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3 Life Saving Skills (Especially For Your Kids)

Focus Tools

I’ve been studying for a competition.

It has the type of questions that require simple memorized answers like—

What year did the Yankees win their first world series?

“Gnome” is my answer.

That’s 23…

In a system I learned nearly 2 decades ago for quickly memorizing numbers.

You turn the numerals into letters and then words that you associate to the content.

2 being N. 3 being M.

It’s a phonetic system, so the vowels are silent as is the “G.”

To link the number to the question, I see a Yankees player beating the heck out of a garden gnome.

You could do this a million different ways, and ultimately, the more “memorable,” the more it sticks in your brain.

I haven’t done this type of memorizing for years.

Nor used this memory technique so deliberately.

But it’s still stuck in my brain.

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This Holy Experience

Ultimate Days

Our lives are full of ups and downs, aren’t they?

Sometimes things feel as good as they can be.

Other times, well, life can feel real hard, can’t it?

As the Buddha put it, life is suffering.

These bodies and minds we’re born into, deteriorate.

Respond to every drop, curve our roller coaster world goes into.

Yet tossed around on the surface of the ocean, we can still remember the calm deep that lays beneath.

Alive And Breathing

In Parabola, Tool sing—

Twirling round with this familiar parable

Spinning, weaving round each new experience

Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing

The chance to be alive and breathing

Point being…

No matter what life tosses at us, we have this one chance to experience each moment.

And depending on your beliefs, something far deeper beyond.

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“You Probably Think That You Are Better Now…”

Better now…

They’re the only lyrics worth me citing from Post Malone’s track Better Now.

As you know I only use lyrics about personal development.

When his song deteriorates into the typical love you girl pop.

If I were writing for Post I’d say, man you can keep getting better now.

Coz, well, who wants to be…

Worse Now…

Worse now…

None of us want to sing along to that, do we?

No parent has a bumper sticker—My kid failed 4th grade.

Or My son was dropped from the synchronized swimming team.

No adult brags—I’m into personal stagnation, operating at a fraction of my potential.

No one proudly posts a picture on LinkedIn with their little glass award for worst performer in the company.

Everyone likes to sing how they’re better now.

But how many of us actually are?

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The Topic of Topics

Is how many highly successful people are unfulfilled.

Not to name names.

But even some of the most accomplished leaders will never be satisfied with what they’ve achieved.

Never escape the feeling of lack.

Feeling there’s something they didn’t do.

Need to do.

It used to be shocking to me how few winners feel like they’ve made it.

Now I Get It’s

Not a problem with us humans.

Our lack of perspective.

Being ungrateful.

Missing purpose or meaning.

Failing to honoring our success.

Giving more.

Achieving that next thing.

In fact it’s not about us at all.

But how we’ve been wired.

And conditioned to think and feel.

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Failing To Be Stronger

Not many people aspire to be weaker, do they?

Yet, how many are willing to do what it takes to be stronger?

Physically, emotionally, mentally.

More capable.

Requires doing things many are unwilling to do.

Risk Failing

You don’t get stronger lifting a puny weight.

In the same way you fail to get stronger doing things that are easy for you.

We get stronger doing hard things that challenge us.

Push us beyond our old limits.

You test the capacity of a truck by loading it up and seeing where it buckles.

And us humans must test our limits the same way too.

Sadly, terrified of buckling, many of us fail to risk getting stronger.

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“Does Anyone Make Real Sh*t Anymore?”

Raps Kanye in his track, Stronger.

Sampling Daft Punk’s, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

In my ears they’re both preaching personal development.

A craft that is easily confused with a motivational speech.

Cool sounding TED talk.

Podcast. Inspirational tweet.

Is REALLY about getting harder, better, faster, stronger.

Isn’t This What We Want?

How many of us strive to be—

Softer.

Worse.

Slower.

Weaker?

How many of us pick up a self-help book for fun?

