Winning

By The Time You Read This I Might Be On The Moon…

Do you have interests that might be a little strange to some people but are just so fascinating to you?

Many people I meet have some hobby or captivation that to other people might seem odd, but not to them.

I have a lifetime of such fascinations and one reason I do what I do is so that I can spend all of my time exploring them.

Perhaps my most intriguing area of research is going deep and deeper into the mind and exploring the nature of reality, which can lead me to far out places…

StarGate Project

The StarGate Project was a secret U.S. Army Intelligence program established in the 1970s to evaluate things one might call psychic phenomenon.

As the story goes, at the height of the Cold War our government caught wind that the Russian’s were using psychic spys to steal our secrets…

StarGate was the response, to train intelligence officers in “Remote Viewing” and do the same thing—essentially, sit in a room in the U.S, travel their consciousness to wherever they were guided, and report back on what they had “seen.”

I know this might seem pretty nuts to some people, but…

Do a little digging, and you won’t be surprised why the program lasted for nearly 20 years. THEY GOT SERIOUS RESULTS. (Don’t read the public [dis]-information, check out a book such as this one by physicist Russell Targ.)

While I admit this is a little out there, spend a bunch of years researching reality and the mind, meditating and trancing, learning some about quantum physics, and like me I think you would too conclude…

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4 Must-Read Books For Anyone Who Wants To Win

One of the fundamental steps to my system for getting what you want is that you must be committed to learning new skills. You can learn skills in a lot of different ways, but you will most commonly develop them by reading.

With this in mind, I’d like to issue a little challenge to those of you working to get what you want in you life:

I’ve put together a very short autumn reading list of books that teach skills anyone can benefit from. Read them all by the end of this autumn, and see what happens.

You can spend your fall watching football, eating pumpkin spice everything, and getting more or less nowhere, or you can challenge yourself to read these books and develop real skills.

If you do complete this reading list, I guarantee you’ll see the benefits, quickly, just in time for bonuses.

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Ever Tried Affirmations for Top Performance?

Personally, I don’t see anything odd about affirmations, but I know other people do.

Perhaps it’s something about talking to yourself, or trying to convince yourself of something, but we are always doing this anyways.

For instance, yesterday in a meeting, my host kept saying, “I’m risk averse.”

It’s true, he is risk averse, and by continuing to say it, he keeps reminding himself of that wild and ferocious bear some call “risk.”

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Michael Phelps: What Do You See?

A lot of things.

A winner. A champ. A man 100% dedicated to his craft, and his goals.

Yet, there’s something more specific that you observe: A machine. A purpose-built machine. A body that is built for getting through water.

Like we build boats and submarines, Phelps has crafted his body for optimally powering through water.

You see the same with other top athletes in the Games.

None of them look “normal.” Their bodies are sculpted for their unique purpose.

Think about a cyclist. Lanky frame. Rake-thin arms. Flat chest. HUGE legs. A body that is built for pushing a bicycle, fast.

A pole vaulter has built her body for launching and slithering over the pole. A shot putter has built a mass for pushing a heavy ball far from the body. A gymnast, well, is there a more beautifully crafted human machine?

Think about that for a moment.

What does it take to build the world’s greatest machine for competing at this highest level?

Of course it takes absolute dedication, but it also takes something more.

It takes knowing how you must craft the machine if you are to be standing in the center podium with gold slung around your neck.

That’s not only true in the Olympics, but in every career.

If you’re a banker, no client cares about the size of your pecs, but your skillfulness in getting deals done is highly valued.

If you’re a lawyer, it’s irrelevant how far you can push a heavy ball, but that machine must push and push for its clients.

If you’re a consultant, you’re not valued for your ability to jump high, but to provide unique and valuable insights.

While few people will train themselves to be the equivalent of an Olympic-level consultant or lawyer or banker, a master of his or her craft is constantly tuning the machine.

They don’t do this just to win, but to compete.

They don’t do this because it’s their “job,” but because of how it feels to show up as your best.

Kobe Bryant Showed Us What We All Have

Basketball legend, Kobe Bryant, said:

“I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.”

As far as I can tell, the most successful people on the planet aren’t somehow gifted with something that the rest of us lack.

Sure, some, like Kobe, are born with the genetics to be exceptional at what they do, but that’s never enough.

Michael Jordan didn’t win because he was magically built for the game, and neither did Kobe. They were world-class winners because they did what few people in the world are willing to do.

That is, they committed to be their best, and every day showed up and did it.

