Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
hey [ __ ] you are average yes stop
being afraid of that you're average but
you can get better go learn but you have
to be a demon you have to give your
brain and body the impulse adapt or die
with I will break you in half before I
give up once I realize that like oh I
could just get better at sitting in this
emotion I don't have to run from this
emotion then it's you begin to get
stronger you become more capable of
facing things than if you have a value
system that says hey Tom
don't be weak you're that feeling of
like you want to run and hide
stop man up face it sit in it do not
allow yourself and then when I do it I'm
like bro this is why you are you this is
why you've accomplished what you've
accomplished because in this moment
everybody else runs in this moment
everybody else breaks in this moment
everybody else becomes so insecure that
they go chase distraction but you don't
you sit here like even when I go to the
dentist and it hurts I open my mouth
wider and I'm like get in there I don't
Flinch I don't try to pull back I'm like
yeah baby like get that drill in there
like go on scrape it get down to the
bone even though it hurts and my every
impulse is to pull away if I'm dealing
with something and it makes me anxious I
won't blade blading is where you turn
sideways or something when somebody does
that to you they're either intimidated
by you they're stressed whatever I will
face that thing head on literally and
figuratively if something is terrifying
me I'm like I'm in this I'm not running
from this I'm dealing with this when
I've got a hard thing that I don't want
to do do which is almost always
contracts I'm like here we go we're
going to do these contracts I'm going to
do this contract at three in the morning
when everybody else they wake up and
actually they're sleeping who are we
kidding they're still asleep I'm up I'm
looking at a contract and I am
emotionally rewarding myself to the ends
of the Earth for doing that that's so
cool like so fascinating because like I
said the ironic thing is I'm only
distracted when I'm trying to accomplish
something meaningful and hard but it's
like challenging I'm never distracted
when I'm doing something easy and and
fun that's why I think I'm right about
the what distraction really is it's your
brain trying to soothe you it's grabbing
a hold of all your attention and saying
ah don't worry about that put all your
attention on this thing here and now you
can feel better and I'll be honest there
are times where I have been so stressed
that the only thing that's going to
allow me to decompress is Doom scrolling
and it's awesome like I am grateful that
Doom scrolling exists because I don't do
things that aren't on my agenda but
sometimes my agenda is I need to allow
myself to relax because there are times
where even meditation is like bro I I
will get more out of this 20 minutes of
meditation if I take five minutes to
Doom scroll to like forget what to shift
gears right because I'm obsessively
thinking about this thing Doom scroll
some cats for five minutes oh cool now
I've been distracted away from that
thought now I can sink into a meditation
now that level of stress doesn't happen
often but when it does I know what tool
to reach for but this goes back to
self-awareness you have to distrust
yourself constantly be asking I should
not have this reaction right I shouldn't
allow myself to be overwhelmed you know
me I don't do overwhelm but I don't do
overwhelm because I have pattern
interrupts Doom scrolling cats I limit
it to a small amount of time I follow it
with meditation and then I've got the
value system of being hardcore facing my
challenges so on and so forth but it
really takes that Gestalt and this is
the part about helping people that I
find really frustrating
it's all of those things it is this
incredibly complicated nest of
rules time blocking value system
rewarding yourself punishing yourself
on and on and on is there a way to make
those distractions like knowing that
like I'm aware of them I'm aware that
I'm easily distracted is there a way to
make it a healthy distraction to make it
use for your benefit and time block it
so if you want to take something
like distraction and make it healthy you
need to have parameters so you're going
to time block you're going to have it be
a known tool so you're not going to like
I catch myself doing sometimes blindly
reach for your phone if you find
yourself picking up your phone you've
got to be like why am I doing this does
this fit into my rules did I say hey I'm
now going to look at cats for five
minutes ten minutes an hour whatever but
like that is the amount of time that I'm
going to do that I'm going to confine it
to that and then it's like hey if you
want to spend 10 hours a day looking at
cats I'm not judging like if if your
life is rad and you're stoked spending
10 hours a day looking at Cash just
don't trick yourself into thinking oh I
want to go you know build a huge charity
and help millions of people and doom
scroll cats for 10 hours like those two
things are mutually incompatible so it's
only the unintentional use of that the
unrestrained use of that so once it
becomes intentional
you're using it as a tool for a specific
reason that you can articulate to
yourself and it's time blocked
you're good so for those people who do
maybe they aren't aware or they
understand but have so much dopamine and
just like habitual of just going to Tech
talk Instagram Twitter just scrolling
for days uh to pass the time to do
whatever how do you go about help like
changing that behavior if you're already
so entrenched in it I come down to one
thing George like you're young so I
really want you to hear me your life is
a confusing mess right now and that will
manifest as negative emotion it's all
going to pass
I've glimpsed your future it all works
out it's amazing your life becomes
wonderful because as you get older
you're going to gain control of your
emotions as you gain control of your
emotions you're going to gain control of
your time as you gain control of your
time you're going to acquire skills as
you acquire skills you're going to be
able to do things that other people
can't do like that really is the loop
and so as people get older the reason
that they tend to be happier and more
self-assured is they realize the rules
of the game that you can just really get
better at this stuff and you can get
good and so I want people to hear that
but my thing is like dude you've really
got to be obsessed with what you want to
accomplish and so if I could get you to
understand bro all your dreams that
maybe the scale will be off maybe you
want to be the greatest and you become
you know 1142 but out of 7.4 billion
that's really pretty cool and so that's
going to be the ride of your life but
you have to get obsessed and the only
reason that obsession is fun is because
you actually know you're going to make
progress It's when you're obsessed and
things aren't going well and you don't
realize it's just a matter of time and
so like right now dude I I am really
emotionally worried for people that
don't understand the economy is going to
turn back around Wars end like they're
devastating I don't wish it on anybody
but this too shall pass it's like the
great Buddhist phrase of all time this
too shall pass if you knew that yeah the
next three years are going to suck but
after that it's going to be dope man and
there's going to be a stretch of seven
years that are nothing but awesomeness
but then you're going to go through an
18-month period you're you know one of
your loved ones is going to pass away
and that's going to be brutal but then
you're going to have a stretch of six
years it's going to be awesome then
you're going to have four years of just
total suck but through it all you're
going to be getting better and better at
managing your emotions so through it all
you know all is going to be well
that's the joy man and so the thing I'm
always trying to get people to
understand you'll never get what you
want out of life you're never going to
accomplish the things that you want
unless you are obsessed obsession will
hurt and it will be unhealthy unless you
realize that you can get better and if
you value yourself for already being
good right better faster stronger life
will be a misery no matter what and so
far better to focus on did I leave it
all out on the field today right so
value yourself for how hard you went
after something not for what you
accomplished and then let yourself get
obsessed with something because you'll
get better over time and then with that
Obsession what if it's an obsession with
something that's not productive or
unhealthy like video games for example
who said that's not productive and who
said it's unhealthy so there's only that
which moves me towards my goals and that
which moves me away from my goals now
I'll make one caveat your goals should
be honorable I'll Define honorable an
honorable goal is something that uplifts
you and other people that's about as
simple as I can make it so if you have a
goal that uplifts you and other people
then why not go just absolutely Bonkers
to make it come true if you want to be a
professional gamer then that's going to
be playing a lot of video games and I
actually I never would believe this is
true but I enjoy watching other people
play video games it's fun and so if
that's the way that you want to
contribute that for people that want to
watch you play they can amazing so now
it's uplifting you and other people
you'll be able to get into the passion
Loop so that you're both the shout and
the echo the shout being you playing the
echo being people enjoying watching you
play or maybe you're like playing video
games so you can help build video games
right so there's many ways you can do
something like that so I just want
people to have an honorable goal and
then ask themselves of everything you do
did this movie towards your goal yes or
no if yes keep doing it if no stop doing
it and that's it and that literally is
the easiest way to steer but people let
things complicate that because their
parents tell them that they should be
doing something that maybe they do or
don't want to do they think that they
should be making a ton of money and the
thing that they love doesn't make them a
lot of money they want to be the best
and they trick themselves into thinking
this is only fun if I'm the greatest of
all time I will tell you right now I
play the video game Destiny 2. and I
would laugh I'm sure if I saw the people
that are spanking me I mean just
embarrassing me but I still love it and
so I try to remind myself that it's
about getting better when I play because
I love to improve and it's just
video games are designed to squeeze the
brain centers that Evolution has given
you for progression and goal acquisition
and all that stuff so it is a very fun
microcosm so finding people to be very
careful casting aspersions moral
judgments on any goal that is uplifting
you and other people do you think that
there is a way to incorporate your
passion which could be video games into
purpose and also providing service and
have that work for you or do you think
you have to sacrifice one or like you
know focus on on a certain thing first
like does is there a perfect world where
all three can exist I think all three
can exist but greatness makes demands so
hiding in that meaning and purpose will
all but break you because the world is
constantly moving towards entropy so
from the moment of the Big Bang
everything is moving towards chaos now
when you introduce humans Jesus you
magnify the amount of chaos uh ten
thousand fold I mean it's just
absolutely insane we ourselves are
complicated bumping into all people that
are complicated as well and so to
achieve something great
you are really going to fail a lot you
are going to run into more obstacles
than you can count but the problem is
that fulfillment requires that you work
hard partly because that for humans to
become the most dominant predator of the
world has ever seen we had to be very
good at ordering the world to order the
world you have to pour a tremendous
amount of energy to stop the chaos and
move it towards order because that's the
other part of that equation to bring
order to a system you must pour energy
into it literal energy and so that's the
battle that all of us are are fighting
against and so if we know that meaning
and purpose is the only thing that will
ever serve you long term that is how you
get to fulfillment and to do meaning and
purpose we know it's going to be
brutally difficult then the very thing
that makes life worth living is going to
be very hard it will bring you to your
knees I I have literally been brought to
my knees but as you get back up which I
encourage everyone to do because we're
all going to get brought to our knees
but not everybody's going to get back up
so if you get brought to your knees
don't worry about that doesn't make you
a loser but it does mean that you're on
your knees and it does mean you owe
yourself getting back up now when you
get back up that's going to make you
feel some kind of way about yourself you
can be like yo that didn't break me
that's incredible so having meaning and
purpose means by definition you are
going to be brought to your knees at
some point you are going to fail to have
the impact you want to have in the world
and if you're ever going to have that
and feel the way you want to feel you
have to get back up and keep going
we've been talking a lot about like
ambition and driving getting your goals
I know another big part of your life is
your relationship so how does your
relationship fit into your good life
with your ambition and um yeah how does
that all cocktail work in your life the
good life how to live it step one you're
having a biological experience what does
that mean you are an animal that's been
shaped by Evolution the more you
understand the organ of the brain
really the whole body the microbes in it
all of it the more you understand that
biological system the more you're going
to be able to predict the outcome of
your thoughts and actions and so if
you're trying to have a good life one
you're going to want to Define it which
I will say the good life is fulfillment
it's the only emotional state that is
resilient to everything from anger loss
and grief through all of that you can be
fulfilled you may be devastated and when
you love a lose a loved one it's
devastating it sucks there's nothing fun
about it that doesn't mean that I'm not
fulfilled as a human it just means that
I'm a fulfilled human going through
something brutal conversely if I'm
momentarily happy but nothing is going
right in my life I'm not contributing in
any meaningful way I can laugh for five
minutes and still be depressed so
fulfillment I would say is the only
thing that's resilient you're not going
to be depressed and fulfilled at the
same time like it's just not now that we
have a definition for what the good life
is now we can actually begin moving
towards it now the reason I say this
step one is recognizing that you're
having a biological experience is I
understand the things that are going to
lead to fulfillment one of them is
working really hard another one is
following or developing a passion that
lets you contribute that's number three
to the group and to yourself so if those
are the rough ingredients that make up
this cocktail of fulfillment we have to
figure out this idea of contributing to
the group what's that all about that's
about being a social animal now what's
the ultimate iteration of being a social
animal it is love now why is love
so potent because Nature has one aim and
one aim only the reason you are a social
animal is because of this one reason the
reason that you have drive and ambition
is because of this one reason Nature's
only goal this is it this is the
punchline of everything every your
motivation for sitting here right now my
motivation for answering these questions
the reason that we put these cameras
together built this Channel all of it is
for one thing because nature wants to
make sure that you have kids that have
kids that's it and now everything in
your brain is nature pulling levers to
make sure that you live long enough to
have kids to have kids and that you
actually have kids so love which I will
say is a neurochemical state is Nature's
Way of going yo I want to make sure you
do this thing so it's this incredible
cocktail of I mean obviously the there's
different kinds of love I will assume
you mean romantic love since you
reference my relationship so romantic
love is like the thing it is the thing
that when you think about how people
want to feel in fact when they have
people describe how they want to feel
and they look at that neurochemistry you
know what it most closely matches even
though this isn't the word that people
put to it do you have a guess like it
looks like you're on drugs or something
it's an orgasm
and so it makes sense that if Nature's
jobs make sure that you stay alive long
enough to have kids that have kids that
the neurochemical cocktail of an orgasm
be pretty high on people's list so as
people are describing it they're like oh
yeah that's the neurochemicals you state
you feel right after an orgasm so
technically it isn't the orgasm itself
but it's that cocktail afterwards all
the bonding hormones are secreted after
that you can actually predict I don't
know with what degree of accuracy but
I'm going to guess it is extraordinarily
high that you can predict who will stay
married by the number of receptors that
they have for I think it's vasopressin
which is one of the bonding hormones so
there's oxytocin and vasopressin are the
two biggest the ones where you're it's
like the cuddle hormones so that's the
kind of feeling over time that you want
to have for somebody why because then
you're more likely to have kids and then
you're likely to raise them long enough
that they have kids because it's not
just having kids it's having kids that
have kids so you have to keep them alive
and all of the crazy things that nature
does to do that are incredible but
nature only has two levers pleasure and
pain and one of those tremendous
Pleasures that nature will give you that
is extraordinarily resilient to
suffering and loss and sadness and all
that is that really deep love not the
early Lusty stuff that's super fun but
like that really deep I have shared a
life I don't know who I am without this
person love that you can have with
another person if you're leveraging all
of that neurochemical cocktail of
soaking in the bonding so that over time
that sense of love is like nothing can
touch it nothing can give me that right
I've made
a lot of money in a single day right
nine figures in a single day I'll let
people go put in a calculator nine
figures of Siege is how much that is in
a single day okay
it's a dope feeling but it's not love
love trumps everything I've ever been
through in my life when it's sustained
and so I put a lot of energy into it a
lot of energy because it gives me back
more than anything else in my life
so you mentioned how nature is
programmed you to have kids who have
kids and you made a personal decision
not to do that uh
why did you opt out of what nature wants
opted out of it we'll get to in a second
but the fact that we can all opt out is
fun because I'm like huh I got you [ __ ]
he's like nature thought she had me but
I'm you know I'm not I'm not playing
that game uh so here's the thing I
really want kids to this day I really
want kids there are Still Moments where
I'll see that thing that's like oh man
it triggers all of my desire to have
kids and I'm like man I am very sad that
I can't both have the life that I'm
living and have the life where I have
kids but I looked at
my life from several different Vantage
points what my wife calls the average
Wednesday so what would an average
Wednesday look like if I had kids and I
Know Myself and I feel a tremendous
amount of obligation in fact part of the
reason that I work as hard as I do at
impact Theory
is I feel an obligation to you guys I
feel an obligation to the team and I
really I take that seriously in ways
that I think most people would be
distressed by and so for me it's like
okay I really need to think about that
if I had kids I would feel a huge
obligation to them to come home and so
one thing that I like about work is that
I don't feel conflicted Lisa and I are
building it together so as I put energy
into this I'm putting energy into
something that I'm doing with my wife so
that doesn't feel like it's fragmented
energy it feels like it's coming
together that was obviously on purpose
I'm building a company that brings many
of my passions not all of them but many
of my passions together so even as I
pursue things that I would do no matter
what I'm also building the business and
I do that because I know I'm gonna feel
that sense of obligation so let me make
sure that I'm doing things that I love
to satisfy the obligation if I had kids
now when I'm at work I would feel like I
should be with my kids when I was with
my kids I should feel like I I would
feel like I should be at work I just
know that about myself so I want to be
really honest and then you don't miss
what you don't have so it's not like I
had a seven-year-old and they died just
never had kids right so kids are uh
thought so I can think and I'll have
those moments sometimes really intense
like oh dude like you see that moment
like have you guys seen that Tick Tock
Trend where it's like they record they
do like the little there's a song and
they like propose to their daughter and
they have the daughter recording she
doesn't realize she's recording herself
and she's like looking at them with like
oh enjoy I'm like oh God like that hits
me right in the fields and I'm like oh
man I want to have a daughter or like
that Jordan Peterson one did you know
that one when they had like kids will
not always be kids they'll grow up and
then they haven't seen it and it's just
like people videoing their kids going up
from like a kid to like five years old
even hearing about that kicks me in the
fields makes a somersault like Lisa says
yes oh yeah yeah my suddenly I have a
uterus as well yeah exactly yeah it that
kind of thing like they really really
hit me so but anyway I can set that
aside because I'm like my marriage is
amazing I fully understand Nature's
trick which is when you have a kid the
child will be your number one priority
and right now Lisa is my number one
priority I don't know that this is a
stat but I'd be willing to bet that
relationships are more likely to break
up or be dysfunctional that's a better
way to say it relationships are more
likely to be dysfunctional if you have
kids so even people that stay together I
think it's a higher likelihood that that
stop being a very
um thriving emotional and sexual
relationship if you have kids so I'm
super thoughtful about that and then
again average Wednesday don't really
like I hate like doing things that kids
want to do and stuff like that I have so
little time it's like I want to do the
things I want to do uh and then when I
look back on my life and walk through
all the different moments because all of
our lives are broken into phases I look
look at the different phases it's not
until I'm in my 60s that I start to go
ooh I think that having kids will like
be pretty important to me and by the
time I'm 80 I will regret it there's no
doubt about that but because I've
thought through it I'll know how to deal
with that frame of reference when I get
there so that I don't get destroyed by
it because it's when people are caught
off guard by a frame of reference and
for explaining a frame of reference is
beyond the scope of this conversation
but when you get to that frame of
reference you see life through that and
when you get caught off guard like by
having a kid and you didn't think
through that well or not having kids and
you didn't think through that well uh at
last check the most unhappy people in
America are mid 30s female lawyers
because they've chosen career over
children and they are now at that moment
where it's like whoa is this really what
I want for my life now maybe other
occupations they love it and it's not a
problem but for whatever reason 35 year
old women
attorneys
it's emotional implosion time so that's
somebody who did not think through what
are the different phases of my life like
it's dope in my early 20s where I'm like
yo I'm proving I could do anything I set
my mind to I'm grinding I'm making a ton
of money this is rad and then you
realize oh wait a second maybe there are
other things that I didn't think through
but if you think through that and you're
like oh in my mid-30s I may want kids
but you know what I'd actually rather
play my career out now at least you're
not taken by surprise so you can plan
around okay I better have a career that
gives me those things thinking through
that I think is very important I know
when I get to 80 that I will be very
grateful that I thought through how my
frame of reference will change and so I
will make plans to be able to Mentor
people to have in fact I'm starting to
do that now
even just in the way that I shift my own
thinking thinking about myself more is
like a father trying to like hey I've
suffered in my life I want other people
to learn easily what I have learned
through great suffering which is of
course what one of the things that makes
being a parent cool it's like hey I can
help you hopefully make your life a
little bit better and so that part of
being a parent I can express in a lesser
way I'm very well aware of that through
the people in the company through the
people that watch the content so being
aware of the how the frames of reference
shift is important but anyway that's how
I have
the way I've thought about pulling a
fast one on mother nature to the extent
that you can but it's a trade-off you
can reboot your life your health even
your career anything you want all you
need is discipline I can teach you the
tactics that I learned while growing a
billion dollar business that will allow
you to see your goals through whether
you want better health stronger
relationships a more successful career
any of that is possible with the mindset
and business programs in Impact Theory
University join the thousands of
students who have already accomplished
amazing things tap now for a free trial
and get started today
what are like three behaviors that you
do to reinforce your love for Lisa that
