Rocket to the Top Like Musk and Bezos

Playing on offense

We had a power dinner.

In New York this week with an old friend I haven’t seen for a long time.

Was one of those nights that brought together a lot of our past and got us talking about the future.

In the last decade he’s built an incredible business growing just a seed into a forest of opportunity.

They’re winning the game and he loves playing.

Keep playing

It feels good to be in the game, doesn’t it?

Do you feel this way about what you’re doing?

He had taken time off to figure out his next move and had joined this incredible company they’ve grown remarkably.

We got talking about the movie Inception and how it perfectly captures even a tiniest seed can grow into transformation.

This got us talking about my game.

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What is winning for you?

It feels good to be winning.

Winning you’re running with wind at your back.

It’s easier to keep winning when you’re winning.

Winning is more fun too, isn’t it?

Winning is winning.

Winning

What is winning for you? This is what counts.

Same with this thing called “success.” There’s no universal definition just what success and winning mean to you.

Because I saw this as a young professional you’re already “successful” just to have broken into a profession and established a career and so by the definition of “success” and “winning” many had already won. But also many like me were questioning, is this it? Is this success? How winning feels?

I didn’t know. It felt like winning in some ways, but still had me asking questions like, is this the life you dreamed as a kid? What do you truly want?

Is this winning the game of life?

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Speeding up

Winning loves speed.

Because winning loves momentum.

Speed is momentum and ferociousness for getting things done.

It gets things moving, keeps things moving, willing things to happen start to finish.

Are you getting things done with speed?

Do faster?

Time is most often a constraint, isn’t it? Ask, what can you do faster?

Ask yourself this because it gets you thinking about your time in certain ways.

We all know time is your most precious resource and nobody is handing you more time you want and need.

Like I chuckle thinking of this story I heard of a banking executive who lacked time but wanted to help people and would stack up on one day a month all these calls with people who reached out for advice and then he’d get them done with his monthly office keeping chores all on the same one day.

How else would he find the time? You can’t get more time but you can compress time and speed up.

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Get it done

I sat down here today and thought to myself, if you wrote to yourself what would you say?

“Keep going.”

There are hard things to do and if you choose hard things you must do them full on.

And keep going.

So many of us live this way.

Full on

All my clients are full on. Many jobs are full on.

You’re always on. It demands a lot of you and you’re giving a lot.

It’s a hard way to play but for founders and top executives how you must play.

Work hours and travel are a lot and demand the best you’ve got.

You can never just show up, you must play full on.

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Whatever it takes

That’s how I see it.

You do whatever it takes for long as it takes for you to reach your target.

The thing with this though is it must be a labor of love.

If you’re doing this like sacrifice you’re toast.

Do it coz you love it.

Loving it

I’ve hit a point in my game where I’m absolutely loving it.

So many things I’ve worked on for 25 years and 15 doing this as my profession has kept me building to this place.

My stomach is way bigger than my eyes. What I feel is possible I cannot see.

So over decades I’ve built methods to keep chasing the unseen.

And I’m loving it, now.

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Are you focused on this?

You are focused on something.

It’s a truism you cannot not be focused 🙂

So long as your brain is functioning it is focusing on something.

Are you focused on the right things?

How do you know?

Right things?

We all know the crucial importance of focus.

And thinking about focus this way was a huge leap for me.

Because all the time we hear and speak about focus like this thing you lack.

When the truism is you’re always focused on something, just are you focused on the right things?

And this leads to the question I’m asked all the time, how do you know if you are focused on the right things?

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Just keep stepping

This isn’t theory.

It’s your life, your best life.

That’s a problem with these topics.

It can come across like good sounding ideas.

But all that matters is what you do with it from here.

How?

See, a reason these topics are hard to write and talk about is because, duh!

It can all sound so obvious, can’t it?

That’s where I found myself stuck reading thousands of self-help books.