Some days that’s easy to do, but for many of us, many days, as far as I can tell, it’s a matter of skill at using your will.

When you don’t feel like getting up and diving into your day, how do you get yourself to do it?

When you are confronted with those obstacles that are put in all of our way, do you stall out, or do you persist and navigate your way through?

When things aren’t going your way, do you keep driving towards your goal, or do you find an excuse to back it off and chill?

These things don’t come easier to people who are born with more will, but to those people who, through practice and repetition, train their skill at using their will.

Each time you drive harder towards your goal, you grow a little more resolve.

Each time you power through an obstacle, you convince yourself that nothing can stop you.

Every morning that you choose to bounce out of bed and tear into your day, you are reinforcing the habit that builds all champions.

It matters less how you feel, what matters is, are you willing to train the will that it takes to win?

What I missed on Squawk Box

A reason I wrote the Trump book is that it fits my mission to demystify success. Truth is, losers lose for good reason, and winners win because they develop masterful strategy and skills.

On Squawk Box this week, we discussed some of Trump’s winning skills, but we had no time to cover something more important: How do YOU build winning skills?

How Do You Win?

A problem for most of us is that neither in school, nor in our workplaces, are we taught the skills we need to win, and unfortunately, most people lose.

Most will succeed enough to hold onto their jobs, but leaders are readers, and those with the best skills will keep ascending.

A challenge for all of us is, even if we can make the time to learn skills, how do you quickly, efficiently, and deeply do it?

Consider if you decided to improve your skills of influence, how do you go about it?

As a start, you might pick up Robert Cialdini’s ground-breaking book, Influence, but how do you go beyond capturing a few notes or dog-earing a few pages, to actually, building skills that you can use to win?

The Process of Learning

My solution is “The Process of Learning,” which happens in three steps:

1. Accumulate Knowledge: The first step to all learning is you must harness knowledge, which you might do through classes, books, teachers, or otherwise. Now, here’s the trick to this: It’s not about quantity but quality.

You don’t need to read hundreds of books on influence, but instead, find 1-3 books that you dedicate yourself to mastering, just like you did with a textbook in school.

2. Review: We all know that the secret to learning is repetition. People often say to me, “I read that book,” and I ask them, “How are you every day using what you learned?” To convert knowledge into skills, like you did by creating study notes for exams in school, you want a methodical way to review your learning.

I suggest my clients use Mind Maps, and Daily Exercises, which might be as simple as a few reminders in Evernote, or a handful of organized pages in Word.

3. Practice, Practice, Practice: Aristotle said, “What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing,” and we all know that practice builds skills. As I say on Squawk Box, a reason Trump is an unstoppable influencer, is that, for some 40+ years, he has been practicing and mastering these skills.

You can do the same. The wonderful thing about training your skills of influence is that, you are, literally, always influencing. At home with your spouse and kids, at work, and everywhere you interact with people, you can be practicing mastering influence.

And, every skill of personal development is the same!

It’s insulting to think Trump wins by insulting

This article originally appeared in Salon.

A top headline said, “Trump plans to insult his way to victory over Clinton.” While it is true that Donald Trump is a skilled insulter, in believing that he crushed 16 of his GOP rivals by slapping a few labels on them, many observers fail to see the true source of his winning.

In the debate in Nevada last December, Jeb Bush said to Trump, “You’re never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency.”

Trump replied, “Well, let’s see, I’m at 42 (percent) and you’re at 3 (percent), so so far I’m doing better.” In thinking that Trump was insulting his way to the presidency, Bush failed to see how Trump was thumping him, and those who make the same mistake will keep missing Trump’s real threat to Hillary.

It is, of course, true that Trump is already insulting with his favorite phrase, “Crooked Hillary,” but that’s only a small part of Trump’s winning playbook, and the way that he plans to beat Hillary.

And, the truth is, like tuning into a chess match that is already halfway through, most of the game has already been played, and Trump has already made most of his winning moves. Here are five of his most crucial ones:

1. Trump’s insults are the rifle shot:

Trump insults his rivals as a way to easily disarm their attacks on him, as well as to destroy their campaigns. Consider that by labeling Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted,” no matter what Cruz would throw at Trump, including legitimate accusations, Trump simply redirected to this form of character assassination. An example being lines like, “No, no. You’re the liar. You’re the lying guy up here.”

It’s a savvy move that Trump uses exceptionally well, but his insults are merely the smoking gun in his winning campaign.

