by Benjamin P. Hardy When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Max Planck, German quantum theorist and Nobel Prize winner There are two primary mental shifts that occur in the lives of all highly successful people. Many make the first, but very few make the second. Both of these shifts require a great deal of mental stretching from conventional and societal ways of thinking. In many ways, these shifts require you to unlearn the negative and sabotaging programming from your youth, public education, and even adulthood. The foundation of the first shift is the sublime power of choice and individual responsibility. Once a you make this shift, you are empowered to pull yourself from poverty of time, finances, and relationships. In other words, the first shift allows you to create a happy and prosperous life, where, for the most part, you control how and on what you invest your time. Unfortunately, the results of the first shift can be overly-satisfying on one hand or paralyzing on the other. Thus, few people ascend to the second shift. Hence, Greg McKeown, bestselling author of Essentialism explains, “Success can become a catalyst for failure.” For example, when a musician starts out, they write lots of music for the love of it. Their dreams are often huge. If they end up becoming successful, in almost every case, they’ll begin producing less and less music overtime. This happens for one of two reasons:
The foundation of the second shift is transcending your own independence, wherein your thinking stretches far beyond yourself. Thus, the second shift begins with 10x thinking and subsequently requires you build a team/network that brings your ideas into physical form. In this article, I explain the process of experiencing the first and second shift. Let’s begin: Shift 1: The Power of Choice The following are the core components of your mental model after you’ve experienced the first shift: You are responsible “If it is to be, it is up to me.” — William H. Johnsen, famed African-American painter In order to make the first shift, you must go from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control. This is the scientific way of saying: you stop playing the victim to external circumstances and take responsibility for your life. You are responsible for how you respond to life. No longer do you impulsively react. No longer do you blame others for any lack on your part. You are 100% responsible for your marriage, for example. None of this 50/50 business. It’s all on you. If it fails, it was your fault. You made choices and now there are consequences. Of course others may be involved, but you can’t blame them for your choices. In the book, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, authors Jocko Willink and Leif Babin explain this level of responsibility as fundamental to true leadership. Hence, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Any negative outcomes of a team operation fall square on the leader. Any positive outcomes, conversely, are awarded primarily to the team. Self-leadership, similarly, involves the same level of responsibility. If something doesn’t work out, who (or what) do you blame? If anything but yourself, you’ll remain hostage to things outside your control. Every choice has a cost and consequence “Free-will” doesn’t exist. You aren’t “free” to act however you want, unless you’re willing to accept the consequences of those actions. As Stephen R. Covey explains, “We control our actions, but the consequences that flow from those actions are controlled by principles.” The only way to avoid negative consequences, then, is to understand the principles governing natural consequences. Hence, highly successful people are continually learning and striving to better understand the world around them. You can’t be free to act if you don’t understand the consequences of your behavior. Ignorance is not bliss, but bondage to negative consequences without understanding the source and reason for those consequences. Combine this ignorance with a victim mentality and you have a destructive cocktail. Yet, once you realize that every choice -- even small ones — will yield an outcome, you can then decide which outcomes you want. No choice is free. Every choice is tied to an outcome. Thus, every choice has meaning. The final consequence (and cost) of every choice is TIME! You can’t get your time back. Of course, you can course correct. You can learn from past mistakes. You can solve problems. But there is always a cost. Once you realize that, you’re far more sensitive about spending time on non-essential activities. Success (and happiness) is a choice. Success, health, and happiness are all consequences. They are by-products. They are effects, not causes. You can’t control the effects; principles control these. However, you can control the causes of these things, which are your behaviors. Negative environmental factors? Change them. A recent meta-analysis shows that most people misunderstand confidence. Confidence doesn’t lead to high performance. Rather, confidence is a bi-product of previous performance. For example, if you start your day well, you’re likely to have confidence throughout the rest of your day. If you start poorly, that prior performance will sap your confidence, even subconsciously. Get this clear: confidence is a direct reflection of past performance. Hence, yesterday is more important than today. Luckily, today is tomorrow’s yesterday. So, even if your confidence today isn’t optimal, your confidence tomorrow is still within your control. Once you’ve made the first mental shift, you know that your emotional state is your own responsibility and the product of your choices. If you want to be confident, that’s up to you. If you want to be happy, that’s up to you. If you want to be successful, that’s up to you. Momentum is essential. “When you experience positive momentum, you’ll never want it to stop.” — Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach Finally, people who have experienced this first mental shift really care about momentum. They’ve worked hard to develop their momentum and know what it feels like to not have momentum. Being