other people can put into their
relationships okay so this is huge one
don't criticize compliment so when I was
young and you get together and you're in
that relationship and everything is
great but then you start living together
and like that super drug like early day
starts to wear off and all of a sudden
it's all the things that they do that
drive you crazy
and you're like hey could you not do
that you know when you do that it really
bugs me hey oh God stop why are you
doing it like that and I was like wow
when she does it to me that drives me
crazy so I was like you know what every
time I have an Impulse to criticize her
instead I'm gonna reach for a real
compliment I'm never gonna lie I'm not
gonna be us but I'm going to reach for a
real compliment what that does is it
pattern interrupts my own brain so I'm
not reinforcing the negative thing
because it really is negative like the
person really is doing something that
drives you crazy and it probably really
is a dumb thing that if you could wave a
wand to make go away you would and so
it's not even like I'm saying that
annoying thing isn't actually annoying
it is but if I obsess over it all I'm
gonna see is the Annoying Thing whereas
that positive thing is also real so I
want to make sure I'm spending my time
thinking about the positive thing so
don't criticize compliment always make
it real
but spend your time in the compliment
have a lot of sex
just real like even now in my 40s it is
so funny in my late 40s I can think back
to what I was like in my early 20s my
poor wife and like going through that
and thinking oh it's going to be like
this forever it's not like as your
hormones change and I know that I'm only
one testosterone injection from being
right back there but it feels more
manageable whereas before I felt like a
drug addict who couldn't focus it's like
now I feel like hey I have a healthy
relationship with this drug uh if I'm a
recreational user now instead of an
addict which is way better and so being
in that space though I've realized it's
still critically important it is a thing
that is unlike anything else in your
life it's the only person that you have
that relationship with if you're
monogamous and that's not an over vote
for monogamy but monogamy has a really
potent upside
and so being in a monogamous
relationship and knowing that that's my
one outlet for that it you realize that
sex is this fascinating thing that is a
mode that we all go into and Going Back
To Nature wants to make sure that you
have kids that have kids it's like
nature made sure that that was an
awesome thing that is unlike anything
else and so I'm legitimately freaked out
by how much less sex young people are
having now because they're missing out
on something incredibly potent now I'm
only vouching for sex with connection I
won't say that it has to be uh a
marriage because I've had my share of
non-marital sex and it was awesome and
I'm not denigrating that at all but I've
always found that it's way more
enjoyable if it's somebody that you have
a real connection with so but thinking
about it like that it is this mode that
you don't get anywhere else if you have
a spouse and you have what they call Bed
Death that relationship is going to
become dry and brittle that's metaphoric
obviously but that you'll that you'll
get the right idea in your head whereas
if you maintain a sexual relationship
you're constantly Crossing this weird
boundary into like this this completely
unique space that you only have with
that person and nature is squeezing this
neurochemistry that constantly bonds you
brings you back together so that's
hugely important I cannot stress that
enough and then number three you have to
be a high level Communicator you've got
to invest in saying things that you
don't want to say and I think one of the
biggest breakthroughs in my marriage was
when I finally realized that I had to
say out loud anytime insecurity was
driving me because then my wife could
help me and as long as she never
weaponized the insecurity against me now
it's not my wife's problem to solve now
hopefully she can help me overcome that
that would be amazing but it's not she
doesn't need to solve that problem it's
my problem to solve but she can't
weaponize my insecurities against me and
by me articulating them now we know
what's actually going on so we're not
arguing about a surface level thing we
get to the real issue that's driving it
we can both process through that
together and so now you have stupid
fights that last forever you're getting
to the root cause of the issue I mean
this is exactly like in medicine don't
treat the symptom find the underlying
cause but when you are arguing you have
friction in your marriage you have to
figure out the underlying cause and I
promise you it's either a collision of
values so you just you both understand
each other you just disagree that that's
how the world should be it's misaligned
base assumptions so you are viewing the
world in a way that you don't even
realize you're doing it so people don't
realize what their base assumption is
it's just it's what they call an axiom
you just live by it like oh I assume
that that emotion is very distressful
for you so why wouldn't you want to
solve the problem you assume that I know
that it's not uncomfortable to sit in a
negative emotion those are base
assumptions but in reality my base
assumption is you're in so much pain
right now from this emotion the only
thing that makes sense is for us solve
that problem and your base assumption is
dude how can I solve a problem if I
haven't had a chance to sit in it yet
but if we don't say that I'm trying to
solve the problem you're like [ __ ]
just listen right and so when two smart
people are colliding they need to check
their base assumptions first like what's
your base assumption that I need to sit
with this emotion before I can problem
solve I need to problem solve to to even
think straight
cool now we can begin to understand each
other so it's either values it's
misaligned base assumptions or you've
got an insecurity that's driving you and
you either aren't aware of it or you're
not being honest about it and so if you
get that stack right then all of a
sudden communication becomes very easy
but man you've got to be emotionally
naked and that is very very difficult
but it is hyper rewarding if you have a
partner that doesn't use it against you
and so everybody sees how strong you
know your relationship is with Lisa how
amazing it is how deep but then also
people see how amazing your the career
side of it is like your business impact
theory is growing it's thriving and I
just want to know how you balance that
to keep both of them leveled up so
evenly to keep them both growing and
what your advice would be to people who
don't know how to balance their
relationship and their business or their
work so if you want to balance things
you have to know thyself so just a few
days ago I sent Lisa a text that hurt
her feelings and I didn't mean it to I
said hey would you mind if we did this
business thing on a day that was special
for her and I and I even said you're
probably going to hate this idea but
because remember I feel a tremendous
obligation to to work for you guys and
to make sure that the company thrives
and all that so I'm always thinking like
hey this would be really good for the
team now Lisa's role stated role it's
not like she would be confused if she
heard me say this she'd be like yeah
that's my role her stated role is to be
the early warning system because I don't
see the problem coming in the
relationship as quickly as she does so
we refer to it as being disconnected
where I work so much that we start to
feel disconnected so
thank you for saying that people see my
relationship as thriving and I would say
that it is but it's because we have
these bumpers and I'll bump up against
it as I did just a few days ago and I
sent that thing and said hey let's do
this business I know this is that really
special day for us but let's do this
because I think it'd be good for the
team and she said hey that hurts my
feelings that you would even ask because
it makes me feel not heard and not
understood because 2022 was the hardest
year of my business life and for eight
months she let me work
120 hours a week that's not even getting
a full night's sleep that's working
around the clock seven days a week I
mean it's it's pandemonium and I do not
recommend it I'm not proud of myself for
doing it was actually a result of
mistakes do I think I'm a badass for
doing it yes but do I think it was a
problem of my own making very much so so
my wife was very understanding through
that now I promised her that I would
find my way back to her which I did and
so but now she's very gun shy of like
hey I gave you Grace and latitude for
eight months and now you want to do a
work thing on our special day that makes
me feel very unheard now if either thing
happens poorly in that moment we have a
problem but Lisa and I do that movement
well she speaks up and says hey it
bothered me that you even asked and I'm
like oh damn like I don't like that it
bothers you that I ask because your role
is to play that person where I can say
hey let's do this and you say early
warning don't do that so she had to be
graceful in that moment and say cool I'm
not going to double down I'm not going
to be angry let's not do that as the
early warning system I'm telling you we
can't do it and then if in that moment
I'm like yo what the [ __ ] like come on
this will be better for the business I
thought we were in this together then
she's going to feel abandoned in the
marriage so I'm like hey your stated
role is to be the one to say nope that
will lead to us feeling disconnected and
so when you say it even though I have an
Impulse to go in the opposite direction
and I'm not feeling disconnected and
that feels like a really small thing to
me that's your role word so I'm going to
immediately back off totally I'm
actually sorry that I asked because I
didn't mean to upset you and I totally
get where you're coming from I hear you
like we're on it and so now we just we
move on I'm more thoughtful about okay
fair like the eight months is pretty
intense I totally get what she's saying
that next time I'm gonna try to catch
myself before I ask but if I do she's
not gonna be upset but she is going to
check it and say you can't do that so
it's one understanding it takes constant
maintenance there is no such thing as oh
my marriage is great and it will remain
great forever my marriage is great
because we work on it every single day
now balancing the business in that it
doesn't mean that I give more more time
to my marriage because I don't I give
more time to the business but it does
mean that I prioritize my marriage so if
my wife says hey we can't do that thing
then we're not going to do it like I
will just tell you the CFO pull Lisa and
I was like yo two weeks of Christmas
Crazy Town can't do it and I was like
I'm just telling you right now two weeks
of Christmas every year from now until
the end of time because like the rest of
my life I make it about my business for
two weeks I'm not a businessman I'm a
family man it is what it is
and he was like okay cool like totally
on board I get it but that's one of
those you you have to know like I need
to do this set of 32 things to make sure
that my marriage is always thriving and
they don't always mean the most time now
it's not an accident that Lisa and I
build the company together I would never
be able to work as much as I do if we
didn't and I know this because the first
company that when I got into
entrepreneurship for eight years she
wasn't and it was a nightmare and even
though I worked less it was harder on
the marriage than when I'm working more
now because we're in it together and we
share you know the same stories and the
same people and wants and all that good
stuff I read feeling great you mentioned
it earlier
um and I might inflame the comment
section by saying this but I feel like
if that book exists then like why do
people who read it like don't suddenly
like oh now I'm no longer depressed or
no longer feeling like anxious in that
sense because he lays out all the steps
very clearly so what do you think is the
thing that causes people to just not be
like transformed from reading a book is
it the the number three thing that you
said early in the beginning like just
not enough repetition it just hurts the
first time that they do it so they don't
follow through like what is the thing
that yeah it doesn't work big reason
that people struggle to get out of
depression even if they've read a book
like feeling great
is that
one they aren't
they don't believe the following very
inflammatory statement that you can get
control of your neurochemistry and
they think that it's all in the mind and
they don't realize that it's a far more
complicated Beast than that but because
they don't believe that they can
completely get control of it they will
try a few things early on and stop
now if you have depression and you are
not dealing with the body your
microbiome very specifically then the
odds of you getting out of that
depression are virtually zero and so
even a book as extraordinary is feeling
great is only dealing with the
psychological component of depression
and it is far deeper than that so your
gut controls many of your
neurotransmitters and serotonin so ssris
are selective serotonin reuptake
Inhibitors meaning they keep more
serotonin floating in your body now
seventy percent of the serotonin in your
body is produced and stored in the gut
so if the very chemical that they use to
combat depression is in your gut and
you're not dealing with your gut now you
have a problem but it goes back to what
I call the only belief that matters if
people don't think oh I can control this
then they won't keep going keep going
keep going keep going keep going keep
going until they find that root cause so
they think that this is oh this is that
thing that happened to me a tragedy
befell me and therefore I'm never going
to be able to get out of this this is
because of the trauma that I went
through in childhood yes partly but you
can get out of that you can unwind that
stuff and I am not in any way shape or
form saying this to be flippant I am not
trying to diminish the terrifying grip
that is depression I'm just saying you
have to believe that you can get your
way out of it and yes it is hyper
complicated and having watched Lisa go
through an extraordinary battle with her
microbiome and seeing how complicated it
is to undo all that the psychological
side is already bad enough especially if
it's a result of trauma abuse where that
gets hardwired in I mean that's in your
nervous system in a deep way that is
going to be very complex to unwind but
it starts with believing that you can
unwind it and then doing something like
cognitive behavioral therapy where you
go through I forget how many like it's
like 13 steps and one of the steps is
like the 15 cognitive distortions I mean
it's crazy so it is already a very
complex book just cognitively
psychologically that takes a lot of
repetition which requires you to believe
that it's going to work but then it's
also the very difficult part of getting
your body right sleep exercise diet you
want to talk about hey let's really like
the comment fire on the comment section
on fire remind people that what they eat
is going to influence their microbiome
is going to influence their production
of Serotonin is going to influence their
sleep is going to influence depression
anxiety all of it it just is and if
you're eating junk food you are making
everything worse not a moral judgment
it's just a biological reality now if
you can strip away the moral judgment
and realize you're not a bad person if
you eat junk food but you are a person
that's creating obstacles for feeling
good so all I'm saying is remove the
obstacles now there are people in my
life that I love that put every food
obstacle in their way humanly possible
they are actively in pain and they
actively tell me how much they're
suffering and they actively ask me what
they should do to stop suffering and
they keep doing it does that mean that I
think they are a worse person not in the
slightest I love them just as much I
think they're just as valuable as a
human being and I really wish that they
would remove the moral judgment from
themselves because it is not a moral
question it is 100 entirely a question
of this path leads to one outcome this
path leads to a different outcome pick
the path worthy you like the outcome and
then walk that path and so
people have to recognize I can do that
that there are it is cause and effect
there's nothing uh mythological about
this it's cause and effect but it is
hyper complicated it is both Psychology
and Physiology unwinding that will
almost certainly require that you get
help from professionals and other people
and so the shortest answer in the world
to your question is it's complicated
should we watch this episode
but even that like now how do you go in
and do like Lisa had me by her side and
it still took five years to get back to
Baseline with her microbiome and man
when you're in the thick of it the whole
time you're asking is this actually
going to work
because some days it doesn't feel like
it some days it feels like this is going
to be forever and it's not until you
look back a year and go yeah wow that's
right I actually have 17 more foods that
I can eat now that I couldn't eat before
but I still three days a week have just
absolute agony in my gut and so it's
still this still sucks then two years
you look back and you're like oh wow I'm
only having that two days a week
four years in you're like oh that's
right I only have it occasionally and
then five years and you're like God this
took a very long time there's a lot of
dark days for somebody struggling with
depression but if you don't believe that
you can unwind it if you don't believe
that you're in control even though it's
very complicated then you'll never do it
and having been a victim of something
would be horrible but you now have to
take control and say okay this sucks I
can undo the past but I always can
control how I react to that thing don't
take my word for it read man search for
meaning that is the ultimate form of
abuse he was in a concentration camp
it's like nobody's got a trump card to
play on him right and his punch line is
it's all about how you process it
emotionally so if if you can share with
her in that five years with their days
that Lisa just did not believe oh yeah
well they were the darkest days of my
marriage they were depression they were
me being afraid she was going to die
because she was so sick
there was her being so fed up I don't
even want to try anymore why Try why
bother there's no point
it's like wow that's hard there were
times where she would respond to love
with just rejection and anger it was
like what is happening and so it was
brutal and we didn't know I mean you had
to have Blind Faith that it was going to
work
oh it was gonna work no and there were
times where even I was like I have to
act as if this is going to work but I've
never been through this before and this
is early man we we as like a a
mainstream Society have only known about
the microbiome for like 10 years like a
year before Lisa got sick I'd never even
heard of the microbiome so it's like
dude this stuff is so complex that it it
does feel like a big question mark but I
will just say there is a solution to
every problem so those that judge that
you guys just sleep should often
tomorrow you will feel better again or
like what is like the thing to get back
to
to to base Baseline and not that um
um what do you call it like uh not
exaggeration but like um magnification
of the problem catastrophic thinking
yeah surviving it so the only way to
stop catastrophizing is to pattern
interrupt that not allow yourself to
wallow in that cognitive distortion to
say I'm going to base things on fact
and then have a growth mindset when you
have a growth mindset you have the only
belief that matters which is that if I
put time and energy into getting better
at this thing I will actually get better
at this thing so if I put time and
energy into learning about the
microbiome I will learn about the
microbiome so when I went into it I said
to Lisa look I'm gonna go learn about
the microbiome and I would wake up every
morning and the first thing I would do
is I would spend a couple of hours
researching the microbiome and I just
thought cool I let's say that there's no
doctor in the world that can solve her
problem I'm going to learn enough about
it to do it myself and so when you go
into it with the arrogance of belief and
it's like cool I don't need somebody
else to know this I will put all the
pieces together now thankfully it didn't
end up needing to be that but because I
approached it like that that I'll read
the studies I will learn all of these
things I'll do research if I have to I
will buy a microscope and start doing
laboratory tests but when you approach
something like that which is how I
approach all of life you realize oh I
get it other people don't succeed at
whatever because they're not willing to
be absurd they they're not willing to
say I'll I'll become a Nobel
prize-winning scientist to solve my
wife's problem if you're willing to say
that and actually act in accordance it's
unreal what you can accomplish now
obviously we solved the problem long
before I had to become a Nobel
prize-winning scientist but the fact
that I was willing to move like one the
fact that I was willing to go yeah I can
do this I can become that I'm not yet
I'm I'm gonna have to learn a lot I'm
gonna have to figure out how to read
abstracts and do research and ah
fine I'm not going to let my wife die my
number one priority is making sure that
we get her back on track and then you go
at it like a freak of nature but most
people cannot do the first part which is
to believe that it's [ __ ] possible
and this is what I want to scream to
people is like hey
[ __ ] you are average yes stop being
afraid of that you're average but you
can get better go [ __ ] learn but you
have to be a demon you have to give your
brain and body the impulse adapt or die
[ __ ] I will break you in half
before I give up when I put on the
muscle mass because boy did I used to be
a lot smaller when I would show up to
the gym every day I had to say adapt or
die and I'm just telling myself adapt or
die [ __ ] I will meaning my body
I'm gonna keep pushing you scream and
cry all you want we're doing this and I
would lift to the point I remember one
time this is when I was broke I couldn't
even unlock my car from the door I had
to lean across so open the passenger
side the lean across to the driver's
side and I had worked out so hard that I
couldn't hold up my own weight and I put
my arm in the seat to reach across and
my arm gave out and I literally just
face planted into the seat but you you
have to attack everything you do like
that and when you go that hard you will
be shocked everything will relent to
your Superior will
everything will relent to your Superior
will never forget that the reason most
people fail to achieve their goals is
twofold number one they don't have a
sufficient level of clarity and number
two they don't want it badly enough the
statistic is that 92 of all people that
set a New Year's resolution failed to
stick with it the way that you go from
being in the 92 percent to being in the
eight percent is by having a freakish
level of clarity and building so much
desire in your life that nothing could
stop you even if it tried this is what
you need to do
the clarity piece is really the most
important thing that you can have in
your life and most people have a really
vague sense of clarity but because they
can say in a sense something like I'm
gonna win a gold medal they think they
have the clarity that they need but the
question I would ask somebody that told
me that they wanted to win a gold medal
is a gold medal in what the Olympics yes
Tom I want to win a gold medal in the
Olympics amazing which event swimming or
tennis swimming fantastic the
breaststroke the freestyle medley what's
it going to be you have to get so
specific with your goal that you know
what to do with the next 15 minutes of
your life ultimately success
accomplishing a goal seeing things
through all come down to what you're
doing with your time and what part of
your potential you're turning into
actual usable skill set the only way to
know how to spend your time transferring
your potential into skill set that is to
have a truly granular level of clarity
you cannot stop at the high level and
you can't do what a lot of people do
which is they as the Brits say they
waffle so when they're describing their
goal they either say something like I
want to win a gold medal which we just
covered is hopelessly vague or they say
something that's even worse which is you
know I really want to do something great
with my life I know that I'm capable you
know I was really athletic when I was a
kid and I know that if I applied myself
I could probably really you know
recapture what I was doing that's how
most people describe what they want to
do in life it is terrifying you need to
be able to State what your goal is in a
single sentence with no commas
parentheticals run-ons it needs to be a
very simple and direct goal something
like I'm going to win a gold medal in
the Summer Olympics freestyle medley
swimming event by 2028 whatever once you
have a go goal that is that specific
that contains the what you're going to
do the by when and the how much then you
know that you actually have a real goal
and not a hope not a vague idea but you
have something very concrete and
specific that you can execute against
now remember the goal is to translate
that into what you're going to do with
the next 15 minutes of your life always
and forever on and on and on when you
have something so specific that you know
how to break it down into those
incremental steps you can really begin
to make progress if you've ever heard
the idea of the 10 000 hour principle
it's talking about how we go about
actually achieving Mastery in something
and the punch line is that you spend ten
thousand hours applying yourself in a
disciplined fashion towards your goal
the discipline fashion is born out of
the clarity it's born out of the clarity
of knowing precisely what you're trying
to achieve and by when and knowing how
how to take advantage of I've tried