2. His campaign isn’t about his rivals:

Every time a politician focuses on attacking their rival, they fail to keep driving their own messaging.

A reason that Trump upstaged all of his rivals in the debates was that, prompted or unprompted, they kept focusing attention on him. This handed Trump what he most desperately sought — more airtime and the most potent weapon of his campaign: the mic.

Of course, with mic in hand, Donald cleverly insulted a number of his rivals out of the race, but they’ve never been the target of his winning campaign.

3. Trump targets voters:

In a boxing match, the winner is the fighter who successfully beats down their opponent, but in an election, the winner is chosen by the voters.

While one way Trump beat Jeb Bush was having voters associate Bush as “low energy,” Trump hasn’t built his campaign on beating down his rivals, but by offering voters a more compelling vision and message.

Trump, by far, developed the best messaging of any candidate, and won the nomination by bringing millions of voters along with his campaign.

4. It’s about America:

Whereas Jeb Bush was running based on his name, exclamation point included, and Hillary is running as a woman, in 2008 Barack Obama took over the country running on a platform of “Hope,” “Change,” and “Yes we can.”

In 2016, Trump has done the same. Despite having a powerful brand and personality, perhaps ironically, Trump’s campaign has never been about him, but about his rally cry to “Make America great again.”

While a number of his rivals have stood for themselves or “not Trump,” Donald stands for America, and, of course…

5. How we can be great again:

Of the many lessons to be gleaned from Barack Obama’s masterful 2008 campaign, perhaps the greatest lesson is the way in which he moved voters with his optimistic vision for the country.

Optimism sells. And beyond Trump’s attention-grabbing insults and controversial comments that he has used to masterfully hog the spotlight, Trump has built his movement the same way.

I’m told that Jeb Bush still believes that Donald thrashed him with his schoolyard taunting, and by failing to see that he lost because he entered the race without an optimistic vision and powerful messaging, we all fail to learn the lesson.

If Trump wins, it won’t be through insults, but because he has offered Americans something they desperately want more: a leader they believe can make America great again.

Lombardi Rules

When I’m looking for a quick hit of inspiration, I pick up a little book called, The Lombardi Rules.

On the inside jacket, it reads:

“Vince Lombardi was, above all else, a winner. The greatest sports coach of his time, perhaps all time, Lombardi was also a thoughtful man with uncommon passion, a motivator with uncompromising values, and a leader with unprecedented wisdom and authority.”

Here are five of my favorite quotes from the book:

“I would say that the quality of each man’s life is the full measure of that man’s personal commitment to excellence and victory—whether it be football, whether it be business, whether it be politics or government.”

“I think you’ve got to pay a price for anything that’s worthwhile, and success is paying the price. You’ve got to pay the price to win, you’ve got to pay the price to stay on top, and you’ve got to pay the price to get there.”

“They call it coaching, but it is teaching. You do not just tell them it is so, but you show them the reasons why it is so and you repeat and repeat and repeat until they are convinced, until they know.”

“If you settle for nothing less than you best, you will amazed at what you can accomplish in your life.”

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.”

Greatest Lessons from Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was nicknamed, “The Greatest.”

He is considered the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, but that’s not the only reason he earned the title.

And, in fact, he was using the title even before he earned it, as he famously said, “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”

Ali was a great fighter, winning 56 out of 61 fights, 37 by knock-out, but he also greatly used his mind.

By seeing himself as the greatest, he built himself to be that way. He was masterful at building himself up, and, by getting in the heads of his opponents, first mentally, beating them down.

Like his phrase, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” while fighting, Ali would imagine himself floating outside of his body, circling the ring, watching himself demolish his opponent from every angle.

Ali knew that being the greatest wasn’t just about being strong in the ring, but first in your mind.

As he put it, “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

In his heyday Ali was an unstoppable force, but in 1984, at age 42, after some three decades of being punched in the head, Ali’s body and mind began to give way to Parkinson’s disease.

Since, we have all known him as a slower, older, less agile version of himself, yet he has remained a hero to many, and an icon to all.

Heroes fall. The strong get weak. The great pass on.

There’s a natural evolution to each of our lives, and when we reach the end, all that matters is the years we have lived.

There are many points in time, but you only have one life, and at each point in time, one choice: How do you choose to live?

Who do you choose to be?

How are you being your greatest? Living your greatest life?

Think and Take Action

This weekend I re-read Napoleon Hill’s classic book, Think and Grow Rich.

I bet I have written about this book a dozen times, and I’ve read it dozens more, yet it had been a number of months since I cracked it open.

