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Geoff Blades

Mindset

Upgrade YOU 2.2. The ultimate performance tool

“Success is never about the idea,” a VC recently said to me.

“It’s not even about the CEO or team.”

Taking a dramatic pause, she finished by saying, “It’s about how they’re showing up every day.”

Who are you showing up?

This is the longer, boringer article I wrote about the other day!

I was being flippant and self-deprecating but I realized it’s far too important for that.

This may be THE topic of upgrading.

It matters so much because it doesn’t just relate to how you’re thinking and feeling, but who you are being.

So before we move onto Mind 2.3, let’s hit this video for lining up your performance tools one final time.

Ultimate Performance Tool

A client reminded me this week that this is our ultimate Performance Tool.

Especially in his context where he’s gotta show up his absolute best.

In this video we’ve been talking about performance tools as devices for getting yourself thinking and feeling how you want.

And this is the extreme case.

Not just changing your thoughts, feelings, actions.

But getting yourself showing up as the person you choose.

When you step into a meeting, who are you being?

Jumping on a call, which “version” of you picks up the phone?

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Upgrade YOU 2.1. The first rule of mind control for doing what you want

The brain screws you…

This remedies the #1 mistake in thinking.

It’s so fundamental.

So basic.

Yet it can be extremely “not easy” to do.

I won’t go into detail why.

We go into enough detail together in this video.

All I’ll say here is, so long as you’re thinking, why not be thinking about what you want?

Don’t want to drive to Kansas

OK.

Great.

So, where do you want to drive?

Waze doesn’t ask you for all the destinations you don’t want to go.

Only the one you do.

See my point?

All day every day many of our brains are thinking about what we don’t want.

Ugh, I hate my job.

Haven’t left the house in months.

It’s just so hard with the kids.

Certainly there’s many things in your life you don’t want.

So what do you want?

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I was afraid for our species, but focus bailed me out

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.

Our species under attack

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.

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focus like a gazillionaire

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…

Focus is your snowball

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?

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Intel 3

My best learnings on the mind are called Intel 1-4.

I can’t say where I got this intel, only that these are the most important commandments I follow.

Intel 3 describes the endless cycle of thinking and doing that keeps humanity stuck on the treadmill.

Ultimately…

As you see in the diagram, this cause and effect circle jerk goes—

  1. Our thoughts merely reflect the energetic state of the body-mind machine
  2. The computer-like thinking mind computes we need to do something to change it
  3. So we can achieve a result
  4. So we can feel different
  5. So we can have different thoughts
  6. Which only circles back to our thoughts are based on energy

Hence, if we succeed in changing our energy, our thinking changes.

But, as tends to be the case, ultimately the thinking machine reverts back to its energetic set-point.

And so we go…

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Even Princesses Unfulfilled

Ultimate DaysA girl can’t dream anymore.

How many young girls dream to be a princess?

To be swept off her feet by a ginger prince charming?

Only to discover as Meghan Markle has…

Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be

I’d say she’s looked pretty unhappy since she woke from the first kiss.

No surprise; his Mum was too.

Like Cinderella, there’s lots of baggage that comes with putting on that slipper.

Today not even a princess can fly private without the social justice warriors slaying you.

Your royal family out-PC’ing you flying discount coach.

No princess dreams of flying in the back of the bus, do they?

Sadly it seems, not even reaching the peak of human society is all it’s cracked up to be.

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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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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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Make Every Second Count

Ultimate Days

We often talk about living our greatest life.

But what does this even mean?

When I get here. When I get there. When I get it done.

Looking forward. Looking back.

It’s all too far in the future.

Your greatest life is right here.

Right Now

Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years.

Are too long.

Living your most amazing life you live inside the seconds.

Every second is your life.

Why wouldn’t you want to make every second count?

This life of ours can never be lived then.

The only moment you can be living your most amazing life is now.

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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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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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“When Do You Get To Feel Amazing?”

Focus Tools

She asked me, rhetorically.

She knew the answer but it was still elusive for her.

“There is no when, is there?” she said shyly.

Full Of Whens

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…

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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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“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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Silly Cats Having So Much Fun

Chasing around a laser light thinking it’s real.

Shine it on the floor they paw after it like a mouse.

Put it on the wall, they climb up.

Are They Confused?

Maybe they know it’s a game?

An illusion projected from a device?

Perhaps they play anyways because it’s fun?

They are of course just cats, easily confused by what is real.

Yet are they really much different to kids playing made up games?

No care what is real or make believe, just running around having fun.

What happens to us adults?

Have We Forgotten The Play?

I feel I should avoid going deep here.

To say real-ity is an illusion.

Just a light shining through a human machine.

Yet even on a shallow level us adults have mostly forgotten the play.

Taking all this oh so seriously​, pawing after “real” things to really change how we feel.

We think…

When I get that house or job or lover or 3 drinks in me, now I’ll be having more fun.

Although our greatest human knowledge tells us that’s the illusion…

We’ve never been taught to really live our dream.

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