something it didn't quite work I need to
get a little bit better or this part of
my game is weak I need to focus on
getting better at that thing but again
all of that is born from clarity
and being able to break down that
Clarity into action items which is
absolutely critical because action items
are how we're going to turn our
potential into skill set and that is the
critical chain that you have to walk and
then from there it's about developing
the self-awareness that you need to know
what part of you is improving and what
part of you is not improving so that
brings us to the second thing they don't
want it badly enough the reality is that
most people even if they can get the
clarity that they want in their life
they really just don't want it that
badly most people myself you all of us
the things that we really want the
things that we want as badly as a
drowning man wants their next breath of
air those things those you're going to
get the things where it's like yeah I
want it yeah that would be cool I
promise you it's going to get way too
hard and you're not going to be able to
achieve that and the reason is that the
second law of Thermodynamics is that
everything moves towards chaos so
everything is hard that's the really
simple way of saying it and if we know
that everything is going to be hard then
we have to have a reason that we're
going to overcome that difficulty we
have to have a reason to keep fighting
through the inevitable boredom that
comes from trying to clock our 10 000
hours into actually getting good at
something or even if your goal is more
modest than truly mastering something no
matter what it is even if it's trying to
read a book a week or something like
that inevitably life gets in the way
inevitably we get sick we get tired
other things pop up a goal cannot be the
thing that you hope life doesn't get in
the way of a goal if you want to be in
that eight percent if you want to see
things through a goal has to be the
thing that you absolutely demand of
yourself that you achieve and there
unfortunately is no way around that if
you want to be successful you have got
to be willing to give it your everything
and that is really where we begin to
separate people out I have seen people
far smarter than me with more natural
Talent than me achieve nothing compared
to what I've achieved because they don't
have the willingness to push through the
boredom that goals demand so again let
me restate it you are only going to get
what you absolutely demand of yourself
so you are going to have to put rules
into your life you are going to have to
have an identity about yourself that
does not allow you to give up does not
allow you to slow down or quit and I'm
talking whether you're sick or not for
years I had hanging above my fireplace
the painting of Michael Jordan in the
infamous flu game where the greatest
player of all time even though he had I
believe 102 or 103 degree temperature
continued playing in the finals of that
series they end up winning taking on the
championship ring is absolutely
incredible but it never would have been
if he had had the kind of goal where
well yeah I'm sick so I'm not going to
show up and look I get it a lot of
people think that I'm crazy for pushing
people too hard but I'm telling you
right now this is how you accomplish it
so if you don't want your goal fair
enough I don't make a moral judgment on
people that don't want to achieve big
aggressive goals I completely understand
if you would rather lay back and have a
stress-free life that's a completely
fine moral righteous way to live your
life just be very clear about what you
want that goes back to point number one
once you know what your goal is that
goal then makes demands and you either
live up to those demands or you don't
and the reality is that most people
don't so even when they have the clarity
and they get into it and their kids wake
them up in the middle of the night and
then they're really tired the next day
they wake up late they're rushing out of
the door to get to work they go their
boss is a dick to them they come home
they're super stressed out through all
of that their goal suddenly becomes
unimportant and unfortunately because
life is hard and life is going to punch
us in the face constantly over and over
the only way that you're going to
achieve your goals is if in that moment
you get more aggressive that you have
those rules in your life that are like I
am doing this every day I know that I'm
trying to read X number of books lose X
number of pounds by this date and that
means by the end of this week I need to
have lost a pound or two pounds by the
end of the month I need to have lost
five pounds whatever your goal demands
your goal ultimately will be translated
into math so it is very simple what do
you need to do on this day to achieve
your goal do you do it or not it really
is that cut and dry and if you're
looking over your shoulder for somebody
to save you I can tell you right now
they are not coming no one is coming to
help you this is something that you have
to do for yourself and I hope in hearing
all of this you realize why 92 percent
of people fall into the category of I
gave up I quit I knew what my goal was
or I didn't have enough Clarity but I
didn't do the things that I needed to do
in order to across the Finish Line it
really is that simple now the great news
is it really is that simple if you just
draw those bright lines in your life if
you make those demands of yourself if
you say I simply must do this to be the
person that I want to be and therefore
I'm going to do it even when it's hard
even when it sucks even when it's boring
I'm going to keep doing this and let me
tell you right now even though what I'm
talking about is achieving goals I
promise you one thing if you set a goal
and you achieve it you will gain respect
for yourself and there is nothing that
matters more and I mean nothing there is
nothing that matters more than how you
feel about yourself when you're by
yourself so if you structure your life
in a way where you set a goal that is
two things exciting and honorable
exciting to you you just want to do it
other people have to tell you to do it
you just want to do it right it goes
back to the whole thing you've got to
want it badly enough and if you want it
badly enough then you're going to stick
with it and if you don't then you won't
if it's exciting then the second thing
is that it has to be honorable and by
honorable I simply mean that it uplifts
both you and those around you that's
incredibly important because once you
have that you can give yourself over to
it completely you can build that desire
in your life so that it is a raging
Inferno inside of you that your identity
does not allow you to deviate from the
rules in your life do not allow you to
deviate from and the sheer fact of how
badly you want it doesn't allow you to
deviate from but you've got to go in and
put in the time and energy to build that
desire and the way that you build desire
is by telling yourself that you want it
telling other people that you want it
and embodying the emotion that you want
to feel in order to cement that feeling
inside your mind because if it isn't
visceral when you're bored when you're
tired when life is hard if when you say
to yourself I really want this goal if
you don't actually feel something
positive if you don't actually want it
you will quit if people ever tell you
that quitting isn't an answer you need
to point to them and remind them that
they are a liar because quitting is
always an option quitting is the easiest
answer it is the answer that 92 percent
of people take whenever they're setting
a goal if you don't want that to be you
then you've got to build desire and get
a freakish amount of clarity if you want
to become a better person in one year
there are two things you're going to
need to do change your habits and Define
what you mean by better person so this
goes back to the idea that the most
important thing anyone can have in their
life is Clarity so who is it that you're
actually trying to become the important
thing is to make sure that you know what
your value system is you know what you
value then we know what you're actually
striving towards once you have a goal
that goal makes demands so if you're
trying to be the kind of person that
gets up early so that you can see your
kids before you send them off to school
then you need to be the kind of person
that either deals with fatigue all the
time which I think is a terrible idea I
do not recommend or you need to be the
kind of person that goes to bed early
that's one of the Myriad ways that your
goal is going to mandate your behavior
so whatever it is that you value write
that down figure out what your values
are then we're going to build in habits
that are going to help us actually
become the kind of person that we want
to become so the reality is that you are
a mixture of beliefs habits
rules and values and once you get those
things all put together then you are
doing the things that you want to do and
when you're doing the things that the
person you want to be would do you are
the person you want to be it's one of
those things that it's easier said than
done but it really is that simple so we
want to map all of that out we want to
make sure that we have Clarity we want
to write down what our values are we
want to write down is there somebody
that is like the kind of person you want
to be at least as you perceive them if
there is what are the behaviors that
they do that makes you feel they're the
kind of person that you want to be are
they the kind of person that goes to bed
early are they the kind of person that
gets up early are they the kind of
person that takes their kids to school
are they the kind of person that's
striving to achieve their goals are they
the kind of person that's driven loving
kind compassionate whatever those things
are you want to map them out into a set
of behaviors once you have them mapped
out into a set of behaviors now we're
going to begin putting routines and
habits in place that are going to make
sure that we're doing those things so
going down that list if we want to get
up early we need to go to bed early if
we want to go to bed early then we need
to make sure that we have everything
laid out that's going to allow us to do
that so this is something that I have
worked my ass off in my own life to make
sure that all I have to do on a daily
basis are follow my rules and my habits
so I'll walk you through what my routine
looks like on a daily basis so first of
all I have a rule in my life based on my
goals goals make demands so my goal is
that I'm trying to build the next Disney
to build the next Disney is going to
take a Herculean effort it's going to
require us to generate a lot of Revenue
to build out a lot of Ip all of that
stuff then makes demands on me so to
meet the needs of what I'm trying to
build Monday through Friday if I'm awake
I'm either working or working out now
because my marriage is actually my
highest value which I've mapped out
since my marriage is my highest value on
the weekends the then I'm going to spend
my primary time being a husband that's
incredibly important for me to remember
what my value system is so when those
two things are colliding I know which is
a priority now I have three big
priorities you can think of number one
as my marriage number two is my purpose
which is work and then number three is
my family they're in that order and I
execute against them in that way it is
not a mistake that my wife and I are
building a company together it was a way
for me to integrate my wife into my
purpose to make sure that when I was
pursuing one I was not pulling away from
the other so again my goal made demands
and I'm building habits around that so
habit number one is that from the moment
I wake up until the moment I go to bed
Monday through Friday I'm either working
or working out so I've got all of that
laid out so right next to my bed or my
workout clothes so that as soon as I
wake up I'm putting on my workout
clothes so there's not another step
that's going to be required for me going
and getting that workout in more or less
the first thing that I do do is I go and
work out so I get dressed I head into
the gym I get my workout in that way the
day is not going to get carried away
because I found if I had a habit of
trying to work out later that the day
had a habit of getting in the way and
making that very difficult and now I was
competing with being tired at the end of
the day and still trying to stick with
the gym so I'm being honest with myself
about what I'm like and since I know
that I'm likely to get fatigued as the
day wears on I created that habit of
making sure that I got to work out first
thing in the morning once I finished my
workout I have a whole thing around
cognitive optimization I'm not going to
walk you through every detail but I do
the things that I need to do to be
cognitively optimized including
meditation fasting and things like that
but very quickly after I'm done working
out I'm gonna get to work and I have the
things that I get to work I have another
habit around that that I use that I call
my important things list I want to be in
the habit of knowing what I'm going to
be doing I don't want to be in a
position where I'm having to think about
what I should be doing next because when
you're in that position you're wasting
time so I spend some of my cognitive
optimization time in meditation which
allows me to do something I call
thinkitation which is basically where
I'm letting my mind wander across a very
specific problem that I have set for
myself and then I take notes on that
part of that note-taking often is making
sure that my priorities are in the right
order and then when I'm done with that
I'm just executing I'm going down that
important things list which are listed
in order that they should be executed on
that is one of the most important habits
you can build into your life is to not
be afraid to prioritize to keep that
list in priority order and so many
people are afraid to say this is number
one this is number two and this is
number three so they start doing things
like I have a three-way tie for the
number one position that is total BS it
absolutely does not work I'm telling you
right now now you must be completely
unafraid to set priorities to say this
is more important than that until you
can do that you are going to struggle in
your life to make progress because the
reality is that you cannot do two things
at one time you may be able to very
rapidly shift between different tasks
but you're always going to be doing one
thing at a time and so you want to make
sure that you're doing them in the right
order that again is one of the most
important habits that you can get to a
big part of the success that I've had is
because I am hyper efficient with my
time in fact it is very fair to say that
I am obsessed with efficiency that I am
constantly looking at am I doing things
in the right order if I do this thing
will it make thing number two and thing
number three easier that's often how I
judge what should go in the number one
position but make sure that you're in
the habit of breaking things down in
priority order and then executing
relentlessly against those and not
allowing yourself to get distracted this
is exactly exactly why I have that rule
in my life where if I'm awake I'm either
working or working out it creates a very
bright line for me so that I know if I'm
in accordance with what I should be
doing or I'm not and I'm never sitting
there thinking of what I should be doing
in those Prime hours of course at some
point you have to think about it but I
saved those early hours for execution I
do not want to be trying to come up with
a list of things to do I want to be just
boom right into execution mode so so
that is the one of the most useful
things that you can begin to put in your
life after that you need to have an hour
at which you allow the outside world to
begin to come into your world so I don't
take my first meeting until 8 30 a.m I
used to have it even later than that but
we've gotten into a period now at the
company where there's just too many
things to do and so I have let it
encroach a little bit but having said
that I'm up usually around 3 30 to 4 30
a.m so I have four to five hours
sometimes before I have my first meeting
and most days I actually don't take my
first meeting until nine or ten o'clock
so I push that as late as I can the
reason that I do that and the reason
that I think that this is one of the
most important habits that you could put
in your life if you're trying to improve
yourself is because the odds of somebody
other than you knowing what you should
be doing with your time to achieve your
custom-made goals is effectively zero so
the first thing that you do is pick up
your phone and check your email you're
saying hey I don't know what I should be
doing with my time so let me see what
somebody else thinks I should be doing
with my time or if you pick up your
phone and you start Doom scrolling right
away you're letting people take up your
cognitive real estate using social media
can be insanely powerful I myself use it
I'm probably on social media at least an
hour a day but I have very specific
moments when I allow myself to use it
and I have very specific tasks that I go
on there to do either to learn something
or to broadcast something so you want to
make sure that you are being very
thoughtful about once you let other
people into your space into your either
your mind or onto your to-do list that
it is at that point the right moment to
do that because you've already moved
your most important things through
you've already got your agenda moving as
fast as it can and then you're opening
yourself up to the outside feedback now
depending on what you're trying to do in
your life that may not be at 8 30 or 9
or 10 in the morning that might be at
four or five PM now I understand that
most people given the nature of your job
that's not going to be possible but I
just want to make sure that whatever
you're trying to do that you carve out
time in the very beginning to be
executing those are going to be your
Prime cognitive hours you want to make
sure that you get something done now
food is a huge part of this equation
it's beyond the scope of this answer to
really go deeply into that but I will
say any habit that cognitively optimizes
you is going to be absolutely critical
so you want to make sure that you're
getting sleep you want to make sure that
you're eating healthy and just I'll
round that to Whole Food whenever
humanly possible and do not eat sugar
minimize that as much as humanly
possible and then meditate exercise and
work out if you're doing that basket of
things you are going to be able to be at
your best cognitively now for whatever
reason it's become so bizarre in society
where we are celebrating people that are
not pushing their physical limits and
I'm just telling you right now I don't
pass any moral judgment on anybody that
decides that they don't want to do that
but I will tell you one thousand percent
you are holding your life back you will
not be able to think clearly you will
not be able to perform efficiently you
won't even be able to be pain-free which
is going to be its own level of hell and
distraction and so while I don't think
you're a better person if you work out I
certainly don't think you're a worse
person if you don't you are certainly
not going to achieve all that you could
achieve if you don't make massive
demands of your body you are having a
biological experience that is simply the
truth of the matter and I know that this
bothers a lot of people but that's just
the reality you're not going to get
around it and so if you ignore the
biological reality of what you eat how
you exercise how you sleep taking care
of your mental health through meditation
and eating well which is arguably the
most detrimental thing you can do to
your mental health is eat poorly I mean
that from a depression standpoint I mean
that from an anxiety standpoint I used
to have profound debilitating anxiety I
thought it was going to be something
that was happening in terms of the way I
was thinking as it turns out it was from
something I was drinking so not alcohol
just diet energy drinks were the bane of
my existence and I had no idea until I
finally stopped drinking them and
realized oh my God that was the root of
70 plus percent of my anxiety and simply
eliminating that from my diet I had a
profound impact on my performance so be
very thoughtful about habits around that
so ultimately it boils down to defining
exactly who you want to be what are the
behaviors that the person who is like
who you want to be would do and then do
those things and the way to do that is
to put rules and habits in your life to
make sure that you execute against those
I gave you the ones that I use in my
life the last thing I will say is that I
go to bed early and I don't use an alarm
so those are the things that roughly get
you there and then I will just say as a
very oblique parting reference that
don't fail to have people in your life
that you love and that love you back
there is nothing sweeter despite all of
my intensity around goals and I think
it's so amazing there is a reason that
my marriage is my number one priority
and not even my purpose and
accomplishment so be very thoughtful
about who you emulate be very thoughtful
about what you decide to make a habit
because the things you repeat really
will become who you are once you get
initially started in the pursuit of your
goal of trying to improve yourself and
become something more something better
the key is consistency and
follow-through consistency and
follow-through you become what you
repeat the reason that anybody
successful becomes successful is because
to quote Winston Churchill they can go
from failure to failure without a loss
of enthusiasm the problem is the human
animal has chosen a tactic of using
culture in order to have generational
progress so a horse will come out doing
all the things that a horse can do in 20
minutes but horse culture doesn't
progress because they come hardwired
with everything and they have for
thousands of years and they make no
progress whereas humans a generation 10
000 years ago invented the wheel and
we're all still using it now but in
taking that strategy what ends up
happening is that you really do become
the thing that you repeat the thing that
you do consistently and if you begin
slacking off of that then you don't end
up making that progress you certainly
can't maintain that progress so you have
to be very very thoughtful about what
you repeat because it is going to have a
profound impact on your life now the
vast majority of people end up just
breaking they end up quitting the reason
that I've had the kind of success that
I've had in my life is simply because I
understand that iteration is how we make
cultural progress it's what I call the
physics of progress most people when
they're running the physics of progress
when they get to the point where they
have to evaluate their results they end
up lying to themselves and making it
somebody else's fault now the physics of
progress are really simple it's the
scientific method we contextualized for
whatever goal you're trying to achieve
and it goes like this you come up with a
hypothesis if you have information that
can inform the hypothesis that is much
better but if you don't when you're
beginning call it your best guess you're
taking your best guess is how you go
from where you are to achieving your
goal there is inevitably going to be an
obstacle in your way and your best guess
is about what do I need to do to
overcome that obstacle to make
meaningful progress towards my goal then
you're going to turn that hypothesis
into something that you can actually do
then you're going to turn that you're
going to actually go do that thing and
then you're going to get a result from
that thing it is almost certainly going
to fail to some extent which is fine
because failure is the most information
Rich data stream on planet Earth but you
have to learn from the failure to learn
from the failure you have to be willing
to admit that you made one most people
will not admit that they made a mistake
and so they get stuck at that level and
in that moment they say it was the world
it's because I was born in the wrong
time my parents were dumb the world
doesn't want somebody who looks like me
to succeed whatever excuse they use to
make it somebody else's fault now
remember the most terrifying thing about
excuses is that they are valid I'm not
saying that those things aren't real I'm
not saying that the world isn't trying
to hold some people back I'm just saying
it doesn't matter you have to overcome
it no matter what so in the moment where
you tried this thing and it didn't work
don't spend your time and energy
focusing on how something else stopped
you even though I I will grant you it's
true the world is trying to stop
everybody from doing everything it just
is the reality accomplishing something
meaningful is freakishly difficult so
don't focus on that it's more difficult
for you it just doesn't matter you're
just gonna have to work harder you
either want to accomplish that thing in
your life or you don't and you're going
to give up that's the reality the people
that get what they want are the people
that absolutely demand that they're
going to keep going until they get that
thing so in that moment when you're very
tempted to focus on how other things
have stopped you you're not going to
what you need to do is be consistent so
in that moment you're going to say what
could I have done differently to get a
better result and that's when the
physics of progress Loops now you come
up with a more informed hypothesis you
learned your lesson you figure out what
you need to do that's going to be a
little bit better than last time you
turn that into a thing that you can do
you do that thing it will fail to some
extent you stare nakedly at your
inadequacies you figure out what you
need to do to make it a little bit
better and the process just begins again
that is why you have to be consistent
but the reality is that most people
break most people cannot go from failure
to failure without a loss of enthusiasm
they end up breaking they end up
thinking that either there's something
wrong with them or that the world is
against them and because they don't want
to deal with the pain and suffering of
having to face their own inadequacies or