Set goals. Strong mindset. Take action. Develop skills. Keep improving.

Duh, what’s there even to talk about on this?

We all learned to walk and can just keep taking steps, right?

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With this it’s all possible

“It may be impossible,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll fail worse than I already have,” he continued with fire in his eyes.

“But I’ve just gotta know I did everything I could, Geoff.”

That was enough for me.

“I’m in,” I said.

Go for it!

This was about 10 months ago.

For 5+ years he’d been trying to start his own company.

Fits and starts he made a ton of progress and then like that kids game snakes and ladders he’d slide back down to where he started.

He tried and failed over and over but refused to quit.

As he said to me, “I’ve gotta go for it!”

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Rocketing!

Damn it feels good.

Feels like flying.

Although my feet and brain are firmly grounded.

This is a feeling I’ve been training for years.

Maybe it’s even locked in now?

Hard things

Doing hard things is hard!

That’s what’s so hard in doing hard things is they’re hard!

This demands you must keep trying harder, getting harder, being harder, driving harder.

Working harder isn’t enough doing hard things demands you keep inventing new ways of rocketing forward.

For 15+ years I’ve had to keep finding another gear after gear and perhaps now we’re here.

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“Keep having fun”

It was the worst advice.

When someone is in a bad place last thing they want to hear is “Keep having fun.”

But it’s also a most important thing you can share with someone.

Like one of my teachers said.

A place with no problems?

Where?

He says there’s one place in the world where nobody has any problems.

Everyone is just there time passing by.

Never a care in the world.

Nothing to worry about.

Where?

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Keep leaping

A client is making leaps.

But he’s got a loooooong way to go.

He’s on a world-changing mission that has legs because so much is possible with technology.

Just he’s got a hard leap to make.

Here’s 5 things we’re doing.

Why?

The thing with making leaps in business and life is you’ve reaaalllly gotta want it.

Because it’s not just about where you’re leaping but making leaps in your performance.

You must know why this matters to you because making a leap is hard and you’ll back down.

When you’re feeling the strain you’ll find it easier to hang back or look for reasons to slow.

Or you push yourself to a comfortable limit vs. where a drill sergeant would get you.

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Best game

I learned a lot this week.

It’s stuff I’m pretty bad at so it was good to be here.

Here was a senior leader offsite with a client I’ve advised for many years.

I learned a lot about the business and a lot of people who I only knew by name.

But most I learned about obsession.

Obsession

Customers have an obsession with my client’s company and the games they make.

I knew this.

I’ve known they have millions and millions of people obsessively playing their games.

Been to esport world events seeing all these fans going crazy faces painted for the game.

So I thought I got this obsession but this week I got it deeper.

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Going after it!

Every day is a chase.

I bounce out of bed and go after it.

All day I’m going after it and often through the night.

What exactly I’m going after is still in some ways elusive to me!

That’s why I’m going after it.

Why?

Why do what you do?

You wake up every day, do your thing, go to bed, wake up to do another day.

In many ways this life is quite routine isn’t it and you can find yourself just ticking through the days.

That’s how it was for me back when I had a job.

They were great jobs but I wanted more.

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Go for it 🚀

At dinner with best friends in Manhattan this week she asked me what books to read.

She saw this article I wrote 11 years ago and wanted to know what books are most valuable for her to be reading.

I told her to be wary.

Is it worth your time?

You’ve gotta be careful reading.

Cut out

I read little.

About 15 years ago I cut out reading media and over recent years even cut out checking headlines.

You are what you eat and you’ve gotta be careful what you feed your brain.

It’s not just negative and often untrue, but it’s intended to consume you.

Ask yourself what is best for you to consume?

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Achieve to achieve

If you want to achieve at the highest levels you must first achieve this.

In thousands of self-help books I rarely saw this and never clearly.

Psychology and their therapy completely miss this.

Even the best schools mostly overlook it.

But achieve this, achieve all.

