Geoff, Author at Geoff Blades

Come out of the gates hot post Labor Day

In any ordinary year, now is the calm before the sprint.

This week is typically a time for chilling out and setting up for the post Labor Day rush.

You have this feeling of the year closing out, which is exciting, especially this year, but also the desire to finish the year strong.

But this is no ordinary year, is it?

Groundhog year

This groundhog year has presented many challenges, and a number of business leaders I’ve spoken to hardly feel like they got a summer.

Locked at home with the family, with a short leash to Zoom, they didn’t get their usual time to reset.

One told me he felt he was coming out of the starting gates half a track behind the other horses.

But he also readily admitted it’s likely many of those other chargers feel much the same way!

I suggested to him that even if he doesn’t feel well set up to finish the year…

You can easily, and quickly build momentum from here.

Building momentum through the summer

I’ll write you more about this August Man Upgrade I did on this person formerly known as Geoff Blades. 🙂

But ultimately it was about stepping back, resetting, and building momentum through the summer for driving the rest of the year.

Looking at where I was in late July, it was clear to me I needed to make changes to give it more gas.

An open wheel racing instructor once taught me that you only have three levers in driving a car.

He said think of it like a rope attaching your steering wheel to the gas and brake.

“The problem,” he said is, “You only have 100% grip, and so long as you’re on the gas, you’re taking some of that away from your ability to steer.”

Hence, in driving a car real fast you must be precise about how you align the steering before you kick it in the rear.

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August Man and 3 types of change

Whoa, what a month!

Obviously in our crazy world, but also what I’ve been up to.

I took time away from writing you so I could step back.

What came out of it was an Upgrade Cycle that I’ve called August Man.

I’ve never written about Upgrade Cycles before, but it’s a process I run once, sometimes twice a year.

It’s deep work that often takes me to another place for a few weeks, but this year I did in NYC.

Like the caterpillar crawling in the chrysalis, the intent isn’t just change or improving, but transformation.

3 types of change

There are three types of change that I’m focused on.

The first is Continuous Change, which is what you’re doing every day to keep getting better.

This comes back to many of my Masterclasses which are built for daily evolution, systematically honing your mind and actions each and every day.

A second type is Change Work.

This is the hard stuff, but it’s mostly one and done.

Meaning, if someone is stuck taking action, or has a terrible PTSD type memory, or is say stuck in deep depression…

Change Work is like a carpenter showing up at a job site, with every tool you might need to get the job done.

Now it’s not to say Change Work is always one and done, because we’re talking some real hard stuff here, but the intent is to equip people with methods that enables the change to stick forever.

And then you have Upgrade Cycles.

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Remember to stretch

That’s one of my alternate book titles for Navy SEAL Goggins’ book.

Another is Read To The End.

If you’ve read his book you know what I mean.

The first two thirds of Goggins’ book is about him transforming from 300 pounds into a SEAL and one of the world’s best ultra athletes.

What’s so powerful in this is, as I wrote about here, it was far from a natural evolution for Goggins.

He built himself into the man he needed to become.

Taking on hard goals, and doing what it took, regular David Goggins became Goggins.

Up until this point his story is about being hardcore, and persisting.

But then it takes a strange twist.

Goggins is struck down.

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How this SEAL learned to bring out your best

You see here a pre and post picture of retired Navy SEAL, David Goggins.

Pre SEAL, he’s a big guy pushing 300 pounds.

Post, he’s carved like David.

I won’t go deep into his story which you want to read in his book.

Just a quick note to say…

He wasn’t born this way

Goggins as he’s known wasn’t a born winner.

Wasn’t a top athlete.

Didn’t have a long history of accomplishment.

Was far from the guy you’d bet on to be an elite anything.

Just to qualify for SEAL training he had to drop a hundred pounds, which was an enormous feat for a guy who’d never been into exercise.

Working a, literally, dead-end job, with a dead-end future…

Goggins needed to first see this David inside of him.

And then do what it takes to forge himself this way.

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We keep failing, but that’s the point

System For Winning

With a client we’re focused on solving something very hard in his business.

In his industry, it’s never really been done.

We know that’s because it’s a hard problem to solve, and that’s the point.