they give up because they just think the
world is against them they don't make
progress because you have to be able to
fail a lot to learn from those failures
if I'm right that humans as a species
have chosen culture as the learning
mechanism then you have to run the loop
that culture demands which is to try
something it fails you iterate you get
better that works at the societal level
over Millennia and it works at the
individual level in an acute thing where
you just have to figure out why didn't
that work and keep going but the truth
is difficulty boredom struggle pain
breaks almost everyone that it touches
and I will remind us all 92 percent of
people fail to achieve the goal they set
for themselves and the reason is that
all of that difficulty just stops people
because they don't have the right
mindset they don't realize that they
need to fail they don't realize that
failure does not make them a failure so
you're going to have a ton of failure in
your life you have to contextualize it
as the most advantageous thing that
could happen to you so when I fail it
stings it sucks I hate it I want
everything that I do to work the first
time and I want to make maximum progress
as fast as humanly possible but once I
realized that just isn't the way that
things work and even people like Elon
Musk who I think are abnormally
intelligent they realize oh I have to
fail a lot I have to try things and see
what works and what didn't there is no
way around being in the messy middle
there's no way to think or hypothesize
you're your way to what's going to work
the best you have to get in there and
try things even somebody that's thinking
philosophically has to be able to get in
there and battle their ideas and take
their ideas out to other people even
Einstein went out and made sure that his
ideas were battle tested not only
through experimental physicists but also
just his friends that were other people
that were able to beat up his ideas and
poke holes in them and if you're not
willing to put your ideas to the test if
you're not willing to try things and see
what fails then you you will forever be
stuck thinking and not making any
progress you really want to be doing be
a doing machine somebody that's out
there trying but that means you have to
risk embarrassment and embarrassment is
one of the things that destroys so many
goals because people don't want to admit
that they were struggling people don't
want to admit that they were having a
hard time and so they either don't tell
people about the goal which is a huge
mistake you want to tell as many people
as you can it's part of the process of
building desire you want to tell people
I'm going to do this thing and it really
matters to me and I'm going to
accomplish it by this date now all eyes
are on you but that's one of the ways
you're going to stick to what you're
doing and if the whole point is that you
have to repeat repeat be resilient be
greedy stick with it try fail try fail
over and over and over as you get better
at overcoming those obstacles then you
have to be willing to push through all
of that difficulty to know why you're
doing the things you're doing and to
understand that that's just the process
so guys I'm telling you if you really
want to achieve something absolutely
powerful in your life you've got to be
persistent if you haven't already be
sure to read the book grit by Angela
Duckworth it's an amazing expose on how
to be gritty if you're not already the
process that I use for achieving my
goals is really simple first and
foremost you want to make sure that you
cognitively optimize I cannot stress
that enough so much of my life is about
doing things things to make sure that my
brain is working well they look like
this number one get sleep do not use an
alarm most people set an alarm stop I
built it three multi-million dollar
companies one of those being a billion
dollar company all without setting an
alarm do I occasionally set an emergency
alarm for something like a 4 AM flight
yes but for the most part I don't use an
alarm I'm talking like 99 of my days I
do not set an alarm I want to make sure
that I get all of the sleep that my body
needs why because I'm able to be more
efficient people mistake grinding around
the clock and becoming less efficient
because they're tired with actually
getting more done what you want to do is
make sure that you have a very high
output of achievement per waking hour so
I check in with myself about every three
hours to make sure that I'm being
productive if you're not being
productive nothing else matters so go to
bed early I go to bed at 9 00 PM I don't
use an alarm I typically we sleep six to
seven hours that's changed if you've
heard other content where I say five to
six hours right now I'm in a cycle where
I'm sleeping closer to my average is
probably just under seven hours so I
never know what that's going to be it
tends to be regulated by the amount of
stress in my life so I'm getting roughly
seven hours of sleep so that means that
if I go to bed at 9 00 PM I'm up at 4am
I have a rule in my life that if I'm
awake Monday through Friday I'm either
working or working out I give myself
only 10 minutes to get out of bed why
because I struggle to get out of bed
just is a thing it's always been a thing
for me from the time I was a kid my dad
would have to drag me out of bed in the
morning to there was a period in my
early to mid 20s where I was laying in
bed four to five hours a day and just
could not bear to get out of bed it's
absolutely ridiculous even I am
completely scandalized by the reality
that to this day despite all of the
things that I've accomplished I have to
fight myself just to get out of bed so
that's a reality I accept that so I gave
myself a rule that I had to be out of
bed in 10 minutes or less right next to
my bed I keep headphones so I put my
headphones on I begin researching the
second I wake up so I'm researching uh
technically this gets into a long thing
right now I'm in a phase where I
actually read while I sleep long story I
don't think you get things subliminally
that's not that but I do find that it
helps me stay asleep I don't necessarily
recommend that for everybody but just by
way of being completely transparent in
terms of what my routine looks like for
achieving my goals from the second I
wake up I'm researching something that
matters to me I immediately put on my
gym clothes I head to the gym right away
I work out I then meditate after I
meditate I do something I call
thinkitating the reason that I do these
two things one meditation is a good way
to get your stress and your anxiety down
to zero the reason you want to do this
is cognitive optimization if you are
feeling frantic if you are constantly in
fight or flight your brain is not going
to function as well as it could what is
happening when you go into fight or
flight is the blood is literally leaving
your prefrontal cortex the prefrontal
cortex is the seat of higher level
cognition it's where you future plan
it's where you maintain your discipline
and so when you're in that fight or
flight stage you don't have the blood in
the prefrontal cortex in the way that
you need to which is why people end up
cheating on their diet it's why they end
up not sticking with their goals and
persevering so you want to make sure
that you're taking the time to meditate
to lower your stress lower your anxiety
and then there's a hidden benefit to
meditation which is why I follow that
sort of almost seamlessly into
thinkitation which is where I stay in
that meditative posture I keep my
meditative breathing going I'm staying
in that cognitive space because when you
are meditating if you're just coming
back to the breath very simple practice
my meditation practice is dead simple
it's literally what I call Just Breathe
so as my mind wanders I remind myself to
come back to the breath to just breathe
my mind wanders again back to the breath
wanders back to the breath wanders back
to the breath it's tragic how rapidly my
brain begins to wander but I just keep
bringing it back now when I do that
enough I get into a calm and creative
state when I'm in a calm and creative
state unique areas of my brain begin to
talk to each other and so I will come up
with very interesting solutions to
problems that I won't get when I'm not
in that state so this is why people will
often say I need to sleep on that
problem because your brain goes through
that cycle that's very much like a
meditative State as you're falling
asleep and then waking up again you pass
through a very similar state so I will
call that calm and creative so once I'm
in that calm and creative state now I
begin to get these I give myself a
problem to solve before I sit down to
meditate so I know what I'm working on
it's tied to my important things which
we'll get to in a minute but I sit there
and I know what the problem is going to
be that I'm going to start working on
when I'm in that column and creative
state and then I'll allow myself to take
notes as interesting ideas come up I'm
going to journal on that which I would
not do during the meditative part where
I'm just coming back to the breath back
to the breath back to the breath and I
do that for as long as I need to to get
to zero stress zero anxiety calm
creative once I'm there maybe five
minutes maybe 20 minutes maybe 45
minutes if I'm really stressed out but
once I'm there then I move over into
thinkitation and I begin noodling on
those hard problems once I finish that
then I'm going to go into my important
things now how do I know when to stop
thinkitating and move on to important
things I have found that at some point I
begin running out of really fruitful
novel ideas and once I feel like I'm
kind of trying to force it then I'm like
all right let's just now move into
executing on my important things so now
that I'm in my important things which is
a list that I keep constantly maintained
so I know the top things are that I
should be working on so I'm not spending
that time thinking about what I should
be doing I just go straight into
execution mode so then I start going
down the list doing them in order now
the way to execute on something is very
much in order so first thing you're
going to do everything on that thing
that you can do until you've pushed it
as far as you can go and now you're
waiting on other people and then you're
going to move on to the next thing
you're going to do everything that you
can on that until you're waiting on
other people and then you're gonna push
it off so on and so forth down your list
now my important things list is
predicated on my goals so the very
important thing to understand about the
nature of goals is that they make
demands if you want to win a
championship in swimming then you need
to do the things that a swimmer trying
to win a gold medal by a certain date
would need to do it's going to dictate
how you eat how you sleep how you train
who you talk to how you think all of
that stuff and so you have to one get
good at identifying what your goals
demand and then two you have to be good
at actually sticking to the things your
goals demand which this is where most
people fall down because it gets boring
it gets difficult so you've got to be
able to push through all right so I work
my way down my important things list
once I finish doing that then I because
I'm the CEO of a company at that point
then I'm going to begin to engage with
my team I'm usually working for about
four to five hours on the things that I
know that I should be doing to have the
highest most efficient impact on the
company and then because I know a big
part of my job is orchestrating people
making sure that they're focused on the
things that they should be answering
questions and the like then I go and I
engage with the company and then I take
meetings based on what's important and
how time aligns it just is what it is I
take meetings until 6 PM I try to cut
off there's one meeting that I have a
week because we're dealing with a
company in China that goes until 7 30 at
7 30 uh it's only one day a week that I
do that most of the time my last meeting
ends at six and then for the rest of
time for the next three hours I go back
and into my mode of controlling my time
making sure that I'm working on things
that I need to do including making sure
that my important things list is up to
date that I'm working on all the loose
ends for the day to make sure that
everybody has what they need to start
the next day all that good stuff which
gives me the ability in the morning to
take advantage of my Peak cognitive
ability now one of the reasons that I've
ended up structuring my day like that is
because I found that in the morning I'm
super sharp I've got these creative
ideas I'm able to really make progress
create space for myself whereas in the
evenings I'm a little bit slower I'm not
quite as efficient as I am early in the
day and so it remains easy for me to be
reactive but it's much harder for me to
be proactive that's just me maybe you're
the complete opposite structure your day
around you so in the evenings I can
remain very useful as I respond to
people's questions and things like that
as I comb over my important things list
all of those things I find it much
easier to do in the evenings and then
the last hour or before I go to bed
whenever I can and this unfortunately
breaks apart sometimes but whenever I
can I want that last hour to be work but
to be something I'm really excited about
now you want to be very thoughtful about
how you structure your life because you
should love what you're working on now I
know that that can be very difficult as
somebody who has a periods in my life
absolutely hated my job I completely
understand but you want to push yourself
to get to the point where you at least
have a part of your job that you
absolutely love so that's how I spend
that last hour of my day is only working
on when I can something that I'm really
excited about and that helps combat
fatigue and it also helps me get ready
for bed because you don't want to be
dealing with something super stressful
as you're getting ready for bed and
another thing that I do just by way of
sleep hygiene is that I make sure that I
am not getting blue light into my eyes
towards the evenings I think that's very
important so starting three hours before
I go to bed I'm wearing blue blocking
glasses my computer is set to go into
night mode so at Sun rise the blue light
comes back on and at Sunset the blue
light turns off I think that kind of
thing can be very advantageous as for my
diet which is another key part of
cognitively optimizing I do intermittent
fasting seven days a week 365 days a
year including Christmas Day and I do
that because it makes me feel better so
it's not even for vanity or to be cool
it's just I feel better when I do that
so I do I average I track this for about
18 months every day and it averaged 17
hours including weekends holidays and
all that so there of course times where
that window is more narrow but the least
man the least I knowingly go to is 14
hours so that's the least amount of time
that I'll go between my last meal and my
first meal the next day like I said even
on a Christmas day or something like
that I'm gonna have at least the 14 hour
window again just to protect my stomach
and make sure that I feel great and that
will on the weekdays mean that I'll go
sometimes 18 19 sometimes 20 hours
without a meal before I eat and I eat my
last meal at about 2 p.m sometimes a
little before sometimes a little after
but that's roughly there and then I
don't have my next meal till eight nine
sometimes ten eleven o'clock so that is
my process and I think that there's a
lot of things that virtually everybody
could use from that to build a very
effective process you can reboot your
life your health even your career
anything you want all you need is
discipline I can teach you the tactics
that I learned while growing a billion
dollar business that will allow you to
see your goals through whether you want
better health stronger relationships
more successful career any of that is
possible with the mindset and business
programs in Impact Theory University
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started today
if you want to really make progress in
your life one of the keys is going to be
to track that process now the way to
think about getting better is you want
to get incrementally better the problem
is if you're trying to get incrementally
better you're basically going to stand
still so you want to be asking the
famous question that Peter Thiel asked
which is how do I make my 10-year plan
happen in the next six months when you
start thinking like that it really does
shift your thinking into having a
radically different approach I think one
of the big problems that people have
when they're trying to make progress is
they set a goal that's quote unquote
realistic and when it's realistic it's
not very exciting I teach a whole class
on the process of setting goals and one
of the things that I tell people is you
have to set goals that are exciting
there's a whole bunch of research on
this that shows the people that are most
likely to stick with their goals are the
people that set a goal that is truly
exciting to them the goals that are
going to be exciting are going to be big
goals that's just the way the human mind
is wired I'm telling you you right now
there is an evolutionary imperative that
has been embedded in your brain and
there's no way around it that demands
that you do hard things I think from an
evolutionary perspective that makes
sense because Staying Alive was hard and
if we didn't get an intrinsic emotional
reward from doing hard things we would
have died out so we are all the
ancestors of people that got off a
little bit on doing hard things so when
you don't do hard things you don't get
that positive feedback loop you feel a
sense of dis-ease and so many people
have that sense of unease and they think
that I need to go retire and my life
needs to be more relaxed I need to be in
a beach somewhere this all sucks it's
not true at all I'm telling you right
now the thing that you need to do is
find meaning and purpose and go after it
go after it in a big way set yourself a
crazy goal that you really believe in
that you really think life would be
better if I do this thing if I achieve
this and even if I fail man I would have
spent my life well true trying to
contribute to that if you build your
life around that and go all out man
trying to make something that you really
believe and come true to bend the world
to your will to close your eyes and
imagine a world that is better than this
one open your eyes and then execute to
make that world come true you will love
your life that's the key to find
something that you really believe in and
then go all out after it now to track
all of this progress you really do want
to be journaling writing things down
checking things off how many days did
you stick to what you said you were
going to do this can be such a an
amazing way to gamify your own life is
it just have a calendar digital or
physical go through and mark off the day
did you do what you said you were going
to do yes or no and then tally up for
the week for the month for the year what
percentage of days did I do what I said
I was going to do now in this moment you
can lie a hundred percent you can lie
but if you lie when you look at that
calendar you're not going to feel the
way you want to feel you're going to
feel like a liar you're going to know
that you're a fraud the whole idea is to
feel a certain way when you look at that
calendar to be like I did the thing that
I said I was going to do and I feel
really awesome about that so it is truly
one of those things the only person that
you're going to cheat if you're lying
about this is yourself so come up with
whatever way you can to track this stuff
whether it's a spreadsheet whether it's
checking things off in a calendar if I'm
completely honest about what I do I
check in with myself every three hours I
don't keep a written tally but I do
reward myself emotionally whenever I do
the thing I said I was going to do so
the first one for me is did I get out of
bed in 10 minutes or less if I did I get
to feel good about myself if I didn't
two things happen one I don't get to
feel good about myself and I give myself
that job in the ribs you said you were
going to do it and you did not do it and
then number two I will confess to my
wife or here to the community out there
that I didn't do that day I didn't meet
my goal and so by checking in with
myself in real time I'm able to see the
other is when you're setting goals it is
absolutely critical that all of your
goals have a metric associated with them
so that you know the exact metric that
you want to hit so you know if you're
making progress so often when people get
into the physics of progress they didn't
set a metric by which they're going to
judge their goal so they don't actually
know if they're making progress you want
your goals to be specific you want your
goals to have metrics the reason that I
emphasize that so much is most people
avoid metrics they avoid dates they
avoid those specifics because then they
and others will know if they're actually
making progress if you don't want the
specifics it means you're not actually
interested in the actual progress you're
interested in the fiction of feeling
better about yourself by saying that you
have this really cool goal and so one of
the things that I'm constantly checking
with myself is did I live up to the
rhetoric meaning I'm telling people I
want to do this cool thing or did I
actually show up and play to win did I
leave it all out on the field so do not
think that rhetoric is actual
achievement talking about something is
nothing did you actually make progress
and to be honest even trying even though
I actually do think and this is complex
but I actually do think you should
emotionally reward yourself only for the
sincere Pursuit but when you're thinking
about tracking progress you need to be
naked and raw about whether you're
actually making progress now the reason
it's so important to do that is if
you're not making progress you need to
adjust this goes back to the physics and
progress you're staring nakedly at your
inadequacies you're asking what could I
have done differently to get a better
result and if in that moment you don't
have a metric to judge yourself against
you don't know how to better inform your
next hypothesis so the goal of trying
something is to learn something that
gives you a better thing to to do and
when you do that you make more
meaningful progress and when you don't
make that meaningful progress you need
to understand why but it really does
come down to what gets measured gets
improved what gets measured gets
improved if you don't have the
measurement you won't know whether
you're making progress you won't have
the emotional sting that you need to
force yourself to actually dig in and
figure this out so gamify and make sure
that you have metrics you do those two
things and you will make massive
progress if you want to know if you're
setting the bar too high or too low when
it comes to goal setting I will just
tell you this right now you're setting
the bar too low everybody's setting the
bar too low if you think about the crazy
things that people have accomplished
whether it's in I think it's 64 years or
something we went from the Wright
brothers flying a plane for the first
time to landing on the moon
64 years it it that's an impossibly
small amount of time to think that
somebody would have been alive at the
time like you could have been 20 at the
time the Wright brothers flown and said
we're gonna go to the Moon by the time
I'm 85 and been right but imagine how
many people would have told you that you
were out of your mind there is so much
literature on this it's just beyond
reproach the people that set the most
aggressive goals are the ones that end
up achieving their goals now the reason
is because there is complexity here the
reason is that it gets you excited
enough to go out and pursue this thing
to be able to attract other people to
your goal that's a huge thing that
you're going to learn if you have a goal
that's really exciting and when people
think about getting meaning and purpose
in their life and they think about oh my
God I could be a part of a team that
that takes us to the moon or I could be
a part of a team that terraforms Mars or
I could be a part of a team that ends
world hunger or deals with climate
change whatever the thing is it gets you
excited when it is a giant gigantic goal
it actually motivates people now you
also the people that achieve their goals
have a path to getting there so it can't
be a pipe dream you have to actually
know how you're going to March towards
that thing and if it's a business you
need to know how you're going to
generate Revenue all along the way it is
incredibly difficult but you do want to
make sure that you're setting a bar that
is within the realm of physics you don't
want to be throwing something so far
into the trees that it is literally
impossible if you have to invalidate the
laws of physics I will tell you that
that's not very interesting and then one
thing that you want to also think
through is is it something that you
could achieve in your lifetime and if
it's not something you could achieve in
your lifetime are you okay being
somebody that's going to lay a brick
towards building that thing and there's
that old adage that you want to plant
trees under whose shade you will never
sit so there is very many honorable
things that people could do that they're
not going to reap the old ultimate
benefits of that they understand that
they're only going to be one brick in
that wall think about all the people
that have given their entire
professional careers to solving cancer
which remains unsolved countless amazing
Brilliant Minds have given themselves
over that completely knowing all they're
going to do is Lay one brick in what
will ultimately be the you know the
building that is that solution but be
honest think about that but make sure
that you have a path to get there that's
the key it's got to be exciting and
you've got to see a path but you want to
make sure that you're really going after
something that's going to inspire you
for the long run because remember the
reason that most people quit is because
they are broken by how boring and
difficult things get so when you ask
yourself in the grips of that difficulty
that suffering that comes along with