And, to be honest, I noticed it. My thinking had become a little loose, and reading Hill’s book brought me back around to two powerful ideas.

One crucial reminder is the importance of having a “Chief Aim,” which means getting absolutely clear on what you want.

This means limiting distractions, but, most importantly, it means having such intense burning desire for what you want, that you are magnetically pulled toward it.

Over the last few months my focus has shifted around a lot, and reading Napoleon Hill I was reminded to keep coming back to my core.

The second powerful reminder is action.

The title of Napoleon Hill’s book is to “Think,” but his book is all about action.

From the types of bold actions that dreamers like Henry Ford took by thinking a certain way, to the small actions, the minutia, that matters to winning in this highly competitive world, Hill intimately ties together the power of dreaming with taking action.

And this really is the key to all success, isn’t it?

Taking the wrong actions with too little thought is as much of a trap as thinking too much and taking too few actions.

Think and Grow Rich is full of powerful ideas, yet it is this theme of bringing together thinking and actions that is most repeated throughout the book.

I don’t think you can be reminded often enough of the power of these ideas.

Why Nate Silver Is Still Wrong

This article first appeared in The Daily Caller. To understand how Trump really won, check out my book.

Celebrated commentator and highly regarded prognosticator, Nate Silver, still doesn’t get it.

In September 2015, in an article titled, “Six Stages of Doom,” Silver suggested that Trump’s campaign “is nothing all that unusual” and estimated Donald’s chances of becoming the GOP nominee at 5 percent.

In November 2015, in a letter to the media urging them to “Stop freaking out about Donald Trump,” he suggested that pundits’ giving Trump a 20 percent chance of winning the primary was “substantially too high.”

Yet this past weekend, Silver admitted — with 100 percent certainty — that Trump will be the Republican nominee. And that he has a 25 percent chance of beating Hillary Clinton in the general election.

After “gazing deep into his navel,” Mr. Silver claims to have discovered the answers in an article last week titled “Why Republican voters decided on Trump.” Citing his own tweet, he summarizes the three most important reasons that “things have gone wrong”:

Voters are more tribal than I thought.
GOP is weaker than I thought.
Media is worse than I thought.

Yet, while delving into a thoughtful and convincing-sounding narrative, like many observers, he still has it wrong.

Completely wrong.

Looking to understand the Trump phenomenon by looking at where the spotlight still shines completely misses how this man came to be here. In looking for answers in the media, the GOP, and the electorate, Mr. Silver is still missing the source of Trump’s victory.

Trump mastered the game of winning.

It is of course true that Donald has proven voters to be “tribal,” but just like Barack Obama did in 2008, wasn’t Donald the one who built the tribe?

And yes, it might also be true that the Republican Party is “weaker” than Mr. Silver imagined, but isn’t it Donald’s strength that has proven it?

And, it may also be true in Mr. Silver’s mind that the media is “worse” than he thought, but what is his definition of “worse?” If he means that, when presented with a candidate that will massively drive ratings that they will cover him, he might be correct, but isn’t it the case that, unlike the rest of Trump’s rivals, Donald has consistently given the media something worth covering?

“To me, the most surprising part of Trump’s nomination — which is to say, the part I think I got wrongest — is that Trump won the nomination despite having all types of deviations from conservative orthodoxy. He seemed wobbly on all parts of Reagan’s three-legged stool.“

Might it be that, quite simply, Trump’s success has little to do with “conservative orthodoxy,” and more to do with Trump’s exceptional approach to winning? That is how Trump actually won this campaign. Searching for the source of Trump’s victory by looking back to the days before mobile phones and the Internet is futile.

The reason Trump garnered more votes during primary season than any other Republican in United States history is because his goal was to win, not pander or politick. Responding to Texas Senator John Cornyn’s attempts to advise him on illegal immigration, Trump said, “It’s just what I need, just what I need is more advice. The 17 people I beat are still giving me advice.”

Trump would never play by the rules defined by Nate Silver, polling models, and the establishment. His mastery of sound bites, people, and deal making allow Trump to reach and excite Americans in droves, inspiring fiery passion on both sides of the aisle in a way far remote from Mitt Romney’s wildest fantasies.

Trump collected more than twice as many delegates than Ted Cruz prior to his withdrawal. He trumped John Kasich’s delegate count by almost tenfold. He humiliated Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in their home state of Florida.

