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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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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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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If you had a magic wand to change how you think and feel, what would you upgrade?

And why would you upgrade it?

Are there “negative” thoughts and feelings that make you think and feel worse?

That limit the way you scheme and dream your goals?

Hold you back from taking your best actions?

How would you be different if you could remove these?

What about the positive side?

How would you want to be different?

Would you want to feel more focused, energized, confident?

Have more belief in your goals, in yourself?

Upgrading your mind for 2 reasons

Honestly, I hate using the word “mind.”

It’s imprecise relative to talking about the neuroscience of your brain and nervous system.

Or the psychology of your thinking and feeling faculties.

Yet the notion “mind” conveys something incredibly powerful—

The way you’re directing your thinking and feeling faculties, brain and nervous system.

In this context of Upgrade YOU, this matters for 2 reasons.

The first is top performance.

Quite simply, like a pro athlete, to best drive your goals and actions you must get your thinking and feeling aligned.

You can never be worried, fearful, distracted, and every other “negative” way AND playing your best game.

This matters most in driving your goals, but it may be the second reason that matters even more.

Happiness, or as I prefer to label it, “feeling amazing!”

This to me is the end game of being human.

If you can alter the way you think and feel at will, you’ve won the game.

But there’s also a lot more to this than just play.

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