pursuing a goal you actually care about
you are going to ask yourself why am I
doing this why am I doing this and if
the answer isn't compelled telling
you're going to quit so make sure that
you come up with a goal that's big
enough that when you ask why you know
exactly why and you'll keep pushing it's
inevitable when you're pursuing your
goals that you're going to find yourself
in a rut and you are not going to want
to stick to what you're doing the most
important thing is to identify is this a
pattern in your life so many people love
the beginning of something they love
that excitement that initial Fascination
when everything is new and it just feels
Limitless and everything feels possible
they haven't gotten that first punch in
the mouth that comes with really trying
to get good at something and accomplish
something when life is going to get
complex it's going to get in your way
you're going to fail you're going to
embarrass yourself all that stuff so in
that moment you've got to make sure that
you are going to push yourself through
that get out and get to the other side
it is inevitable that in your pursuit of
a goal that you care about you are going
to end up getting in a rut in that
moment most people give up I'm going to
tell you what you need to do if you want
to be part of the eight percent that
actually sees their goals through you
need to fall back on process so many
people want to fall back on motivation
but the reality is that motivation is
not going to be there for you just the
vast majority of the time the vast
majority of the time you're going to be
bored things are going to be hard you're
going to be tired it's going to be
complex and in that moment you just need
to run a process you need to have habits
that you can rely on to get you through
I've talked about them before but just
to recap you want to make sure that
you're cognitively optimizing you want
to make sure that you have your
important things list you want to make
sure that you're doing things in order
you want to make sure that you have
rules in your life that you stick to you
want to be leveraging your identity that
you're the kind of person that sticks
with things and then you want to have
habits and routines that you're just
going to loop around day after day after
day that you know are moving you towards
your goal to get to your goal it really
is about persistence consistency
metrics so you know whether or not
you're making prog progress and then
just running the physics of progress
over and over and over you have a
hypothesis about how you're going to
overcome the obstacle that stands
between you and what you're trying to
accomplish you're going to do something
to accomplish that thing and you're
going to see how much progress you made
which is going to give you more
information for you to reformulate that
hypothesis if you fall back on that
process that is going to be the thing
that carries you through never count a
motivation because motivation really
does come and go so make sure that you
have an airtight process and then
everything else will fall into line when
it comes to self-talk there's something
that's really important to remember you
become what you repeat so people that
are high Achievers they do not allow
themselves to repeat anything that
diminishes their sense of self that
diminishes their will to push forward
that diminishes their sense of I can
improve at this thing over time so high
Achievers are putting themselves in an
optimistic state 8 the reason they need
to be in an optimistic state is because
going back to the first answer mindset
is everything if you believe that by
putting energy and effort into trying to
achieve your goals you can actually
achieve your goals you will keep pushing
forward if you believe that no matter
what you do you are going to fail why
would you keep trying you wouldn't and
this is why so many people throw their
hands up and they give up because they
don't believe that by going after their
goals that they're actually going to
make it so a high achiever is somebody
that no matter what they encounter no
matter how many difficulties they run
into they're gonna say things like there
is a solution to this problem they're
going to say things like I can get
better at this they're going to say
things like I may not be good enough yet
but I can get good enough they say
things like with enough time and energy
I can 100x my abilities in anything they
say things like one of my favorite
phrases on a long enough timeline I can
beat anyone at anything
now secretly that one isn't a hundred
percent true but it's the kind of phrase
that even though I know at the edges
that it isn't true so many people give
up along the way that if I just keep
going and keep stacking skills and keep
getting better I know that I can beat
the vast majority of humanity at
virtually anything which is exactly how
I've been able to have the success that
I've had I am not smarter than the
average person but man I am way harder
to break than the average person I am
way more consistent than the average
person I am constantly reminding myself
I can get better but it takes a massive
amount of time and energy that's another
thing I remind myself everything is
moving towards chaos at all times people
are trying to stop me actively the world
is unintentionally trying to stop me the
world is complex humans are difficult
humans are complex life is confusing
life is chaotic and it takes a
tremendous amount of energy but another
thing that high Achievers tell
themselves if I focus on what I could do
differently if I hold on to the fact
that my life is an exact reflection of
my choices but that one's sinking my
life is an exact reflection of my
choices if when I was born I look like
my parents when I die I look like my
choices I cannot remember who I first
heard say that but man that one gives me
the chills when we're born we look like
our parents when we die we look like our
choices
that one's sexy I'm not gonna lie so if
you stay focused on that as high
Achievers do then you begin going okay
there is something that I could do here
to level up my skill set that would
allow me to do something different that
would allow me to get a different
outcome and that's the goal if you
retain control if you don't say oh this
is society's problem this is that person
that tried to stop me's problem what
could I do differently this is my
problem to solve what could I do
differently to get a different outcome
if you stay focused on that you will for
sure be able to achieve more than
somebody who doesn't now the key is that
you become what you repeat so be very
very thoughtful not only to tell
yourself all of those things but you
want to make sure that you pattern
interrupt if you're telling yourself
something negative so so many people
that get stuck again psychological
immune system will come to your Aid so
if you're repeating yourself I'm dumb
I'm stupid I'm not good enough at that I
don't have enough talent I don't come
from the right background all of that
then your psychological immune system is
going to want to soothe your ego around
that and so you're going to find a way
to make those things somebody else's
fault and you're going to start moving
yourself into the zone of not trying
giving up coasting going easy doing what
I used to do which is put myself in
smaller and smaller rooms with people
that were at my level of intellect or
lower rather than people that really
pushed me to get better
so if you're saying negative things like
that if you're developing a negative
world view like that you need to pattern
interrupt that there's an amazing book
called feeling great by David D Burns
read that book it talks about cognitive
behavioral therapy and the way that you
can use pattern interrupts to stop
yourself from repeating things that are
self-destructive and to get yourself out
of cognitive
uh Illusions so you want to be very
careful and to help you get out of
cognitive distortions you want to make
sure that you're not looking at the
world through a distorted lens of your
own creation
okay that is how you leverage the things
that you repeat to get ahead and stop
yourself from repeating things that are
going to hold you back my journey to
developing a growth mindset was a very
long journey I had a fixed mindset for
my entire life until I was about 25. now
look there were Shades in there where I
was beginning to grasp that something
was going on uh but my journey went like
this as a kid I believe that my talent
and intelligence were fixed traits I did
not believe that I could improve them
and so I thought okay like I'm you know
average ish and I knew that I was more
verbal than most people and so I
certainly tried to leverage that to my
benefit but as I got older I started
encountering people that were better
faster stronger smarter than me and it
really began to damage my sense of self
now when I was 15 around there I was
introduced to the dowdishing and
thankfully before that I had seen the
movie The Empire Strikes Back which
introduced me to Yoda and I thought Yoda
was amazing I love the way that he
talked and later in life I would realize
just how real his advice was and the
doubting sounded so much like Yoda that
I was immediately drawn to it I was like
oh my God this is so incredible and I
realized now looking back that the dowdy
Gene was really what planted the idea of
a growth mindset because it talks about
the cognitive distortions that we get
into the mental illusions that we all
live under and how what I now call a
frame of reference that we're all
looking at the world through a really
warped mirror and by looking at the
world to a warped mirror we see a warped
version of reality and that can either
hold us back or it can Propel us forward
now I had a frame of reference that was
holding me back because I had a fixed
mindset I did not recognize that the
human animal as a species chose
adaptation as our primary strategy of
advancement so we're born helpless but
over time we're able to drink very
deeply from culture knowledge stacks and
so now somebody born today doesn't have
to relearn uh the printing press
printing presses just exist and so you
take all of human knowledge and we're
able to live on the top of that and just
keep building things moving forward it's
incredibly extraordinary what the human
animal has been able to accomplish by
choosing the strategy of adaptation so
that we can learn from people we don't
come pre-hardwired with everything we
learn as we go and that means that we
can take advantage of all the things
that have come before us so it's really
really exceptional but I did not have
that frame of reference and therefore I
did not realize that oh just because I
suck at these things uh doesn't mean
that I can't go and get good at them and
so what I was doing despite that I had
these early seeds planted in my mind
around these cognitive Illusions and
distortions I was really afraid that I
was not going to be able to get good
enough at the things I needed to be good
at in order to make my dreams come true
so I've always been very ambitious but I
was also terrified that I wasn't going
to be able to achieve the things I
wanted to achieve and so that was really
devastating for me and so as I got older
and life slapped me around and I met
people that were better than me at
things that I really wanted to be be
great at it really started to make me
feel badly about myself and so to avoid
feeling badly about myself I started
putting myself in smaller and smaller
to achieve one I wasn't around the kind
of people that would be able to help me
two I wasn't around people that were
pushing me
could get better so that didn't seem
worthwhile and then three because I
wasn't around people that were pushing
me and I wasn't in an environment that
was helping me grow I wasn't growing and
therefore wasn't able to actually make
progress towards my goals and so I was
doing things that made me feel better
about myself and it actually did work
that's the Sinister part about all of
this by putting myself in rooms with
people that were less ambitious than me
people that were if I'm the average
person people that weren't as smart as
me that made me feel awesome and so the
reality is I was feeling good as I was
moving farther and farther away from my
goals so thankfully my ambition
continued to propel me to rethink what I
was doing so you know imagine me now I'm
sort of 21 22 and I'm starting to think
I've graduated from college I am not at
all moving towards my goals I'm not
quite sure what to make of this and I
was like how do I really go and get what
I want out of life and I realized I'm
profoundly lazy I'm not even trying to
take the steps that I would need so hey
let me start putting myself out there
because I was highly verbal I put myself
into situations where my verbal ability
would shine that began to open doors for
me and then I started getting in rooms
of uh entrepreneurial rooms it's
probably the right way to think about it
just as an employee but in an
entrepreneurial environment and I
realized that being in that environment
was really making me feel badly about
myself because the people around me were
so much smarter than me meaning that
they were able to process raw data
faster than me like even all these years
later now that I don't struggle with
that sense of inferiority I still
recognize that some people can just
process data faster than others so I
know that's one of the things that I
have to work around I need to optimize
for that know thyself right I still have
a growth mindset I know I can 100x
myself in any area but understanding
where you are what things are harder for
you easier for you is useful so at the
time though I was looking at the world
through this distorted mirror of not yet
fully realizing how much better I could
get but having Yoda's words in my head
having the Dao de Jing's words and you
know echoing in my head realizing maybe
I can get better if I push myself but
I'm in this environment I'm really not
feeling good about who I am and so I had
this moment of Crisis and what ended up
happening was I knew that that
entrepreneurial environment was the
thing that was going to move me towards
my goal of getting wealthy
but I finally could articulate in words
that I had actually been optimizing my
life for feeling smart
and so there was the the moment of
Crisis became very acute when I was
arguing for an idea in the
entrepreneurial environment I was
arguing for an idea because it was mine
even though I knew it was bad for the
business and because I was aware both of
the fact that whoa this idea that I'm
really arguing for is terrible for the
business and that I really wanted to win
and I really wanted them to implement
this idea and I was like why am I doing
that I'm like okay because it's my idea
why do I care about it being my idea
because I want to feel smart why would
winning this make me feel smart because
they would have done the thing that I
presented I would have convinced them to
do my thing and if I could convince them
of that that means that I'm smarter than
they are or at least that they are
giving me the the Accolade by following
my idea that gives me the feedback loop
that I'm smarter than they are that they
think I'm smarter and so I'm sitting
there going none of this really makes
sense and so I'm like what do I actually
want and so for the first time in my
life and this ended up being a Line in
the Sand it's the only thing in my life
that I can say is a line in the sand
that before this realization my life was
one way and after this realization I had
a growth mindset and my life was a
different way and the realization was
that I was building my self-esteem
around being right and that if I
continued to build my self-esteem around
being right I was gonna have to leave
that company and go somewhere else where
I was around people that weren't as
smart as me so I could feel good about
myself and that I would be right more
often and I thought wow it's weird so
which goal do I care more about do I
care about getting wealthy or do I care
about feeling smart and I realized that
I cared more about achieving my goals
let's say that because I don't chase
money anymore so I cared more about my
goals okay if I care more about my goals
and I know that I'm not good enough yet
to get where I want to go then I'm gonna
have to really Embrace unfortunately
Carol dweck had not written her book
mindset that that defined a growth
mindset so I didn't have that word but a
path of self-improvement I'm going to go
down this path of self-improvement
aggressively now to do that I need to
feel good about myself I realize pretty
quickly that I couldn't just go okay I'm
gonna be fine coming in here and feeling
like a [ __ ] every day I knew that
wasn't going to work because I built my
self-esteem around being smart so I was
like okay well if I am going to come in
and do things that aren't as good as
they're going to need to be and I'm
going to embarrass myself and not only
look stupid but actually be stupid
meaning uneducated in an area that I
need to become educated and that since
being willing to make those mistakes and
looking stupid is a necessary part of
expedient growth what can I do with my
self-esteem that will allow me to really
Propel myself forward and the answer was
I could begin building my self-esteem
not around being right but around
identifying the right answer
I could build my self-esteem around
being the learner and by building my
self-esteem around being the learner now
I could fail now I could embarrass
myself now I could stare nakedly and not
at my inadequacies and I would actually
feel better about myself because I was
building my ego my self-esteem my sense
of self around being willing to admit
when I was wrong being willing to admit
that I had made a mistake being willing
to admit that I wasn't good enough yet
but that I could get better but I had to
lower my defenses I had to stop using
the psychological immune system to make
it somebody else's fault I had to take
responsibility for my choices I had to
take responsibility for my skill set I
had to take responsibility for my energy
and effort and I had to get better and
by doing that and taking a longer view
of my life and saying okay this is going
to take time I'm going to have to
embarrass myself a lot but I really am
going to get better I started to have
success so it was a very emotionally
volatile Journey that I went on that
requires wired that moment of absolute
crisis of having
the two conflicting values in my life
being brought to bear in one moment
where I realized that I was in one way
moving away from my goal of being
successful and in another way moving
towards my goal of feeling smart and I
was like whoa wow that's really dumb
that doesn't make any sense and by not
judging myself in that moment and I was
just like I was so devastated
emotionally that I was like
emotional rock bottom
so I said no judgment whatever the
answer is the answer is just be honest
with yourself do you want to be
successful or do you want to be right
and I realized that I would rather be
successful and that forced me to pursue
a path of self-development and so from
that moment forward I've never looked
back and it's just been all growth
mindset all the time the most harmful
self-talk that anyone can ever use and
it will hold them back forever is this
isn't my fault if I could say
the most controversial thing I've ever
said the thing that has generated more
anger towards me and I was so shocked by
this
everything is your fault yes I know that
is a word that triggers people I say
that so that if you can face yourself
and say everything is my fault then I
know that you're not going to stop part
way to taking responsibility for the
choices in your life and look of course
I know that not everything is your fault
and if you were hit by a drunk driver
that's not your fault but I would tell
myself that that is my fault the reason
is I want to remind myself that I can
keep my power that I could have made a
different choice I didn't have to get in
the car right of course I don't control
that they drink and I am not in any way
shape or form interested in somebody who
has been the victim of anything in their
life to feel badly about having been
victimized I'm just saying don't let
yourself take on the identity of the
victim even when you are victimized
because it puts you in a defensive
posture I want to be on the offensive I
want to go after things in my life I
don't ever want somebody or something to
hold me me back and the easiest way to
let someone or something hold you back
is to take on the identity of the victim
so please don't get lost in that idea I
get it somebody's had horrible things
happen to them I don't want them to feel
badly either I don't want anyone to feel
badly about things that have happened to
them I want them to maintain their
emotional sovereignty to not let a
terrible thing Define them to instead
remember at any time you can
metaphorically take up arms you can grab
your sword you can go fight you can get
better at things you can Elevate
yourself people cannot stop you if you
get good enough but if you are
constantly like I'm in this position
because of something that happened to me
because of things outside of my control
your life won't become what you and I
want your life to become I don't say
this for my own sake this is something
I've already realized in my life if I
take responsibility for everything
there's virtually nothing I can't
accomplish I already know that my
success is evidence in my life of the
reality of that fact but I worry about a
lot of other people that unfortunately
have ended up with a frame of reference
that makes them feel like things are out
of their control and even though yes I
know there are things that are out of
your control there's nothing I can do to
stop the Sun from rising tomorrow but I
would never allow myself to feel
helpless so the example that I always
give people is imagine that we discover
tomorrow that an asteroid is streaking
towards Earth Collision Course
guaranteed this is a extinction level
event in that moment I'm not going to
say oh this isn't my fault I'm going to
say this is my fault now how do I know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's my
fault because there is a group right now
that tracks what are called near-earth
objects I know they exist but I've never
given them a dime of my money I've never
sent them an email with encouraging
words or ideas and ways that they could
do that better or that they could be
more prepared if something were coming
towards us and I could do that and even
though I'm telling you this story right
now I'm still not going to do that
because I don't think that's the highest
use of my time but I wouldn't fool
myself into thinking that there was
nothing that I could have done
differently that might have had an
impact now the reason that I live my
life that way even though that you and I
both know that if an asteroid is coming
like especially at the last minute like
am I really the person that's going to
be contributing to that probably not but
I'm glad that there are people in the
world that look at astronomically large
problems and don't say oh there's
nothing I can do they start going no
[ __ ] what would it take what would
we have to do in order to have a
positive outcome here it is very easy in
life to throw up your hands and say man
this is just out of my control and there
are so many things that are so
overwhelming that I get why people say
okay that's not going to be the thing
that I'm going to put my energy into I'm
going to put my energy over here but the
key difference is when you do that
please don't trick yourself into
thinking there's nothing that you could
do it may not be where you want to spend
your time and it may be a drop in the
ocean of what actually needs to be done
but if you feel like there's really no
way that I could contribute that becomes
the frame of reference through which you
view your life and even though it's
probably a little bit like screaming
into the void to think that I can stop
an asteroid from smashing into the Earth
look at all the things that we've done
as a species and at some point
the moon landing it's become so cliche
but really think about that how hard
would that be to to leave the Earth it's
crazy to land on the moon and then come
back safely it's insane and that
required somebody to go no we can figure
that out and that is all that separates
people that go on to be very successful
from people that get stuck is when
people that go on to be successful hit a
what seems like an insurmountable
obstacle they say to themselves there's
a solution here there is a solution here
I may not know it yet I may not be the
person that is capable of solving that
problem yet but there is a solution and
when you stay in a solution-oriented
mindset now you really have a chance of
doing something because you have that
frame of reference that is like the only
belief that matters which is that oh
this problem is solvable that means that
if I put in the time and energy to solve
this problem I may actually make
progress and that is exactly what you
need in order to get momentum going in
your life so please I'm begging you even
though I get it and I don't ever want
somebody to feel badly about themselves
because something bad happened to them I
also don't want people to give up their
power remember you can always do
something different to get a different
outcome you can always get better at
something and there really is always a
solution one of the most hotly debated
things when I was growing up was is
brain plasticity really real can you
actually rewire your brain or said the
way that it was said when I was growing
up can you teach an old dog new tricks
now here's the great news this answer
has been put to bed it is 100 true you
can actually see video footage of it
happening you can rewire your brain at
any age so you're 98 and you're on your
deathbed you can still rewire your brain
now of course you can rewire your brain
a lot easier when you're a kid and kids
are hyper malleable and it definitely
gets harder as we get older but it does
not ever get impossible so please
remember no matter what if you put time
energy and repetition into something
your brain is going to rewire now you
rewire based on repetition because your
brain is always trying to be efficient
it represents something like two or
three percent of your body mass and yet
takes up 25 five percent of the energy
