We cannot call something a distraction unless we know what it is distracting us from.

Let me say that again. You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from.

If you don’t plan your day, somebody is going to plan it for you. The social media companies, the news, your boss, your kids, somebody is going to take up that time in your day unless you decide in advance how you want to spend your time.

We need to talk about the leading cause of distraction. The leading cause of distraction is not what is happening outside of us. Because what I discovered in my five years of research is that most distraction begins from within. We call these “internal triggers”.

What are internal triggers? Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional sensations that we seek to escape from.

You see, in fact, all human behavior, all human behavior, everything you do, you do for only one reason: the desire to escape discomfort.

So calling yourself indistractable doesn’t mean you never get distracted. That’s impossible. The difference between an indistractable person and a distractable person is that an indistractable person understands why they got distracted, and has the tools to do something about it.

There’s a wonderful Paulo Coelho quote. He said, “A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.” If we keep getting distracted by the same stupid things day after day, week after week, month after month, we are choosing to be distractable.

An indistractable person looks at why they got distracted with this methodology I’ve developed and understands the source of the problem to make sure that they don’t keep getting distracted by doing something today to prevent getting distracted tomorrow.

To understand distraction, we really need to understand what that word even means. When people say they got distracted, what does that actually mean? I didn’t understand the real definition of the term “distraction” until I started along this line of research. The best way to understand what distraction is, is to understand what distraction is not. If you ask most people what is the opposite of distraction, they’ll tell you it’s focus, of course, right? Hmm, not exactly. You see, if you look at the origin of the word distraction, the opposite of distraction is not focus, the opposite of distraction is traction, that both words come from the same Latin root “trahere”, which means “to pull”. So traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards what you said you were going to do, things that you do with intent, things that help you live out your values and become the kind of person you want to become.

Now, the opposite of traction is distraction. Distraction, by definition, is any action that pulls you away from what you plan to do, anything that is not consistent with your values, anything that pulls you away from becoming the kind of person you want to become.

So this isn’t just wordplay. This is incredibly important, because I would argue, any action can be either traction or distraction. Let me give you a great example. For years, every time I would get into work, I would sit down at my desk and I would say, “Okay, I’m going to get started on that big project, I’ve got to focus, I have to concentrate, I’m not going to get distracted. I’m not going to procrastinate.” I’m going to get started on that big project that I’ve been putting off. Here I go, I’m going to do it right now. But first, let me check some email, let me scroll this Slack channel. let me do all these other tasks that feel work related.” But really, I didn’t realize that I was allowing distraction to trick me into prioritizing the easy and urgent stuff to trick me into prioritizing the easy and urgent stuff as opposed to doing the important work that I knew I had to do.

So even tasks that feel like they’re work related, if it’s not what you plan to do with your time, they are, in fact, distractions. And in fact, they’re the most pernicious form of distractions, because if we play a video game at our desk, well, we clearly know we’re off task. But when we think we’re working on one project, when we think we’re doing one task that seems to be the right thing to do because it’s work related, but really, we’re putting off doing more important work. That is a much more sinister form of distraction. Conversely, just as anything can be a distraction, anything can be traction. So don’t listen to these chicken-little tech critics that tell you the sky is falling and that technology is addicting us and hijacking our brains. It’s rubbish.

There’s nothing wrong with playing a video game or watching a movie on Netflix or enjoying social media, if it’s what you PLAN to do with your time. You see, the difference between traction and distraction is one word. And that one word is “forethought”. The time you PLAN to waste is not wasted time.

So if you want to take a walk, take a nap, scroll social media, pray, meditate, whatever it is you want to do with your time is totally fine as long as you do it with intent, as long as you have planned ahead as to how you want to spend your time. You can otherwise turn a distraction into traction by planning ahead, by using forethought.

So now that we understand the difference between traction and distraction, we need to ask what drives us towards traction or distraction.

We have two kinds of triggers. The first kind of trigger is called an “external trigger”, and it’s what people tend to blame, the usual suspects like the pings, the dings, the rings, anything in your outside environment that can lead you towards traction or distraction. We can get back to those in just a minute. But first, I want to focus on what’s even more important than the external triggers.

We need to talk about the leading cause of distraction. The leading cause of distraction is not what is happening outside of us, because what I discovered in my five years of research is that most distraction begins from within. We call these “internal triggers”. What are internal triggers? Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional sensations that we seek to escape from. You see, in fact, all human behavior, all human behavior, everything you do, you do for only one reason: the desire to escape discomfort. In fact, even the desire to feel pleasure is, itself, psychologically destabilizing. This is called the “homeostatic response”.

If you think about it, if you go outside and it’s cold, well, the brain tells you, “Oh, this is uncomfortable, you should put on a coat.” When you walk back inside, the brain says, “Oh, it’s too hot in here, take it off.” If you feel hunger pangs, you eat. If you’re full because you ate too much, you stop eating. And so physiologically, everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort. This is called the “homeostatic response”. It’s pretty common sense.

But what most people don’t realize is that the same phenomenon occurs with our psychological sensations. Think about it. Where do people go when they’re feeling lonely? Well, you check a social network like Facebook. And what about when you’re uncertain? Before you scan your brain to see if you know the answer, you’re Googling? And what about when you’re feeling bored? Oh my goodness, so many solutions to boredom, right? Check the news, check stock prices, sports scores, Pinterest, Reddit, all kinds of solutions to take care of this uncomfortable sensation of boredom, because we don’t like those internal triggers, they don’t feel good, and we look for escape from them.

So here’s the fact of the matter:

TIME management is PAIN management.