Trump won because, as he told Maureen Dowd, he had good ideas, bonded with the people, and his people were loyal. He clearly was a stronger and better communicator and fighter for the his voters.

A man who has never held office beat out 17 other candidates because he masterful at winning. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton, the figurehead of the American political elite, is still struggling to fend off the first socialist to ever seek the Oval Office.

The Republican elite failed to see how Obama cleaned their clock, twice, and took over the Democrat Party from Hillary. And they still fail to see how this outsider with little political experience, surrounded by a wave of controversy, has thrashed them at their own game.

Ted Cruz tried to win the policy game. Marco Rubio tried to win the elite game. Jeb Bush tried to win the donor game.

But Donald Trump won the whole game.

Why I wrote a book on TRUMP

When I tell people that I wrote a book on Donald Trump, I receive one of two predictable responses.

Some people cry out something like, “What? Why on earth would you write a book about ‘that man?'” Most others have a less visceral reaction, but almost everyone wants to know, what is it about?

It is about WINNING.

Truth is, politics is not a sport I enjoy following, nor have I ever followed Donald. I am no Trump “groupie,” I have never watched his TV show, and over the years I’ve paid scant attention to the man.

But, on August 6, 2015, that changed.

Sitting amongst a group of political-types, watching the first debate in Cleveland Ohio, Donald did something wizardly that caught my attention.

Not one to start with a soft ball, in the first question served to this man with almost zero political experience, Megyn Kelly asked Trump That Question:

“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals…How will you answer the charge…that you are part of the war on women?”

Right out of the gates, confronted immediately with a campaign-busting question, what did Trump do?

First, controlling the “frame,” he interrupted the question with a crowd-roaring response, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” cutting Kelly’s frame down to size.

In this invisible move, Donald took Kelly’s accusation of how he treats women and asserted his frame: it was just one woman (while gesturing with his right index finger).

While, to most observers this floats by, in three words Trump de-clawed the question, brought the crowd onto his side, and began his process of moving towards his messaging.

Next, after Kelly had finished her question, Trump invoked another masterful move:

“The big problem this country has is being politically correct.” While doing this, he gestures in a big fashion, accentuating the “big problem.”

Here, Donald reframed the problem away from his comments about women, to one of his key campaign messages, the problem of political correctness.

If Donald had only made those two moves, I would have been impressed, but Donald was just getting started:

“I don’t have time for total political correctness and, quite frankly, this country doesn’t either. We don’t win anymore… This country is in big trouble… We lose to China, we lose to Mexico.”

Here, Donald repeated and deepened the problem of political correctness before redirecting us to the real problem, one of his rally cries: “We don’t win anymore.”

Then, finally, from here, Donald moved us toward his solution:

“We need strength, we need energy and we need brain in this country to turn it around.”

In all, in the span of one minute, Donald maneuvered from the biting accusation against him and his comments about women to two of his campaign messages.

While many politicians, pundits, and observers remain dumbfounded by Donald and are desperately trying to rationalize how he has easily demolished a once-crowded Republican field, from my vantage point the answer is obvious.

Donald is a highly skilled winner. And, more importantly in this game we call an election, he is a wizard of influence.

My book is not about politics or Donald. It is about the underlying game of politics, mass influence, and a man with a wizardly approach to winning.

Trump's Rise is Democracy in Action

This article first appeared in the New York Times.

Andrew Sullivan’s May 2 article in New York Magazine, “Democracies end when they are too democratic,” makes the case that voters want a Putin-style autocrat in office. His attempted argument not only misses the target, but also patronizes the millions of voters who have lined up eagerly at polling stations these last few months.

The truth is that we are in the midst of a truly democratic moment in this country. Voters have been given stark choices.

In the simplest terms, it is Donald Trump versus the establishment on the Republican side, and Bernie Sanders versus the establishment on the Democratic side.

The result, as we have seen, is that primary voters have opted in droves against the establishment.

Why? Because they perceive that the establishment is not working for them. They don’t feel heard. They don’t feel understood. They don’t feel like they are winning. And all of those feelings are true.

We are not winning any more. Economic growth numbers are weak. Wages are stagnant. The American dream seems lost to most Americans.

Trump, Bernie Sanders, and indeed President Obama before them, have all captured voters’ hearts and minds not through spreading hatred, but through providing optimism and hope.

But Sullivan misses this point when he writes:

“as I watched frenzied Trump rallies on C-SPAN in the spring, and saw him lay waste to far more qualified political peers in the debates by simply calling them names, the nausea turned to dread.”

