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Geoff Blades

Do What You Want

Really, How Do You Actually Develop Yourself?

If you’re serious about developing yourself you already know the hardest part.

You’ve gotten clear on what ways you want to transform.

You know exactly how you’re doing it.

But, damn, it can be hard to get yourself to do it, right?

How Do You Actually Do It? 

A client is focused on being an “Enhanced” version of himself.

Akin to the movie Limitless, he has two ways of being.

“Regular” he walks, talks, thinks, be’s a certain way.

Regular is good, in fact, regular is very good because he’s already spent years developing himself he’s very much the man he wants to be.

But Enhanced is a level beyond.

Here he’s unstoppable. Nothing phases him. Worries him. He’s never short on confidence or belief or the will to keep creating his dream life.

Over years he’s modeled the “Enhanced Character.”

He knows exactly how he wants to be but as we discussed last night, he’s still not good enough at being it.

It’s All Good 

I told him.

What he’s doing is positively herculean.

Few people ever change.

You meet them 10 years later and they are more or less the same person, walking, talking, being the same way.

Our brains are set up for consistency.

They revert back to our Regular / habituated / conditioned thoughts and behaviors, which changing can take a massive amount of personal power.

Power Isn’t Enough 

Grrrrrrrr I heard the guy at the gym screaming as he was putting up a big weight.

It’s not enough. Power can only take you so far.

So too can motivation. It might get you to want to change, but really, truly making transformational change takes a lot more than desire.

Or will.

Like developing a business, it takes a disciplined approach that you put to work every day, possibly for years, decades, a lifetime.

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Why Most People Will Never Get What They Want

I know my work is inspiring to people, but I also know that’s not enough.

Lots of people recognize that there’s more they can be doing to get what they want.

They think that if they get more focused on their goals, organized around what to do, and build a more powerful mind, that they could improve their life.

I know this because all the time people tell me, but talk doesn’t get the job done…

Easier Said Than Done

On a cold New York morning a couple of weeks back, I met a mid-thirties fellow in the elevator of my apartment building.

I was headed to see my body mechanic, who helps me stand and walk, and he was on his way to, “ugh, work.”

At least that was how he said it to me.

He looked like a banker, but I’d bet he’s a securities lawyer. After plenty of time around the two you can distinguish the sadness and fatigue in their eyes.

When he asked me what I do, I paused.

Feeling sorry for the man who had clearly spent the last 30 minutes cheerleading himself to throw on his suit and get in that elevator, I said, “I’m a consultant.”

“So, what type of consulting job enables you to be headed out in your gym gear at 9:00am?” he sarcastically quipped.

“One where I do what I want,” I replied.

With those sad eyes and a mousy depressed voice, he responded, “Easier said than done.”

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Too Old Not To Settle

There are many complexities and constraints when it comes to creating the lives we truly want.

In different ways it has been said—you can have everything you want, just not all at the same time. And, indeed, throughout our lives we are forced to choose, to sequence our “wants” according to what makes sense for our circumstances.

Coming out of school with a bunch of debt, it’s harder to venture out on your own. With a young family and mouths to feed, it’s harder to take risk. With the runway of a great career, it’s harder, and often wiser, to work that track for the “right” amount of time.

If we do it right, and we’re lucky to live long enough, by “simply” making the right choices at each point in time, we can create our most magical lives.

Yet, it can be very hard to keep our eye on the prize.

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Why You Feel Stuck—And 6 Tools How To Push Through

Focus Tools

How many of you have goals that you can’t seem to get yourself to focus on?

They might be professional, personal, getting things done around the home. You know that you “want” to do them, but you just can’t consistently get yourself to take action.

I know that’s a problem for many of us because I know few people who it isn’t a problem for, and because many of you keep telling me it’s a problem.

This weekend I did a call with a member of our community.

Some time ago he’d reached out to me about his grandest vision for his career and life, and although he’s too junior to be a client, I jumped on the phone and gave him some pointers.

He’s moving, he’s making good progress on his goal, but some days when he sits down eager to get things done, he finds himself stuck.

He knows the things he wants to get done, but, well, he can’t get himself to do them.