And if all human behavior is about a desire to escape discomfort, if you don’t understand what is that emotional itch, what is the uncomfortable sensation you are looking to escape, whether it’s with too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook, it doesn’t matter; we have to first start by mastering these internal triggers, so that we can gain control over them, as opposed to them controlling us.

So now that we understand the difference between traction and distraction, and we understand that we are driven towards traction or distraction by internal and external triggers, we can actually plot out the four points of how we become indistractable. It starts, first and foremost, by mastering the internal triggers, by understanding the deeper reasons why we look for escape from those uncomfortable sensations. The next step is to make time for traction.

Over the past five years research in my book, I’ve talked to thousands of people, and many of them have complained to me about how distracting the world is, how they can’t get anything done because social media this, and did you hear what happened in the news that, and their boss wants this and their kids want that, and they tell me how distracted they are. But when I asked them, “Okay, but what did you get distracted from exactly? Let me see your calendar. What was it that you plan to do?” They haven’t a clue. Sometimes they’ll show me their calendar.

And I’m guilty of this as well. I used to do this several years ago before I wrote this book. My calendar was blank. I’d have maybe an appointment here and there, but for the most of my day, I didn’t have anything planned. What I did have was a super long to-do list with all kinds of tasks I wanted to check off. What I’ve since discovered is that running your day with a to-do list as opposed to a calendar, is just about the worst thing you could possibly do for your productivity. Instead of keeping it to do list, which we tend to tick off the easy stuff and the fun stuff as opposed to the important stuff, when we keep a calendar, not just a calendar, a time box calendar, we utilize this fundamental truth that we cannot call something a distraction unless we know what it is distracting us from.

Let me say that again. You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. And so if you don’t plan your day, somebody is going to plan it for you. The social media companies, the news, your boss, your kids, somebody is going to take up that time in your day unless you decide, in advance, how you want to spend your time. There’s a reason we call it spending time and paying attention. The same type of language that we use to describe spending money and paying with dollars and cents, because our time and attention has value. And so if you just give it away to whoever wants it, don’t complain when you haven’t gotten done what you wanted to do with your time, and frankly, with your life.

So, this comes down to turning our values into time. What does that mean? Fundamentally, we have to ask ourselves, what are our values? So what are values anyway?

Values are attributes of the person you want to become, meaning you have to ask yourself, how would the person I want to become spend their time?

Now we can ask ourselves within these three life domains of you, your relationships, and finally your work. How would the person I want to become spend their time starting with you? So whatever is important for you in terms of personal values, how much time would the person you want to become spend on reading, on yoga, on prayer, on meditation, whatever it is that’s important to you, heck, playing video games, if that’s important to you, that’s part of your values, and the way you want to take care of yourself, wonderful, but plan that time in your schedule.

Next, our relationships. We are going through a global loneliness crisis, because over the past several decades, and this didn’t start with social media, but since the 1990s, social scientists have told us that the time that people devote to planned activities with their friends has markedly decreased. And so we can bring that back. We can make sure that we spend time with our friends, loved ones, and family members by putting time for it in our schedule.

If part of your value system involves being a devoted spouse, or a loving parent, or an available sibling, do you have that time to connect with the important people in your life scheduled and held on your calendar? And then finally, when it comes to our values around our work.

You see, work is split up into two kinds of work. We have what we call “reactive work” and “reflective work”. Reactive work is how most people spend most of their time at work. It’s responding to emails, answering phone calls, messages, slack notifications, reacting to what other people want you to do with your time. Now, that time is clearly part of many people’s jobs, but what we neglect to do is to carve out and protect time for reflective work.

Listen, if you want a leg up on the competition, if you want to do your job better than anyone else can, let me give you a little secret. Make time to think. You know why? Because it’s such a rare skill; nobody’s doing it.

Nobody’s making time in their day to work without distraction, to allow you the time to reflect, to plan, to strategize. You have got to have that time held and secured on your calendar.

So the second step to becoming indistractable is to make time for traction by keeping a time box calendar and then doing what we call “doing a schedule sync with the important stakeholders in your life.” So this will not only change your work-life balance, it’ll also change your relationship with your life partner. For example, when you can sit down with your schedule once a week, takes maybe 10-15 minutes, and review that physical artifact of your schedule, this is how we make sure that we live up to our obligations to others and to ourselves. The third step to becoming indistractable is to hack back our external triggers. So external triggers, again, are these pings, dings, and rings, anything in our outside environment that can lead us off track towards distraction rather than traction. And so there’s all kinds of things that we can do. Many of these things are really common sense.

Two thirds of Americans never change their smartphone notification settings. What? Can we really complain that our smartphones are addicting us when we haven’t taken five minutes to turn those notifications that don’t serve us, off?

So the critical question is to ask ourselves, when it comes to all of these external triggers, all of these pings and dings, which external triggers serve me and which am I serving? And to critically evaluate in all the different external triggers in your life, not just on your phone, but on your computer, at home, at work, meetings, emails, all of these external triggers, which are serving you and which are you serving? And it turns out that there are, in fact, thousands of free tools that we can use to hack back technology. And I used that term very deliberately. “To hack” means “to gain unauthorized access”. Does anybody not know that the big tech companies and the big media companies are in the business of harvesting our attention?

This isn’t something new to social media. If you think about newspapers, cable TV shows, all of them sell your eyeballs to the highest bidder. They sell them to advertisers. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the news or television or social media as long as you know what you’re in for. And the good news is, as opposed to television and newspapers, you can actually hack back with interactive technologies.

