There are signs on my walls and desk.
Most of them are now covert.
Hieroglyphs.
A hidden language to anyone who doesn’t know the signs.
And then there are far more overt signs.
Ones that you can never avoid reading.
Each page is just one letter.
Helvetica, 600 font, yellow bold with black highlighting like the “F” you see on this page.
They are taped together all Gucci-like around the base of my desk—
M
O
R
F
O
C
U
S
Yes, without “E,” for efficiency.
Do you wish you could be getting more done?
Have moments when you sit down to get started and it’s just too hard?
You can’t quite get into it?
Your brain is seeking distraction?
Oh, just better grab a drink before I do this.
Haven’t checked email in 9 seconds!
Hmm, maybe I should just check in with…
Whatever you call it, sucks.
It sucks time from your life, and energy from your accomplishing.
If you’ve procrastinated throughout your life, you know how much it has hurt you.
All the way back to school I’m betting you’ve been living with that awful feeling.
Us pros call it inner conflict.
One “part” of you says, I want or I’ve gotta do this.
And the other part of you, meaning, the part of you that actually must do the work says…
Light it all up…
Really, light it all up.
Pump it up.
Get excited.
All fired up.
Now, let it all go.
Take a deep breath and slowly exhale.
That’s right, pump it up.
And let it all go.
Actually, just the first two steps, Leading With The Physical.
Using your body and breathing to get yourself fired up, and chilling out.
So you’re left in this high energy, yet calm way of being.
You know how good this feels, and it is perhaps the most exulted way of being.
The flow state, a peak state for performance and happiness, reflects this.
So too does the meditation state, which is often described as alert and relaxed.
At first blush we might consider these ways of being contradictory—You’re either fired up or chilling out.
Yet like a gazelle, and lion for that matter, sitting on the plains of Africa, the blending of these states might be our most natural.
For about 15 years I’ve been cultivating a way of being I refer to as Intense and Cool, which we’ll talk about below, yet I’m still only so-so at.
Directionally I’m right here.
The Cure, shorthand for The Cure For The Human Condition, is my most helpful tool, but it still has a massive limitation.
You’ve gotta remember to do it!
See, a reason I long ago moved beyond the noise of personal development, such as talking about gratitude or positive thinking, to build highly systematic methods and powerful tools is because it never matters what you know.
All that matters is…
September Man, here.
Gotta be.
See, this is the thing, if you’re upgrading yourself you’re doing it right now.
What I mean is, if you’ve decided that this month you have specific goals, then you are living them.
Mostly useless.
Terribly used.
We’re never taught real methods for setting goals so most people drift through life without them.
Many others kind of have goals but poorly use them.
Goals are often interpreted as this thing somewhere out there in front of you, when goals have nothing to do with the future.
Absolutely nothing.
They have everything to do with how you are using this simulated version of your future right now.
Goals are of course powerful motivators, right?
But they are only powerful motivators when you are right now using them to motivate your mind and actions.
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.
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.
Hi, how you doing?
How are you faring in the lockdown?
Of course it’s not all rosy, but hoping it’s working out at least OK for you.
Today I want to be more direct with you on something.
Because I think it’s important that I’m clear on where I’m coming from and what advice I’m giving clients.
Some clients and buddies are talking to me about what I think of this situation.
I’m giving them certain advice.
Then they’re reading what I write publicly, and they see a disconnect.
“You’re skirting the issues,” one said.
“Trying to sanitize it,” said another.
A blunt Aussie mate put it—”Painting lipstick on a pig.”
“Are we having fun yet?”
Today I woke with these lyrics playing in my head.
I’ll get to the song in a bit.
It’s not even that relevant, but the theme is very much one thing I’ve been focused on in quarantine.
Let me ask you something—
It’s not a trick question, btw.
I’m being totally serious.
And I know for some friends and clients it’s been true.
Of course for lots of reasons it’s a crappy time, and it’s not just how they’ve chosen to see it.
But all this has slowed down our lives.
Given them more time with their pets and family.
To focus on the things that most matter to you.
So whereas some people seem to be really spiraling down in this hard time.
Others seem to be using it to spiral up.
How you doin?
Hanging in there?
Having the time of your life 🙂
This whole lockup thing is getting a bit long in the tooth, isn’t it?
Yet what are you gonna do?
One thing this situation reminds you is how little control you have.
You certainly can’t control nature, and what it might cook up that can harm you.
Nor can you control how our governments and others respond to any situation.
In many ways you can’t even control yourself, can you?
You can’t control when you need to go to the bathroom, in the same way you can’t control many of the automatic thoughts in your head and feelings in your body.
They are merely the product of your biology and conditioning, so in many ways we can find ourselves responding on autopilot. (which is why I sent you this article on conditioning your mind)
“Why are you so f’n cryptic?” One of my buddies asked me.
Looking at what I wrote this week about the lockup he said—
“I just want to know where you stand.”
“I told you where I stand,” I said.
“I’m focused on the ONLY one thing you KNOW.”
A few weeks ago I decided to stop focusing on the virus and the choices we’ve made around it.
I’d said enough, and needed to eat more of my own cooking.
“Focus on what you can control,” I told the camera here.
But in my own mind I was still afraid.