without momentum is rough. It’s how most people live their lives. And without momentum, results are minimal, even with lots of effort. Consistency is key to developing momentum. You get it by putting intentional effort toward a singular goal or vision, and eventually the compound effect takes over. It’s as though several outside sources are working for your good. Because, they are. Keeping momentum once you have it, then, becomes very important. Hence, you must maintain a thirst for continual learning and growth. Most people get stuck at the first shift. If you take complete responsibility for your life and choices, you will develop a love for learning. You’ll come to understand and live principles which will organically facilitate success in your life. However, there’s a far higher level beyond this first shift, and most people never get there. In the book, Tribal Leadership, authors Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright explain the different cultures of organizations. Most organizations operate in a “Stage 3” culture, where everyone is “out for themselves.” Thus, the goal of Stage 3 cultures is competition rather than collaboration. Yet, this competition actually occurs with the other people within the same organization. Everyone is trying to “get up the ladder.” Hence, there is sucking up, backstabbing, secrecy, and other nonsense. People within these cultures don’t care about the organization as a whole. They only care about what the organization can do for them. They also only engage in relationships so far as those relationships benefit them. It’s all about them. And for this reason, they suffer. They can’t think beyond their own needs and wishes. Thus, their vision for themselves and the world is actually quite small and limited. The primary stumbling blocks for successful people who have made the first shift are as follows:
However, if you want a much higher degree of growth, relationships, and contribution, here’s how the second shift works: Shift 2: The Power of Context“ Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.” — Stephen R. Covey In the book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday explains that many successful people “stop being a student.” When you’re a student, you actively seek to have your paradigm shattered. You want to be wrong and you want feedback. You care more about learning than what other people think about you. Moreover, once you’ve developed the confidence and skills to do incredible work via the first shift, you may realize you can only get so far by yourself. The “lone ranger” mentality is played-out and overrated. You may be able to rock life by yourself. But you could rock life far more with the help of the right people. Naturally, this is the very ascent Stephen R. Covey explains in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The first several habits are to help you experience the first mental shift, or what Covey calls the “Private Victory.” The habits Covey outlines to experience this private victory are:
However, three additional habits of Covey’s book are intended to take you beyond independence to a state of interdependence, where you experience synergistic relationships in all areas of your life. What I’m calling the second mental shift Covey calls “Public Victory.” The habits Covey outlines to experience this public victory are:
It’s been said that the 21st century is the time of the woman, because naturally, women demonstrate many of the characteristics needed to thrive in today’s global and team-driven economy. On average, women are far better team players and collaborators. Men, on the other hand, are prone to ego and self-absorption. Men more often want the glory while women simply want to contribute and grow. The following are the core components of your mental model after you’ve experienced the second shift: 10x thinking “When 10x is your measuring stick, you immediately see how you can bypass what everyone else is doing.” — Dan Sullivan Becoming “successful” requires taking personal responsibility for your life and choices. By nature, it’s beyond average, since, to be average is to not take responsibility. Thinking 10x is much different, though, than simply taking responsibility. It involves a grand vision wherein others must also be responsible. Moreover, 10x thinking involves far more boldness and creativity than simply “being proactive.” 10x thinking takes you from the goal of earning $100,000 a year to earning $1,000,000. Or, from helping 100 people to helping 1,000. Or, from getting 10,000 page views to getting 100,000. When you do this, your strategy immediately shifts. In his book, Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss explains that 10x thinking can come from asking “absurd” questions, such as the question billionaire Peter Thiel asks himself: If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t I do this in 6 months? Of this type of questioning, Ferriss continues: “For purposes of illustration here, I might reword [Thiel’s question] to: ‘What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against you head?’ Now, let’s pause. Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years’ worth of dreams in the next few months? No, I don’t. But I do expect that the question will productivity break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities. The ‘normal’ systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks — they don’t work when asking a question like this. You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along.” If you want to think bigger, ask better (and more absurd) questions. I once asked myself how I could write a blog post that would get one million social shares. The product was a 10,000 word listunlike anything I’d ever seen to that point. These types of questions lead to creative breakthroughs and different avenues of thought. They also organically facilitate a very different strategic approach. What absurd question will break you out of your limiting and traditional ways of thinking? Delegate “Delegate everything but genius.” — Dan Sullivan When you begin thinking 10x, you realize you can’t do it all on your own. You