The only qualification for an elected candidate is that they are elected.

Sullivan’s argument is tissue paper thin, but one that certainly would appeal to the elitists inside the beltway who have lost touch with the vast populace who live in the real world.

Sullivan has targeted the messenger, and by belittling Trump supporters, he misses the obvious fact. Voters perceive that the crop of elected officials have failed to deliver for them.

I have worked at Goldman Sachs and on factory floors, and I can assure you, we are all the 100%. We are all looking for the same thing: jobs, GDP and wage growth and an ever-increasing standard of living. While Trump and Sanders’ platforms both aim at getting more money in voters’ pockets, Trump is the only candidate who understands free market principles and job creation. Trump is the only candidate whose policies will unleash prosperity for all.

Trump is not inspiring tyranny. He is inspiring voters to vote and, in particular, vote in historic numbers for a Republican candidate.

Trump supporters feel heard. They feel understood. Perhaps the real reason they like him is that they are desperately hoping for someone in Washington who represents them and their interests.

Isn’t that what democracy is all about, Mr. Sullivan?

Trump is a highly skilled winner!

After reading our last newsletter, an annoyed friend wrote me, “What?? How can you say that Trump is a highly skilled winner? What makes you think that?”

Um, how about the fact that he has absolutely annihilated the entire GOP field?

And the fact that when he started his campaign some nine months ago, he was mocked and scorned, The Huffington Post branded him a “sideshow,” bets were on that he would be destroyed by battle-hardened politicians like Jeb, but look at what happened.

By seemingly just being Trump, he has mowed down the field, including easily dispatching Jeb Bush.

Whether you love him or want to throw him from the top of his gold tower, you would have to be one-eyed (and blind) to deny that he is masterful at winning.

Now, of course, many observers are 🙂

Telling themselves that Trump is merely inciting angry voters, or labeling him a racist, bigot, or whatnot, they are completely missing the game.

Falling into what I call the “Trump trap,” talking about what he is saying, they fail to see what he is doing.

Like the many people who still believe that the 2008 recession and credit crisis was the source of our problems, they fail to look for the underlying cause (hence, we keep making the same mistakes).

And those folks who do the same with Trump will never learn the lesson.

They will keep going through life thinking that it’s a game of chance, rather than a game of skill. And they will keep losing.

The fact is, Donald is winning because he is a highly skilled winner, particularly at this type of game.

Think of it this way.

In a game of selling, marketing, branding, and influence, who would you expect to win, Ben Carson or Donald Trump?

Similarly, in a popularity contest where you were forced to choose the most charismatic and engaging leader, would you expect Jeb to best Trump?

Of course not.

The problem for Donald’s rivals and many observers is that they have failed to properly define the game.

They still think that elections are won on politics, when it should be obvious that an election is a game of influence, and a wizard of influence should win every time.

How do they think Obama won?

"You fight like a younger man, Mr. Wayne"

There’s a well-known Wall Street story of, as Vanity Fair wrote it, Billionaire Bill Ackman’s ill-fated Bike Ride.

Riding with a group of strong cyclists, Ackman, a highly competitive hedge fund manager, set off hell for spandex tearing out ahead of the group.

Some thirty miles down the road, however, out of gas, and screaming with pain, he struggled to finish the ride.

It happens.

Sometimes we get off too quick when we are best to choose a sustainable pace.

There’s a scene in The Dark Knight Rises where, while beating him down, Bane says to Batman, “You fight like a younger man, nothing held back, admiral, but mistaken.”

In a quick melee you might come out hard and fast, but against a strong opponent you want to keep plenty in reserve.

Success is rarely about how quickly you go after it, but whether you are able to persist long enough to reach your goal.

Some of us are naturally better starters.

Others are good at keeping moving.

But fewer of us are strong finishers.

Getting it done often requires hunkering down for the miles, picking a pace you can sustain, and consistently turning the pedals until you get there.

For larger projects, you best do this by structuring your time to make even the tiniest progress every day.

How is Trump Winning?

Since his YUGE campaign launched, I’ve been paying careful attention to Mr. Trump.

Despite all of the obvious backlash and his tendency to put his foot in other people’s mouths, all he does is win, win, win…

And like he has done with Jeb and every GOP candidate, I can see him easily dismantling Hillary (although that might not translate into swing votes).

