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Where do we REALLY get stuck?

I had a call with someone who’s been reading these articles for years.

She said, “I really love what you’re doing on Upgrade YOU.”

And then it came…

“But, I’m having some trouble putting it to work.”

For a few minutes we went around in circles talking about her upgrade.

And then I saw…

It’s my fault

I see it now.

I’ve been TRYING to give you the solutions.

Not the usual airy fairy stuff that people tend to talk about on these topics.

The actual solutions I’ve built for myself over 21 years.

And what I actually do to drive results with clients.

But it FAILS.

From calls like this I’ve seen I’m failing to convey it in a way that best serves you.

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Upgrade YOU 3.3. 74 times a day we do this, and it massively holds you back

On average we check email 74 times a day.

When you look at that number, what does it make you think?

Is it high to you?

About right?

Low?

Because in a 16 hour day, this means ONLY checking email every 12 minutes.

Ding, ding human…

Does the story of Ivan Pavlov ring a bell?

You might be familiar with how he conditioned his dogs to salivate at the sound of a ringing bell.

But do you know why this works so well?

And how it works exactly the same in you and me?

Of course you do!

Because you might be doing it all the time too.

Jumping to a dinging phone, responding to notifications, half the day working for your device, rather than it working for you.

It costs you a ton of time and effectiveness.

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Upgrade YOU 3.3. Keep riding the bull

A private equity founder shared this story from a portfolio company CEO.

Now, this client is an entrepreneur.

A founder. Builder.

He’s been surrounded by top business builders all his life.

And this idea is from one of them.

A guy with a special and meaningful story.

Who sold the business he founded in his kitchen for nearly a billion dollars.

“From the outside…”

He says, “Building a business is like riding a bull.”

Someone watching might be dazzled.

The way they ride that bucking animal can look magical.

Even effortless, as they flow with the movement.

“Yet to the bull rider,” he says, “You don’t have a choice.”

You’re strapped onto this thing!

Whether you’re gonna get thrown or ride to victory, you’re hanging on for dear life.

Failing means major disappointment.

And also potentially being impaled!

So you keep riding.

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Upgrade YOU 3.3. The myth of using 10% of your brain—SOLVED

If it’s popular culture, it’s likely wrong.

Just like this notion that you only use 10% of your brain.

It sounds all fancy.

And plenty of fiction, such as movies like Limitless and Lucy, is based on unlocking the remaining 90%.

But what does it mean?

You can trace the myth back to…

Articles suggest it comes from this vague quote by the father of modern psychology, William James—

Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.

So you see, there’s apparently little to it.

Yet, directionally, it’s certainly true we only use a fraction of our potential.

Whether that’s 10% or not, who cares?

Let’s talk about what it means.

Or, at least, in my view, a valuable interpretation!

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Upgrade YOU 3.3. Stop holding yourself back avoiding taking actions, without hours of yelling at yourself!

Do you wish you could be getting more done?

Have moments when you sit down to get started and it’s just too hard?

You can’t quite get into it?

Your brain is seeking distraction?

Oh, just better grab a drink before I do this.

Haven’t checked email in 9 seconds!

Hmm, maybe I should just check in with…

Resistance, avoidance, procrastination…

Whatever you call it, sucks.

It sucks time from your life, and energy from your accomplishing.

If you’ve procrastinated throughout your life, you know how much it has hurt you.

All the way back to school I’m betting you’ve been living with that awful feeling.

Us pros call it inner conflict.

One “part” of you says, I want or I’ve gotta do this.

And the other part of you, meaning, the part of you that actually must do the work says…

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This may be helpful tonight if you’re roaring ahead this week…

You may be chilling.

But if you’re roaring into the new year, this might be helpful for you.

It’s been a focus for me and I’ve had a number of conversations with clients on it this week.

One thing you see with us ambitious types is the start of the year can feel a little overwhelming, can’t it?

Even after last year proved you can never simulate the future, that’s what your brain is built to do.

You think and perform worse

When your brain is simulating on ALL those things in the future, you perform worse now.

And even worse, with all of those more things you must get done…

No matter how much you accomplish today you can feel like there’s always more to do.