So there are all kinds of tools that we can use. For example, when I scroll Facebook, I love Facebook, but I don’t need to see that newsfeed. There’s a free Chrome extension called Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator that does exactly what it says. It gets rid of that newsfeed so that you can check Facebook without looking at this wall of noise. Instead, you can go to specific friends and see what’s up on their specific pages. Another great tool is YouTube DF. I love YouTube videos. You’re probably watching me on YouTube right now. But do I really need to see all those ads, all those extra videos that are put there in order to keep me watching and watching? No, I can install a great Chrome extension called YouTube DF. DF stands for “distraction free”. And this free Chrome extension will scrub out all the superfluous stuff around the video, so that you can just see the video you’re watching without a lot of the tricks that they use to keep you hooked. But this is really the tip of the iceberg.

We can learn how to hack back these external triggers in all different facets of our life. How to hack back meetings, how to hack back email, how to even hack back working from home when so many of us are working at home and our kids might distract us from time to time, what do we do to make sure that we can hack back all the various distractions in our life, so that these external triggers lead us towards traction rather than distraction?

Finally, the fourth step to becoming indistractable is preventing distraction with pacts. Pacts implement this psychological technique of making a precommitment. Now, a precommitment is when we decide, in advance, what we want to do to prevent ourselves from doing something we don’t want to do. And there are three types of pacts. We have effort pacts, price pacts, and identity pacts. Effort packs are when we put some bit of friction in between us and something we don’t want to do.

So for example, in my household, for many years, I found that my wife and I were going to bed later and later every night. She was scrolling her iPad and I was on my computer. And so one night, we decided to use some of these techniques, and we decided to get ourselves a $10 outlet timer. Now, this outlet timer, you plug it into the wall outlet, and anything you plug into it will turn on or off at any time of designated day or night. So in my household, at every night at 10 pm, my internet router shuts off. In fact, today you can buy internet routers with this functionality built right in, so some devices can stay on while others turn off. And this is an incredibly effective technique to make a pact with yourself. Now, could I get back online somehow? Of course, I could find a way to cheat. But I’ve inserted a bit of mindfulness because of the extra effort required so that I can think for a minute and say to myself, “Wait a minute, is this really important, is this really consistent with my values, or is this leading me down the path of distraction rather than traction?” So that’s one example of an effort pact. A price pact is when we put some kind of monetary disincentive on the line. And then perhaps the most powerful of the three types of pacts is what we call an “identity pact”. And identity pact comes out of the psychology of religion.

Research has shown us that when we have some kind of name, some kind of moniker that we identify with, it becomes much more likely that we’ll reach our long-term goals.

So for example, when someone calls themselves a devout Muslim or an observant Christian or even, for that matter, a vegetarian. A vegetarian doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, “Hmm, I wonder if I’ll have a bacon sandwich for breakfast?” No, a vegetarian knows that they don’t eat that because they don’t eat meat. They are a vegetarian. Well, we can adopt a similar mindset and use this psychological hack ourselves by labeling ourselves as indistractable.

When you think of yourself as the kind of person who strives to do what they say they’re going to do, the kind of person who lives with personal integrity, you can call yourself indistractable. And that moniker has been shown to help us stay on track and achieve our long-term goals. One of the things I learned over the past five years of researching the psychology of distraction, is that distraction is not a new thing. Facebook and the internet and the iPhone didn’t invent distraction.

In fact, Plato, the Greek philosopher, talked about distraction over 2500 years ago. He called it ‘akrasia’ in the Greek; the tendency that we have to do things against our better interest. And Plato wondered why is it that despite knowing what to do, we don’t just do it. And if this was difficult in Plato’s day, it’s even more baffling today. In previous generations, people could say, “Well, I don’t know what to do. I don’t have access to the information to tell me some kind of secrets.” But there are no secrets. Who doesn’t basically know how to lose weight? You have to eat right and exercise. Who doesn’t basically know how to improve your work performance? You have to do the work, especially the hard stuff that other people don’t want to do. Who doesn’t know that to improve our relationships with our family and loved ones, we have to be fully present and invest in those relationships?

We already know this stuff. What we don’t know is how to stop getting in our own way. How do we stop getting distracted?

You see, there are typically two types of people when it comes to dealing with distraction. We have what we call the “blamers” and the “shamers”. The blamers blame things outside themselves. “It’s Facebook, it’s my boss, it’s the modern world these days that makes me so distracted and unable to accomplish my goals.” And then you have the shamers. The shamers, they don’t blame things outside themselves; they shame themselves. And here’s what it sounds like.

This is what I used to do all the time. “Oh, maybe there’s something wrong with me. I’m not very good at focusing. Maybe I have an addictive personality. Maybe I’m this, maybe I’m that. There I go again, doing this thing that I said I wasn’t going to do once again. There’s probably something broken in my brain.” And that’s almost never the case. Both techniques are not very effective. The blamer blames things outside of themselves that they have virtually no control to change.

We can go back into some time machine before these technologies existed. And even if we could, there was no magical time without distraction. The shamers really harm themselves with that mindset because the more shame we feel, the worst we feel. And ironically, when we feel shame, a very uncomfortable emotion, many people escape that sensation with guess what? More distraction to take their mind off of how crummy they feel about themselves. So we don’t want to be blamers. We don’t want to be shamers.

We want to be what we call “claimers”. Claimers claim responsibility not for how they feel. This is a really important point. Most people don’t realize you cannot control your feelings, you can only control how you respond to those feelings, that the reason we get distracted, the reason we procrastinate, it’s not a character flaw, there’s nothing wrong with you; it’s simply that you don’t have the tools to deal with those uncomfortable feelings in a healthy manner to lead you towards traction rather than distraction.