With one of my political clients I’ve done a lot of work on The Donald, and I wanted to share with you five key lessons you can use from his winning formula:

1. Stay on point: He started clearly: “We don’t win anymore” and “Make America Great Again.” Then his message drifted, but after Iowa, in his closing remarks in New Hampshire he went right back to it—”If I am elected president we will win and we will win and we will win.” Who doesn’t want to win?

And just like Barack Obama, he doesn’t make the patently obvious mistake of thinking that elections are won on policy details…

Lesson 1: Know what leads you to win and stick to it.

2. Be more skilled: Fact is, it’s a game of influence and he’s better at it. Take Cruz, he’s incredibly eloquent but like Romney he fails to use language that GRABS people. If you go deep into what led Barack Obama to victory you see a highly methodical and skilled influencer, all the way down to the specific words he used in each district. Donald is a master wizard of manipulation: Short sentences. Powerful imagery. Emotionally provocative. He’s an expert at stealing attention (positive and negative) and using it to drive his message.

Not to mention, go back to that first question in the first debate and watch him annihilate with three words a question that would end most candidates.

Lesson 2: Know what skills lead you to win and master them!

3. Powerful messaging: The Donald is always optimistic all of the time. He doesn’t get dragged into problems but quickly moves to solutions using what I call The Donald Four-step: 1. State the problem: We don’t win anymore. 2. Go deeper into it: We don’t win in the military. 3. Get optimistic about the solution: We will support our troops and help them win. 4. Exit frame to how America will be great again.

And of course he constantly comes back to his programming anchors: “We Don’t Win Anymore,” “Make America Great Again,” and anything related to winning, like “We will have so much winning you may get bored of winning.” Contrast that to Hillary’s self-centered messaging: “I’m with her” and “Make Herstory.” Remember Dale Carnegie 101, appeal to self-interest…

Lesson 3: To lead, drive a powerful and seductive message.

4. Keep it real: Bernie Sanders got a lot of traction because we all feel the passion behind his wild ideas. With him and Trump you see people fighting for what they truly believe, and that’s infectious. Trump speaks his mind. He changes his opinions (like we all do). He says things many of us think but few say (e.g. we debate rights of terrorists while they behead). He’s able to sound more convincing making stuff up than others sound highly scripted (e.g. the border guard he spoke to…).

Not all good qualities for a president, but relative to the carefully scripted Washington-types you think you are seeing the real Donald.

Lesson 4: Be yourself and speak your truth.

5. Play the part: He might say things that are far from presidential, but watch him in the center of the stage, chin in the air, gripping the lectern, never looking sideways when his rivals are going after him, as if to say, I’m beyond this.

Wearing his customary scowl and smirk, he doesn’t look like a boy who has gotten his shot on the big stage trying to impress the audience, but a man who is there to speak his mind and win.

Lesson 5: Don’t just be yourself, be the version of you that wins!

One shot…Don't Blow It!

In three minutes Marco Rubio went from media darling to out of the race.

You don’t recover from flubbing your lines and the beating he got from Chris Christie.

When you are on the world stage you only get one shot.

Last week in New York, to set up a meeting with an incredibly busy person I told his assistant that if he didn’t think I delivered on my promise to share ideas that will transform the business, he could kick me out and never let me in again.

I think that’s a reasonable standard when you are using someone’s valuable time, and I accept that often you only get one chance to deliver.

Besides, if you fail in execution, really you have failed in preparation.

That’s where Rubio went wrong.

He has obviously done an inordinate amount of preparation for his campaign but he still blew it in execution.

First of all, he shouldn’t have picked a fight with a brawler like Christie, but that’s not where he failed.

It’s one thing to rehearse your favorite Obama-bashing lines when you are standing in front of the mirror feeling confident, but to master your preparation you must rehearse under battlefield conditions.

You see, when we feel threatened the most animalistic part of the brain, the so-called Reptilian complex, goes into fight or flight mode and we lose access to those higher brain functions that you need to say, not get crushed by Chris Christie.

This is the same problem that many people face in exam preparation, where the stress of sitting in the exam can block access to the answers they know and need.

Hence, to the greatest extent possible, to nail your preparation, you want to train yourself to perform optimally under stressful, real-world conditions.

For most things in life this level of preparation is unnecessary, but when it really counts, when you get your shot, you want to avoid blowing it like Rubio.

You can't make your own luck; You can only get better

With a client, we’ve been working on a deal for nearly a year.

It’s a tricky situation and we’ve had to navigate some twists and turns, but it keeps moving in our direction…

That’s because my client is very skillful at what he does, but also because he keeps growing and getting better.