Highest energy

This game of life is a game of high energy.

We all know this in concept just what exactly is high energy and how exactly do you achieve it?

High vibrating energy you see in the woo-woo books like Think And Grow Rich is powerful but they never accurately define nor give you a path to achieving it.

High physical energy is your most crucial starting point but that’s a mess of advice too.

You’re told to get 8 hours sleep when world leaders sleep way less.

Exercise. Nutrition. Supplements. All true.

A mess of advice too.

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Perfect 10?

How good are you?

Out of 10 how good would you say you are?

How much of your potential have you unleashed?

Here I’m thinking in terms of your main focus in life or maybe all your life.

In your career or business or life or mind or as a parent or otherwise out of 10 how good are you?

Who cares?

I’d say many people never care.

They don’t have enough reason to care.

It doesn’t matter in their career or business or life they’re operating at a fraction of their potential.

Or even if they feel way less than 10 out of 10.

They’re not like us.

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Locked in

Hi there,

How are you?

What’s happening with you?

I miss you 🙂 I haven’t written much recently and love coming back to it.

Tell me something…

So…

How are you doing?

I’m doing awesome. Lots of good stuff going.

Just loving getting it done and you look up and see half the year has flown by!

Does it feel the same way for you? How is your year? How are things with you?

I’m curious if you’d like to share coz I’d love to hear what’s going on with you?

Because I haven’t written recently I’m out of touch and would love to learn more about you.

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Happy stupidly unrealistic new year!

“If I’ve learned anything from you it’s that New Year’s Resolutions are stupid!” my good mate Terry wrote me.

I agree with me 🙂 they can be stupid and also can be stupidly powerful when you’re setting “real” goals.

The difference comes back to this word “Resolution” and your level of resolve.

80% of Resolutions are quit by February 15 when you achieve everything with limitless resolve.

So let them make flakey Resolutions while you live limitless goals.

Limitless goals

If you are certain that you will achieve your goal then it’s never a goal.

That’s where many people are stuck in life avoiding any fear of failure never stretching for any goals.

Goals don’t have to be of the BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) variety but it is a lot more fun this way!

It’s good to be realistic about what’s possible and also good to ask yourself just how good can it get?

Like Jeff Bezos in 1994 watching the internet growing at 2,300% a year he wasn’t certain where it was headed but was convinced to make a bold bet.

Certainly it would have been a stretch goal just to get Amazon started and build a dominant online bookstore but Jeff Bezos had his sights set on a grander vision.

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“You’ve got this”

I don’t know what “this” is for you.

But I do know that you’ve got this.

You know how I know?

Because you’ve gotta know that you’ve got this.

You’ve just gotta know.

Gotta know

You’ve just gotta know.

I don’t know how to say it any more directly than you’ve just gotta know that you’ve got this.

Whatever it is that you’re focused on doing.

Whatever it is that you’re looking to achieve.

Whoever it is that you’re dreaming to be.

You’ve just gotta know you are this.

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Take your shot

He missed.

One shot to make history and he missed his shot.

Now in all fairness he didn’t entirely miss as the supersonic 556 round tore through the top of president Trump’s ear and he’ll still go down in history as a terrible murderer.

But all that training and planning and borrowing Dad’s gun and buying the ladder and ammo and walking to the rally and taking his range finder through security and standing around measuring the shot and oh so cunningly outwitting the secret service and climbing up on the roof and crawling across in broad daylight rifle swinging around for everyone to see, all that to miss his shot.

As they say you miss 100% of the shots that you never take and you also miss plenty that you do.

Trump misses

Even Trump has had many misses, this perhaps his gravest.

In business. In life. In his influence. In losing the last election.

But one thing that you always see from this man is he gets back up and takes his shot over and over again.

Some missed shots you never stand back up like the terrible shooter knew the snipers wouldn’t miss.

Yet outside of worst cases nearly always you have the chance to stand again.

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