You see, many things in the world these days are not your fault. You didn’t invent Facebook, you didn’t invent social media, you didn’t create what’s happening in the news today; these things aren’t your fault. But managing your response to the discomfort that you feel every day that can lead you towards distraction is your responsibility. Many people will classify distraction as certain behaviors. Playing a video game, that’s bad, that’s distracting, but doing your work is somehow good. But that can’t be right. I would argue that any action can be either traction or distraction, whether it’s something we do with intent, with forethought.

So for example, if you sit down at your desk, and guide your work life based on what’s on your to-do list, you’re going to have attention for doing the things that are urgent, easy, or fun, as opposed to doing the stuff that’s actually important. You see, distraction tricks us by us thinking that what we’re working on is what we think we should be doing: checking emails. slack notifications, whatever it is that seems like a work related task.

What we’re doing is allowing distraction to trick us into doing what I call “pseudo work”: these things that we feel like we’re being productive by doing these work-related tasks, but if it’s not what we plan to do with our time, working on that big report, finishing that proposal, whatever the case might be, not doing the work we’re avoiding, that is, in fact, a more dangerous, insipid form of distraction because we don’t even realize we’re getting distracted.

So being indistractable is really the skill of the century. Look, if you think that the world is distracting today, just wait a few years. All trends point to the fact that the world will become an increasingly distracting place.

As technology improves and becomes more ubiquitous, there will be more potentially distracting things in the world. Whether it’s virtual reality or augmented reality or who knows what other kinds of reality, the temptation to get distracted will only increase if you are looking for distraction and you are not armed to deal with it. Which is why becoming indistractable really will be the skill of the century.

Look, I think, in the future, there will be two kinds of people in the world. There will be the kind of people who allow their time and attention and their lives to be manipulated and controlled by others. And there will be the kind of people who stand up and say, “No, I will decide how I spend my time, how I spend my attention, how I live my life. I am indistractable.”

So you hear a lot of people these days saying that technology is addicting us, that it’s hijacking our brains, and there’s basically nothing that we can do about it. And I want to tell you right now that you are much more powerful than you think. Look, I wrote the book on how companies get us hooked. The book is called Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products. And I know every which way that these companies are designed to manipulate your time and attention. And I will tell you, these techniques that the tech companies use are good; they’re not that good. Meaning if we use a few simple techniques to regain control over our time and attention, we are much more powerful than the tech companies.

One of the worst things that you can do is to believe that you are somehow addicted. Now, some people are in fact addicted. If you think about alcohol, for example, alcohol is highly addictive, but is everyone who has a glass of wine or a beer with dinner an alcoholic? Of course not. Very few people are actually addicted to alcohol, and very few people are actually addicted to social media. Now, short of people with the pathology of addiction, the rest of us have to understand that there are things that we can do right now that are very simple to do to make sure that we can control these technologies, as opposed to these technologies controlling us.

The study of what people will do when they feel bored is fascinating. In fact, a study by Timothy Wilson at Harvard found that a significant proportion of people would rather shock themselves with an electrical shock they were told would be painful, than to sit alone in a room and feel boredom. Now, this study reveals to us that there are steps that we will take to try and avoid this uncomfortable sensation, that we would rather have some kind of stimulus than to be stuck alone feeling this uncomfortable emotional itch.

So what this tells us is that we have to find ways to cope with discomfort in a healthier manner. Because many of us, when we feel bored, lonesome, indecisive, fatigued, uncertainty, we reflexively look for some kind of escape. whether that escape is by turning on the television or checking our phones or doing something to take our mind off of that discomfort. Instead, what we can do is we can use those internal triggers, those uncomfortable emotional sensations as rocket fuel to move us forward towards traction, as opposed to trying to escape them with distraction. How can we do that? Well, we have to start with understanding that feeling bad is not bad.

I think that there’s a very popular myth in the self-help communities these days, that somehow if we feel any kind of emotional discomfort, we have to escape it as quickly as possible; that if we feel lonesome or bored or indecisive or anxious or fatigued or stressed, God forbid, we should have to feel those sensations. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

The default human condition is not to be perpetually happy, to be always contented; quite the opposite. Our default state is perpetual disquietude, is always wanting more. And if you think about it, what drives entrepreneurs, artists, politicians, what drives people to change the world is this uncomfortable desire for more, to do something better. That’s what has always driven our species forward. And if you can harness that discomfort and use it to your advantage, this is how we get ahead, this is how we make the world a better place, by understanding that discomfort and dealing with it in a healthy way, as opposed to trying to escape it with distraction in an unhealthy manner.

So there’s a technique called “progressive extremism” that can really be a useful tactic if you’re trying to change your life in a positive manner. And this acknowledges the fact that temporary fixes are pointless. What’s the point of getting in shape by going on some kind of fad diet so you can fit in your wedding dress for just one day, if you’re not maintaining a healthy lifestyle forever? The point of getting in shape is to have the benefits for the rest of your life. So instead of having some kind of crash diet, which we know people tend to bounce back from and with a vengeance, instead, what we want to do is to train ourselves with this technique called progressive extremism.

What does progressive extremism mean? Progressive extremism means that we are going to remove some kind of unhealthy behavior in our life for the rest of our lives, nut we’re going to do it in a very small way.