When I spoke to him on Sunday we talked about the newsletter I sent about the Cinderella story of Arnel Pineda and his journey from Filipino obscurity to rock stardom.

“Beneath the obvious message to never stop believing in your dreams,” he said to me, “what I got from his story was the power of continuous improvement.”

We too often forget how lucky we are to have been born in first world countries.

As a poor boy growing up in the Philippines Arnel lost the genetic lottery, but although he wasn’t born with luck on his side he was imbued with something far more valuable.

Again, it wasn’t just to keep believing, and it’s unlikely Arnel was sitting at home every night “manifesting” an email from the rock band Journey inviting him to join them…

Instead he was focused on being the best he could be.

He couldn’t control whether the band Journey would ever come looking for him on YouTube, but he could control how he performed.

Every day he could tell himself that he’s just playing in small venues or he could dedicate himself to getting better and better at his craft…

Every night he could tell himself that it was only a small audience and it didn’t matter how he performed, or he could focus on delivering his best performance.

You can’t make your own luck, but when you get better you most certainly get luckier…

2 steps to killing it in 2016!

What’s the best way to kill it in 2016? Make some pathetically impotent new year’s resolutions, or take stock of how you killed it in 2015 and use it to plan ahead…

Here in Vail, with the help of a few clients, I’ve been designing a year-end process that I plan to roll out next year as a two-day winter retreat.

Like all of my work I’ve been focused on building an incredibly rigorous yet simple two-step process for propelling yourself out of this year and into next…

Step one: Review this year.

Ask yourself these five questions, and to get real benefit from this process spend at least an hour writing out your answers.

1. Where did you win this year? Not just in your business or career, but in your life— family, health, mindset, etc.—where did you excel this year? Look back on your year and write out at least 10 things that you feel went great and take some time to reflect on your success. Celebrate what you did right. Look back on how you made things happen, and most importantly build up the feeling of what it’s like to be killing it!!

2. Where did you lose this year? Look back and create a list of at least 10 ways that you lost. Again, consider your business, career, and financial, but also more generally reflect on your life, health, family, mindset, and so on. Reflect on where you could have done better and more been the person you know you can be. Again, build up the emotion, but avoid any beating up on yourself, regret, or other useless negative emotions.

3. Now, here is the key question: When you won or lost this year, what was different? Was it about your level of commitment? Preparation? Will? Wimping out? An excess or lack of skills? Some other factor that consistently leads you to success in some areas of your life or failure in others? Here you want to go into your processes and understand what you do differently when you win, relative to when you lose…Again take the time to write out thoughtful answers.

4. If you could re-write this year, what would you change? If you could go back and turn on more of the things that lead you to success and turn off those things that led you to fail, what would you do differently? How would you be different? What results might have been different for you? Again, take some time to go back through what you wrote in Steps 1-3 and write out some solid answers.

5. Close your eyes for a few moments and reflect on Step 4. See yourself back at the start of this year having made these changes, and imagine seeing your year play out differently. See yourself winning more. See yourself turning around some of your loses, and imagine more great things that might have come into your life.

And here’s the trick in this. Take all of your memories and feel as much positive energy as you can about this year. Let your loses fade away into the past, and infuse as much celebration and joy into your year as you can muster.

Take at least an hour to set this up and then review your ideas twice a day for the next few days. Then, let’s talk Step two.

Can YOU answer this question?

Thursday night over drinks my friend told me that he had been watching one of my presentations and was stumped by a question.

At the beginning I asked the group—If there was one thing you could change that would make an enormous difference in your career, what would it be?

I then emphasized that the economy doesn’t count. Nor does your boss. Nor does anything else that you cannot personally change!

Really think about that. What is one thing that you can actually change?

Because that’s what matters, right?

“Too many people live their lives laboring in mediocrity, operating at a fraction of their potential, getting far less than they deserve because they are unwilling to change,” my friend said to me.

I disagreed, and parroted a line one of my teachers has drummed into me—All we are is change.

There is nothing about you that is not changing in every moment.

Your hair is growing. Your fingernails too. Whatever you last ate is being digested. In the second it takes you to read this sentence you are spawning 1,000,000 new cells.

Everything you are is change.

The distinction in this case is between what is already changing in you and the changes you must activate outside of you.

Your boss’ hair is growing too, but is that getting you more of what you want?

What can you change that will?

I’ll give you a hint. Everything you want comes from one thing—GETTING BETTER.

So, to phrase the question differently—What is one thing you can change to get better that will make an enormous difference in your career?