Get my FREE newsletter that is helping thousands of people DO WHAT YOU WANT!
Geoff Blades

Are You Driving Business or Busyness?

A few months ago, a new investment banking client tried to tell me about some “great meetings” he had.

I laughed, and then I told him why.

At Goldman one of my bosses used to say, “Don’t tell me about your sweaty handshakes. Tell me when you bring home the bacon.”

He wasn’t kidding!

He could obviously see that a great meeting was a crucial step to driving revenues, but he didn’t care.

Don’t bark. Bite.

“If you had some great meetings, then show me how said great meetings are getting you more of what you want,” I asked my client.

Thomas Edison said, “Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration.”

I encouraged him to see that we have a limited number of productive hours each day, and you must be focused on shifting your time to its highest value use.

It might be true that he had some great meetings, but how much business was in that busyness?

“Less than 1% at best,” he said.

This is common in my experience working with even the best executives—most can cut out 1-2 hours of low-value activities every day. Seriously!

But many don’t because, truth is, it is easier to just do what is in front of you than to constantly step back and ask yourself—What is the highest value use of my time?

With my client we went deep into his client list and began building a simple but thorough spreadsheet to amp up his intelligence for driving business.

Every day he comes back to this spreadsheet and every week we go through name-by-name designing specific strategies for hypnotizing his clients.

As you know, the most successful people aren’t those who work the hardest. They are masters of doing the hard things that drive the most value.

Why Many Rich and Famous Will Never Be Happy

Recently I saw this quote from Mark Cuban—“Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it all away from you.”

Back in the day I would have vigorously agreed, but not today.

While his quote might powerfully resonate in sport, like Andy Grove’s notion of business paranoia it is hardly a fulfilling way to live your life.

Paradox of Success

A couple of weeks ago over dinner with a Silicon Valley hitter, we got talking about the relationship between success and happiness.

He observed that although the big name Silicon Valley players seem to have it all, when you spend time with some of them, seeing them running ragged chasing the next bouncing ball, you wonder, where is the joyfulness?

This I call the paradox of success—The more success you achieve, the more success you require to feel fulfilled.

Not to dump this complex subject on you right here, but the paradox is that the success-driven brain isn’t programmed for happiness.

It is programmed to believe that when it achieves success—which is impossible because success can always be defined as “more”—happiness will follow.

But it doesn’t. The brain and happiness don’t work that way. Hence why Robin Williams hung himself from a door and many successful people have more dollars than smiles.

People identified to their “success program” will never be happy because like the “oxygen program” that demands constant breathing, the success program’s desire for more, more, more can never be satisfied.

Not to rain on the world’s consumer parade, but this is why us humans will keep getting more wealthy and less happy.

Take Time Away From It

My success program has served me exceptionally well, but the morning after my dinner flying out to Vail I decided to check it with the luggage at the plane door.

I resolved: No writing. No reading. Minimal emails, client calls, and ranting like Geoff Blades.

It wasn’t easy for me. I love my work and in many ways doing my work is doing what I want (and indeed even experimenting with not working is working), but in taking time off I returned to New York with fresh realizations.

I used to brag that on a weekend trip to Cabo while sitting by the pool I read half a dozen books, but today I would just be hanging with my girl in the sun.

A suicide bomber working for 72 virgins and a maniacal Silicon Valley player might be driven by different goals, but neither of them is living today.

Do yourself a favor this summer. Check your success program and find the time to kick back and smell the sunshine!

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

Was Einstein a Confident Knitter?

The President & COO of a bank asked me—”How do we teach our senior bankers to be more confident with CEOs?”

I suggested a five-step process that begins by asking a different question:

1. Are you confident you can tie your shoes? Was Einstein a confident knitter? No one is confident in all contexts and no one lacks confidence. They only lack confidence in a certain context. For instance, someone might be 100% confident challenging the ideas of a four-year old, but feel less confident with a CEO. The fast track to unstoppable confidence is to train your brain to see them the same.