It’s a lose-lose when you can so easily make it a win-win.

Whether you’re fired up or overwhelmed, take what is massive and shrink it down.

Stop that brain simulating all those big things you’re doing this year.

Simply keep bringing your focus back to the smallest things you’re doing this week building momentum in your year.

Just small steps this week.

Then next.

And the next.

Over and over again crushing each day.

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Upgrade YOU 3.2. For when you MUST find a way to win

A buddy lost his restaurants in the lockdowns.

Well, actually, he’s got some great properties that might come back.

“The question is, will the ‘suits’ come back?” he says.

The residential and office towers that fill his restaurants are still mostly empty.

He’s started another business on the side.

“You’ve gotta find a way to win,” he says.

I detest failure porn

That’s the stuff like how failure is the most wonderful learning experience.

It’s a loser’s mentality.

As Vince Lombardi put it, “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.”

Have you noticed that you only hear how great failure is from people who ultimately succeeded?

Failure is necessary and loveable feedback to keep getting better.

But that’s a distant last compared to the feedback of your goal being crushed 🙂

Certainly life isn’t about whether you win or lose.

Still that’s different to what I’m talking about here.

People talking about how grateful they are for their failures.

What did they fail at?

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New year, new YOU!

Hi there,

How you doing?

Hope you had a great new year and are roaring for 2021!

Certainly, none of us know where this year is headed.

Who could even pretend to guess the future based on what last year taught us all?

But we all do know one thing…

Focus on what you control

From about April on last year, this was so crucial to making last year one of my best.

The same is true with every client.

All of my work comes back to focusing on what you can influence.

And last year was a powerful reminder that’s basically nothing!

Zero ability to influence the health of the world.

Zero control over the decisions that govern you.

Heck, you have zero influence on your stomach digesting food or heart beating, let alone anything in our world.

Of course last year threw you a curve ball.

And who knows, this year could be the worst or greatest of all.

But what you do know, with absolute certainty is, nearly everything that impacts your life, you have zero control.

Absolutely zero.

None.

Nothing.

Nada.

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Why do New Year’s Resolutions REALLY fail?

This week surely lots of resolutions will be made.

Few broken resolutions will be reflected upon.

Too few resolutions will be any more than resolutions.

80% will be dust by mid-February.

Do you know why resolutions REALLY fail?

I mean, REALLY?

It’s not that we are weak or lazy or undisciplined.

The problem is the word “Resolution.”

In some way it has come to have a different meaning to a “real” goal.

Ultimately, it’s a type of goal that is socially acceptable to quit and fail at.

So we’re never really committed to begin with.

I write 3 more reasons why in this post and discuss a little in this short one minute video.

Not meaning to send you off the page here, but I’m keeping it short.

In past years I’ve written longer on why New Year’s Resolutions are stupid, and this video on why they’re still stupid.

But this year I’m making a resolution of my own. 🙂

And I’m starting early.

I, Geoff Blades, do solemnly resolve…

To ramble a whole lot less!

I haven’t put a word limit on it yet, but I can’t imagine writing any longer letters to you in 2021.

Less words more impact is my phrase.

And my target is one to two-thirds less words in every conversation, and the same in writing and videos.

That’s a reason I’m keeping this tight.

btw, not saying resolutions are entirely stupid.

Just that if you are making resolutions, why not go all the way to setting real goals you’re resolved to achieving?

If you want to go deeper into doing this I’d suggest these videos from Upgrade YOU:

Why Goals
What Goals
How to Condition Your Goals (so they’re not just resolutions but drilled into your brain)

Priceless learnings quickly reviewing YOUR 2020

I struggled writing this for YOU.

That’s because I kept finding myself writing about the world and my year…

What it meant to me.

Why it was so transformational.

How it was one of my best.

Where they’re taking the world, etc.

There’s lots of stuff I’d like to share with you.

But this isn’t about any of that.

This is about one thing and one thing only—>

You, and getting the most from YOUR year.

Not about the world’s year

You’d have to be pretty narrowly focused to be looking back on “your” year without any reference to the year humanity had.