If we can solve it in his business, it will work forever.

His business will massively scale.

Him and his executive team will be able to focus on other things to drive the business even further.

We’ve only failed 3 times so far…

I won’t repeat the Edison quote, coz you know it.

10,000 fails isn’t failure if you’re iterating to your solution, is it?

Ultimate failure is never trying.

Settling for a sub-optimal solution.

Giving up too soon.

Failure is the point we keep driving through to get to success.

And it’s not just that each time we get closer and closer.

It’s that you want to love the pursuit.

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Putting it on the rails (in 2 steps)

Driving a car you must make constant choices about what to do.

Speed it up. Slow it down.

Turn here. Turn there.

But a train on the rails, well, it’s all locked in from here.

You just need to keep it moving and the rails lead you where you’re meant to go.

This is what I mean by putting it on the rails.

Take the thinking out of it

And just get doing.

Where do you get stuck in driving your goals?

Ultimately, in all the thinking that gets in the way of doing what you know you want to get done!

I’ve seen this is the method to top performance in basically every pursuit.

You might be watching a boxer stand around talking about stuff, and then they just get moving.

Jumping rope.

Shadow boxing.

It’s those small actions that pull their mind into what they’re doing right now.

Some boxers even need to get hit a few times before their brain really pulls into gear.

But once it does, they’re very hard to stop from here.

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My best advice right now—See green and be color blind

Focus Tools

Stay focused.

That’s it.

People keep asking me where I think this is headed.

You know my view.

It’s unknowable.

And every second you spend thinking on unknowables is a second you’re wasting from focusing on what most matters.

Will it get worse?

Better slowly?

Better quickly?

It’s unknowable.

Literally, where it is headed from here is as unknowable as it was to know a year ago that we would be in this situation.

People readily accept that we couldn’t have predicted this.

Yet, how much mental energy is then wasted on trying to predict where it will be a year from now?

Truth—whatever you think on these topics says nothing about the world, and everything about you.

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3 ways to best use your PPP (not that one)

Ultimate Days

This PPP is an acronym you can use to best drive your goals.

And to feel your absolute best every day—

Power of Positive Projecting.

I’m trying to keep these letters to you tighter, so let’s just get to the point.

Why PPP?

Because your brain is constantly projecting your reality.

Literally, it’s looking around you right now, seeing a tiny part of the world (only as far as the eyes can see).

Yet, somehow it has an entire “movie” of what the world is.

Think about this for a moment.

Your head is filled with a projection of what you perceive the world to be based on the content you’re feeding your brain.

e.g. if you saw a week of news that somehow the world had become a magical, happy utopia, how would you be imagining the world different right now?

Your life is exactly the same.

All the time your brain is referencing movies of your past, present, and projecting your future.

So make it PPP.

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Do you want a few texts from me?

Your answer might be, hells no!

I get that.

We’re all so busy, our phones are constantly dinging. (unless you keep them off like I mostly do.)

Yet I offer it up to you because for my clients this is something I’m constantly doing.

See, a reason I only work on retainer is I want to be here for my clients 24/7.

Like the W Hotel, I offer Whatever Whenever service to my clients, so they can always count on me.

They don’t often hit me up like 911, but in those moments they don’t know what to do, I want to be that one phone call.

This is because I know what it takes to keep driving hard goals.

It can be a long road.

Your days can be filled with ups and downs.

Few people will ever get what drives you, nor how to keep you driving.

And some of my clients want me to keep reminding them through the week of who they are, and what they’re here to do.

As I texted a client this week, This is where the game is won or lost.

Another I wrote on Tuesday, Hulk, Smash!

On Thursday, You’ve got this!!

Just short reminders a few times a week can go a long way to staying focused on what matters most each and every day.

Of course I can’t customize texts for your goals, but I can hit you up with a few ideas that might put that extra pep in your step.

If you want in, text YESGB to 833-680-1291.

And if you feel I’m interrupting your flow, you can easily text STOP anytime.

Lame Jane or Queen of The Jungle?

That’s what she called herself—

Lame Jane.

I wouldn’t have said it, but I love that she did.

Because it was incredibly helpful to no longer be that way.

“Do you want to be lame?”

I asked her.