2. Fear and lacking confidence are different. Most of what people call lacking confidence is their hidden way of saying, “Mommy, I’m scared.” You might be the best natural born hitter in the world, but if you are terrified to stand at the plate, you won’t get up and play. To solve the confidence, solve the fear.

3. The answer is always preparation. Any fear or lack of confidence in any context is solved with preparation. It’s rational to lack confidence with a CEO when you are unprepared and risk looking silly. A Navy SEAL wouldn’t feel confident jumping HALO if he hadn’t done the prep. The less confident you are, the more you want to prepare, including physical and mental rehearsal.

4. Repetition, repetition. Competence builds confidence. You don’t get confident by looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself you are. You develop confidence when you know you are competent, which comes through one thing—proving it so through successful reference experiences. When you pull the chute at 2,000 feet and you safely land on the ground, that reference experience is the bedrock of confidence.

5. Keep doing it. All that matters to building confidence is to keep doing it. Get people who lack competence and confidence to be willing to keep taking action. Over time they build up the reference experiences that prove to them they are confident.

And guess what?

They are confident not because someone spent years trying to teach them to be confident, but because through their actions they have made it so.

Which Foreman Is Manufacturing Your Thoughts?

In The Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz writes, “Your mind is a thought factory. It’s a busy factory, producing countless thoughts in one day.”

He goes on to write that production in your thought factory is the responsibility of two foremen—Mr. Triumph who manufactures positive thoughts and Mr. Defeat who is of course married to Debbie Downer.

“Both Mr. Triumph and Mr. Defeat are intensely obedient,” Schwartz writes, “All you need do to signal either foreman is to give the slightest mental beck and call.”

He goes on to say, to see how these two foremen are working for you every day tell yourself, “‘Today is a lousy day.’ This signals Mr. Defeat into action, and he manufactures some facts to prove you are right.”

“But tell yourself, ‘today is a fine day,'” Schwartz continues, “and Mr. Triumph is signaled forward to act. He tells you, ‘This is a wonderful day.'”

Your Mind Is A Muscle

As you know from reading these newsletters, your mind is a muscle which grows stronger according to how you use it, and Schwartz’s foremen are the same way.

As he puts it, “If Mr. Defeat is given more work to do, he adds personnel and takes up more space in your mind,” and he will ultimately take over your entire thought factory.

“The only wise thing to do,” counsels Schwartz, “is fire Mr. Defeat.”

He only stands in the way of doing what you want, so why do you want him messing around in your thought factory?

Instead, as Schwartz advises, “Use Mr. Triumph 100 percent of the time. When any thought enters your mind, ask Mr. Triumph to go to work for you. He’ll show you how you can succeed.”

How?

To put this idea into practice, take out a piece of paper or a sticky note or anything else you will read every day, and write my First Rule of Mind Control—

I ONLY THINK ABOUT WHAT I WANT!

Do What You Love And Success Will Follow…WRONG

You often hear the phrase, “Do what you love and success will follow.”

Wrong!

It isn’t that in doing what you love that success somehow magically follows.

It is, when you are doing what you love, you love doing what it takes to create success.

No explorer ever struck land simply by loving exploring.

No athlete makes it to the Olympic Games by merely loving their sport.

No dreamer has built an empire simply by loving their idea.

No marriage survives on love alone.

Love is merely the rocket fuel that keeps you going.

But, it goes beyond that too.

When you love what you do, you don’t need success to follow.

Every day success is coming with you.

"I Apologize, It Is Obviously My Fault"

A few years ago I was sitting at dinner when the fellow next to me, who had sucked down a few too many cocktails, got in my face about my work.

He told me it was clearly all rubbish and that I was “a snake oil salesman.”

I tried to keep my cool, and for about ten minutes I laughed it off, but then I blew it.

Long Fuse, Short Reach

I have a long fuse, but a vicious temper, and like Bruce Banner, you nor I want to see that.

Luckily, it didn’t get too bad. No punches were thrown, and he got to stumble out on his own two feet. But I learned I must do better.

About a year later I was at dinner with a banking buddy when the guy sitting alone at the table next to us injected himself in our conversation.