need to be far more focused. Thus, it becomes essential to build a team around you immediately. Your network is your networth. The sooner you build a team around you, the faster, wider, and deeper will be your results. In almost every case, you won’t feel ready to build this team. Don’t get caught-up with any preconceived notions of what “building a team” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to “hire” people in the traditional sense. It could mean that you exchange favors. Or that you have win-win relationships — such as the one I have with my literary agent, my editor, and friends who help. These are mutually beneficial relationships wherein you focus on your superpower and have those around you who focus on theirs’. Collaboration and synergy in all areas of life “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller Take a minute to examine your life. When you go to the gym, do you have a workout partner? Surveys show that most people prefer working out alone. However, if you’ve experienced the growth available by pushing yourself with someone else, the idea of working out alone seems somewhat comical. As Michael Jordan explains, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” In a Darwinian sense, most people compete with others on their own level. Those seeking rapid growth compete with others who are far advanced, what Josh Waitzkin calls“investing in failure.” An even higher order principle is collaborating with others who are far advanced of your current level. For instance, if you want to get stronger or faster really fast, exercise with people in far better shape. If you want to do incredible work, work with more talented people than you. If you want to become a better person, date or marry someone “up.” Of course, if it is a true collaboration, you’ll need to bring much to the table yourself. This isn’t about social loafing. It’s about intensive growth, and must therefore, be both win-win and synergistic. As Andrew Carnegie, among the richest Americans of all time, has explained, “Teamwork appears most effective if each individual helps others to succeed, increasing the synergy of that team; ideally, every person will contribute different skills to increase the efficiency of the team and develop its unity.” Another billionaire, Richard Branson, similarly stated, “Build your own business team. Survival in business requires a synergy of skills.” In everything you do, there should be collaborative and synergistic elements. Of course, there is work which is your work. However, that work should be embedded within a group of others and toward something much bigger. Again, a huge difference from the first shift to the second is that you are responsible for more than just yourself. Because others depend on you to show up and do what you do best, you are responsible to your team. These others could be customers, fans, family, a workout partner. Whatever. The point is, you are responsible for other people’s success. Moreover, in many ways, their success is your success. Their growth and development is just as satisfying as your own — sometimes more. Rest and recovery “Working with a 10x goal and game-plan requires that your brain is relaxed, rested, and rejuvenated.” — Dan Sullivan Deep, creative, and strategic thinking and work is exhausting. An essential component of the second shift is doing “less, but better.” Where the first shift is often about quantity of work, the second shift is all about quality. To experience the first shift, you often just need to throw a bunch of darts at a board. Simply throwing a dart is seen as a huge win, initially. Eventually, some of those darts start hitting the board and getting some attention. However, once you make the second shift, you are among the world-class. It’s not just about hitting the board. It’s about hitting the bulls-eye, consistently. Precision. Quality. Conservation, rest, and recovery, then, becoming increasingly essential. This is true at all elite levels. For example, professional athletes spend an enormous time resting. Roger Federer and LeBron James have said they sleep an average of 12 hours per day. Similarly, to build mass and strength, many people need to workout less, and give their body more time for recovery and sleep. Yet, during their workouts, they need to push themselves harder and heavier. Less, but better. The same is true of mental and strategic work. Recovery is more than just physically resting. It’s also being completely unplugged from “connection.” For instance, a recent study found that constant smartphone use stops people from properly recovering from work (and life). In a sense, people are always “on” to distraction and connection. They never disconnect. People keep their smartphones on them constantly. In the study, the experimental group, who became more conscious of their smartphone use, and took adequate breaks from it, were able to experience psychological detachment from work (which is essential for recovery and engagement), relaxation, and mastery. Take away: Set healthy boundaries on your smartphone and internet use. When possible, keep your smartphone away from your person. If it’s in physical proximity, you will unconsciously use it. Keep it in your car when you get home from work. Or keep it in a drawer in a separate room. Allow yourself to actually rest and recovery so you can engage in life and work! This is absolutely essential if you want to truly make the second shift. Conclusion These mental shifts are incredible. Wherever you are on your own journey, you can intensify and deepen your understanding of the principles at these various levels. Never stop being a student. Never stop learning. Shatter whatever paradigm you have and get a new one. When you change the way you see things, the things you see change. This article first appeared on BenjaminHardy.com. By Jared Dillian and of Mauldin Economics I was unhappily scrolling through Facebook the other day and saw that one of my smart friends had posted a dumb article about the excellent Toronto Raptors basketball player who, despite making nearly a hundred million dollars, still drives a 20-year-old beater SUV.