requirements of your body your brain is
a caloric hog and since evolutionarily
speaking calories were hard to come by
your brain is constantly trying to do
things to optimize itself think about a
computer that's running hot it's trying
to lower the resource requirements and
if you get what they call memory leaks
in a computer the computer crashes the
same is true of the brain so evolution
is made sure that we don't have these
memory leaks that we close those apps
that are running in the background of
the mind so that you don't need to use
as many resources one of the ways that
it does it is a process called
myelination myelination is what people
mean when they talk about rewiring your
brains actually two parts it's where the
end of the neurons find each other and
they connect and they wrap around each
other okay that's the first part of
rewiring and they will actually if you
stop using them they will disconnect and
they will search for something new again
you can see footage of this go on
YouTube Nobody's guessing at this we
know this is what happens now when they
find each other and you repeat then what
they're going to do is they get
myelinated which is a fatty tissue that
is wrapped around those connection
points so that the electrical impulses
can travel faster more efficiently now
the catch is when you do that now what
you've introduced to your brain is an
easier way of doing something and
because your brain is constantly looking
for efficiencies that is going to do the
thing which is easier which is simply
the thing that you repeat as they say
neurons that fire together wire together
and they fire together because you're
doing it they wire together because
you're doing it a lot that's repetition
so if you repeat dumb things negative
things self-destructive things that's
going to become the easiest thing to
think so I guarantee you this is part of
depression and anxiety you're getting in
a loop it's not the only part but it is
part of that you are getting in a loop
because that's the easiest emotion to
feel it's the easiest thought to think
is the thing that you think and feel all
the time so learning to pattern
interrupt that can become incredibly
important repeating things that make you
better at something something you want
to get good at do it a lot you're going
to get more efficient at that it's
incredibly incredibly important to
recognize the biological truth of how
that works but if you're wondering if
you can teach an old dog new tricks the
answer is an aggressive yes so get out
there and make use of it there is one
bit of self-talk that I've had basically
my entire life that I wish I could have
eliminated much faster and that is the
belief that I'm not smart enough to
achieve my goals
now the reality is that we are all 50
hardwired and 50 malleable so there is a
reality to be faced that if intelligence
is the ability to process raw data
quickly which is probably a little bit
more complex than that but that gets Us
close enough I fall somewhere on that
spectrum and I can just tell you in
terms of speed of processing I'm
somewhere in the average range maybe a
little above maybe a little below but
I'm somewhere in the average range but I
have been so haunted by the fact that
there are other people that are way
smarter than me that things are easier
for them than they are for me that
really held me back for a long time
and there was a there is a movie called
Amadeus and it's about Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and in that movie is a character
named solieri
he's a real guy from history
whether what I'm about to quote from the
movie whether he actually said it or not
I don't know but this really defined my
teenage years into my early 20s
and in the movie solieri laments to God
why did you make me just good enough at
music because he was a fellow composer
to Mozart
why did you make me just good enough at
music that I can tell that I'll never be
as good as Mozart Why couldn't you have
made me
as good or better than him
or so much worse that I would never even
think to compare myself and I thought oh
my God that defines my level of
intellect I'm just smart enough to
realize that I'll never be as smart as
some of the super smart people
and that really messed with me for more
than a decade and it wasn't until I
realized oh wait it doesn't matter where
I start mine get a hundred times better
at anything so now it just becomes a
question of what do I want to get better
at and that I need to change my frame of
reference I can lament to God all day
every day about the fact that I'm not
the smartest human that ever existed or
because that doesn't sound like a good
use of time or I can focus on getting
100 times better in an area that really
matters to me and contributing
meaningfully to people and that change
has rewarded me so tremendously with the
only thing that matters which is
fulfillment so a hundred percent I wish
that I could have gotten over that much
much sooner self-talk is really
important you need to be very thoughtful
about what you repeat but if you want to
be a high achiever the thing you have to
practice far more than a growth mindset
is the physics of progress you just need
to be running that process
because ultimately
there's this weird relationship it's not
even weird there is uh an intrinsic
relationship between your mindset and
your execution now at the end of the day
only execution matters meaning you could
have the worst mindset in the world but
if you do the right things to be
successful you will be successful and
conversely if you have the best mindset
in the world but you never take action
then you're never going to be successful
so you need to be running the physics of
progress but to run the physics and
progress you need that growth mindset
because remember the physics of progress
go like this you have a hypothesis and
what you would need to do to achieve
your goals you're going to turn that
hypothesis into the thing that you're
actually going to do then you're going
to go do that thing you're going to fail
to some degree at that thing and then
you're going to need to assess why you
failed now in reading the data in that
moment and trying to tease apart what it
is that you did that didn't work you're
going to need to take full
responsibilities they're nakedly at your
inadequacies so that you know what to do
differently next time but what high
Achievers understand that people with a
fixed mindset don't is that you cannot
allow yourself to tell a story about how
it's something extrinsic to you outside
of yourself that created that failure
you have to take full and complete
responsibility but by taking full and
complete responsibility you're now able
to see what the data is trying to tell
you failure is the most information Rich
data stream on planet Earth in the
failure is the information that is going
to help you actually get better now the
cool thing about a hypothesis is that it
makes a prediction right that's the
whole thing that this is contingent on
and yes I know that this is
recontextualizing the scientific method
for success but your hypothesis makes a
prediction about what you need to do in
order to accomplish something when you
fail you realize that your base
assumptions were slightly wrong and that
you're going to have to improve upon
your base assumptions in order to refine
your hypothesis in order to refine the
thing that you do in order to make a
little bit more progress and so that is
what higher Achievers are absolutely
obsessed with is making sure that they
are staring nakedly at their
inadequacies looking at the data
figuring out how they can adjust their
base assumption to make a new prediction
to give them a better way of executing
and doing that over and over over and
over running that physics of progress is
how high Achievers actually get to their
goals it's not that they were born a
Super Genius it's not that they were
born with all of the answers it's that
they don't lie to themselves at that
critical moment of failure make it
somebody else's problem they go ah
there's something that I did wrong my
hypothesis isn't accurate I must refine
my hypothesis in order to make more
progress making it somebody else's
problem soothing yourself with
platitudes or anger that's something I
see a lot if you want to see what a poor
frame of reference looks like in the
real world go read the Twitter comments
of people that are very successful they
are met with so much anger I'm not even
talking about myself so please don't
think this is a self-congratulatory
thing I'm saying go look at like the
highest Achievers on the planet it is
crazy how much vitriol there is in the
comment section especially if you're
looking at people that have grown
businesses it is crazy it's because
people don't have a growth mindset and
so they're trying to protect themselves
which I actually get it's a natural
response that I spent a long time doing
I my hands are covered in blood on this
one I spent so much time doing that this
is simply me recognizing my own past
Behavior but I needed it to be somebody
else's problem I needed it to be my
parents problem for not giving me good
enough genetics I needed it to be the
world's problem for me being raised in a
lower middle class household I needed it
to be the world's problem that it was a
system stacked against me I I needed all
of that to be able to feel good about
myself which is critically important but
people that go on to be successful
that's not their frame of reference
that's not what they're thinking about
and so they're not just patting
themselves on the back they're not just
saying I'm good I'm smart I can pull
this off they're saying what did I do
wrong focusing obsessively on how they
get better
refining their attempt and then moving
forward and just making incremental
progress relentlessly over time that's
the path forward let's put an action
plan together that you can run over the
next 30 days that are going to help you
re-wire your brain for growth and
success it looks like this number one
you become what you repeat so you're
going to start repeating things that
move you towards your goals the first
thing that you're going to repeat is I
only do and believe that which moves me
towards my goals number two you're going
to focus obsessively on the physics of
progress the physics of progress are
you're going to come up with a
hypothesis and what you need to do to
achieve your goals you're then going to
turn that hypothesis into something you
can actually do you're going to do that
thing it is going to fail to some extent
you're going to assess why it failed
that will give you Clues on what was
wrong with your hypothesis you're going
to reformulate your hypothesis in a more
educated way and then you're going to
turn that into something that you you
can do you're going to do that thing
it's going to fail to some degree you're
going to assess why it failed you're
going to adjust your base assumptions
around your hypothesis and you're going
to repeat that over and over and over
the next thing that you're going to do
is make a list of the most important
things you could be doing in order to be
successful so you need to have Clarity
on your goal that is hugely important
massive amounts of clarity on your goal
then you're going to turn that into a
list of things you can do you know you
have enough Clarity when you can write
down a goal or a thing to do excuse me
that would tell you what to do with the
next 15 minutes of your life most people
come up with a plan that's so high level
they still have no idea what to do with
the next 15 minutes of their life their
goal is something that's going to take
them five ten years and so knowing what
to do right now in this minute becomes a
an example of somebody that doesn't have
enough clarity about right now today
your high level goal has to be
translated into a very near-term goal
that you can achieve that is part of
concentric rings for sure but we want to
make sure that we get into the list of
things that we could be doing right now
part of doing that is about habit
building and that's exactly what you
have to do to rewire your brain to
rewire your brain you need to repeat
things okay those are the things you're
going to actively do now let's talk
about what we're going to stop doing we
have to pattern interrupt because we're
repeating negative things that are
holding us back if we don't recognize
that our brain wires around that which
we repeat we won't understand how to
unwire before we can rewire so the way
that you're going to unwire things is
you're going to let them atrophy by
pattern interrupting so that you stop
reinforcing the wiring okay what people
get is these mantras that they have in
their head about I'm not good enough at
this I'm not talented enough the world
is holding me back the world doesn't
want to see people like me succeed
whatever it is that you're repeating
that is stopping you from acquiring new
skills that is stopping you from staring
nakedly at your inadequacy so you can
see what you need to change what skills
you need to adopt so that you can get
better and make progress so we have to
stop repeating those things so we're
going to interrupt that by saying the
first thing I told you I only do and
believe that which moves me towards my
goals so hey I don't allow myself to
repeat that I'm not good enough I don't
allow myself to repeat that I'm not
going to be able to pull this off I
don't allow myself to repeat that the
world is stacked against me I don't
allow myself to repeat that this isn't
my fault I don't allow myself to repeat
anything that doesn't move me towards my
goals and so what that's going to do is
that's going to allow
for atrophy to happen in that wiring
because neurons that fire together wire
together so whatever thing that's
negative that I've been repeating that's
really reinforced in my brain and I have
to first pattern interrupt so that I'm
not repeating those things so that those
grips can begin to loosen so that as I'm
doing the things that we said we're
going to start doing we're starting to
saying those positive things we're
taking action we're looking at the
things that we need to do to actually
achieve our goals we're doing those
we're turning them into a habit
now I can let atrophy set in on the
negative things that have hardwired in
my brain and I can start repeating the
positive Loop that I need to be in
around repeating positive things only
doing that which moves me towards my
goals making sure that I have Clarity on
my goals making sure that I translate my
goal into actionable items and turning
that whole process into a habit so that
I'm sitting down every day and I'm
writing out my important things list I'm
taking the vast majority of my time to
actually execute on the physics of
progress and I'm just running that in a
loop constantly looking at the data how
is it telling me how to get better and
if you exist in that Loop for 30 days
you will really feel that you're
starting to make progress and then if
you repeat that for the next 30 Years
no one will be able to stop you all
right everybody that is the power of
developing a growth mindset I hope that
you will use all of the things that we
just talked about in order to hard wire
a growth mindset in your life because it
is the only frame of reference from
which you can actually execute on your
goals and have the kind of success that
you've always wanted get after it so the
whole idea if you want to live the good
life is to recognize that you are a
deeply flawed individual that is holding
yourself back that your life is a
reflection entirely of your choices and
not your circumstances and if you're not
happy with that that means that you're
doing something wrong so I'll Define
right and wrong as it's right when it
moves you towards your goal and it's
wrong when it moves you away so if
you're not where you want to be You Are
by definition doing something wrong but
most people can't work through the loop
that I call the physics of progress
because their ego stops them in a
critical part so the physics of progress
go like this you have a guess as to how
you're going to get to your goal so
first of all it assumes you know what
your goal is but for now let's assume
that you do know your goal so you've got
to guess this is what I would need to do
in order to get to my goal you're going
to do that thing and it's going to fail
now we all have to struggle with uh oh I
tried the thing and it failed the
problem is most people put up their ego
defenses find a way to believe that it
was somebody else's fault it was the
economy it was where I was born it was
that my parents didn't have money it's
that the system is rigged whatever
because those are probably valid reasons
why it's going to be harder for that
person than the next person they stop
but let's go back to my definition of
right and wrong right is that which
moves you towards your goals wrong is
that which moves you away so people then
are blind to the fact that they're
saying that their real goal is to get
where they're going make a million
dollars have a successful business be a
teacher whatever but the reality is
their real goal is to feel good about
themselves
most people never have the
self-awareness to avoid that conflict
and then even if they have the
self-awareness that they're in a
conflict they don't realize that they
could shift their self-esteem around
instead of being right so
um what I tried was right and the only
reason it didn't work is because the
world is stacked against me might
actually be true but how are you going
to move forward because there is some
better thing that's going to move you
forward most people are never going to
see that because they stop at making it
somebody else's fault the next thing you
have to do is you have to be optimistic
you have to believe what I call the only
belief that matters that if I failed at
something it's because I'm not good
enough yet but I can get good and so
many people believe because it really
feels this way you believe that your
talent and intelligence are fixed traits
and the reason you believe that is it
gets harder as you get older to get
those huge gains that you get like when
you're a little kid and you can't walk
it's like this whole binary zero to one
moment of like whoa I couldn't and now I
can this is incredible and then you get
to first grade and it's like can't do
math now I can't do math while it's
pretty cool can't do multiplication
tables now I can you start to get to
algebra and it's like oh God I don't
know this is not as easy as I hoped it
would be you start having failures you
get rejected by girls like you start
getting all these things to stack up
where the path to stand up practice
walking it doesn't work as well you're
also as you get older you are less
plastic so it actually does become
harder to learn new things also you
begin to find the things that work for
you and so you think oh well I know how
to do this I've done it really well and
then you encounter that moment where it
stops working and so now it's like oh
wait a second I it was working so I had
my big zero to one moment then it
stopped working and people confuse that
with hitting the edge of their abilities
not realizing you've only hit the edge
of your current skill set so I remind
myself in business all the time my
current skill set has already taken me
as far as it's going to take me and so
if I want to go farther I have to get
better but if you don't believe that you
can get better then you won't put the
energy and effort into getting better
but because it becomes incrementally
more difficult to get better you begin
to confuse it with I've reached the edge
of my capabilities then if your ego is
built around I'm right not that I can
identify the right answer I am right so
I've done all the things I hit the edge
of my current abilities and I have a
belief that
I don't know that I can get any better
and I have the ego defenses coming
saying it was somebody else's fault
anyway ah cool then I'm off the hook I
don't have to be confrontational of this
reality that I've reached the edge of
what I'm capable of which sucks that
feeling of like I'll never be as good as
somebody else that feeling eats at us in
a really gnarly way so that's where you
get clobbered to death with oh I no
longer am optimistic that I can get
better because all my big gains my early
gains those went away and my
subconscious hands me a ready-made
excuse for why this isn't my fault and I
take it and I exit and that brings us to
the third thing repetition you become
what you repeat so people that don't
repeat things they don't try over and
over they just give up really easily
they are destined for failure if you
don't have a massive amount of
resilience you are really in trouble and
most people don't have resilience and so
if I'm talking about the five things
that you do that really like take you
down a dark path don't be resilient give
up easily because if it's true that you
can get better but the sort of early big
wins begin to diminish and you're gonna
have to work harder and push harder and
be more consistent then it's like by
giving up you never get better and so
now you're reinforcing hey Not only was
it somebody else's fault you couldn't
get better anyway so why would it matter
don't even try and so everything that
reinforces that don't even try is how
people get themselves into a super dark
place another thing that's really going
to hold people back is if you are
comparing yourself to somebody else and
you're letting that diminish your sense
of self so I would constantly if I
wanted to fail I would constantly
compare myself to other people and be
like I'm a total loser and I have the
proof because look at all these other
people and they're doing way better than
I am they're ahead of me I remember oh
God every filmmaker of my generation had
a moment when they turned 24 when they
realized that what at least for my
generation was considered arguably the
greatest film of all time was Citizen
Kane really is Awesome by the way even
though it's black and white and it's all
the [ __ ] for The Tick Tock generation
they're never going to go for it but it
it's a really fantastic film and Orson
Welles made it when he was 24. and he
made it when arguably the most powerful
man in the world so imagine somebody
like Bill Gates coming after you and oh
God even better uh one of the guys that
owns like a media conglomer Jeff Bezos
owns the Washington Post so the guy
Rudolph Hearst owned what at the time
was the media publication Citizen Kane
is about that guy so it would be like
somebody making a movie about Jeff Bezos
and that he's corrupt and lonely and
Jeff Bezos was like oh you think you're
gonna actually tell that story no I'm
clamping down I'm gonna get your funding
revoked I'm going to make sure that
nobody screens the film all that so this
guy at 24 gets this movie made when
everybody thinks oh this guy's literally
gonna kill him have him killed or he's
gonna stop his movie from being funded
then not only does he get it made but it
becomes arguably the greatest film of
all time and so you hit this moment
where you're like Orson Welles are just
better than I'll ever be why am I even
trying then back into not being
resilient then back into all the things
you're trying just aren't working on and
on and on and then the last thing is if
I really wanted to mess somebody up I
mean I really want to break their
ability to go anywhere in life I'm going
to make sure that I mess up their body
I'm going to make sure that they aren't
getting the sleep they need I'm going to
make sure that they eat a ton of sugar
I'm going to make sure that they're
overweight I'm going to make sure that
they don't exercise and that is going to
destroy their cognition in a thousand
ways they're going to be in a level of
pain they don't even realize they're in
because they've never not had a stomach
ache when they eat they've never not
eaten right before they go to bed and
had their sleep disrupted because
they've got food just sitting in their
digestive tract they don't even know
brain fog all that stuff and so those
are the five things I would do if I
really the funny thing even as I'm
saying I can't make it about me I've
gotta like if I were gonna mess up
somebody else uh those are the things
that I would do wow
gotta avoid like the plague like the
plague but so the the fourth one
like it just feels so like instrumental
this guy 24 like he did it and I'm not
24 but I'm 24 but let's say I'm like 26
and I'm still not I'm not there yet so
yeah like let's say you're 40. say
you're 46. so you're 50. so this is the
Trap Is by comparing yourself to other
people it's going to diminish your sense
of self it pulls you out of that
optimistic mode and the reality is I may
never make a film as good as Citizen
Kane I may never be as good as Walt
Disney that's my the real person I'm
chasing I may never accomplish what Elon
Musk has accomplished and so I do the
thought exercise and the words I want to
introduce to people are and now what so
you're never going to be whoever it is
that you look up to and you admire
you're never going to be as good as them
and now what do you give up do you cry
all day do you uh accept a lesser life
or do you go ham and so the thing that I
want people to understand you can get a
hundred times better at whatever now
most people spend so much time lamenting
that they'll never be as good as
whatever person it is that they look up
to and fantasize about and want to be
that they never 100 x their own
abilities and so their life is far less
than it could have been so what I have
found through experience even though I
still feel the sting of not being as
good as the people that I admire or
having to face that Disney Walt Disney
had done way more than I've done by this
point in his life even if he didn't have
as much money as I have he certainly had
built something far more
um
that represented what he wanted to do
far more than what I've done right my
whole life has been about finally
getting to that moment and I haven't and
maybe it forever recedes into the
distance but what I've learned through
experience is the act of going ham is so
intoxicating is so fun that it is the
juice but most people are broken
emotionally by the comparison and so to
some extent you just can't allow
yourself to do it how do you unlearn the
beliefs that got you here uh that are
now holding you back
so you have to let them atrophy so if
you want your negative beliefs to
atrophy then you have to really stop