Here’s how it works: So for me, when I decided I wanted to eat less processed sugar, I didn’t say, “That’s it, I’m never touching processed sugar ever again.” Instead, what I said was, “I am going to cut out one food that’s refined sugar for the rest of my life.” But it has to be easy. So the first food I started with was candy corn. Now, I don’t know if you like candy corn, I don’t really like candy corn all that much. I would eat it kind of on Halloween when my daughter would bring it back from trick-or-treating. It’s kind of the dregs of the Halloween haul. And so I decided one year, “You know what? I’m eating these things not because I like them, but because they’re just here. Well, they’re never going to be here ever again.” And so I pledged myself, “I’m never going to eat another candy corn for the rest of my life.” No big deal, I didn’t really like him to begin with. And then I was ready to do a bit more, to progress. So the next thing I said I’m not going to eat ever again, was I excised sodas, sugary sodas in the house. Now, I told myself I could drink sugary sodas outside the house, just not in the house. That was the first tiny baby step that I was going to take along this path of progressive extremism. When I was ready, about a month later, I decided to excise more and more and more. And so today, after years of doing this, there’s all kinds of things that I just don’t eat. And what we’re doing is leveraging an identity that we know that people who say that “they don’t” versus those who say “I can’t”, are much more likely to stick with their long-term goals.

Because when you say “I don’t do something,” for example, “I don’t eat meat, I am a vegetarian,” versus “Oh, no, thanks, I can’t because I’m on a diet,” you’re much more likely to stick over the long term. So when you regularly review this list of “Wow, look at all the things that I don’t have in my life anymore, starting with candy corn, sugary drinks,” whatever the case might be these small, simple things that you’ve removed from your life over years, and this takes time and commitment, what you’ll find is that you’ll be very proud to have this entire list of things that you don’t really miss anymore, because you took this path of progressive extremism. So if there’s one mantra that summarizes my five years of research into the psychology of distraction, it’s this: that the antidote to impulsiveness is forethought.

You see, our species has an amazing gift that no other animal on the face of the earth has, which is that we can see into the future. We can predict what is going to happen with greater fidelity than any other animal that roams the earth. And so we should use that capability because if you wait till the last minute, you will lose. If you wait until the cigarette is lit in your hand, you’re going to smoke it. If you wait till the chocolate cake is on a fork on the way to your mouth, you’re going to eat it.

If you sleep next to your cell phone every night, of course, it’s going to be the first thing you pick up in the morning before you say hello to your loved one. So don’t wait to the last minute. What I discovered in my five years of research, is that people who are indistractable, they don’t have a lot of willpower, they don’t have a lot of self-control; what they have is a system. They plan today to make sure they don’t get distracted tomorrow. By mastering the internal triggers, making time for traction, hacking back the external triggers, and preventing distraction with pacts, this is how anyone can become indistractable.

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Your life is like an egg, if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends… But if it’s broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things begin on the inside.

Jim Kwik | 5 Steps To A Limitless Brain and A Limitless Life | Watch now on YouTube:

Limitless Book | Official Website | Jim Kwik YouTube

So, Fearless Motivation has a saying, “Strong Mind Strong Life.” And I want to take it to a new level. This is about limitless mind, limitless life. I’m going to show you the five keys to creating a limitless mind and a limitless life.

My name is Jim Kwik of Kwik Learning. I’m here to help you to learn quickly. I am a brain coach and author of the new book “Limitless.” Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster and unlock your exceptional life.

So let me share with you the five keys, but before I do, let me give you a framework. This is a framework I call “The Limitless Model” and it’s a three part framework.

Imagine three intersecting circles, they overlap each other. And each of these three things are what’s going to unlimit you. A process I call in the book “Unlimiting.” Actively removing the borders and barriers to your life.

So I want you to imagine a box. Imagine a box that you feel stuck in. It could be an area of your life where you’re not making progress or you’re not advancing. You feel like you’re being held back. Maybe it’s in your relationship, maybe it’s in your income, maybe it’s in your career, maybe it might be in your health or your fitness. Think about an area of your life right now where you feel like you’re in a box. Now that box is a three dimensional box. And there are three forces that keep you in that box. And there are also three forces that will liberate you out of that.

So let me give you the framework right now. It’s in these three circles.

The first circle is called your MINDSET. Your mindset. And how I define that is, “Your set of assumptions and attitudes on what you believe is possible, what you believe you deserve, what you believe you are capable of, what you believe is in your power.” And so that’s your mindset.

Now the second circle is your MOTIVATION. What is your motive for taking action? Now a lot of people, they think motivation is getting hyped up, going to an event, but the evidence that you are motivated is that you do something. You could say you’re motivated, you could feel like you’re motivated, but if you’re not acting and working out or reading or doing the things you need to do, then you’re not really motivated, are you? And so there’s a three part formula to motivation that I’m going to share with you in a moment. It’s part of the five steps. And this is the key to sustainable motivation.

When some people think about Limitless, they they think about the movie with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, where Bradley Cooper goes from zero to hero by taking a pill. And when he takes that pill, he has this incredible memory, incredible focus. He learns languages, he writes his books in a handful of days, right? But what happens is after the pill wears off, he loses all his motivation. So what’s the key to sustainable motivation? And I’m going to give you that in one moment.

The final piece though, the third M, you have mindset, motivation, is your METHODS. Your methods. Your methods are the strategies, the techniques, the tools, the process, if you will, for achieving that goal. Now in the book, we talk about accelerated learning. And the methods are on speed reading, on memory improvement, on focus, concentration, on how to study technical material in half the time. But if you don’t have the mindset and the motivation to use those tools, there’s a big lie. And that lie is that knowledge is power.

Here’s the thing: All the videos, podcasts, programs, none of it works unless you work too. And so knowledge is potential power. It becomes power when you what? When you put it into action. And that’s really the key.

So, when you see this framework of mindset, motivation and methods, what I want you to see is those intersecting points. Where mindset crosses over with motivation. You have something called inspiration. Where mindset and motivation mix, you have inspiration. And there are mindset books and the motivational books and mindset speakers and motivational speakers, and there are inspirational speakers and inspirational books, and inspirational movies.