Tragic.

Disastrous.

This was a hard and painful year for billions of people.

Many lost their lives and livelihoods.

Multiples more still have their backs up against it.

Freedom was surrendered by all.

You simply cannot tally the enormous cost of human suffering this year.

Yet you also can’t let that weigh down your year.

True compassion and empathy is so rare and crucial, yet that’s different to using the suffering of others to justify your own.

If you wanted to ruin your days counting human tragedy, before this year it was still everywhere there’s oxygen.

But if you’re focused on how you keep doing your best to serve yourself, family and humanity…

Well, you must focus on those things you control.

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To be continued…

Ah, we’re so close…

To finishing Upgrade YOU I mean.

But we’re gonna save the rest for next year.

Coz I want to finish this year with some year-end topics.

With me and some clients, this has meant two things.

First, let’s tie off the year.

What ways might you reflect, assess, key takeaways, etc?

So, no matter how it’s been for you, you can feel good closing out this year.

Second is thinking ahead to next year.

Here we’ll revisit some goal and bigger topics from Upgrade YOU too.

But for now, capping off Upgrade YOU, I’m sharing with you this short one minute video.

It’s from the longer video you might have watched on upgrading your actions.

And comes back to what I rant about as THE HARDEST topic on taking powerful actions—what to do when you don’t know what they are!

Upgrade YOU 3.2. Will + skill =

Winning.

Every game.

Having the will to keep driving towards your goal.

And the skill to pull it off.

For a moment, think back on a time you strived so hard to reach a goal that really mattered to you.

What type of will did it take?

At times did you will yourself to keep going?

To keep getting better?

Were there particular skills, or maybe one skill in particular, that really drove your success here?

Why was it so important to achieving?

How about now looking forward to your current goals.

What skills most matter to you driving it all the way?

Where do you now rank yourself on these skills?

How might you upgrade your skills for driving what you want?

That’s what we’re doing in this video for upgrading skills, if you haven’t watched it already.

If you have, you’re one step closer…

Upgrade YOU 3.2. Are your actions good enough?

This is the most underdiscussed part of success.

And most common source of failure.

It’s common to find people who work hard.

Grind it out.

Give everything you’ve got.

Hustle. Hustle. Hustle.

And every other platitude for going after it.

But, how good are they?

See, this is one of the things that we don’t talk so much about.

Like people say “I’ve applied for 200 jobs and haven’t heard anything back.”

It seems rude to ask, “Well, how good is your method for applying?”

But for someone who’s looking to keep getting better, it’s the most obvious place to start.

How good are most of us at charging after our goals?

Good enough is typically the answer.

We have enough skill to get it done.

And that’s often good enough.

But, does good enough get your goals done?

Even if you’re far better than good enough, do you need more skill to drive the results you want?

I do.

For my goals I must keep getting better and better and better and…

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Upgrade YOU 3.1. Head down. Drive hard. Hit wall.

That’s how I think of most success.

Actually, that’s what I’ve seen many people experience chasing success.

Arrrrggghhh.

Grind, grind, grind.

Crank. Crank. Crank.

Getting it done. Done. Done. Done.

Boom. Crash.

btw, that boom, crash even happens when people achieve because…

If you don’t know where you’re headed

Well, will you feel good when you arrive?

Your ladder of success can be leaning against the wrong wall.

So you climb, climb, climb, only to reach a level where you’re wondering, is this what it was meant to be?

The worse problem is you never reach this point.

You grind, grind, grind until you can’t grind anymore.

And you still fail to reach your destination.

Or worse.

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Upgrade YOU 3.1. This one action drove him to the top!

One of my oldest buddies has driven to the top this way.

Actually, he’s more than a buddy.

He was one of the bankers who I was lucky to work with in my early days.

In many ways he taught me the business.

Especially what it takes to get it done and keep driving forward.

Not into self-help

This may not surprise you because it might be the same for you.

But, few of my clients, friends, and even people reading these letters are into personal development.

Like me before 2000, I’d never read any of that stuff.

Catapulting myself from working class nowhere to Goldman Sachs was “simple” to me.