using them so number one read the book
feeling great by David D Burns it's all
about cognitive behavioral therapy but
one of the core tenets of cognitive
behavioral therapy is pattern
interrupting so you have cognitive
distortions you're repeating things to
yourself that aren't true I'll never be
able to I'm not as good as I could never
right those are all cognitive
distortions you don't know that that's
true you won't know that that's true
until you spend a lifetime trying and
you're on your deathbed you're like well
I'm out of time now I really know I
really won't be able to do it or by then
you will have accomplished so much if
you really are that diligent persistent
so you have to pattern interrupt you
have to break out of that thing that you
repeat now what I find fascinating is
the reason that pattern interrupting is
so important the reason that the only
way to begin to let those negative
beliefs dissipate is by not using them
is because neurons that fire together
wire together it's an evolutionary Advan
it's actually a really good thing this
is why you can pick something and get
good at it because your brain is an
energy hog from an evolutionary
perspective we have this weird dueling
competing desires that are baked into
our brain one go hard go out there chase
after it get it right Grand ambition but
then you also have the desire to sit on
the couch and eat potato chips because
your brain is so hungry for calories it
eats up 25 of the calories that you
intake into your body
now when you can just go to the grocery
store and get a bag of potato chips it's
not a problem but when you have to go
out and face death every day to hunt to
gather all of that you have to have
evolutionary pressure to chill right so
you go out you get what you need don't
keep going so you've got it now you need
to calm down because your brain just to
keep everything going is going to gobble
through those calories so I can't also
have the body going ham all the time
what the brain does is go all right from
a biological standpoint I've got to make
these thoughts as efficient as humanly
possible so that we're not 50 or 75
percent of the caloric energy so it does
things to make them more efficient and
one of the things that it does is it
myelinates the connection points so when
you do things and I think people
underestimate the complexity of a habit
so a habit isn't just seeing something
doing something hearing something
feeling something smelling it's all of
those things put together right so
you've got the Habit Loop trigger you've
got then the desire to pursue the drip
of dopamine that you know that you're
going to get you've got the sights and
sounds that might be all a part of that
all that stuff is wired together so it's
this huge cluster of neuronal firing and
it all gets this fatty tissue wrapped
around it so it's like this ball of
activity and so you get into these
patterns of activity that are the
easiest thing for you to think and feel
so if the easiest thing for you to think
and feel is a negative thought that you
repeat to yourself over and over and
over and that your brain goes oh we do
this a lot we feel this way a lot we
think this thing a lot rad let me make
it super easy so now when you get back
into I'm a loser I'm not going to do
that I'll never accomplish that or just
like a negative Doom scroll on Tick Tock
or whatever that becomes the most
efficient thing for your body to do and
you crave that feeling you are pushed
into the efficiency from an evolutionary
standpoint so you have to interrupt it
you have to stop the thought stop the
activity whatever and then begin to
build something new so you stop using
the old one and then you force a demand
on the brain so that it's unwiring these
things and making these new wiring
connections and connecting that and
because tissues in the body you never
keep if they're not needed so if you
think about muscle right if you work out
like a demon you get a yoked physique
and then you stop working out six months
later you're gonna be way closer to
where you started before you started
lifting than the left and I would say
probably a year 18 months out no one
would ever know even if you had a
massive amount of muscle because your
body's just like muscles expensive
calorically if I don't need it I'm going
to get rid of it and so when you stop
using a pattern in your brain then the
connections are going to dissipate it's
not going to be the first thing that
occurs to you anymore you're going to be
out of that habit Loop in fact to push
this to the extreme during the Vietnam
war there was massive amounts of drug
use and people get addicted to opioids
heroin all that stuff most of them just
stopped when they came back and the
reason that they stopped when they came
back was they just didn't have access to
it they didn't know who to talk to like
I'll tell you right now I would have
done
um psilocybin or whatever by now if I
could reliably get it but I don't have
anybody that I know how to get it from
so I've tried like a tiny bit here and
there but that's it so it's when you
don't have it in your environment you
don't think about it you don't reach for
it you don't crave it so you've got to
do that break apart but then to make it
easier make sure that you're leaning
into something new that's powerful that
you can repeat I want to go back to
capabilities and skill set and ask you
how you would advise a person who has
ventured off in different career paths
they've tried so many things in their
lifetime they've excelled in all of them
but at the end of the day they're the
Jack of all trades and the master of
nothing so I want to hear your advice on
that and a follow-up question is do you
think that that's the way to go or do
you think they should stop and just
reassess and focus on one thing what
outcome do you want
um like let's also say because another
question I had was how does somebody go
about finding their passion who's
completely lost okay so those are two
wildly different questions yeah so how
you find your passion will set aside and
we'll just say you don't find it it is
an architectural build not an
archaeological dig
but going back to the first part so you
have to know what you want to accomplish
so for most people when they fantasize
about their life they fantasize about
becoming the goat of something like I'm
going to be the greatest singer of all
time
if you want that just think about LeBron
James if LeBron James were
simultaneously trying to be the greatest
basketball player of all time the best
singer of all time the best accountant
of all time you'd be like hey LeBron
I've got money on you this weekend you
better get your ass on the basketball
court stop [ __ ] around with
accounting right so we know when it's
somebody else exactly what they should
be doing if they want to be the greatest
of all time you need a maniacal Focus
you need to be lasered in on one thing
and you do it to the abstraction of
everything else and you do it
obsessively to the point where
everything else in your life ideally is
falling apart right it's just and I say
ideally as a person with money on you
know LeBron James it's like ah I don't
want you to think about it I want you to
be like Tom Brady like from what I hear
and I don't know that this is true but
given that he get just got divorced I'm
gonna guess that it is that he would
make his family sleep somewhere else
when he had like a big game coming up he
did not want distractions he wanted to
be totally laser focused literally to
the point where everything else in his
life is falling part but you want to
talk goats that guy is going to go down
in history now having said all of that
I find it very hard in my own life
to just say oh I'm gonna do this one
thing this channel would be way bigger
if I just interviewed one kind of guest
over and over and over and everybody
knew exactly what they were going to get
and I didn't try to Branch out and cover
more things that I find fascinating this
channel will be a lot bigger if we
didn't have the entertainment side where
we're trying to do comics and video
games and all that stuff right if I
would just maniacally focused on having
the best
interview series YouTube channel ever I
know that but that's not the life that I
want to live that's why the first
question is what do you want because
ultimately my advice to people is to
chase fulfillment and fulfillment has to
do with what do you love right so you're
going to have to discover that you're
going to find that initial bump of like
oh this thing gives me more energy than
it takes but it's not like when I was a
kid I was like oh yo I want to have a
YouTube channel I didn't even think I
want to build the next Disney I created
that over time when I was at Quest it
was actually perfectly happy to do
storytelling inside of a protein bar
company right because I just needed
meaning and purpose now I knew I wanted
to storytell I've known that since I was
12. but it wasn't like the central
passion of my life to build the next
Disney until I decided to make it that
and so when I was Jesus I probably would
have been 37 38 the first time I said
I'm gonna build the next Disney so it's
you know that's a lot of my life where I
had another mission that I would have
stated another passion that I would have
said now storytelling was always one of
my passions but I actually would have
told you that it was filmmaking
so I would have said oh I want to be a I
want to be a director that was my
earliest thing and I invested a lot into
that which is how it went from being an
interest to being a passion so I want
people to understand you don't look in
words and find a passion you look
inwards and find something that gives
you more energy than it takes then you
invest in that to see if it's really
going to be a Fascination if the more
you do it the more you push yourself
into learning about it if the more
you're like whoa this is really cool I
love this that's a Fascination now if
you want to turn it into a passion
you're going to go through the process
of gaining Mastery for something to be a
passion I think you have to get feedback
from the world okay I happen to know
that you're a singer and an amazing one
at that and I know human psychology
enough to know when you played me your
song for the first time and I freaked
out that that feeds into your sense of
like wow I worked really hard to get
good at something and this person's
having a really big emotional reaction
and that's part of how I want to
contribute to the world I want to sing
in a way that moves people you saw that
it moved me now you you're in that Loop
that call the passion Loop so for it to
be passion you need to work really hard
to get good at something that matters to
other people and you need both the shout
meaning when you sing it makes you feel
some kind of way and the echo where I
hear what you've worked so hard at and
I'm like oh my God and now you're in
this Loop where you're like I want to
get even better because I want more
people to react like that now you're in
a passion Loop now where people get into
trouble it's going back to the first
question so now you're in this passion
Loop you should be fine with hey I sing
it makes people feel awesome we're good
right no because you're comparing
yourself to other people you have this
huge goal that you want to attain and so
now you've got something outside you try
to achieve it you get knocked back it
didn't work the way that you thought it
was going to work what does that say
about me possibly you make it other
people's fault or you just give up and
go wow I'm really not capable which then
makes you feel terrible about yourself
which then makes you not love the
singing as much as you did before and
you get into this super self-destructive
Loop so let me tell you what monks have
figured out that other people don't get
that that desire to want more is a
double-edged sword a monk is somebody
who realizes oh this thing that makes me
feel alive and pushes me to be better
also Cuts me down and makes me dislike
myself and makes me lose passion for the
thing that I loved right before I
started comparing myself and so the
choice that they choose is to opt out of
the Rat Race and so they're like I'm
just gonna go over here and I'm gonna
let go of Desire because I realize that
desire is the root of all suffering now
I take a totally different approach and
I go well I know I'm going to suffer I
know the world's gonna kick me in the
face I know that I'm not going to be I
want to be the greatest at everything I
ever think of I know that just isn't
going to be true so I had to come to
peace with okay you're never going to be
as good at all the things that you want
to be good at and so now how do you play
the game and so for me I like to be
broad ER maybe than somebody who's gonna
like really be the goat at something but
I just want to enjoy my life I want to
enjoy the shout and the Echo and so for
me to to if I just wanted to enjoy the
echo I would go in the YouTube comments
I would figure out what they want me to
do and I would just do that if I want to
enjoy both the shout and the echo I find
this balance of here's a range of things
that I like because trust me here's how
many things I want to spend my life on
here's how many things I do spend my
life on here's what I would have to do
if I wanted to be the goat and I just
realized that for me
being that myopically focused on
something doesn't make me feel the way
that I want to feel and so I understand
that that means that I probably won't
achieve I know I won't achieve as much
if I were to broaden it but I only want
to broaden it so much so that I can
still achieve quite frankly on a massive
global scale
that will echo through human history
don't you think you will actually be the
goat of your Niche by focusing on
multiple skills that synergize rather
than just focusing on the one thing to
be the best at it all right so you have
to hold two competing ideas in your head
so here's the truth about what it's like
to be inside my own mind I imagine
myself in a Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan
moment with flames all around me
screaming like morphing into something
huge and Unstoppable but at the same
time I understand that the reality is
that this is probably going to be a
struggle and I may never become the goat
but I don't accept that internally
internally I'm like okay maybe it
doesn't happen
but what if you play all out like it is
going to happen what if you act like it
is an inevitability that if you keep
pushing as hard as you can moving
forward that you will eventually get
there but I know so well that if I judge
if I only reward myself for becoming the
goat then my life hinges on one final
moment and I know two things one it's
prop it is wiser not as probably it is
wiser to enjoy the climb than to reach
the summit and then two because I know
that I may never get there I don't want
to constantly have my thing in the
future because the future will always
let you down now the question is why
this goes back to Evolution the reason
the future always lets you down is
because we have hunger this is why we
equate the desire for food the desire
for sex the desire for Success we say
hungry I'm hungry for whatever because
that's what it feels like and hunger can
only be momentarily satiated it can't be
permanently because you would die right
so if all you had was the motivation to
go get one meal and eat the biggest meal
the biggest Feast that you possibly can
if that's all Evolution got you to do
and then you ate it you were full and
like I'm full forever you would die so
once you understand it's an evolutionary
context of there is a sub-program
running in your brain to make sure that
you're just going to keep going and
going and going so I'm very careful
about how I approach my life to make
sure that I acknowledge the truth of The
Human Condition which is that I'm having
a biological experience which is that I
will always have hunger no matter how
much I eat I mean I'll momentarily be
sated but it won't last and so I'm super
careful to enjoy the climb because I
know the struggle is guaranteed but the
success is not and I know better than to
make my whole life hinge on the future
because even when I get to the Future
even if I was the goat and I stand
towering above all the accomplishments
of Walt Disney I'll still be like yo
what's next
it's an inevitability
do you think everybody's like that like
or do you think there's ever going to be
a time when you see like what you said
you're like hovering over all of your
accomplishments like every somebody
would be capable of being I'm good like
that's it do you think that's a you
thing or like do you think everybody
always wants more it is a hundred
percent that every single person has
Drive
hunger
it is also true that that's a spectrum
it's just a personality trait so we all
have it to some degree but the question
is how much now I'm probably pretty
close to pegged out where I'm willing to
suffer to the point where other people
worry about me because I'm I just push
myself and push myself and push myself
so not everybody's going to be like that
also I think there are people that have
a different value system than I have so
take a monk they like the idea of I want
to disengage from the world I realize
the toxic nature of never-ending Pursuit
that there will never be a meal so
satisfying that I don't want to eat
again so why do I allow myself let me
transcend that
so for them they would train themselves
to let go of that to not give into it I
feed into it I have looked at both
options before me and one resonates with
me at a conceptual level because it's
not like oh I wouldn't became a monk for
30 years and I'm like oh rad now let me
go like really like pour myself into
building something and see which I
prefer but I flirted with them both
enough to know at least at the early
stage which one I find constantly
energizing and the one I find constantly
energizing is building and even when I
fail I'm still energized by it and I'm
very careful with my ego not to let it
get tied up in that but everybody's
going to make a different choice but I
think that people that don't face the
reality of what they want their life is
going to be very sad and so what I'm
always trying to do when I'm trying to
get people to understand go after it
want like want to be the best and really
go after it like I mean give it your
everything but don't value yourself on
whether you achieve it or not so the
thing that I value myself for the thing
that I reward and punish myself for is
did I show up and play to win not did I
win did I show up and play to win and
since I show up and play to win almost
every day not every day every now and
then I'm off my game but I I played a
win man and I'm tracking myself from the
moment I wake up to the moment I go to
bed and if I'm like yo you played to win
today and by the way I had a good time
doing it like I love that [ __ ] then I'm
good but as somebody who has succeeded
and failed many times I learned very
early to reward myself for the pursuit
and not for the accomplishment so you're
extremely self-aware and I feel like
that's something really hard to teach
but how do you go about helping someone
become more self-aware of what's right
for them dude I love this question so
the way to get more self-aware has
become an obsession for me because I'm
trying to become more self-aware in
myself so those moments where you break
through and you're like oh wow I didn't
even realize that that was a part of my
personality that was you know this is
water right it's so ubiquitous in my
life I don't even realize it as uh a
choice or a way that I view the world it
was completely invisible to me and then
someone will say something and you
finally go whoa I Can See Me Now from
your perspective and I realize that is
what self-awareness is you can finally
see yourself the way other people see
you there is no more water there is only
the awareness that oh I'm constantly wet
so I've started thinking okay how is it
that I do that how do I and look I am
blind still and it horrifies me every
time I have an awareness I'm like oh my
God I got to this age and I never
realized that about myself a little
unnerving but I've become aware of so
many different things that it it comes
back to tying uh Revelation to a bodily
sensation so what I try to do is realize
what I am feeling at any one time and
then be honest about why I am feeling it
and being able to track that down and so
figuring out there's this idea that
Jordan Peterson has of micro
personalities and he says that's the
best way to understand yourself so an
alcoholic when they're um jonesing for a
fix just in the in the grips of
um the alcoholism they become a
different person so they have a whole
subset of their personality that's now
in control that might lie cheat lack
Integrity
um push other people down whatever to
get that alcohol like one thing you
learn if you're a lifeguard is they say
if you go to rescue a drowning person
odds are they're going to try to drown
you as well just because they're just
trying to get air man they stopped being
like the loving caring person because
when you want that like breath of air
that badly like you're just gonna do
whatever it takes to make it happen you
have to be aware that these micro
personalities take over and so when you
have a feeling odds are that represents
a micro personality that you've slipped
into and if you can recognize oh and I
feel this I bet I am a certain way now
to other people that that almost doesn't
feel like a spectrum of you it's like oh
here we go they're in their annoyed
phase they're uh pissed off and I know
how they are when they're like that
they're scared and they act this way
they're depressed and they act that way
right so for them it's like these
discreet versions of you these micro
personalities so what I began to realize
is oh and I feel this way I man it
Manifest this way I have a microcosm of
personality traits that cluster together
that are hyper predictable to people
outside of me but because the emotion
feels so Justified to me it's water I
don't even see it it seems like this is
the only way to react to this moment
there is no other way everybody in my
position would react exactly like this
so it isn't a micro personality it's
just how one should act and so it's not
like you're even thinking about that
you're just like stimulus response now
what I've trained myself to do is go I
feel something what do I feel whoa I I'm
agitated why am I agitated well they
obviously did something wrong no no what
do I know right because I have these
rules and so I walk down rule number one
if somebody's angry I guarantee an
insecurity has been triggered now
there's actually things that the edges
I'll leave that aside for now so I
recognize oh I'm agitated I know that
that means an insecurity's been
triggered what insecurity has been
triggered but it was training myself
through having these realizations of
like oh I get this flustered feeling and
now I want to argue for an idea that's
mine oh I'm feeling stupid okay so
that's what I do whenever I feel stupid
but it really was tracking back as I
would like replay the day like I don't
like the way that feels
and in fact that's where it started I
don't want to feel that way again how do
I avoid it to avoid it you have to
figure out what caused it as far as I
can tell that's other than getting
feedback from other people so empowering
people to tell you like hey why are you
acting like that it's not pleasant I
don't like the way you're talking to me
whatever or after the fact hey you came
across really harsh
um I I didn't respect the way you
handled that it's like oh whoa like it
was invisible to me I had no idea like
there was one uh time during a company
team meeting where I was like hey
everybody's got to step up now because I
love that kind of language I like yo we
got this we can do it but everybody's
got to rise up I was completely taken
aback that somebody gave me a DOT which
is feedback for people watching this uh
and they were like yo that was really
hard to hear and I was like huh and so
because for me I love that [ __ ] War
language like we got to do this we gotta
get better I'm not saying oh you're a
loser and you need to get better I'm
just like this is a human condition our
current skill set's already taken us as
far as it's going to go if we want to go
somewhere in the future that's farther
we have to get better but that gave me
the like oh wow I see how that part of
my personality comes across to other
people now I may still use that tool but
at least I won't be blind to it now I
have self-awareness literally aware of
self
from another person's perception and I
can act accordingly and then a last
question on this is uh
being able to see yourself from a
different perspective are the things
that either trigger you or whatever
caused by some sort of like some
experience in your childhood that par
like is a pattern that you exhibit which
causes these emotions in other people I
think it's inevitable that you are
shaped by everything that happens to you
in your life and you formulate responses
and you repeat those responses they get
hardwired in your brain and so you act a
very predictable way in a given set of
circumstances but I personally can't
track back oh this is because of that
thing that happened for me there's
precious few things like that so it's
more about the personality and how your
personality is just you but then if you
see it from a different personality type
it'll seem uh that's how you'll
understand what caused that or how I end
up taking in the information about what
I'm like to other people
a little bit of both so the way that we
become who we are you're 50 hardwired
your personality and you're 50 malleable
your response to all the different
things that happen to you and your
ability to unwind some of that so there
are things about ourselves that we can
unwind and we can be different and
people like whoa like I will tell you in
my marriage Lisa and I are dramatically
different people than we were at the
beginning and we will point out to each
other hey that barb in your personality
I actually don't like that some have
been easier to change than others and so
it's like wow like there are some things
even though I'm aware of them I can
articulate it I can even say I've
slipped into that thing you hate I can't
stop myself from doing it yet so some of
those things prove very difficult to
unwind so for instance I constantly