Hearing us discuss how my friend goes from MD to being a master of the universe, he offered his well-considered opinion that I was full of it.

I kept my cool. I didn’t react. Like starving a fire of oxygen we gave him nothing to argue with and he soon flamed out.

I knew I did a decent job when he asked for my business card, but when I told him I was all out of cards for douchebags I knew I could do better.

Make People Right

The other night at dinner the woman at the table next to us got in my face about how that “Tony Robbins stuff is a bunch of crap,” and this time I did even better.

I apologized profusely. I told her, “I apologize, it is obviously my fault.”

For about a minute I told her how right she was. How much I appreciated her speaking up. I told her it was my fault for rambling on, and I apologized for offending her.

I didn’t do this sarcastically or tongue in cheek. Inside my mind I made her 100% right and I wanted her to feel that way.

She began smiling and we had a nice conversation in which she decided she was going to read The Power of Positive Thinking.

That felt good to me. Not because she came around to my way of thinking, but because I was able to put aside my smallness and get to the right outcome.

Whether you are right or wrong, if you can get beyond yourself and help someone else feel good, you are wrong not to make them right.

The Best Investment Of All Time

What if I told you that I had an investment that was guaranteed to return you thousands, if not many millions times your money?

Would you be interested?

How about if I added that there’s nothing unique about this strategy and more than 70 million people have already benefited from this investment?

What about if you knew that this asset was built over 25 years by the richest men in America. The likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison not only poured their time into this, but they also contributed the best ideas that had build their own empires.

What if I told you that you can invest in this asset for less than one dollar and it will surely be the smartest investment you have ever made?

Are you interested?

Now, I will say, this investment will require you to do something that few people are willing to do.

Still interested?

Then, buy Think and Grow Rich for $0.99 cents.

Read it at least a dozen times and commit to put the ideas to work, including every day doing the exercises.

By far, the best investment of all time is investing in the money-making machine that is you!

Missing Purpose

Missing purpose many of us feel lost.

Like a keen sense of style some of us have it, but many others spend their lives desperately searching for their purpose.

Why am I here?

What is the purpose of my life? What is my passion?

How do I find it?

These types of questions haunt many of us. And while the answers can be foggy, one thing is most certainly clear.

They are dumb questions!

They are useless questions!

They are questions that keep people stuck, versus questions that keep us moving forward.

As British comedian, Eddie Izzard, in his documentary, Believe, says:

If the purpose of life is to live it then, which I think it is, we’re here. You can go all about what’s it all about, and get lost in a circular argument. Instead get it, grab it, put positivity into it.

The problem with questions of purpose and passion, and indeed the question that haunted me for so long—What Do I Want?— is, like a mission statement, they require a grand answer.

And when we set up the questions seeking some life-altering answer, it’s easy to dismiss any smaller answer that doesn’t fit the bill.

Point out to someone who thinks they lack purpose that they have five purposeful things to do this week and they will tell you, “That’s not what I mean.”

They are looking past what’s purposeful to find some over-arching purpose.

But, is there one? Should there be one?

What is purpose for my cat? To live a life of sitting on the sofa? To be the best she can be at playing with her angry birds toy? To be an explorer of new hiding places?

Is her life not worth living because she lacks a grand purpose?

Or is it just us humans who often fail to live a worthwhile life because we are missing purpose? 

"Am I Thinking BIG Enough?"

At the end of our meeting today, sitting catty corner at the bar, my client said to me, “I have just one more question for you.”

“Hit me,” I said.

He paused for a moment, his face muscles tightened and he got a serious look in his eye, then he said, “Am I thinking big enough?”

Without hesitation, I blurted, “NO.”

Watching his non-verbals I could see he was jolted, but he was pleased to get the answer he wanted.

We both knew that if he’s asking the question, then the answer is “no.”

You know when you are thinking big. You question when you are thinking small.

In starting Amazon, Jeff Bezos never failed the test of thinking small.

He started small with one product, selling books, but he was never thinking small.

Michelangelo said, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

I have met many men and women who have achieved great success, but few who feel they have gone as far as they can go. As my old trainer used to say, “If you’re not puking in the corner, you can stand up and fight.”