“Of course I don’t want to be lame, but it’s just how I’ve been,” she said.

And now, this is the turn.

I asked her one of the most powerful questions in unlocking all of your potential—

How do you want to be?

“Jane, Queen of The Jungle”

“Touche,” I bellowed.

Why not?

If she feels that she’s been showing up Lame, why not show up as Queen of The Jungle?

See, a friend had her call me because she’s “Sucking as a leader,” as she put it!

Now just from the language of hers that I’m sharing, you get a sense for the strength of this woman, right?

She’s been looking at the performance of her business through this cycle.

And in particularly her performance as a leader, and calling herself out.

That takes a lot of character, which showed me exactly what to do.

She wanted to know what can she do?

But as you can see we ended up talking about who she wants to be.

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How do you win in your Wall Street career NOW?

You may not be in a career on Wall Street, and get value from this new video program.

But you might still get value from where I’m taking this letter.

Where?

Well, the operative word in the subject line is NOW!

Meaning, in this Covid world, how do you keep driving forward in your business and career NOW?

2020 hardly what we dreamed…

That’s an understatement, right?

Of course none of us dreamed of the world coming to a halt!

But here we are…

So, what do you do?

You’ve certainly already adapted to this massive shock to the system.

And found some normalcy in the current environment, working from home, etc.

But what do you do from here?

How do you keep driving forward now?

What do you NEED to do?

This is the hardest place many people find themselves.

Covid has created massive problems in their business and career, and they need to do something.

Find another job. Adapt. They must solve a problem.

Luckily for many people on Wall Street this isn’t the case.

Unlike two previous massive shocks to the system I experienced and talk about here—when I began this work after the Internet bubble burst, and the 2008 credit crisis—Wall Street has held up nicely.

The markets have stayed strong.

Some Wall Street businesses have gotten stronger.

So unlike previous cycles where Wall Street careers got shredded, this time around there’s less you NEED to do.

That’s a good thing.

But it’s also bad because it can lead people to think it’s all good, and then focus too little on…

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Enjoy your freedom :)

“It’s ironic we’re celebrating freedom locked in our homes,” an old friend said to me.

He’s not wrong.

Ironic is a fair way to put it.

Yet too, the notion of freedom is entirely one of perspective.

What does it mean to be free?

Perhaps freedom has never been so hard to see!

Of course physical freedom is impossible to come by when you’re imprisoned in your home.

When you can’t open your business or go to work.

See your friends.

Go to the beach and soak in your freedom.

It’s pretty hard to celebrate your freedom standing 6 feet apart.

And what about the freedom of expression?

Have we ever lived in times when groupthink was so socially enforced?

Where having a different opinion to the masses was so scorned?

In a time when you and your freedom of speech can be canceled because of a tweet?

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the most important key to unlock everything you want

No I’m not getting lazy 🙂

I am real busy, but I’m never too busy to share fresh ideas with you.

Yet, there’s something I’m seeing right now that I want to triple down on with you.

It’s something I’m perceiving is REALLY the KEY to all of your goals and aspirations.

To unlocking you and what is possible for you!

And I’m sharing this article again with you on being The Hulk because it’s a highly actionable way of doing this.

No, this isn’t something new I haven’t said before.

Nor is it something completely new in the world of top performance.

Yet, I am getting a new level of clarity around it I want to share with you.

Psycho Cybernetics

Have you read this book by Maxwell Maltz?

Maltz was real purist in the world of top performance.

Look, it’s no secret that most promoters of these topics are just saying basic things that have been said millions of times before.

But Maltz was different.

Mid last century he was a pioneering plastic surgeon, who began to sour on his profession.

When he kept seeing the same people come back for more surgery, he wondered what was he missing?

Long story short, what he perceived is that he could change someone’s nose or jaw or boobs…

But unless how they perceived themselves changed, nothing would change.

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Now’s the time to keep driving forward

You can’t know where this is headed.

The signaling is that we might keep taking one step forward and half a step back.

Maybe we’re opening up more.

Closing down more.

Perhaps the economy will sputter.

Or roar back to life.

It’s unknowable.

Question is…

Where are you at?

I see people are basically in one of three gears—

Idle
Just driving along
Driving forward

Where do you consider yourself right now?