He said of the car: “It runs … and it’s paid off.” The second part of that statement is crucial. There is nothing better than a paid-off car. There is no monthly payment, and most of the depreciation has already occurred. You are driving for free. I have to say that even I am not as disciplined as Kawhi Leonard. I had my last car for seven years and about 135,000 miles when I started getting a hankering for new-car smell. Anyway, Leonard’s level of frugality is seldom seen in the NBA — or anywhere in professional sports, for that matter. I had a friend of a friend who played college hoops and made it to the NBA. He said that the players would buy a new suit for every day they were on the road. Forty-one road games, 41 suits. They would wear them once, and never wear them again. Given the size of the basketball players, these were bespoke suits and not off the rack. Conservatively, that’s about $100,000 worth of suits. A year. And so it goes. In my personal-finance stories, I’m trying to give people a pretty big dose of perspective. Three dollars on coffee every day is a luxury you can afford, and people seem to have an easier time giving up large luxuries than small luxuries. Most people would rather drive a piece-of-crap car than give up the morning coffee. Tell people to give up coffee (as Suze Orman does) and you will alienate the people you are trying to help. So for starters, don’t buy 41 suits a year. But don’t buy a $10 juice every day, either. And don’t go out to eat three times a week. And don’t stay in $300-$400 hotels when you travel. All basic stuff. But the easiest way to save money, hands down, is to drive a piece-of-crap car. Gravedigger Unless you are driving a Ferrari RACE, -2.85%, a car is not an investment. A car is basically a huge waste of money. Buying new cars is like taking $40,000 and setting it on fire Where else can you take $40,000 and set it on fire in seven years? And pay a bunch of interest to the bank in the process? What a disaster. Funny thing about cars — people’s egos are really tied up in the brand of the car. People like to say they drive a “Benz” or a “Beamer.” Puke. I drive a Toyota TM, -0.48%. They never break down, and they last forever. They’re a great car to own that is paid for. I saw something the other day that I never thought I would see. A green Lambo — parked outside the Social Security office in Myrtle Beach. My analyst and I staked it out to see who the owner was. A 90-year-old man came out of the Social Security office, got in the car, and revved the engine while people took pictures. I suppose if you are 90, you can have a green Lambo. This makes sense for nobody else in Myrtle Beach. I also spend a lot of time in Miami Beach, a town where having a Porsche is like having a Honda HMC, -1.60%. I get the sense that a lot of people who own those cars literally have no other possessions. It is all about priorities. This is how you win The takeaway here is that your financial well-being is not the product of a million small decisions, but two or three big decisions. A car can bankrupt you. Or you may get to watch helplessly as it gets towed out of your driveway. And don’t get me started on leasing, the extended warranty of auto finance. I have had conversations with car salesmen. They all say the same thing: “I can get you in that car.” They are pretty creative, financially speaking, and will find some way to make the sale, even if it puts you in a perilous financial position. That is not their concern. Their concern is selling cars. The ideal scenario: Get a gently used Toyota, pay cash, drive it forever. You win the personal-finance game. You should have $1 million before you buy a new Beamer or a Benz. Jared Dillian is an investment strategist at Mauldin Economics and a former head of ETF trading at Lehman Brothers. Subscribe to his weekly investment newsletter, The 10th Man. By M.J. Toebe It is possible to protect ourselves from costly errors to stress that damage our lives?
