a new behavior consider that your solution is often different to what you expect.

Especially if you have tried and failed to change before you might already know that often the secret is not to go for all the change at once, but to go for a smaller change that will get you moving in the right direction and inevitably lead to the bigger change.

There’s a case story of perhaps the greatest ever expert on personal change, Dr. Milton Erickson, in which he served a retired police officer who was in bad shape.

Rather than talk to the former officer for hours (or years…) about drinking and smoking less and exercising more (which he had for years already failed to do), instead Erickson relied on something far more subtle.

Knowing as a police officer he had once lived with great discipline and habit Erickson merely made two simple suggestions.

First, he told the officer that he could smoke as much as he likes (by not confronting the existing habit, he avoids resistance), only he must stop buying his cigarettes by the carton at the local store and walk across town to buy one pack at a time.

Second, he suggested that the former officer could still drink as much as he likes only instead of camping out at the local pub like a character on Cheers he could only have one beer at his local, then he’d have to walk to another bar for every other drink.

Leaving the session frustrated that Erickson didn’t talk to him about stopping drinking and smoking and exercising more the officer went home and followed his suggestions that ultimately led him to stop drinking and smoking and exercise more…

Hence, rather than trying to get the officer to make changes he had already failed to make, instead Erickson relied on his natural discipline to make the small changes that ultimately led to the bigger changes.

Consider this when you are trying to change yourself or someone else…

why you can't "Stop Worrying"

Us humans are built to worry.

Last Tuesday I was on a call with a client who is fast-forwarding a couple of years ahead worrying about whether he will have enough money to retire.

Now, as he already knows, the worry is irrational, he has tons of money, but his brain hasn’t yet received the memo…

That night I had dinner with friends in Vail who are worried about the same thing. Truth is, they have many millions of dollars less than my client, but they too know the worry is irrational.

Often people say, “Just stop worrying,” but the brain doesn’t work that way. As I have written about before, the brain is built with a negativity bias which means we are biologically built to worry (great for survival, less great for happiness :).

But the reason my friends haven’t yet stopped worrying about an irrational fear has less to do with how your brain is built, and more to do with how you use it.

Perhaps the most powerful conclusion in all of my research on the brain is that the way we think and feel is little more than a product of our conditioning.

If every day you show up at the gym and only do left arm bicep curls, of course over time that muscle will get strong relative to the rest of your body, and your brain works the same way.

This is because the particular sequence of neurons that are activated when you worry for instance get stronger every time you run that “pattern” of thinking.

Therefore, the key to stop worrying is to use that worry “pattern” less and keep strengthening and conditioning the other “muscles” of your brain.

Here’s three steps to do this:

1. Interrupt the old pattern of thinking: This is the number one reason most therapy and personal change fails. It’s intuitive that we try to confront the problem by say listing out the reasons not to worry, but that has the reverse effect of only strengthening that worry pattern (e.g. imagine arm wrestling that left bicep and you see it only gets stronger). Instead, like starving a fire of oxygen, stop thinking about the old problem.

2. Shift your thinking to what you want: Instead of attacking the problem, go straight to the solution by focusing on one thing—how do you want to feel? And I don’t mean, “not-worried about money,” but how do you feel with all the money you want? Here you want to spend at least 2-3 minutes building up this feeling and imagining your future working out exactly as you would like…

3. Focus on actions: Nearly every thing that us humans worry about is outside of our control (especially if you pay attention to the noise of the world). Instead, keep taking action on the things you can control and imagine those things working out exactly as you would like…

Now because you are conditioning a new way of thinking and feeling, you want to run this process over and over and over again until some point soon you’re looking back noticing that your brain no longer runs that old irrational pattern…

crying over going back to work

My friend sent me this video with the note—”I think this is how almost everyone feels except for you…”

I’ve felt it. I get it.

In my last job I took vacation the first week in January because I couldn’t face the week everyone was pretending to get all riled up for the new year…instead I was resigning in the next few weeks…

I had plenty of days at Goldman where I would keep hitting snooze hoping it would somehow get me the day off. But it doesn’t.

You can’t push a button for that. But you can use it.

It was this frustration that motivated me to step back and do the work to transform my own career and life…

It’s not always easy, but when you are clear on what you want and you take steps every day you will get it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YbuXd0Li54

2 Steps to Killing It in 2016! (pt 2)

Hopefully you had a chance to do part one of this exercise that you can find here.

There you reviewed 2015, in particular focusing on re-living the ways that you killed it and could have killed it more, even imagining that you had…That was step one.

Here’s step two: Set goals for 2016.