Last night another client told me, “I want people to write books about me. I want them to say, ‘I don’t know how he did it, but what he did is unbelievable.'”

He has no idea what we’ll cook up, but he has the taste of BIG.

I can get behind that. Every day of the week I get behind that.

Today I spoke with a fellow who told me that he was planning to get on the phone and beg me to take him on as a client.

It is true that based on the conversation I expected to have that even begging like Oliver Twist he would have failed, but as soon as he told me he was thinking big and has a mission to be a force for good, I was in.

‘Nuff said.

These are the people I want in my life. They are already playing big, but they want to see how far they can take it.

With that attitude it doesn’t matter how far you get.

As Norman Vincent Peale said, “Shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

I've Been Playing Small

Yesterday, on the phone with a best-selling author I realized I’ve been playing small.

I have six-figure private clients. I’m writing prolifically. Creating a library of audio content. My first book is done, and I just signed a deal for the second.

I’ve made enormous progress and I have incredible momentum, yet relative to my mission I’ve still been playing small.

Some years ago when I was getting started at this, when I was far less skilled at doing hard things, I would have found that realization disheartening.

But today it is only invigorating. At every point in time I’ve done the best I can, and it’s proof I’m ready for my next leap.

My friend and business partner, Adam Checchi, often says. “To get good at things you must be willing to be bad.”

To learn anything new you must begin from the, well, beginning. And you must be willing to persist long enough at being bad to get good.

There is no other path, if you are dedicated to doing hard things.

In his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, leading founder and venture capitalist, Ben Horowitz writes, “That’s the hard thing about hard things—there is no formula for dealing with them.”

The hardest thing about blazing your own trail isn’t persisting at putting one foot in front of the other. Like a novice climber, it is having no idea where to place your foot.

You must set aside your false sense of self, admit you lack answers, and seek out experts who can guide you. But that will only ever get you a fraction of the way.

No one can tell you what to do, and certainly no one is going to do it for you. Instead, you must be willing to keep taking actions, and doing hard things.

To some people this is the definition of hell, and unlike Churchill they are unwilling to keep going, but when you build yourself into a person who thrives on doing hard things, you can’t live any other way.

Playing small is better than not playing at all, yet to play big you must call yourself out on playing small and kick up the bar over and over again.

Are You The 10% Not Wasting Your Potential?

As I prepare to launch-launch my book, I’ve been stepping back and thinking deeply about why I wrote The Guide in the first place.

Why did I step back from my own career? And why does this work matter so much to me that I left Wall Street to do something that has been back-breaking?

I come back to two answers.

First, this isn’t what we signed up for.

Those of us who did everything right.

Some of us decades ago, in school, put our heads down and started working hard. We got top grades, went to top schools, got top jobs, and then what?

Well, many of us worked harder…and harder…and harder…and harder still.

But, how many of us have careers that are working hard for us?

When this work began for me, in Menlo Park in 2000, in the aftermath of the Internet bubble bursting and half of my office being fired, I wondered, is this what it is meant to be?

Is this what I have worked so hard to achieve?

Am I living the career and life of my dreams?

How many of my brothers and sisters are? Not just on Wall Street, but all of us who’ve done the right things, and worked our tails off. How many of us are living the lives we dream?

That’s the first thing I stand for. The second is somewhat contradictory.

Few of us are living the lives of our dreams because we have done too little to earn it.

We live with the illusion that if we put our heads down and work hard, that is sufficient.

It is not. It is insufficient.

Working hard doesn’t work for you because working hard is insufficient.

Few of us smart, hard-working people will ever live the lives of our dreams because we are operating at a fraction of our potential.

Most people are bored to death because they can do their job with half their brain tied up thinking about what they’d rather be doing.

Sure, they work long hours, but how much of their potential does their job require?

What hard things must they do? How often are they pushing beyond their limits? How often are they stretched to the point of failure? How many of them are reading and learning and growing, just to keep up?

Nearly everyone is running themselves ragged working around the clock, but most of them are monkeying around.