It never required reading books on mindset, goals, time management, etc.

Simply, I decided to do everything I could to drive my best results.

And day and night I put my head down and cranked away.

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Upgrade YOU 3.1. Focus is easy compared to this

This is where the rubber hits the road, my friend.

So far in Upgrade YOU we’ve gone deepish into your goals and mind.

In some ways that’s valuable in its own right.

But in our context of driving your grandest goals, you might as well be dancing the jig.

To drive what you truly want, you must be taking action.

What action is our focus

You’ll see quickly in this video that I’m dismissing some of the harder topics on taking action.

Efficiency, effectiveness, time management, all that really matters.

And we’ll be hitting it in Upgrade YOU 3.3 where we talk about engineering flow.

That can be real hard.

But also easy relative to knowing what actions to take.

And being excellent taking them.

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Upgrade YOU 2.3. Enjoy your pull-ups

I know I’m fc’g this up.

A top marketer of personal development told me directly.

“You’ve gotta make it seem easy,” he said.

“But even that’s not enough. Effortless. That’s more like it.”

The point being…

Few people like to workout

Many people avoid it.

Others, with a more important goal, “force” themselves to show up and get it done.

“So if you run around comparing training your mind to working out,” he said, “You turn many people off.”

“Good,” I said.

Those people are wrong for me and I’m wrong for them.

They should stick with podcasts and self-help hacks.

I work for and seek out serious people who do the work.

Because people who are serious about driving transformational results do what it takes.

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Upgrade YOU 2.3. “Just eat Doritos all day” says nobody

Imagine you’re looking to get in great shape.

Seeking to do everything you can, you hire a top personal trainer who designs a comprehensive program for you.

Perhaps it has you working out 4-6 days week.

Maybe you’re doing cardio 2-3 days.

Other days strength training.

Looking at the program you say, “That’s awesome.”

But knowing full well exercise is just one side to getting in great shape you ask, “Should we also focus on how I’m eating?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” they say, “If you like you can eat Doritos all day.”

Says no trainer!!

Not only would a trainer never say this.

But no matter how good your exercise plan, you know you’d fail this way.

It simply doesn’t matter.

If you’re working out an hour and eating junk 15 hours a day, your shape reflects it.

And of course you know where I’m headed here—

Your mind is the same.

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Upgrade YOU 2.3. The problem with getting out of your comfort zone is…

It’s uncomfortable.

See my point?

There’s no “un” in comfortable!

Which is why it’s much easier to stay here.

Get good with “un”

“When bullets are flying you’ve gotta be comfortable,” a SEAL said to me.

See, that’s the thing, what might be terrifying to us, must be comfortable to them.

I asked my buddy how you get comfortable with that.

He said, “You spend a lot of time training in chaotic conditions so uncomfortable is your comfort zone.”

An ER doctor told me much the same.

Where’s your “uncomfort” zone?

That’s one thing I’ve learned on the mind.

Many of these topics we’ve hit so far in Upgrade YOU are uncomfortable.

It’s comfortable to have small goals.

Perhaps even more comfortable to have none.

You get to stay the same person you’ve been.

Thinking, feeling, acting as you always have.

It’s rarely comfortable to change.

Or dream massive.

What if you don’t make it?

How comfortable are you risking losing playing to win?

To stay comfortable, keep it the same.

But if you’re looking to upgrade here, condition your uncomfort zone.

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Upgrade YOU 2.2 giving thanks as a performance tool

I wrote a longer, boringer article on performance tools.

Then I went for a run which made it much simpler.

You know these things that get you into a better state of mind.

Do more of them!

That’s all I’m talking about in this video on performance tools.

Get clear on what you’re changing in your mind as we did in 2.1.

And keep honing the tools that get the job done.

Running is one physical tool I use to simplify my thinking.

And here it led me to reflect on something too.

It’s the week of Thanksgiving.

In a weirdo year.

And we all still have so much to be thankful for.

One thing I did again was the thank-filled exercise from this lighter side video.

And here’s the video again on performance tools.

Next we move on to Mind 2.3.