Here you’re going to lay out five categories of goals for 2016. And you’re not just going to set them, but work your way through a ridiculously powerful four-step process to get yourself to stick to your goals…

1. Set the vision: Dream and scheme, baby. Sit back, close your eyes if you want, and imagine your year playing out how you want it to be. Really imagine it. See it. Make it bigger and brighter. And feel it. Really feel like this is your year, and watch yourself taking the actions and getting the results you want.

Now, for a few moments go beyond this year: Look out 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, a lifetime, and see how 2016 is setting you up! Feel the excitement!!

2. Choose five categories of goals. You will break down each goal in more detail in step 3, but for now choose your goals.

For instance, my five goals are: Loving my fabulous life (yes, I set it as my #1 goal to be loving my life). Driving my business. Family. Friends. And most importantly, my spiritual path and serving. Notice that for me common goals like health, personal development, mindset, and success are missing because they are omnipresent in my life. Some others might be missing that are most important for you.

3. Break down each goal into sub-goals (e.g. a sub-goal of Driving my business is writing my third book), set specific goals for 2016, and then apply the filters A-E:

A. Add Pain: Look, the truth is that us humans more often than not respond to pain more than pleasure. So before you get all excited about what you get from achieving your goals, first ask yourself, what pain will you get from failing to commit and take action? What pain will you feel if you let yourself down? If you wimp out? Will you feel like someone who can’t cut it? Someone who isn’t willing to do what it takes to succeed? Is that who you are? Feel it, add that pain to giving up on your goals, and give yourself the leverage you might need.

B. Add Pleasure: Really feel what you get from your goals. Don’t just think about it, but really feel it. I mean, really. So, if you said, you want a new man or woman in your life, ask yourself, what do you get through that? What is the feeling? Loving someone? Being loved? Sharing deeply? Really, go into the feeling and ask yourself, what do you get through that feeling? If it’s being loved, what do you get through that? And through that? And that? Keep asking this question, going deeper into bliss, and tying as much pleasure as you can to your goals…

C. Get clear on your outcome: Get clear on your target and visualize your goal, feeling what it’s like to blow through your target. Really feel it. Imagine yourself at the end of 2016 looking back and seeing that you killed it. How does this feel? Really, again, like you did in Step B, go deep into this feeling. Punch the air. Celebrate. Imagine what you will do and how you will feel. Imagine, who have you become?

D. Get clear on your process: The reason most people will never get what they want is because they are focused on “manifesting” the outcome, when they need to be absorbed in taking the actions that drive success. Look forward and get clear on what needs to happen to get the results you want. Draw up a plan, imagine yourself taking the actions, and commit right now to take them. Infuse the pleasure of your goal into the actions you imagine taking and also the pain you will get from failing to take them…

E. Get BETTER: Goals are not about what you get, but who you are becoming. Look, if you’ve set a real goal (one that actually requires you to get better or otherwise fail), then you must grow if you want to succeed. So, how are you going to grow? How do you see yourself differently? What do you commit to do differently every day to become the person who is crushing your goals? Write out five things you plan to do differently and apply pain to failing to do them. Is that overcoming fears? Building new skills? Training your mind and body for success? Again, commit yourself to doing what it takes, ask yourself how you will feel if you wimp out, and commit to take action.

4. Super-review: For each of your goals, take your time to carefully work through Steps A-E. Then, after you imagine each goal coming together, sit back and close your eyes for at least ten minutes and imagine all of the pieces coming together making your year even more magical than you could have imagined.

I suggest you take hours if not days or weeks (as I have with a number of clients) to write out detailed ideas for these steps and to specifically tune how your pain and pleasure and focus and actions and growth bring all of this together for you.

Then for the duration of 2016, review a summary of your goals every morning, and the detailed notes at least every couple of weeks. Use this to hold yourself to your goals and to commit yourself to the progress targets required to achieve them.

Oh, and have fun. I’m serious. Look, I’m serious about goals. I’m serious about my business. I’m serious about you getting what you want, but you’ve gotta be having fun. This life, this one moment, this one year, this is all we have…LOVE IT

Think of Kobe Bryant. He’s competitive as heck and wants to win, but every time he runs out on the court he’s playing the game he loves…AND KILLING IT.

Make 2016 the same way!

2 steps to killing it in 2016!

What’s the best way to kill it in 2016? Make some pathetically impotent new year’s resolutions, or take stock of how you killed it in 2015 and use it to plan ahead…

Here in Vail, with the help of a few clients, I’ve been designing a year-end process that I plan to roll out next year as a two-day winter retreat.