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3 Life Lessons I Learned While "Wasting Time"

One of the tenets of my life, and the thing that has allowed me to keep creating the most amazing life I can imagine, is that I prioritize learning above everything else.

To that end, I feel very grateful to the people who have written the thousands of books that have helped me keep growing, and to the world-class mentors and teachers who have groomed me.

Yet, when people ask me about the most transformational experiences of my life, about where I learned the most, I rarely give them the answer they expect. I learned a lot at Goldman Sachs. I learned a lot at the Carlyle Group. I learned a lot training with world-renowned experts, but where did I learn the most important lessons of my life?

When I was wasting time.

“Wasting time” is a phrase people use with a negative connotation, but for me at least, wasting time means doing something I want to do, even if I can’t explain why.

I want to learn to sing, but can’t figure out why? Well, better go spend some time learning. My brain has a reason for it, and I know if I do what “I’m told,” I’ll get something I need out of it.

Living that way is odd for a lot of people. When they were kids it was easy, but as adults, they’re out of the habit of doing things that they can’t directly connect to “making progress,” and they criticize themselves for wanting things that aren’t obviously beneficial to them in “serious” ways.

But life is too important to take seriously, and when you venture into these other areas you learn things that often surprise you. Here’s the three most important life lessons I learned by wasting time.

1. I Learned To Embarrass Myself By Singing

We live in a pathetically cynical society. When I first decided to learn to sing, it wasn’t because of some deep ambition. I didn’t want to be Beyonce. I just thought singing sounded fun.

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9 Pieces of Life Advice People Love To Misinterpret

As many of you know, I never dreamed of becoming a, um, “self-help expert.”

When I began this work back in 2000, sitting at Goldman Sachs dreaming of the life I truly wanted, I had no idea where reading a bunch of self-help books would lead me.

Hat down, glasses on, the day I sheepishly crept into the self-help section of the bookstore hoping not to be seen, thinking, “who the fuck needs this stuff?” I was pretty desperate.

My head down work hard approach had gotten me a long way, but now asking myself the question that had come to dominate my life—What Do I Want?—I’d shown up here with the other losers looking for answers…

Hidden amongst the trillions of tons of earth on this planet we have uncovered only enough gold to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.

To find the gold you must throw out a lot of ore, and life advice is the same. Here are 9 of the most common misinterpretations of legitimate life advice.

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Why You Should Never Quit Goldman Sachs

After this article I wrote about quitting Goldman Sachs took off, I got a lot of attention.

Former colleagues and others wrote me wanting to know more, yet there was also some confusion about what I stand for.

My message has never been, and never will be: Quit your top job on Wall Street.

Too many faux experts preach mantras like:

  • “Escape the 9-5”
  • “Join the gig economy”
  • “Achieve financial independence”

The only mantra I use is this:

“Live the life YOU truly want”

Do you see the difference? I’m into how you create your dream life. People who follow the faux experts are into creating an easy life.

Top performers don’t want an easy life. They want to challenge themselves to win, and take it as far as they can go.

If you want to rise to the top of your industry, then quitting a top job is the last thing you should do.

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How To Admit Your Great Job Isn't Your Dream Job

What’s the difference between a good life and a good job?

It might seem like a silly question. To a lot of people, having a good job is a big part of having a good life. But to the millions of people with good jobs who are still unhappy, the distinction is critically important.

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How To Quit Your Job (And Still Win)

You’re going to quit at least one job in your life, probably several. In fact, 2.8 million Americans quit their jobs every month. You know what’s heartbreaking about that statistic?

Virtually none of those 2.8 million people know how to quit their job and still win.

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Why My Greatest Achievement As A Goldman Sachs VP Was Quitting

6 AM meant it was time to check voicemails. 11 PM meant it was time to check voicemails again. Every second in between reserved for cranking and putting out the many fires guaranteed to crop up that day.

That was my life as a Goldman Sachs VP, and despite what you might assume, I didn’t hate it.

I didn’t get there by accident. I’d worked that hard since my first job at KFC to get where I thought I should want to be, and by all accounts I was crushing my goals.

Except they weren’t my goals. Despite my success, despite the deep friendships I’d made at Goldman, I could never shake the sense that I was living someone else’s idea of success.

At a certain point, it was time to leave.