We all have our own interpretation of this situation that breeds many fears.
Is the virus the greater threat or our response to it?
However you see it, this virus has exposed our fragility.
With all of our advances in healthcare, we’re wildly unprepared.
Just one mutation away.
Completely vulnerable to any biological threat anywhere in the world.
And our world government responses have reinforced the same.
As the story goes, Bill Gates Snr. asks Warren Buffett his greatest ingredient to success—
“Focus,” Buffett replied.
Gates agreed.
That’s the story from Alice Schroeder’s book, The Snowball.
But you don’t need this to know…
It’s focus that gets you moving.
And focus that keeps you building momentum.
We all know that focus is absolutely crucial to your goals, yet you also know how elusive it can be, right?
How do you rank your focus?
Really, out of 10, how good would you say you are at getting focused on what truly matters?
Getting yourself diving in?
Staying in?
A buddy is a former spook.
If you met he’d seem very much like a regular guy.
Interesting background, fun to hang out with.
But if you get him talking on topics that some might call conspiracy, well, he’ll go to town with you.
But in the way that intelligence officers are paid to think.
Potential scenarios.
What risks we might face.
How to thwart them.
Best respond in some worst-case scenarios.
Over the years he’s thought through many such cases that most of us never want to imagine.
“And you wouldn’t be surprised to hear how many of them have been cooked up by someone,” he says.
“Movies like Contagion and Impossible Mission 2 give bad actors good ideas.”
“We’re still having sex,” my friend said to me.
“What?” I blurted.
“Do you know that some 75 million people have been infected with AIDS and 32 million have died?” She said.
“Yet we haven’t stopped having sex, have we?”
I accepted it won’t last long.
It’s inevitable.
Just a matter of time before Americans say—
OK, so there’s a threat… we’re getting back to work anyways.
“When haven’t we faced threats?” A military buddy said.
After the most devastating attack on American soil on 9/11…
When we still faced a real threat of terrorists blowing up sporting events, public gatherings, planes, and everything else…
We didn’t just shut down.
Hide in our homes for the next decade.
We got on with it, and for better and worse we kicked back.
“How are your 2020 goals looking?” I asked a client I might take on.
“A complete disaster, “ she said.
Not surprising.
Her business is directly tied to public appearances, which in a world of social distancing is equivalent to leprosy.
“Just the last two weeks our business is 90% off forecast,” she added.
Now, don’t get me wrong, of course there’s real value in long-term planning…
And all of my methods are built around projecting out your Grandest Reality.
The problem is we fool ourselves into believing we have any clue what the future holds.
The human brain HATES uncertainty, and does anything it can to “create” stability.
Yet as I say in this video, I can’t know if my heart will be beating by the time you’re watching this!
Still, how much time do we spend thinking we can plan our careers, businesses, lives?
I don’t feel like writing a dramatic opening.
About how this young fit man with big aspirations severed his spinal cord playing football.
Laying on the field unable to move his limbs, terrified.
Years, decades of tireless struggle just to use his legs again.
I don’t want to talk about how it puts our lives in perspective.
Only to say that talking with Rodney Flowers on this podcast showed me something about our goals.
I greatly respect your time.
And you may know I don’t listen to podcasts like I don’t listen to the radio.
Yet I will say that if you’re looking to learn more on our limitless minds.
And what we can will our bodies to do.
Then you might get value from our podcast or even just scanning this transcript.
That’s right…
An awful, debilitating disease that so many kids are born with.
There is nothing we can do about it other than jack them up on speed.
That’s the ONLY solution our medical profession prescribes.
Of bad thinking.
The mind at dis-ease.
Swinging around like a monkey in the trees, unable to focus on one thing.
Well, all but some things…
How many kids who suffer this awful dis-ease struggle to focus on video games?
Or watching TV?
Or doing something engaging and fun?
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.
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.
She asked me, rhetorically.
She knew the answer but it was still elusive for her.
“There is no when, is there?” she said shyly.
When I get that house.
When I get paid.
When I get the big job.
When I’ve built my business.
When I’m in shape.
When I find someone to marry.
When things with my spouse are better.
When. When. When. When. When. When. When.
Us humans are full of whens yet…
That’s how long an average worker is productive each day…
That’s a yield of 36%.
Imagine a production line that was operating at 36% yield.
Where 64% of the inputs were wasted.
That’s the average workday.
The average life.
It’s not just routine jobs either.
In fact, someone sitting answering phones all day is certainly far more productive than most professionals.
Sometimes find yourself unable to focus on what matters most?
Procrastinating? Resisting? Avoiding? Seeking distraction?
How would you be if you got beyond those things that hold you back?
Unleashing your best performance.
Feeling amazing at will absorbing in your highest-value tasks?
For nearly a decade I’ve been honing in one goal—
How do you live in the flow state?
The peak state for happiness and performance.
Back in 2015 I released this 30 minute podcast of my method, The House of Flow.
Over some 4 years I’d built the tech, but I still couldn’t live inside.
These days it’s much more my home.
Using systematic methods like my System for Ultimate Days, and my super-secret Ultimate Solution, flow is baked into every minute of my day.
And having done it many thousands of times, I’ve much more conditioned living here in the flow.
This may be the greatest “achievement” of my life…