Many people are confident in their response to stress whether that be everyday challenges, disputes, ongoing negativity or crisis — yet is that confidence always warranted? Often, what they’re doing is constructing a belief that is ignorant at best or at worst, dangerous self deception. There is a difference between confidence and trustworthiness. Confidence is easy when we are willing to assume falsely or self deceive. It can be easily be misplaced in what is not reliable. Trustworthiness, meanwhile, is much more difficult to come by because the standard is higher. Yet, it is something that is “bankable,” in that it is rooted in proof and reality. So how is a trustworthy response to stress defined and how does someone develop it? For the purpose of this article, it is a thoughtful, poised, wise response, instead of a poorly control emotional reaction, to stress and other people, that is moral, emotionally intelligent and does not harm others or our reputation. That might sound simple (even if not always desirable) yet observation of the people and life around us shows it is not as common as it should be and could be in humanity. Why? Because we can be highly reactive. Those who don’t skillfully conduct themselves in stress are not always other people. Oftentimes, it’s us. Developing a response that is better or masterful that can be objectively defined as trustworthy requires higher-level personal development than is often natural to our mind, impulse control and actions. We don’t come out of the womb preprogrammed to expertly respond to the stress this world presents. Some people with troublesome reactions and responses to stress assume they have mastered their response even when their history proves otherwise. This blind spot is a perilous place to be for their personal and professional lives. It can also be highly problematic for some people with whom they cross paths. Learning is always possible. The question is, who is receptive and teachable and who isn’t? Self awareness and motivation are critical drivers of personal development. This is easier for some people than it is others but it’s rarely simple for anyone. Those who respond most impressively and honorably to stress have had to work at it and still work at it. It takes practice, adjustments, learning, trial and error, honestly and commitment. Yet by doing so, people can learn to ingrain it in their thinking and behavior to where it becomes habit. Practice can pay off exceedingly well, with excellent rewards. A response that can protect us and others from our tendency for poor judgment and regrettable or shameful reactionary choices is a response that has been thought out wisely, practiced and successful at taming our amygdala, that part of our brain that processes emotion and where we experience a fight-or-flight moment and can put our name, reputation and well-being at great risk. Without understanding of the powerful forces of the amygdala, it is unlikely we will take the necessary steps to counteract what it can strongly nudge us in the direction to do that is unwise or foolish. Effective stress management is learning to absorb thoughts, feelings, attitudes and reactionary urges without being negatively controlled by them like a puppet and acting out in a variety of selfish, incredibly suboptimal or reckless ways. This is done through a variety of ways — learning our triggers, defusing self talk that can lead us in the wrong direction, breathing exercises to slow down and better manage our thinking, healthy relaxation techniques, forward thinking and asking smart questions of ourselves to determine smarter choices. These steps help us with emotional balance and resilience. It can be simple or challenging, depending on our thinking traps and habits yet it is always possible to be receptive to learning, engage in it and be disciplined to achieve improvement and further develop personally. The benefits can be and are often more than worthwhile. They are protective and helpful in problem solving stress. M.J. Toebe leads Quality Stress Response, helping individuals and organizations with best understanding their interpretations, reactions and responses to stress and developing reliable strategy that they can count on for success in their personal and professional lives. Bill Gates: This book was so good, ‘I stayed up with it until 3 a.m.’—then gifted it to 50 friends6/4/2021 By Tom Popomaronis While the Microsoft co-founder has shared hundreds of his favorite reads, there’s one in particular that has been given the ultimate seal of approval. There’s one in particular that has been given the ultimate seal of approval: “The Rosie Project,” by Graeme Simsion. Gates was introduced to the book by his wife Melinda, who “kept stopping to recite parts of it out loud” to him, he said in a 2016 interview with The New York Times. “Eventually, I decided to take a look. I started it one night at 11:00 p.m. and stayed up with it until 3:00 a.m.” Simsion’s debut novel centers around Don Tillman, a geneticist who may or may not have Asperger’s Syndrome. Determined to find a suitable wife, he creates a double-sided, 16-page questionnaire to help complete the mission. I must have given ‘The Rosie Project’ to at least 50 friends. “The book is less about genetics or thinking too logically or the main character’s hilarious journey than it is about getting inside the mind and heart of someone a lot of people see as odd — and discovering that he isn’t really that different from anybody else,” Gates wrote in his review. “It’s an extraordinarily clever, funny, and moving book about being comfortable with who you are and what you’re good at.”
Gates also called it “one of the best novels” he’s read in a long time, which is quite the praise coming from someone who doesn’t read a lot of fiction. In fact, Gates thought it was so good that he gifted it to at least 50 friends. So if you’re looking for a way to simplify your holiday shopping plan this year, taking a cue from the successful billionaire and sending a copy of “The Rosie Project” to everyone on your list might not be such a bad idea. (Gift-givers who want to go the extra mile should consider throwing in Simsion’s sequel “The Rosie Effect,” which Gates and his wife said they also enjoyed.) According to Gates, not only will “The Rosie Project” make readers laugh, cry and think, but its main character offers something that virtually anyone can relate to: “We all have powerful fears, and seeing them in Don makes you feel like you’re not the only one.” Tom Popomaronis is a leadership researcher, commerce expert, cross-industry innovation leader and VP of Innovation at Massive Alliance. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and The Washington Post. In 2014, Tom was named one of the “40 Under 40” by the Baltimore Business Journal. Follow him on LinkedIn. |
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