Like all of my work I’ve been focused on building an incredibly rigorous yet simple two-step process for propelling yourself out of this year and into next…

Step one: Review this year.

Ask yourself these five questions, and to get real benefit from this process spend at least an hour writing out your answers.

1. Where did you win this year? Not just in your business or career, but in your life— family, health, mindset, etc.—where did you excel this year? Look back on your year and write out at least 10 things that you feel went great and take some time to reflect on your success. Celebrate what you did right. Look back on how you made things happen, and most importantly build up the feeling of what it’s like to be killing it!!

2. Where did you lose this year? Look back and create a list of at least 10 ways that you lost. Again, consider your business, career, and financial, but also more generally reflect on your life, health, family, mindset, and so on. Reflect on where you could have done better and more been the person you know you can be. Again, build up the emotion, but avoid any beating up on yourself, regret, or other useless negative emotions.

3. Now, here is the key question: When you won or lost this year, what was different? Was it about your level of commitment? Preparation? Will? Wimping out? An excess or lack of skills? Some other factor that consistently leads you to success in some areas of your life or failure in others? Here you want to go into your processes and understand what you do differently when you win, relative to when you lose…Again take the time to write out thoughtful answers.

4. If you could re-write this year, what would you change? If you could go back and turn on more of the things that lead you to success and turn off those things that led you to fail, what would you do differently? How would you be different? What results might have been different for you? Again, take some time to go back through what you wrote in Steps 1-3 and write out some solid answers.

5. Close your eyes for a few moments and reflect on Step 4. See yourself back at the start of this year having made these changes, and imagine seeing your year play out differently. See yourself winning more. See yourself turning around some of your loses, and imagine more great things that might have come into your life.

And here’s the trick in this. Take all of your memories and feel as much positive energy as you can about this year. Let your loses fade away into the past, and infuse as much celebration and joy into your year as you can muster.

Take at least an hour to set this up and then review your ideas twice a day for the next few days. Then, let’s talk Step two.

Smell the Cinnamon

These last two weeks in Vail I’m getting perspective, which for us hard-charging types is not easy to do.

In the last two weeks, I’ve had friends who—

One banker has had an even bigger year than last year, which was by far his biggest year ever. Rather than celebrating, he’s worried about how he will replicate it next year.

Another senior banker had two great job opportunities just show up…

Instead of remembering that a month ago he would have given both of his arms for two options, now he feels weighed down by having to decide.

My oldest friend in the world was struggling with a writing project that she had turned into a big deal instead of seeing this is just one more project in a long string that she has crushed…

And, that, well, relative to the once in a lifetime moments with her nine-year-old daughter at Christmas, that project won’t mean squat six months from now.

Another client has two incredible job offers on his lap…

Guess what? Yep. He would have given both of his legs too for these options, but now he was feeling the angst of having to choose…

That was until he started to see it like having the angst of choosing between a hot blonde and a hot brunette.

Another client has a similar situation…

Two ridiculous job opportunities and instead of punching the air feeling amazing, he’s been all stressed out about how to handle them.

All of them have different situations, but we all have the same problem…

We’re human! We adapt!

No matter how great our lives are, our brains are built to latch onto something to think/worry/obsess about, which blocks us from thinking about what’s amazing in our lives, and smelling what’s around us…

Every moment you can choose to let your brain trick you into not feeling amazing, or find ways to become absorbed in the moment…

Walking through Vail, smelling the cinnamon, that’s what I’m thinking.

Happy holidays!

In the NEXT DOWNTURN, what will YOU do?

People keep asking me if I think we are headed for another credit crisis and recession.

Of course it is impossible to know, but the fact people are asking the question tells you something.

Famously, Joseph Kennedy is said to have gotten out of the stock market right ahead of the 1929 market crash, after receiving stock tips from a shoe-shine boy…

Today, with the obvious setup of easy credit that led to the last credit crisis, we might be in an equally precarious position…

Or we might not be…

Again, while most everyone on Wall Street likes to take an educated guess, it is unknowable.

But irrespective of where the market is headed there is one thing you can know with absolute certainty.

You cannot control the economy and the markets, but you can always control how prepared you are to respond to change.

When the Internet bubble burst when I was based in Silicon Valley in 2000, of the many people who lost their jobs, it was those who were thinking ahead that got back to work quickly.

Many others remained unemployed for months, if not years.

The same was true after the last credit bubble burst.

By the time almost all of my former Goldman leveraged finance colleagues were being laid-off I was well-positioned in a distressed investing seat at Carlyle, taking advantage of the market collapse…

That was only possible because I had been thinking ahead and left Goldman some two years earlier.