Watch an inspirational video or podcast coz we can’t think of anything better to do?

We do it because we’re looking for more in our lives.

Yet, how do we?

Get beyond the noise and actually get harder, better, faster, stronger?

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“I Never Want To Retire”

“I’ve been working since I was 10 years old,” a top Wall Street lawyer said to me.

Reaching that point when it’s time to move on he’s hardly excited about it.

To say the least.

“I love working,” he says.

Work Isn’t A Means

It’s an end.

At his level and for many people I know it’s not about the money.

They’ve made plenty of money, and they’re lucky to work for more important reasons.

Being productive.

Challenged.

Engaged.

Contributing things of value.

Sure plenty of them still love making more money, yet we all work for so much more, don’t we?

“Like waiting tables as a kid,” he says, “taught me more about human nature than 40 years practicing law!”

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Coke Doesn’t Sell Obese Diabetes

Selling ourselves can be hard, can’t it?

It holds us back.

Many of us being humble tend to understate our strengths.

Downplay our achievements.

Imagine if companies sold to us this way.

Imagine…

TV camera pans to an obese man sitting alone on a sofa.

Filthy sweatpants, belly hanging out of stain drenched t-shirt.

As the scene opens you see the living room is a pigsty.

Shades drawn, TV flickering the only light.

Eyeing a brochure on diabetes he mumbles to himself, Doctor has no idea what he’s talking about.

Reaching down he picks up a 2 liter bottle of Coke and downs it one go.

Slogan rolls… Coke, diabetes and obesity in one gulp.

It may be true enough but they’d never sell their product that way.

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How Dare Us?

Surviving Our Sewer Society

Outrage is the new happy.

At a time in human history our lives have never been better you might think it’s never been worse.

The economy is still on a tear.

Living standards are the best they’ve ever been, everywhere.

Our lives only get better and better.

Yet so few of us humans ever get happier.

Depression. Drugs. Booze.

Anger.

Outrage.

Loneliness.

Anxiety.

Fear.

These are the daily killers of the human race.

We constantly blame it on something wrong out there, but it’s only going on in here.

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“I Feel Sorry For Hank”

A challenge some people face in retiring is what it means.

Who are you now?

How do you stay relevant?

Engaged?

Be someone of value in the world?

Just A Guy On The Street

A Goldman Sachs partner said to me—

I saw Hank [Paulson] walking down the street and I felt sorry for him.

I thought to myself…

He was CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Treasury Secretary.

Now he’s just a guy on the street.

I love Hank and I felt bad thinking that, but really what I’m saying is what does retiring mean for me?

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Really Why WeWork Failed

Raise Your Fund Bigger, Faster, Easier

The drama with WeWork highlights a theme as old as humanity.

It’s not that for some rational reason investors changed their view of the company.

It’s that investors have never been rational.

As long as investors are in a frenzy they’ll justify anything.

Until, well, they don’t.

Massive Liabilities…

Real Estate tycoon, Sam Zell, said it well…

More or less, what does WeWork actually have that’s of value?

Cash burning business.

A model that has failed every single time.

Offset by…

Wait for it…

Being cool.

Being cool like Theranos you can get away with just about anything until you can’t.

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Duck Rabbit

We often talk about being open minded, don’t we?

Wanting to unlock our potential.

See another person’s perspective.

The world through another’s eyes.

For some people it comes more naturally, but for most of us it can take some training.

This Or That?

We live in an increasingly polarized world.

Left or right.

Black or white.

Binary or not binary.

Climate change believer or denier, etc.

This tears our world apart, but ultimately has nothing to do with our world.

Only the way our brains are wired.

Like a computer—0,1.

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Transform To Soar

Like most great spiritual teachers he’s a storyteller.

Often avoiding direct answers his stories convey what you need.

I met with him to discuss a leap I was making.

Back then I felt stuck.

There were moves I didn’t know how to make.

