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“10 out of 10 baby!”

Would you like to reduce your heart attack risk by 47%?

If you knew exactly how, would you do it?

What if I told you having bright lights in your home at night is harming your sleep and boosting the stress hormone cortisol?

That’s where I stopped paying attention!

“You really think that’s the key?” I asked.

80/20

This question I asked a group focused on longevity.

They’re all deep in these topics and my buddy Curtis who founded the business asked me to speak about this one most important thing.

Because just like I’ve seen over decades studying self-help there’s tons of noise on longevity when what matters most is, what exactly do you do?

“And how do you actually do it?” I asked them. “If your target is reducing stress, do you think night lights matter most? What does? What’s your 80/20?”

This can be hard to figure out. And even harder to actually get yourself doing. Can you change your habits? Rewire old beliefs and ways of being? Build new routines and get yourself living them every day?

Secret to being Thank-Full

It’s Thanksgiving in America.

So naturally… let’s dive into this deep topic of the mind.

This is a deep topic I stopped writing about to focus on mastering and now I’ll keep writing more.

Because it’s most important in your life, it’s made out to be complicated, when it’s this simple.

Just so hard to do.

Even being thankful.

Why?

Why is this hard to do?

Why does it even matter to do?

Why is mastering how you think and feel most important for you?

Best mind, best life. The quality of your mind is the quality of your life. Every thought, every feeling, every action is your life right now and your life in all future nows. Best energy. Best performing. Best results. Best happiness… Best life.

Why wouldn’t you want to master how you think and feel?

Do it coz it means something

We’ve only spoken a couple times over the years.

Especially when I mostly stopped writing for years we’ve been out of touch.

But just this week he popped up again in my inbox to share exciting news.

He’s getting married! And wanted me to know.

Congratulations to you and Glory, Isaiah.

Possibilities…

There are some 8 billion of us humans around the world.

It’s quite extraordinary when you think at some point the human population got down to around 1,280 what our species has become.

Even in just the last 100 years you’ve seen a miraculous leap in technology and our ways of living.

All around the world we are now connected and billions of us have been lifted out of poverty.

Still half the world lives on less than $10 a day and so much more is possible for our species.

Playing on offense

We had a power dinner.

In New York this week with an old friend I haven’t seen for a long time.

Was one of those nights that brought together a lot of our past and got us talking about the future.

In the last decade he’s built an incredible business growing just a seed into a forest of opportunity.

They’re winning the game and he loves playing.

Keep playing

It feels good to be in the game, doesn’t it?

Do you feel this way about what you’re doing?

He had taken time off to figure out his next move and had joined this incredible company they’ve grown remarkably.

We got talking about the movie Inception and how it perfectly captures even a tiniest seed can grow into transformation.

This got us talking about my game.

What is winning for you?

It feels good to be winning.

Winning you’re running with wind at your back.

It’s easier to keep winning when you’re winning.

Winning is more fun too, isn’t it?

Winning is winning.

Winning

What is winning for you? This is what counts.

Same with this thing called “success.” There’s no universal definition just what success and winning mean to you.

Because I saw this as a young professional you’re already “successful” just to have broken into a profession and established a career and so by the definition of “success” and “winning” many had already won. But also many like me were questioning, is this it? Is this success? How winning feels?

I didn’t know. It felt like winning in some ways, but still had me asking questions like, is this the life you dreamed as a kid? What do you truly want?

Is this winning the game of life?

Speeding up

Winning loves speed.

Because winning loves momentum.

Speed is momentum and ferociousness for getting things done.

It gets things moving, keeps things moving, willing things to happen start to finish.

Are you getting things done with speed?

Do faster?

Time is most often a constraint, isn’t it? Ask, what can you do faster?

Ask yourself this because it gets you thinking about your time in certain ways.

We all know time is your most precious resource and nobody is handing you more time you want and need.

Like I chuckle thinking of this story I heard of a banking executive who lacked time but wanted to help people and would stack up on one day a month all these calls with people who reached out for advice and then he’d get them done with his monthly office keeping chores all on the same one day.

How else would he find the time? You can’t get more time but you can compress time and speed up.

Minimize regrets

Plenty of things I would change.

Looking back on my life well lived (so far) there are plenty of things I would do differently.

That’s a mark of my life well lived (so far) because I’ve done and changed a lot and you’re never gonna get it all right.

Like I haven’t had a committed relationship for decades as it takes a wonder woman to fit my life of doing what you want!

Would I change this? Maybe, other things too, I’m always changing.

C’est la vie

Love comes and goes.

But one thing remains doing what you want is a life of change.

My buddy Adam says people tell him all the time “you’ve changed so much” since they were in college together decades ago and he’s like of course I have, he’s lived a life of constantly growing and changing while they’ve remained much the same.

Doing the same things, surrounded by same people, never reading, developing, building.

If you’re changing and growing it means you’re making new choices and not all you’ll get right.

Never regret.

Get it done

I sat down here today and thought to myself, if you wrote to yourself what would you say?

“Keep going.”

There are hard things to do and if you choose hard things you must do them full on.

And keep going.

So many of us live this way.

Full on

All my clients are full on. Many jobs are full on.

You’re always on. It demands a lot of you and you’re giving a lot.

It’s a hard way to play but for founders and top executives how you must play.

Work hours and travel are a lot and demand the best you’ve got.

You can never just show up, you must play full on.

Whatever it takes

That’s how I see it.

You do whatever it takes for long as it takes for you to reach your target.

The thing with this though is it must be a labor of love.

If you’re doing this like sacrifice you’re toast.

Do it coz you love it.

Loving it

I’ve hit a point in my game where I’m absolutely loving it.