I wasn’t able to do that because I knew the direction of the market, but because I had taken control of the direction of my career.

In the next downturn, what will you do?

At the least, are you prepared to respond to change? Or even better, are you positioned to take advantage of opportunity?

Either way, you want a plan.

The Myth—that keeps people stuck

Over my fifteen years of researching and talking personal development, time and time again I have come across this myth.

Because they are unwilling to bust this myth, the vast majority of people will forever operate far within their capabilities and fail to achieve their potential…

In this short 3 minute video I discuss this myth and three EASY ways to bust it.

Have you hit the redline?

When I was back in LA I drove my old 911 Turbo which my buddy now owns.

Leaving dinner he kindly invited me to drive, and after adjusting the seat and mirrors, flicking the switch into sport mode we made a beeline for The 10.

Dropping it back into 2nd, nudging the front-end around the corner onto the ramp, I did what I used to do—I throttled it.

Twin turbos blowing, 500 foot-pounds of torque shooting through the P zeros on the front and rear, we launched.

Hitting third I merged with the late night traffic doing close to double their speed. Hitting fourth we left them long behind the whirl of the turbos, and by fifth, well, by then I was braking and backing it off.

Slowing down, my face lit up like a teenage boy discovering a stack of Playboy’s in the garage, I remembered back to the first time I did that.

It was the day I bought the car, only it went a little differently back then. Without any restraint, flooring it in fourth doing some ungodly speed, I hit the redline.

In that instant the car burped and lost all of its power. I learned when to back it off and when to find another gear.

Many people have the same dynamic in their career.

What about you? Is it time to back it off or find another gear?

What is more disheartening?

Over dinner at Monkey Bar my friend realized she went to school with the waiter.

Having not seen each other for more than a decade they took a fun trip down memory lane.

Then, when she asked him what he was now doing, he said what you hear all too often.

He was still chasing his dream as an actor, and waiting tables is how he pays the bills to keep his dream alive.

Afterwards I got thinking how hard it must be to have a dream for your life that you can’t make come true.

I thought, to chase your dream for years, even decades, and to not seem to be getting any closer must be disheartening.

Yet then I thought, what is more disheartening, forever living inside the excitement of chasing your dream or giving up altogether?

Failure is a LIE

My friend sent me this quote from Winston Churchill—“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

At first I thought, yeah, that’s so true. But as it sunk in I realized there are two false ideas in this short quote.

First, it implies that there is such thing as failure. Second, it implies that so-called failure should lead you to lose enthusiasm.

Rubbish!

One of my favorite ideas in all personal development is—There’s no such thing as failure, only feedback.

This means that the results you get are simply feedback to keep improving.

Think about the way a baby starts to walk. From crawling, it begins to prop itself up on furniture trying to take its first steps.

Nobody is watching that baby counting the number of times it fails to stand. The parents aren’t losing enthusiasm that their kid will one day walk!!

When Is Failure?

Similarly, think about the way you learned to ride a bike or even drive a car.

When it didn’t go right the first time. Or the second time. Or even the many dozens of times, you didn’t label yourself a failure and have to prevent yourself from losing enthusiasm.

In fact, every attempt that kept you moving closer to success likely only fired you up to keep trying even more.

This thing we call failure is a lie.

You can never fail so long as you keep up your enthusiasm for improving and taking steps.

What Are YOU Willing to Change?

At a charity event I met a senior partner from a top consulting firm.

When she found out what I do, as is often the case, she said to me, “Perhaps you can help me with a problem I have in my career.”

Curious as George, I decided to play along. “What do you want to change?” I asked.

She said, “I feel stuck in my career. I am working harder than ever and I feel I have reached a point where I can’t go any further.”

So I asked, “What are you willing to do about it?”

“Are you willing to leave?” “No.”

“Are you willing to change your behavior at work?” She told me she didn’t see how that was possible.

“Are you willing to change the way you think?” “I’m sure I’m thinking about it the right way,” she said defensively.

“Are you willing to deliver more value?” “I don’t see how I can.”

“Are you willing to learn new skills?” “I’m already very good at what I do.”

Finally, I asked her, so what are you willing to change?

She told me that she was sure she was doing all she could and that there was nothing more she could do.

That left me only one thing I could do. I made up an excuse and walked away.

Can YOU answer this question?

Thursday night over drinks my friend told me that he had been watching one of my presentations and was stumped by a question.

At the beginning I asked the group—If there was one thing you could change that would make an enormous difference in your career, what would it be?