My bet is 90% of some of the smartest, hardest working people are operating at less than 50% of their potential.

That’s not because most of us are lazy, but because we’re living a lie.

Get good grades. Get a good job. Work hard. Ride off into the sunset. That’s the message that is drummed into us from an early age.

But you only need to look at nearly everyone in our society to know that is an illusion—and even if you make the money, a mostly unhappy one at that!

Instead, the story I wrote, the story I live, what I stand for is different:

Set lofty goals. Stretch your potential. Learn. Grow. Challenge yourself. Do hard things. Become everything you can be.

Going after it this way, not only do you work less hours and have more success, but you no longer need to build the life of your dreams. Every day you are living it!!

What Don't We Learn From Centuries of Failure?

I’ve been trying to avoid writing about Greece.

I mean, really, what can one say?

Shocking! Just shocking.

A country that has been in default for half of its 183 years of independence. In default? No way! Shocking!

The only thing that is shocking is that anyone is shocked by it.

In this world where nearly every nation is drowning in debt and at best can only drive growth through more debt (and war, of course) who is surprised that Greece is out of business?

I mean, if us work-yourself-to-death Americans have borrowed more money than we can ever repay, what hope do the hardly-working-at-all Greeks have?

And, look, of course it’s not their fault.

Whoever dreamed up the entire notion of the Euro would have failed introductory macro-economics where I went to school.

But, as usual, it is always the same people who bear the brunt of the pain.

To the billionaire hedge fund managers who are “betting” for or against Greece, it’s all just a game.

Spin the wheel again guys, let’s gamble someone else’s money and watch the bouncing ball.

And the politicians. Austerity doesn’t climb the gilded steps. Maybe they’ll be forced to downgrade to a G550.

But what about the ordinary citizens? Who is looking out for them?

Who cares about the people who suffer from all this mess, while the empty talking heads deliberate how far the Dow might fall.

It might seem like a game now, but history shows, soaked with generations of debt, it’s just a matter of time before we are the bouncing ball.

How Simple Can This Be?

Let’s get back to basics.

In the last few months our community has exploded and I want to give you a quick recap of what we are about.

One thing—How do you get what you want?

As you read these newsletters, you will see the same themes recurring over and over again.

Having spent a decade reading thousands of books and transforming my own career and life, I left Wall Street to share a simpler and better way.

You shouldn’t have to read thousands of books to get what you want, and, in fact, in my world, you only need to be willing to do four things:

1. Focus on what you want

The dirty secret of getting what you want is that you don’t need to know what you want. Instead, you just need to get serious about the step you are now taking that is moving you in the right direction.

If you are in a career, that might be positioning yourself for your next promotion. If you are looking to leave you might focus on creating just one more option. If you are building a business, stop thinking about how you can sell to dumb money for $19 billion, and simply focus on—What is the next step that keeps you moving in the right direction?

And get serious. Have definite purpose. Commit yourself to getting what you want.

2. Build a system for getting it

Forget about the millions of junk ideas, junk books, junk tweets, junk blogs, junk podcasts, and junk everything else. Instead, step back, and develop for yourself a serious process, a plan, a system, that is designed to take you from where you are today to where you want to be.

If you are building a business, forget about how other people think you build a business. Make it your mission to figure out: How do you build your business? What matters to winning? What steps must come together? How do you make it happen?

3. Build yourself into the person who can do it

In 1894, Orison Swett Marden wrote, “While many are surprised in their lack of success, few appear to attribute this to the fact that they are doing little to pursue growth.”

Look, let’s call a zombie a zombie. Most people are going nowhere in life because they are unwilling to grow. They are not reading. They are not training their skills. Most of them are the walking dead; they are barely even living.

To get what you want, you must build yourself into the person who can get it. You must look yourself in the mirror and ask, To get what I want, who must I become? 

Then you must do it! If you want to get strong in the gym, you don’t think you want it. You don’t develop a plan to get strong. You hit the gym and lift; you develop strength through taking action.

Become, as Daft Punk says: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

4. Build skills

There is a simple formula for all success—Build wicked skills.