So many things I’ve worked on for 25 years and 15 doing this as my profession has kept me building to this place.

My stomach is way bigger than my eyes. What I feel is possible I cannot see.

So over decades I’ve built methods to keep chasing the unseen.

And I’m loving it, now.

Are you focused on this?

You are focused on something.

It’s a truism you cannot not be focused 🙂

So long as your brain is functioning it is focusing on something.

Are you focused on the right things?

How do you know?

Right things?

We all know the crucial importance of focus.

And thinking about focus this way was a huge leap for me.

Because all the time we hear and speak about focus like this thing you lack.

When the truism is you’re always focused on something, just are you focused on the right things?

And this leads to the question I’m asked all the time, how do you know if you are focused on the right things?

Now is your time go after it!

The clock is ticking.

You’re never getting any younger.

There’s no time like now to be going for what you truly want.

You already know this, of course.

How are you doing living it?

You?

Curious, how are you?

How are you feeling about your path?

Are your best days behind you or are you looking forward going for it?

Because I’m surrounded by people who are going for it and also meet plenty others who are feeling stuck.

They know there’s more in them, more they can do, be, have, leave behind.

But something’s holding them back?

Just keep stepping

This isn’t theory.

It’s your life, your best life.

That’s a problem with these topics.

It can come across like good sounding ideas.

But all that matters is what you do with it from here.

How?

See, a reason these topics are hard to write and talk about is because, duh!

It can all sound so obvious, can’t it?

That’s where I found myself stuck reading thousands of self-help books.

Set goals. Strong mindset. Take action. Develop skills. Keep improving.

Duh, what’s there even to talk about on this?

We all learned to walk and can just keep taking steps, right?

With this it’s all possible

“It may be impossible,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll fail worse than I already have,” he continued with fire in his eyes.

“But I’ve just gotta know I did everything I could, Geoff.”

That was enough for me.

“I’m in,” I said.

Go for it!

This was about 10 months ago.

For 5+ years he’d been trying to start his own company.

Fits and starts he made a ton of progress and then like that kids game snakes and ladders he’d slide back down to where he started.

He tried and failed over and over but refused to quit.

As he said to me, “I’ve gotta go for it!”

Rocketing!

Damn it feels good.

Feels like flying.

Although my feet and brain are firmly grounded.

This is a feeling I’ve been training for years.

Maybe it’s even locked in now?

Hard things

Doing hard things is hard!

That’s what’s so hard in doing hard things is they’re hard!

This demands you must keep trying harder, getting harder, being harder, driving harder.

Working harder isn’t enough doing hard things demands you keep inventing new ways of rocketing forward.

For 15+ years I’ve had to keep finding another gear after gear and perhaps now we’re here.

“Keep having fun”

It was the worst advice.

When someone is in a bad place last thing they want to hear is “Keep having fun.”

But it’s also a most important thing you can share with someone.

Like one of my teachers said.

A place with no problems?

Where?

He says there’s one place in the world where nobody has any problems.

Everyone is just there time passing by.

Never a care in the world.

Nothing to worry about.

Where?

Keep leaping

A client is making leaps.

But he’s got a loooooong way to go.

He’s on a world-changing mission that has legs because so much is possible with technology.

Just he’s got a hard leap to make.

Here’s 5 things we’re doing.

Why?

The thing with making leaps in business and life is you’ve reaaalllly gotta want it.

Because it’s not just about where you’re leaping but making leaps in your performance.

You must know why this matters to you because making a leap is hard and you’ll back down.

When you’re feeling the strain you’ll find it easier to hang back or look for reasons to slow.

Or you push yourself to a comfortable limit vs. where a drill sergeant would get you.

Best game

I learned a lot this week.

It’s stuff I’m pretty bad at so it was good to be here.

Here was a senior leader offsite with a client I’ve advised for many years.

I learned a lot about the business and a lot of people who I only knew by name.

But most I learned about obsession.

Obsession

Customers have an obsession with my client’s company and the games they make.

I knew this.

I’ve known they have millions and millions of people obsessively playing their games.

Been to esport world events seeing all these fans going crazy faces painted for the game.

So I thought I got this obsession but this week I got it deeper.

Going after it!

Every day is a chase.

I bounce out of bed and go after it.

All day I’m going after it and often through the night.

What exactly I’m going after is still in some ways elusive to me!

That’s why I’m going after it.

Why?

Why do what you do?

You wake up every day, do your thing, go to bed, wake up to do another day.

In many ways this life is quite routine isn’t it and you can find yourself just ticking through the days.

That’s how it was for me back when I had a job.

They were great jobs but I wanted more.

Go for it 🚀

At dinner with best friends in Manhattan this week she asked me what books to read.

She saw this article I wrote 11 years ago and wanted to know what books are most valuable for her to be reading.

I told her to be wary.

Is it worth your time?

You’ve gotta be careful reading.

Cut out

I read little.

About 15 years ago I cut out reading media and over recent years even cut out checking headlines.

You are what you eat and you’ve gotta be careful what you feed your brain.

It’s not just negative and often untrue, but it’s intended to consume you.

Ask yourself what is best for you to consume?

“Full-filled”

There are things you want.

You think when you get these things you’ll feel how you want.

Then you get these things and what happens?

Well, it’s “normal” isn’t it you love these things… for a bit.

And then your brain starts thinking about the next thing you need to feel how you want, right?

Next

It’s the same cycle over and over, isn’t it?

Just a different “object” the brain thinks you need to feel what exactly?

What is the feeling we’re all targeting by wanting —>having—>getting things that then fades?

Why does this feeling fade?

What’s going on in us humans that makes it so hard to hold onto the feeling of being “full-filled?”

Have you thought much about this?