slide back into optimism like no matter
where things are going like I'm just I
find myself like but we could ultimately
and then it's like this is like hey we
have to re-ground we've got to really
think about how this is going to happen
and so we'll butt heads over that we're
all slip back into the dream the big
vision and she just she can't be there
it's stressing her out she's like I need
to know how we're gonna pull this off
and so not doing that is very hard now
you can get better you can train
yourself okay so that's part one nature
and nurture they Collide I think it was
Lisa Feldman Barrett that said we have a
nature that requires nurture so they are
so intertwined it's almost pointless to
try to tease out like what half is what
just there's a process to run for change
that is outside the scope of this answer
every time that you get to something you
want to change run the process if you do
that diligently for three years and
you're still having a hard time making a
change odds are you've hit close to
bedrock of the 50 that's unchangeable
okay so the other part how do I Peg my
sense of self-awareness
this really comes down to there's only
so many personality types right so let's
ballpark it let's say there's 50-ish
types of people that you're gonna meet
of course you can boil it down to like
the five types or whatever but it feels
more nuanced in reality it's not like
everybody meet you like oh you're this
you're that you're that there's only
five like people definitely feel like
Shades and blends of those big five
traits so let's just call it five sort
of big 50 big buckets that you're gonna
encounter different people it's like
okay I'm beginning to understand how
when I act that way how that kind of
person sees me that's really useful now
as you begin to collect that data you're
going to drive yourself crazy constantly
trying to be the way that that person is
going to be able to respond to you so
there are things that I will take in and
go okay that's really useful you can
never know too much about how you come
across but there's also I need to live
my life on how I feel as well so if I'm
gonna go into battle even though my
battles are always business if I'm gonna
go into battle I'm going to call it
battle because that resonates with me
now if that doesn't resonate with other
people in some circumstances I'm going
to make sure that I speak in way that is
understood by more people and other
times I'm going to be like I need to
feel a certain way to perform the way
that I want to perform and I'm going to
go in with all of my language and all of
that the key is to just be aware of it
so that you grab a tool when it's useful
so for instance I try never to be out of
control of my anger I won't say that it
doesn't happen but damn is it rare So I
was recently on a call with lawyers and
I realized anger is the only thing
that's going to move this forward and so
I had to display very controlled trust
me I wasn't a raging lunatic but I had
to display a very controlled anger to
let them know hey this is what we're
doing was bringing more the the opposing
sides together and so I had to make sure
that the intensity of a given point was
communicated through emotion so I need
to know ah cool
this feeling that I'm getting of being
really annoyed really frustrated and
wanting to punch through my computer
it's like okay some insecurities been
triggered one is what insecurity that
I'm not going to be able to achieve what
do I want what I want to achieve in the
business that's going to stop me from
achieving my goals if I don't achieve my
goals as much as I know better than to
build my self-esteem around the
accomplishment I'm still highly invested
in the accomplishment so cool I know why
I'm feeling it am I going to display it
that becomes the question is it useful
in this moment so for instance I was in
a near rage that entire call lasted two
and a half hours but how many minutes of
that call would anybody on the call know
that I was that annoyed seven so it's
like you have to have the awareness to
turn it into a tool and then you have to
have the control of your emotions to
wield the tool appropriately one thing
that people do not understand is that
you can literally change the way that
you think you can re-wire your brain and
develop a mindset that can lead you to
achieving whatever it is that you set
your mind to
and are willing to pay the price to
actually achieve but the question is how
the reason that mindset is so important
is at the end of the day only execution
matters so if you have big dreams if you
have goals something that you're trying
to accomplish in your life you're going
to have to execute against that so why
do I say that mindset is so important in
that scenario the reason is that
ultimately to achieve the things you
want to achieve I can promise you when
you start out you're not good enough yet
to achieve that and or you don't have
the right plan and so the way to refine
the plan to actually do the thing that
you want to accomplish you're going to
have to run through what I call the
physics of progress the physics of
progress are very simple they require
you to have a hypothesis which is simply
your best guess this is what I think I
have to do to achieve my goals then
you're going to turn that into something
you can do you're going to do that thing
it's going to fail to some degree that's
just the way it works but failure is the
most information Rich data stream on
planet Earth but to accurately assess
the data and figure out what it's
telling you about why you failed to some
extent or why it was more
inefficient than it needs to be
you have to be willing to stare nakedly
at your own inadequacies take
responsibility for the outcome not make
it somebody else's fault or the
economy's fault or whatever any external
Force if you're making it an external
problem you're never going to be able to
learn the lesson you need to learn in
order to improve your behavior so that
you can then execute better and make
more progress that really is it that's
the physics of progress hypothesis
turn it into something actionable run
that action learn from the partial
failure get a little bit smarter
come up with a new hypothesis that is
more informed turn it into something
actionable run that it will fail again
to some degree figure out why by
lowering your defenses having a growth
mindset making sure that you are able to
take on the responsibility now why is
that a mindset question why can't you
just run that equation if it really is
that simple the answer is you have in
your brain something called the
psychological immune system this is
something given to you by millions of
years of evolution we should all be
extremely grateful for it and the
psychological immune system's job is to
make sure that you don't commit suicide
it is designed to make you feel better
about things it's the reason why you can
mess up make a mistake and you can
soothe yourself now the problem is that
the goal of the psychological immune
system is not for you to achieve your
goals it's simply to make sure that you
feel good enough about yourself that you
can keep moving through life
now the reason that that becomes wildly
problematic and is one of the most
important things you have to address in
your mindset if you're going to be
successful is because the number one
tool that your psychological immune
system works to soothe your ego is to
make everything somebody else's fault it
is the fault of the government it is the
fault of rich people it is the fault of
not being born the right color not being
born the right sex so on and so forth it
is making something the external problem
now here's the really bad news your
psychological immune system is going to
grab for a very valid excuse those
things that I listed may all be true
they may really all be holding you back
the problem is you want to know what the
right mindset for success is and if you
want to be successful you are going to
have to overcome a endless parade of
problems and to overcome the endless
parade of problems you have to have a
way to take responsibility
for what you can do differently to
overcome those problems instead of being
annoyed instead of shutting down instead
of just pointing the finger you want to
adapt your behavior it sucks that the
second law of Thermodynamics is that all
things move towards chaos
it sucks that humans are so complicated
and so weird that we don't just lift
each other and love each other which we
do and is amazing we tear each other
down we kill each other man read history
books it will terrify you about how
brutal humans can be it is crazy how
many different times and places
throughout history we have just
slaughtered people in Mass numbers in
the most horrifying way that you can
possibly imagine so if humans can slide
all the way to that level of depraved
Madness and we know that everything
moves towards chaos how do we bring the
massive amount of order
that we have to bring to the world so
that we can March ever long towards
success and actually achieve it
the only way to overcome chaos the only
way to overcome entropy which is the
fancy name for chaos is to pour energy
into the system so you have to
constantly pour energy into your own
life to make sure that you're making
progress to your goals if you're going
to eventually achieve success and the
only way that you're going to be able to
do that is to have a growth mindset now
really simply a growth mindset is that
you believe
that your talent and intelligence are
not fixed traits that you can get better
at something as you put time and energy
into getting better at that thing it's
what I call the only belief that matters
the only belief that matters is that by
applying time and energy into something
you will actually get better at it now
once you believe that everything in your
life Downstream of that gets better
because now you know oh I messed up at
this thing I suck at that thing the
world is trying to stop me from doing
that thing the world is effective at
stopping me from doing that thing a word
all I need to do is go and get better
and I can outperform people as Kobe
Bryant said and this has become my
favorite quote in the world
booze don't block dunks now what did he
mean by that he meant
that no matter what you can get so good
that people can't stop you
people were paid millions of dollars to
stop Kobe Bryant from scoring points and
yet he scored 81 points in a single game
just by getting better than other people
getting better than other people
requires you to have a growth mindset
that's the growth part you're going to
get better
so that when you fail and you will fail
over and over and over and over and over
and over and over again
and it's going to be embarrassing it's
going to hurt and all that but when you
fail
if you believe oh failing means that I'm
a failure because my talent and
intelligence are fixed traits there's
nothing I can do to get better you will
stop why wouldn't you it's the only
thing that makes sense
but if on the other hand you believe
that oh
I can get better at this I'm not good
enough yet but I can get good enough by
applying time and energy into getting
better so now you'll apply that time and
energy because you believe that it will
yield the outcome that you want and that
is why it is so critical to get your
mind right so that you can run that Loop
of the physics of progress because watch
how it breaks down if you don't have a
growth mindset I have a hypothesis hey
this is what I need to do I'm going to
try this thing I tried it oh my God I
failed it's embarrassing I'm hurt
emotionally people are making fun of me
my parents are telling me I told you so
oh my God like I don't want to keep
going and by the way this is making me
really feel badly about myself so now
I'm going to Stew over it I'm going to
think about this all the time why did I
fail man I'm cool I didn't do anything
wrong oh I failed because the world
sucks the world's against me
all the reasons that people make up not
even makeup all the very valid reasons
that you were stopped if you have a
fixed mindset you're going to tell
yourself that you're going to take those
excuses because they make you feel
better about yourself and in that moment
of emotional crisis that happens every
time we fail you're going to reach for
whatever makes you feel better
if on the other hand you have a growth
mindset when you hit that moment you're
going to be like okay cool I need to get
better at this I'm going to have to
transform my potential into usable skill
set and then execute against that then
you can reformulate your hypothesis come
up with a better action to do run that
and even though it will fail again to
some extent you'll have made more
progress and when you iterate on that
Loop enough just relentlessly getting
better trying new things making
incremental Improvement
then you win and that is the only path
to success once you decide that you're
going to really pursue success you have
to start asking yourself a fundamental
question around the growth mindset if
getting a growth mindset is difficult
what is the opposite of that
the opposite of a growth mindset is a
fixed mindset
now if a growth mindset is defined as I
believe that my talent and intelligence
are malleable traits meaning that I can
actually get better at something
a fixed mindset is the opposite that
your Delta hand of cards genetically and
it just is what it is and so your life
is really about doing the best you can
with the hand that you've been dealt but
there's nothing that you can do to
improve I want to aggressively debunk
that myth
so the human animal every species has to
choose to either be born with all of the
things you're going to need to do to go
be that thing so a cat is born with all
the things that needs to be a cat a
horse is born with all the things that
needs to be a horse so on and so forth
and so that's why 20 minutes after being
born a horse can do all of the things
that that horse is going to do it's up
it's walking around it can run all of
that imagine humans getting up and
running around 20 minutes after being
born we would lose our minds we'd freak
out what is going on that that is a a
child unlike any other child in all of
human history
because we have the ability to adapt and
so we chose a very different strategy so
all animals bifurcate between those two
things the vast majority come with
almost all or all of things
pre-programmed they just do it
instinctively you don't have to be
taught now of course they're going to be
things that the margins how to better
hunt and what stream to go to and all
that so there's some amount of that that
is going to be learned in the wild but
they're going to be able to do most of
the things like the vast majority 90
plus percent of the things right after
being born
humans on the other hand can't even hold
their own head up they can't even hold
their own head up for months so we have
taken a totally different path which is
the path of adaptation Now by choosing
that path we have become the most
dominant Predator the world has ever
seen so the question becomes what is it
about a about that setup that means that
we need to leverage a growth mindset and
completely debunks this idea of a fixed
mindset
we know that humans the average human is
designed to grow and get better that's
what we do that's the evolutionary
strategy that we've chosen so if we know
that the average human is designed to
grow and get better it becomes a
question of are you creating a frame of
reference about how you view the world
that gets you to take advantage of that
the reason that so many people peak in
their teenage years and they don't
continue to get better is they have a
fixed mindset so what ends up happening
is they go and they try out for
basketball to use my own example since
this was something I struggled with and
I was so unbelievably bad at basketball
it never occurred to me that if I
actually worked at practice that I would
get better so since I was so embarrassed
by my lack of talent in basketball I was
always trying to hide on the bench I
didn't want people to pass me the ball
if they pass me the ball I would panic I
was never thinking about oh how do I get
better like go home practice dribbling
practice shooting that didn't even occur
to me I was just like I'm bad at this
thing I'm never going to get good at
this thing and so I just didn't try
right and it was all about hiding if I
had realized wait a second the average
human is actually designed to get better
now it is very important to note that we
are not blank slates so if LeBron James
and I had grown up together done all the
same things I dribbled the ball just as
many times as he did I had the same
coaches as he did I shot as many free
throws practiced step for step in the
way that he did odds are I'm never gonna
get as good as he's gonna get he's much
taller than I am he is far more
explosive and athletic he may have a
mind that is way better suited to
tracking the different things you have
to do on the court from reading the
court understanding the other players
moving his body all of it I don't know
because I never pushed myself but I'm
gonna guess that he's pretty Elite from
the part of us that is hardwired now
science seems to indicate that we are
roughly 50 hardwired and 50 malleable so
the odds of me becoming the next LeBron
James at basketball is vanishingly Slim
though admittedly I never tried at the
peak of my physical prowess so I can't
rule it out but I am going to say that
that doesn't strike me as the right use
of my time and energy but once you
realize that a growth mindset is real
you realize that you can get let's just
call it a hundred times better at
anything now if you start at a way worse
position because you don't have the
mental or physical gifts that somebody
else has in the 50 that's hardwired the
end point if you're 100 times better may
be radically different than that person
fair enough but once you realize wait a
second anything in my life I can get 100
times better that becomes the central
question of your life once you have a
growth mindset and You Begin applying
that growth mindset now it's a question
of how far can you go if you have a
growth mindset because you can take
yourself
extraordinarily far in an area where
you've got some positive momentum from
the 50 percent of you that is hardwired
so finding that thing that you both love
and have a natural inclination two and
then slather on top of that an obscene
amount of work and if you look at
somebody like Kobe Bryant who inspires
the life out of me that guy worked so
hard to get good and put that on top of
his already
immeasurable gifts but I would like to
point out that Not only was he one of
the greatest basketball players of all
time he won an Academy Award he won an
Academy Award for a film that he made so
Not only was he able to dominate in a
sport that you could say arguably he had
some really natural talents I doubt that
he also had an equal amount of Talent on
the filmmaking side and that hearing him
talk about it he went out and found the
greatest Minds in filmmaking and learned
from them worked with them to create
something that really was a breathtaking
Masterpiece and so understanding that
that if you 100x your abilities in an
area it will be such a meaningful
transformation in your life that your
life in that area will be unrecognizable
on the other side of that energy and
effort and that ultimately is the
difference between a fixed mindset and a
growth mindset because the person with a
fixed mindset may have had not only the
same 50 percent as somebody who goes on
to be very successful the hardwired 50
they might be ahead
and this is why when you have people
that outwork somebody that has more
natural Talent than them they end up
going farther now of course the person
that has both the natural talent and the
insane work ethic is going to go farther
than the person without the natural
talent and only the insane work ethic
but since let me spoiler alert on the
human existence
most people quit most people give up
they just
life is going to batter you about
there's going to be so much difficulty
in your life there's going to be failure
pain suffering emotional trauma uh
embarrassment all of that just it it
chips away at the average person because
they aren't relentlessly focused on a
growth mindset and they're building
their self-esteem around being right
better faster stronger if on the other
hand they would focus on the growth
mindset they would realize that they can
get better and they put all of their
energy and effort into creating that
frame of reference so that they're
viewing the world in a way that is
optimistic and encouraging them to go in
and put that energy and effort into
something now because they're seeing
that incremental Improvement when the
world is knocking them about they
realize oh I can get better at this I
can outperform more people and so
they're going to be more resilient and
they're not going to be as easy to shut
down they're not going to be as easy to
break and so the people that I have
found that are the most resilient in
life they they have the most intensely
developed growth mindset and that's part
of the key you really do have to develop
a growth mindset while some people
pretty early on Realize like oh when I
encounter something difficult I don't
have to back down or give in I can
actually push myself grow and get better
there's limits to that for most people
and so it really is something that even
if you have the beginnings of a growth
mindset you want to make sure that
you're sharpening that sharpening that
sharpening that and really proving to
yourself just how much is possible while
it's outside the scope of this answer I
will say this is why I think that
transforming your physique is one of the
most potent things you can do to
transform your mind because it will show
you very
visually and viscerally that you can go
in not being able to lift the weight you
can work your way up to something and
that over time you literally transform
your body your strength and are capable
of doing things you weren't capable of
doing before if you could see what's
happening to your brain I think far more
people would push themselves into that
zone because they would realize like
whoa I'm really able to get more out of
myself now than I was a year ago three
years ago five years ago and getting
people into that zone where they see the
kind of gains they're making that's
really critical to getting them to
continue to crystallize their belief in
the growth mindset which going back to
what I said earlier gives them the only
belief that matters which is that if I
put energy and effort into getting
better I will actually get better which
means that they will continue to pour
themselves into getting better at
something and that's the path forward
but you have to be willing to sharpen
your growth mindset if you don't do that
then you're are going to be very easy to
knock off course because life is going
to prove to you that you really aren't
good enough to achieve Grand goals and
so that's what ends up breaking somebody
with a fixed mindset because they they
are constantly confronted with their
inadequacies that feels like a life
sentence they don't think that they're
ever going to be able to improve and so
the negative way that they feel about
themselves when they're beaten by
somebody else because For Better or
Worse we are a comparative creature We
compare ourselves to other people all
the time so in that moment of comparison
somebody with a fixed mindset is like
they're better than me it will always be
better than me I will never achieve what
they've achieved I will never have what
they have and then where does that lead
this is all unfair where does that lead
the psychological immune system kicks in
what is the psychological immune system
do it presents you the external reasons
why things are the way that they are
assures you that none of this is your
fault which means that you don't retain
your power you don't look at what you
could be doing to make a change to get a
better result and remember the
psychological immune system is pointing
out real things it's pointing out valid
excuses but if you take those excuses
and sit in that fixed mindset you're not
going to get where you want to go and
this is the thing I'm obsessed with in
my life
read a lot of Internet comments and I
see over and over and over people
looking at other people that are more
successful than they are and they meet
it with vitriol they are so angry the
system is broken I'm not saying it's not
but that's what they're focused on the
system is broken this person uh has
scammed the world let's say that they
have let's say that the system is broken
and that person has scammed the world
how does that help you how does that
push you towards your goals how does
giving up and saying it's all so corrupt
we're never going to get anywhere think
about the greatest people in history the
people that have just done insane things
my go-to is always Nelson Mandela I
cannot imagine
other than outright slavery I cannot
imagine a system more stacked against
somebody than what happened to Nelson
Mandela he was put in prison and
literally treated like a slave for 27
years and yet came out of that and
helped unite a country and move people
forward and so he had every excuse at
his disposal as to why he couldn't make
something of his life and he becomes one
of the most important people in modern
history guys don't grab excuses not
because they're not real not because
they're not valid don't grab excuses
because it will stop you from achieving
what you want to achieve in your life
the greatest walking Among Us are all
the people that realize yeah these are
valid these are very real reasons why
it's harder for me than somebody else
and this sucks and I wish it wasn't so
but they deal with the world the way
that it is not the way they wish it were
and the way that the world is is you can
get better at anything if you have a
growth mindset you can 100x your
abilities and if you stay focused you
don't break you don't give in there's
virtually no limit to what you can
accomplish if you want to learn more
about this topic check out this
interview emotion is what starts worse
it's what ends Wars emotions what gets
you married emotions is where kids comes
from divorce is where emotion comes from
everything that you can think of of a
major change in humanity from the most
extreme of War to the most gentle of
love all come from human emotions