If you are Webb Simpson, ranked 39 on the PGA Tour, you only have one path to success: Get better at golf. Build your mental skills. Improve your game.

No matter what your goal. Whether it be a better career, a better life, a better body, a better whatever, build badass skills and you will get what you want! ​

Have a Kit Kat. You Will Surely Win!

If you have been to Japan you might know that in the land of the rising sun, Kit Kat reigns supreme.

With a plethora of seemingly odd flavors such as wasabi and green tea, Kit Kat is the King of Candy in Japan.

Why? How did this come to be?

You Will Surely Win

Well, it’s not just for its bright red packaging and tasty goodness.

The name Kit Kat is similar to a classic Japanese phrase, “Kitto Katsu,” which roughly translates into, “You will surely win.”

So in Japan, when you pick up a Kit Kat, it is more than a treat. Like a wedding band, it is a symbol with much deeper meaning.

In my world, we refer to such symbols as “anchors.”

The Power of Anchors

Like those that hold a ship steadfast at sea, an anchor keeps you tethered to something of special meaning.

If you were to visit my place in New York, you would see it filled with anchors.

On my hallway wall, a decal of a quote by French poet, Anatole France—”To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

Taking up half the wall in my kitchen, a quote by Canadian educator, Claude Bissell—​“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.”

In my office I am surrounded by enormous Yin Yang and Ohm decals, as well as Buddha, Ganesh, cats, dragons, and other symbols that lend me their power!

On my desk, benches, and tables you will see my coins stacked up; the anchor I give to my clients to reinforce our work together.

No matter what they are headed into or going through, by picking up my coin they are reminded that, as the decal in my study says, “The anchor holds in spite of the storm.”

Surround yourself with powerful anchors—You will surely win!

Hate Me For Telling You The Truth, But I Won't Lie

There is no limit to how far I will go to get what I want.

I’ve worked seven days a week since high school, and I imagine I will until the day they carry me out in a box.

It’s not work to me. Doing the things that matter to me. Driving my life. Making my life what I want it to be. This is living, to me.

The other day my buddy Paulo—an expert at Do What You Want!—said to me, “The absolute worst thing I can imagine is sitting on a beach!

“Rather than being bored, give me a board and a kite, and see how far the wind carries me.”

There’s a reason I get him and he gets me!

Skiing 101 days this year, while blasting through bumps, trees, and powder, I got through 80+ audio programs and recorded most of my next book.

I don’t work this way under the illusion of “getting somewhere.” This is living, to me.

If every single day I am not creating the most amazing life I can imagine, then what the fuck am I doing, is a mantra that has fueled me.

I work with my clients the same way.

My commitment to them is absolute. Their goals become my goals and I do everything I can to get them what they want, including, sometimes hurting them and me.

Last week I pushed one of my clients beyond her limit, and it might have ended us.

Sometimes when I fight, on the inside, I am cussing out my trainer. Pushing me harder and further than is comfortable, that feeling inside of me, that rage, that force, I direct at the person in front of me.

I know it’s not about him, but when he is the one pushing me through pain, I can’t help but put it onto him.

For my clients, I will push, and I am happy to take the force of their pain.

Every day of the week, every fucking minute, I will risk my fee and relationship to keep my client moving forward.

As fifteenth century Italian author, Pietro Aretino, said, “I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.”

PODCAST: Red Pill? Blue Pill? Become THE ONE

“You may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I have spent my entire life looking for you,” Morpheus said to Neo in The Matrix.

After a matrix-like moment, in my first podcast, THE ONE, I put aside the script and pick up a more powerful topic—how are you creating your reality?

This is perhaps the most important topic to getting what you want.

You must begin with the idea that it is possible. No matter what has been your past, you must believe that you can make your reality what you want it to be.

​In THE ONE, I share with you five principles for creating your reality, and walk you through a potent exercise I call Reality Room.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends…You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

You choose—PRESS PLAY

Nip And Tuck All You Like…Nothing Will Change

After two decades as a pioneer in plastic surgery, Dr. Maxwell Maltz put away the scalpel.