Where mindset crosses over with methods, you believe it’s possible and you know what to do, that’s ideation. It only stays an idea because you lack the what? The motivation. And where motivation crosses over with methods, You have something called implementation. Implementation. You’re motivated and you know what to do, the methods, but you could still be stuck in that box, because you’re only going to be able to achieve what you believe is possible, what you believe you are capable of, what you believe you deserve.

So for example, when people see me on stage, I often have a number of people stand up. Maybe 50 or 100 people, and I’ll memorize all their names, forwards and backwards, or they’ll give me 100 numbers or 100 words, and I’ll memorize those. And I always tell people, “I don’t do this to impress you. I do this express to you what’s truly possible.”

But here’s the thing: You just were not taught. If anything, you were taught a lie. You were taught a limit. A lie is a limited idea entertained. That’s what lie stands for, for me, a limited idea that you’re entertaining. It’s not necessarily true.

So if you learn in my book, for example, how to remember names, that’s the method, but your mindset is, “Oh, I’m too old,” or “I’m too stupid,” or “I have a horrible memory.” Your brain is like a supercomputer. And your self-talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you’re not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet, because you program your supercomputer not to.

In fact, that is step one. For a limitless mind and a limitless life, you need to be able to upgrade your mindset. And where it starts is your self-talk.

People come to me all the time and say, “Jim, I have a horrible memory,” “Jim, I’m not smart enough.” And I always say, “Stop! If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, they’re yours.”

And here’s the thing: When you have that negative self-talk, your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk. So you want to keep it positive. And the best way of doing it is just self-awareness. Notice that inner voice and when you say something negative, like, “Oh, I don’t have a great memory,” then just add a little word at the end like, yet. “I don’t have a great memory yet.” And it opens up the possibility. So that’s step one, is to upgrade your mindset and control your self-talk.

Step two, three and four, come in the form of your motivation formula. Now there’s a key formula for achieving sustainable motivation. And if you procrastinate, you put things off or you sabotage, you need to look at your motivation.

The three step formula is this: P x E x SSS P x E x SSS So the P stands for PURPOSE. When you want to be motivated, I want you to ask yourself these questions: “Why must I do this? What are all the benefits that will come, the rewards that I’ll achieve by doing this thing? And what are the consequences that I will feel if I do not do this?” So the P is purpose, have a reason. Great book, “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek, start with your why. “Why must I do this?”

The E in the equation of motivation is this: ENERGY Here’s what my mind did. I pulled out in my thought experiment and I said I want to build the ultimate motivated human being. If they have a big enough purpose, will they always be motivated? And I thought, “No, because they could be lacking the energy.” If they don’t have the energy. Let’s say that maybe they’re motivated. They have purpose to work out. They know all the reasons and all the benefits, how they’re going to feel and look, but maybe they have a newborn, and they didn’t sleep for two days in a row. What are they going to do? They’re not going to be motivated ’cause they lack energy.

Or let’s say you want to read, or famous for teaching people how to read at least one book a week. Maybe you want to read one book a week, but you ate a really big processed meal and you’re in a food coma. And you can have all the reasons and purpose, but you don’t have the mental energy. You have mental fatigue and brain fog, so you can’t get yourself motivated to read. So you need to optimize your energy. In the book we talk a lot about, the best brain foods, how to lower stress, how to optimize your sleep, so much more, but you need to tap in to that well of energy.

And finally my mind said, “Okay, if we’re building the ultimate motivated human being, and you have the purpose, and that person has unlimited energy, will they always be motivated?” And I thought, “No, something’s missing.” If that thing is too big, your goal is too big, too intimidating or too confusing, like maybe your goal is to find your soulmate and live happily ever after, that’s way too big. Maybe your goal is to have, you know, the perfect physique and six-pack abs. That’s way too big. Maybe your goal is to make the next billion dollar online brand. Way too big.

SSS stands for SMALL SIMPLE STEPS. Here’s how you get that small simple step, you ask yourself this question: “What is the smallest action I could take that will allow me progress towards this goal, where I cannot fail?” What is the smallest action I could take that allows me progress towards this goal, where I cannot fail, because it requires very little effort, very little energy.

So maybe you’re not going to think, “Oh, I got to work out every single day.” Maybe your small simple step, if you’re not motivated, is getting on your running shoes. Maybe if you want to read a book a week, maybe that’s too big. Maybe it’s just that day, opening up the book or reading one sentence. And you’re not going to stop at one sentence, are you? No, of course not. Yard by yard, it’s too hard, but inch by inch, it’s a cinch. That’s the goal. Break it down into tiny steps.

So, so far, in order to build this and create this limitless mind and this limitless life, first, control your self-talk, your thoughts, upgrade your mindset. Second, find your purpose. Third, optimize your energy through the great foods, stress management, optimizing your sleep and seven other things we talk about in the Limitless book and break it down into small simple steps. That’s the fourth key. And your fifth key for creating a limitless mind and a limitless life.

The fifth key is this: Upgrade your methods. Upgrade your methods. You know, in times of crisis, where things are changing, in turbulent times, you do not want to downgrade your dreams to meet your current situation. What you want to do is upgrade your capabilities, your methods, your skills, to meet your dreams, to meet your destiny, if you will. And the challenge is, when’s the last time you upgraded your skills? And I think if there’s one skill to master in the 21st century, especially today, it’s your ability to learn faster.

If there was a genie, could grant you any one wish, any one wish, but just one wish, what would you wish for? Infinite wishes, right? Millions of wishes. Well, if I was your learning genie and I could help you learn any one subject or any one skill, become a master, any one subject or any one skill.