Idle is an easy place to get stuck right now.

Those people are waiting and seeing.

Perhaps wasting hours a day trying to get clear on where it’s headed so they can too.

They’ll remain stuck.

Others are driving along, doing their zoom calls, taking care of what needs to be done.

They’re in a good enough place, but lack direction.

Then, well, you know where I’m headed…

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Relive your best times (again!)

Thought I’d share this with you today.

It’s an oldie but a goodie, as we say in Oz.

And good Sunday play.

This article keeps getting hit right now which tells me that people are, well, looking for ways to relive your best times!

Concept here is super simple.

This beautiful mind of yours is a time machine.

At any moment you can imagine the most amazing times in your life and relive them now.

Like watching a stage show reliving your best times, follow these 4 simple steps.

Enjoy the play!

5 steps getting your mind winning this year

Indeed Covid threw a spanner in the works, didn’t it!?

What the heck will this year look like?

Are we opening up for good?

For a little while?

What will happen in the economy?

In your business or career?

Can’t know.

What you do know is…

Whatever you make of this year doesn’t come back to the economy.

Or your industry.

Or your business.

Of course none of these things you control.

But what you do control is the attitude you bring to winning this year.

What is this winning attitude?

And how do you get here from where you are now?

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How do you set business goals, NOW?

You have no idea what will happen in a business!

That’s what I most learned as a distressed investor at the Carlyle Group.

Investing in public securities you convince yourself that the management team and you can somehow predict where this quarter or year is headed.

Yet, as a control investor, sitting on the board, with more information, you quickly see how little you know.

And the nothing you can actually predict.

The illusion of predicting the future

Yes, yes, we all know our world is based on guessing the future.

Economic forecasts.

Revenue projections, all the way down to EPS.

It all seems smart and thoughtful and precise, and rationalized by data…

And then, well, for any number of reasons, the world doesn’t behave according to our models!

As we’ve seen this year…

Man, our predictions would have been right on if it wasn’t for Covid!!

For better and worse, btw. (e.g. Amazon vs. United Airlines)

I saw the same in 2008.

The credit crisis and recession blew up many businesses, and completely blew out all projections and cash flow models.

The question we were forced to ask is…

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remove the block and all lives matter

“You can only push yourself to the wall,” I said to him.

“What do you mean?”

“Push, push, push, push will only get you so far,” I said.

So what takes you all the way?

I drew him this chart

I draw a lot of charts for myself.

There was a time in my old apartment where every wall was covered with charts.

Laughing about it, but being serious, my friend Liz used to say, “hmm, I hope you don’t bring people over here…”

That apartment I saw as my lab—like a scientist scribbling all over a chalkboard looking for a solution, it was where I did my work solving the mind.

When I moved and took all the charts off the walls I counted some 36 charts, just in my office, and I won’t tell you how many in total.

The point being that I’ve always been able to “see” developing more clearly than saying it.

So I showed him this chart that you see above.

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quick note on happiness

I keep hearing how much more unhappy Americans are now.

It’s no surprise.

Locked in your home.

Many people’s income cut off.

Businesses dying.

Kids futures looking like, what?

All the stresses and strains that are now upon us.

Yet…

You know from all the stuff we talk about here that…

NONE OF THAT causes happiness or unhappiness.

The ONLY cause of how you think and feel is you.

Admittedly, this is really really not easy to learn nor do.

Because our society has tricked you to believe that how you think and feel is caused by what you have or do.

This is the biggest lie perpetuated to keep humans in misery.

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the hardest part to winning

System For Winning

A client had a huge breakthrough this week.

Something we’ve been working on for a while really clicked in him.

It’s f’n cool to see.

When after all the ways we’ve been triggering this, boom!

He could see exactly what he needs to do.

That’s the hardest thing

Knowing what to do.

Meaning, if you have a job and your boss says to you—do these 5 things and you will succeed.

OK, well, that can still be hard, because these things might be hard to do.

But by far the harder thing to winning is when you have no clue what to do.

When you’re looking at your goals, and you literally have no idea how to win at them.

See, a lot of the time I talk about pro athletes, but in some ways that’s an easy game.

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