Adjusting their noses. Lips. Jaws. Eyes. Boobs. Seeing patients show up repeatedly, Maltz came to a powerful realization.

He could nip and tuck time and time again, but if his patients didn’t change the way they perceived themselves, their self-image, nothing would change.

As he wrote, “If the scalpel was magic, why did some people who acquired new faces go right on wearing their old personalities?”

In his revolutionary book, Psycho-Cybernetics—which has sold 30+ million copies and displays cover art gifted to him by Salvador Dali—Maltz highlights an often over-looked aspect of success and happiness.

Posing the question, “Why are the rich and powerful unhappy?” Maltz writes, “To really live, that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can live with. You must find yourself acceptable to you.”

And while this is a powerful prescription in itself, Maltz goes much further, laying out a mechanism for achieving any goal.

“In short, the goals you attempt to convey to this mechanism are filtered through the self-image,” wrote Maltz, “and if they are inconsistent with the self-image, they are rejected or modified.”

Maltz concluded that, not only must you be able to visualize your goals being achieved, you must develop the self-image of you being the person achieving them.

Take, for instance, an Olympic decathlete with her sights set on gold.

Not only must she be able to visualize an athlete winning gold, but she must imagine herself as the athlete standing in the center podium for all the world to see.

She’s not just seeing gold being won. She is building her self-image as the one winning gold.

An obese man with an enormous tush and a healthy goal must first build a healthy self-image, and the same is true for any goal.

Not only must you be able to visualize your goal happening, you must first see yourself as the person that is making it happen.

How Can You Love Your Life If You Don't Love Your Work?

How can you love your life if you don’t love what you do?

If two-thirds of your life is spent doing something you don’t love, how can you?

Back in the day I believed you could separate your work and life.

So even if you didn’t love your work, you could say, I work hard and play hard. Or, It affords me the choices to do the things I love, but today I see it differently.

When your plate is jammed with omelet, there is little room for pancakes.

We work too many hours to fit in the life we love on the side.

The old paradigms also imply that your work and life are mutually exclusive.

Rubbish!

This might have been true in the bad old days when most humans were laboring draught horses, but in this modern age it is much easier to do what you love (and make a barn-load of hay doing it).

But even if that isn’t possible for you.

Even if you don’t do what you love, you can still choose to love what you do.

You can love a party even if you don’t love every person in the room, and you can love your work even if you don’t love every hour.

Stop focusing on the things that you don’t love, and focus on the things you do.

Simply through practice you will learn to love what you do!

How can you love your life any other way?

Forget Criticism, Become Immune To Praise

There is an interesting notion in Vipassana meditation.

You see, when you sit for some time with your legs crossed under you, until you become expert at that posture, you suffer extraordinary pain.

At first it just feels uncomfortable.

Then your legs get that pins and needles feeling. And then it just hurts.

It pretty much just hurts for years, but you learn to work with the pain.

Work With The Pain

You don’t label it. You watch it expand and contract, move in waves, whatever it does.

You don’t try to resist it. You stop thinking, How long will this last?

You just sit with it.

Through working with the pain, you learn you are not the feeling body and the thinking mind.

Now, here is the thing.

Some teachers will say: well, why work with pain when you can work with pleasurable sensations in the body?

Some will even go so far as to say it is part of the teaching that they have harems of women.

It’s Easy To Fool Yourself With Pleasure

I call bullshit because of something I think legendary teacher, Shinzen Young, told me, or helped me see.

You can fool yourself with pleasure.

You can pretend that you have transcended, or perhaps mastered the body/mind, but why then be pulled toward the pleasure?

I used to think that the hard part about my job was becoming immune to criticism.

But as I got more into it, I realized that wasn’t the hard part.

You can become all badass and say, “I don’t care what other people think,” but if on the other side there is this small part of you that gets excited when someone likes a photo you took, or feels a hit of validation for every person who likes what you wrote, then what have you achieved?

You may be immune to criticism, but you are “controlled” by your cravings for praise.

If you want to truly become immune to criticism, begin the other way.

Become immune to praise.

✕