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3 Things That Hold Many of Us Back

Inside we all have a vision for our lives and who we dream to be.

For some of us this is an extension of our current path, but for many of us, going after what we truly want requires a deliberate shift, which can be hard to do.

Not only must we find the fuel to drive ourselves forward, but often we too must remove those things that hold us back.

If you try to drive your car while the handbrake is still tightly gripping the wheels, you’ll hardly get anywhere, and going after what you truly want is much the same way.

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"Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"

My friend is contemplating quitting his job and he is vexed by the decision.

Does he stay where he is?

Take the offer someone else is putting in front of him?

Or go seek another opportunity altogether?

Like being on The Price is Right, he feels he has one of three doors to choose and he’s unsure of how to make the decision.

It’s a tough choice, particularly when you lack a clear roadmap for your career.

As good little rational beings we tend to apply logical tools to these types of questions.

We draw up pros and cons.

Weigh up this versus that.

But the problem with weighing up marginally is that you are left with a marginal answer!

You can’t hide from the fact that if 60% of your ideas support “Yes,” then 40% of you is still saying “No.”

If you want an optimal answer you need to get beyond the marginal approach.

Einstein once said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

If you are thinking on a logical level—pros and cons, etc.—then you will keep coming back to the same dilemma, weighing one option against another.

Instead you want to take your thinking to an entirely different level.

How?

Check out this chapter from The Guide.

Do You Have The Balls To Go For What You Want?

Kirby Roy is a man with world-record setting kahunas.

On  this episode of Sport Science you can watch him take a world-record-setting kick to the balls (without even wincing).

You’ll see he doesn’t just take a misdirected graze as you often see in kick-boxing or MMA bouts, Kirby is ballsy enough to take a 1,100 pound blow from Justice Smith, a 6 ft 8 in, 290 pound American Gladiator and mixed martial artist.

While it is less important to know the two reasons he is able to take it like a super man—one physical, one mental—it is important is to know the secret to how Kirby has trained his mind and body to sustain such a devastating blow.

And here’s the secret: there is no secret!

Kirby doesn’t have balls of steel or any other hidden skill. He is just an ordinary fellow who has trained himself to do something extraordinary, by taking a number of ordinary steps.

Training his body and mind, Kirby has been kicked in the balls thousands of times over a period of five years. Like building muscle at the gym, he started off with light blows, and slowly over time worked his way up to being able to smile in the face of a ball-busting blow.

So although he is able to do something seemingly extraordinary, you see, if you are nuts enough, with a ballsy commitment and the right process, it is something all of us men can train ourselves to do. Not that you would want to of course, but it does get you thinking about what extraordinary things are possible if you simply work at it every day.

In my career books, I share with you the two secrets to getting what you want: First, you must know what you want. Second, you must build a system to get it, which means developing a process you can follow every day.

And while there is little secret to my two secrets, here is the real secret.

When once asked about what leads to success, famous oil tycoon H.L. Hunt said, “First, decide exactly what it is you want. Most people never do that. Second, determine the price you’re going to have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.”

Most people don’t have the balls for that.

And while that might seem all too hard for many people, the real secret to getting what you want is that rarely does it require doing anything extraordinary, as much as it requires committing yourself to take ordinary steps every day.

In transforming my career and life I did nothing extraordinary. I read books. I wrote ideas. I took basic steps every day.

Yet, what really paid off for me is that I did it consistently for a decade, reading thousands of books, writing thousands of pages of ideas, taking steps for thousands of days that eventually moved me from where I was to where I am today.

It wasn’t easy to do, yet because I was getting kicked in the nuts every day in my career, it was easy for me to stay motivated and keep taking the steps to creating the career and life I truly love.

Now, fortunately for you, having spent tens of thousands of hours on these ideas, today I have built a simple approach that you can easily get working for you.

Rather than putting your head down and working hard hoping it leads you to what you want, the approach I share with you in The Guide simply enables you to easily keep moving forward building the career and life you truly want.

This is something anyone can do, if only you are willing to begin taking steps.

Some three thousand years ago, the influential Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tzu, wrote: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

To get whatever you want simply requires you begin taking steps, and the question is: Do you have the balls to get started?

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