I then emphasized that the economy doesn’t count. Nor does your boss. Nor does anything else that you cannot personally change!

Really think about that. What is one thing that you can actually change?

Because that’s what matters, right?

“Too many people live their lives laboring in mediocrity, operating at a fraction of their potential, getting far less than they deserve because they are unwilling to change,” my friend said to me.

I disagreed, and parroted a line one of my teachers has drummed into me—All we are is change.

There is nothing about you that is not changing in every moment.

Your hair is growing. Your fingernails too. Whatever you last ate is being digested. In the second it takes you to read this sentence you are spawning 1,000,000 new cells.

Everything you are is change.

The distinction in this case is between what is already changing in you and the changes you must activate outside of you.

Your boss’ hair is growing too, but is that getting you more of what you want?

What can you change that will?

I’ll give you a hint. Everything you want comes from one thing—GETTING BETTER.

So, to phrase the question differently—What is one thing you can change to get better that will make an enormous difference in your career?

Adams says, "Trump is a Master WIZARD"

What has shot Donald Trump to the top of the polls? With his controversial views and vague policy, how has he far out-stripped his more experienced opponents?

In this short video prolific author and blogger, Dilbert creator Scott Adams says it comes down to “a set of skills that are so deep and so exquisite” that he might go all the way to the Oval Office.

Bang Bang

What are Donald’s Linguistic Kill Shots?

How does he get ideas like Jeb is low energy to stick, and annihilate his campaign?

What is the magic behind Trump’s windmill of words and pictures?

Adams calls Trump a master wizard, and is so convinced of his skills of persuasion that at the end of the video he says, “That’s why I’ve predicted he will probably win the presidency, based just upon skill.”

Think about the gravity of that statement—on skills alone you can win the presidency.

You Win With Skill

Sounds about right…

Better skills leads to more winning.

And I assure you, the secret covert skills Adams discusses in this video are merely the foliage at the entrance of the rabbit hole…

P.S. I think you’ll also enjoy his idea that us humans are nothing but moist robots…

Be Crippled with FEAR

Most of my life I’ve been crippled with fear.

Fortunately it has mostly been the fear of failing to live the most amazing life I can imagine, and it has only crippled me in doing things I don’t want to do.

Use Your Fear

In our society fear is often seen negatively, when in fact it is our savior.

Like insecurity which keeps us secure, and pain that tells us something is wrong, fear is a signal that gets our attention.

Fear is neither good nor bad, but merely a matter of how you respond to it.

In one of the two TV shows I watch, The Men Who Built America, Carly Fiorina says—

“The difference between people who succeed and people who fail, I think, in many cases, it’s not fear, everyone experiences fear. The difference is, what do you do with your fear? Do you work to overcome it or do you let it defeat you? I think that is actually what distinguishes very successful people from others.”

Then Break It

All of us know that in the face of fear our nervous system triggers a fight-or-flight mechanism.

But what many don’t recognize is that before we fight or flight, we freeze.

Like a deer in the headlamps, it is this freeze mechanism that gets most people shot. In the face of fear, they neither move towards or away. Unsure of what to do they do nothing, which is the meaning of being crippled by fear.

Instead, take on the things you fear. Engage your fear. Sense it. Smell it. Taste it. Roll around in it. Play with it.

And then break its friggin’ back!

P.S. You can read here more mindset articles.

P.P.S. And you can read here more specific articles on destroying fear.

You want what I want

We all want the same thing.

Everything we want is driven by this goal behind every goal—a feeling.

That’s right. No matter what we want, all we seek is a feeling.

We have different names for it and different ways to describe it, yet everything we want is driven by a feeling.

Often that feeling is a projection of how we expect to feel when we have something—How special will I feel when I get a new car or house or shirt or bag or woman or shoes or whatever?

Yet more often that feeling doesn’t come from “things” but from experiences. Think: Do you want the house or to be enjoying it? Do you want a family or to be experiencing time with them?

Renowned mythologist, writer, and lecturer Joseph Campbell observed that, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”

Do you feel that? When you think about the times you are most alive, what do you notice about that feeling?

I most readily feel this way when I’m fully absorbed in what I’m doing, when everything else fades away and you’re absorbed in this moment.

This is akin to the state that Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes in his famous book on happiness and performance, Flow.

Like an athlete in the zone or a runner on a high or a kid playing video games, when we are completely absorbed in what we’re doing, we feel most alive.

I naturally create these experiences writing, skiing, and doing other activities, and I also train this state of mind with meditation, hypnosis, and exercise.

You can also practice reminding yourself of the times you most feel this way, and seek out more experiences that bring you more alive.