What would the equivalent be of asking for infinite wishes? What skill or subject? It would be learning how to what? Learning how to learn. Because if you can learn how to learn, you can grant all your wishes. You could apply that towards money, towards marketing, towards management, towards Mandarin, towards music, towards martial arts. Everything in your life gets easier. Learning how to learn is the most important skill. To apply it towards something like upgrading your brain, like you would upgrade your phone, and simple things that you could do. Simple things we teach in the book and in our podcast, on how to remember names, how to learn a language, how to read two or three times faster, how to focus and concentrate.

Because here’s the thing: This is not about how smart you are. It’s not how smart you are, it’s how are you smart. It’s not how smart you are, it is how are you smart.

And here’s the final words: Your life is like an egg, that if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if it’s broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things begin on the inside. And you have greatness inside of you. You have genius inside of you.

Now is the time to apply that fearless motivation, to have your limitless mind, to have and enjoy your limitless life. I’m your brain coach, Jim Kwik, and I want to thank you for watching this, and I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of laughter, lots of love and always, lots of learning.

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Speaker: BRUCE LIPTON, Author “The Biology of Belief”

TRANSCRIPT: Bruce Lipton On How Your Thoughts (STRESS) Cause Illness and Disease.

And now it turns out that stress, the problem that fear generates, stress is responsible for up to 90% of all disease. We have to learn to let go of the fear. Consciousness needs to change. It’s chronic fear chemistry itself that is the cause of the problem. Change your mind, you change the chemistry. And therefore, you become empowered. I’d like to discuss today the concept of how fear influences our biology.

What we understand from the nature of epigenetics is that the composition of the blood is actually what controls our genetic activity. That the composition of that blood, the chemistry of it is based on the perceptions that we hold in our mind. And when we start to hold a perception of fear, we release different chemistry in the blood to prepare us to protect ourselves from the fear that we believe is going to affect us.

So I go, “Well, what happens?” I say, “When we hold a picture of fear, one of the things that happens is we start to get mobilized to forget our body to respond to that fear.” And most of us know that mobilization is related to the adrenal system, the fight-or-flight system built into our body. So I say, “Well, what happens physiologically when we’re experiencing fear in our mind?” And the answer is, “The brain releases elements such as stress hormones as cortisol or norepinephrine as well as agents that affect the immune system such as histamine or cytokines.” Like, “Oh, so, what is the collective response of the chemistry of fear in the blood?” And the answer is, “It redirects the flow of energy in our body.”

Understand this, that the blood is controlling the energy because that’s where all the nutrients and the resources are. And normally, when we’re not in fear, the blood is more or less concentrated in our viscera, the organs that actually help the body grow and repair itself and maintain itself. So, the blood energy is now being used to maintain our biology. However, if we live in fear such as the old concept of being chased by a saber-toothed tiger, the question is, “Where do you want the blood?” Well, since the adrenal system helps us in fight-or-flight, the adrenal system is going to redirect the blood flow into the arms and legs because those are the organs that we use to escape the fear.

So the first thing that happens when fear is present in our mind is that the stress hormones go in the blood. They actually cause the blood vessels in the gut to shut down. Why? Because we don’t need to use the energy to grow and maintain the body when we’re chased by that tiger. When the blood vessels in the guts squeeze shut, the blood is now forced to the arms and legs which are necessary for the fight-or-flight response. And centers it because, in a state of fear, some people experience what are called butterflies in the stomach. That butterflies in the stomach is the physiological consequence of the stress hormones causing the blood vessels to squeeze shut in the gut, pushing the blood to the arms and legs. And that’s where we need the energy of the system.

So number one, when you’re living in fear, you shut down the growth and maintenance of the body as you prepare for fight-or-flight. Number two, there’s another effect as well. And that is when fear hormones are put in the body, again, we want to conserve all the energy possible to run away from that tiger. So we shut down any mechanism that is not necessary in a fight-or-flight response.

This is particularly important in regard to the immune system. The immune system is like an internal adrenal system. The immune system protects me from threats on the inside. The immune system uses a lot of energy, as you well know because if you’ve ever been sick, you realize how little energy you have. You may not even have enough energy to get out of bed. So, the significance here is important. When the stress hormones are released in the body to conserve the energy for fight-or-flight, the stress hormones shut down the immune system. And this is very vital because the usage of that energy by the immune system is so high, it would interfere with the fight-or-flight response. So, a significant aspect is this. Not only do we redirect the flow of blood away from the viscera, which maintains our body, we also inhibit the immune system, which is protecting the interior of our body.

Now, if it’s just a run away from a saber-toothed tiger, 10 minutes and you escape the tiger, then the system can return to normal. But what happens in chronic fear? The fear of life of every day that we’re not being supported. The answer is this. Then chronically, we are shutting down the maintenance of the body which opens us up to infections and inflammations and all other problems. And while we’re open to those infections, guess what? We also now shut down the immune system, which is protecting us from those infections. So when I say we shut down the growth of the maintenance of the body, we shut down the immune system for a 10-minute escape from a tiger, no problem. But in today’s world, stress is not 10 minutes. It’s 24-7 365. What is the consequence of a long duration of living in fear?

And the answer is the body starts to become sick and starts to fall apart. Now it turns out that stress, the problem that fear generates, stress is responsible for up to 90% of all disease. And so, while we were thinking genes were causing the diseases, no. It’s the consequence of stress and the chemical consequence of that shutting down growth, shutting down the immune system, opens up the body for a failure. And this is why disease is the result of chronic fear.

So the relevance is this. We have to learn to let go of the fear. We have to recognize that most of the fear is just programming, people scaring us with beliefs about this is going to happen and that’s going to happen. And when we hold those beliefs in our mind, those beliefs are translated into the chemistry of stress, which then impacts the body in a very negative way.

