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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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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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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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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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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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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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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