Things I wasn’t able to do.

I only knew to continue.

To Transform

After we met I sat in a filmed studio session he was hosting.

I don’t recall where he started but like a dream soon we had arrived here.

“Do you know the caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly?” he provoked the audience.

When the caterpillar goes into its chrysalis it doesn’t know why.

It’s living its nature.

Building a protective shell encasing itself inside.

It cannot know why.

Nor what it will emerge to be.

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Why Headhunters Are Bottom

Where do you find that crazy job you truly want?

How do you hunt it down?

Best get yourself in front of opportunities?

It’s the hardest problem salespeople spend their lives solving.

A Sourcing Problem

Often we think of selling as what you do when you have a prospect in front of you.

When in fact most the sale happened way before that.

In the way a top salesperson prepares for the sale.

Developing collateral.

If they’re a real pro, laying out their best ideas in a selling Black Book.

But FAR MORE importantly…

In the way they target their hungry buyers.

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“I am simply trying to survive…”

Kids in Africa.

India.

Half the damn world.

They are TRYING to survive.

Half The Office Laid Off

It was 2001.

The Internet bubble had burst.

Goldman’s Silicon Valley office I’d relocated to was being slashed.

It didn’t make sense to me.

Is this as good as it gets?

All these people who’ve given their life to this business just trying to survive?

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“I Want To Be The Hulk Too”

We received a bunch of emails on this article, When You Must Smash It, basically asking the same thing—

How can I better do this for myself?

Great question.

Let’s smash it!

Perfect Practice

It’s often said that practice makes perfect, but this is wrong.

Practice makes permanent.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Of course in these articles and even my Masterclasses it’s near impossible to convey how to perfectly use these methods.

Reading even 100 top books on boxing is likely far less valuable than one hour training with a pro.

And the same is true with what we can do here together.

That’s said, let’s Smash It further.

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When You Must Smash It

“I must smash it,” he said.

“Now is when it really counts.”

For months we’ve been working towards these meetings.

Either he smashes it out of the park.

Or missed opportunity.

On top performance, there’s no in between.

No Kindof Top Performance

You either show up your best.

Or less than.

Most days for most people it doesn’t matter.

Unlike a pro athlete, no-one’s judging your every move.

Livelihood doesn’t hinge on top performance.

But some days it does.

Where anything less than your best is an F.

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Crazy To Settle For Stuck

Too many people feel stuck in their career.

Not just in so-so jobs, but even many people in top jobs…

Feel like they’re stuck settling for less than they deserve.

Crazy To Go For What You Truly Want?

I get that some people think what I do is craaazzzy.

But isn’t it more crazy to stay stuck in our careers?

Now, let’s be honest here.

I’m the wrong person to ask what is crazy.

I’ve always been crazy relative to settling for less than we can achieve.

Growing up working poor I didn’t get why people wouldn’t do everything they can to elevate their lives.

At Goldman Sachs, one of the best jobs on the planet, I didn’t get why many people felt stuck complaining.

It’s crazy to me they wouldn’t just make a change.

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“How Many Times Did I Give Up?”

I lost count past two

Coz when I just think about it

I can never lose

Sings Livy Lee in…

“Bring It Home”

In most pursuits in life there’s no A for effort.

Sure, relative to not trying…

Or putting in our worst…

We should feel better about giving it our best shot.

But in many things, like driving home safely, what counts is do you get there in the end?

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Crazy Job Demands Crazy Approach

There’s plenty of good-enough ideas for landing a job.

Writing your resume.

100 interview questions to prepare for.

Ace the case, and all that stuff.

Good-enough might be good-enough for good-enough jobs but not when you’re focused on…

Landing That Crazy Job

The job you truly want.

That you’d be crazy excited to land.

The job others might perceive is way out of reach for you.

You may be “unqualified” for.

That others might think is crazy for you to even set your sights on.

Let alone for you to walk in and land.

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