So, consciousness needs to change. We have to stop the fear thoughts, we have to switch into healthier thoughts. If there’s a picture of fear, this is actually debilitating you. So in your mind, every time a fear comes up, if you change it into some other story, change it to some other vision, change it into visions of happiness, joy, anything you would rather do because the fear itself is the cause of the illness and the fear is a result of consciousness.

And it’s not actually real in most cases. It’s a belief. And if we change that belief surrounding the fear, we are then empowered to return back to a healthy vital system where the blood is flowing back into the viscera, maintaining us and the inhibitions on the immune system are stopped. In this process, we can then have a life of full health and happiness especially when you recognize that over 90% of the diseases facing this planet are all coming from fear. It’s up to us. We can change the fear. You consciously must redirect that fear and change it by replacing it with thoughts of love, happiness, joy, health and all those wonderful visions. Because in that mindset, the chemistry will actually enhance your vitality. It’s chronic fear chemistry itself that is the cause of the problem. Change your mind, you change the chemistry. And therefore you become empowered to survive and thrive.

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Turia Pitt: Life Is So Precious – The Whole World Needs To Hear This!

Speaker: Turia Pitt
Get her amazing books here.
Interview and Film by E.T Rouleau

Transcript: Turia Pitt, Life Is So Precious

My name is Turia Pitt. I’m an athlete, author and mindset coach.

In 2011, I was badly burned during the Kimberley Ultramarathon. I spent a couple of years in and out of hospital, I had over 100 operations, and I really had to rebuild my life from the ground up. And when I think back to that experience, I’m really proud of not only how I handled myself, but how I was able to galvanize myself and rebuild my life to a spot where I think it’s even better than it was before.

Turia on being driven:

I’ve always been a pretty driven person. I mean, in high school, I had three after-school jobs, and I always volunteered for things, and I always put my hand up to do things.

And I think that’s just because, even before my accident, I had this idea that life, it’s so precious. We only get one shot at it, and it’s not like a video game where you die, and you get another chance. We don’t get that opportunity in life.

And I think, sometimes I get stressed because I think I’ve only got a certain amount of time left on this earth to make an impact and to do everything that I want to do. And I get overwhelmed because I think that I don’t have enough time, but then I remind myself, just relax, take it easy, take the pressure off, and just focus on doing the small steps that you can do today.

So I think I’ve always been really driven to get the most out of life. And I think it’s a pretty important reminder for all of us to not take things for granted and to remember that each day that we get, it’s really a gift.

Turia’s advice to anyone going through hard times:

If I could give advice to someone who’s at a really low point, it’s that sometimes when you think about the end goal of where you want to be, and you’re at a really awful place, that idea of rebuilding your life and recovering can seem very overwhelming and almost insurmountable. So what I did is I used to focus on just getting through one day at a time, and when I got through one day, I’d pat myself on the back, and I’d say well done, Turia. You’ve made it through another day. And then when a day was too hard, I’d break it up into hours, and I’d say you’re still here, it’s another hour passed, you’re still here. And I think just, again, take the pressure off.

Be kind to yourself, be easy on yourself. You are a human, and it’s okay to have feelings, and if you’re going through adversity, just take the pressure off and just take it really slowly, day by day or even hour by hour.

Turia on where she finds her strength:

I always get asked where I find my strength from, and I think people assume that I’m a super naturally motivated person, and every morning I jump out of bed, and I can’t wait to seize the day. But I think it’s important to take the pressure off yourself, as well, and not have that high expectation that every single day, you’re just going to smash things.

So I always say to people that motivation, that’s the spark that starts the fire, but really it’s consistency that keeps the fuel burning.

So I remind myself that whatever it is I’m doing, whether that’s training for an Ironman or working on something new in my business or writing a book, I have to let go of this idea of needing to be externally motivated and just focus on consistency and just doing the small things that I can do every day that get me closer to where I want to be.

Turia on what it takes to really achieve your goals:

Yeah, I think when you’re talking about motivation, first of all, you’ve got to have something that really excites you, that gets you out of bed. Just something that you’re working on or a marathon that you’re training for. And more than that, you’ve got to have a really crystal clear and really compelling reason for WHY you’re trying to achieve that.

Are you writing a book because you’ve always loved literature, and you want to share a story with the world?

With me for Ironman, I wanted to do that because I wanted to prove to everyone and to all of the naysayers that not only was I as fit as I was in the Ultramarathon, but I was fitter.

So it’s really important to not only have something that you’re working towards, something crystal clear and something tangible, and on top of that, you have to have a really crystal clear REASON for wanting to achieve that goal.

So they’re the two things you always need when you’re achieving a goal. And that’s what gets me out of bed most mornings.

Turia’s take on pushing yourself:

I think what’s always drawn me to doing endurance events has been it’s a space where you can really challenge yourself, and you can really test yourself, and you really find out how much you can cope and how much you can endure. And I think, especially in our lives these days, they’re so comfortable. You wake up, you open the fridge, you pour your breakfast, you watch TV, you open your car, you drive to work, you sit at a desk, you type on a computer, you’re in an air-conditioned office. And you never really get a chance to test yourself well or to stretch yourself. So that’s why I like things like endurance events and freediving and surfing because they’re all places and opportunities where you can get outside of your comfort zone and just test yourself a little bit more and see just how resilient you are. And I believe all of us are incredibly resilient. All of us have the tools within us to cope with all scenarios, but we just never get tested so we never get to see that we do have it in us.

Turia’s perspective on life tests:

I think that’s one of the really good things about my accident is that I got tested beyond what any normal human gets tested. And that doesn’t happen to most people. And so I went through that experience where I had to rebuild my life completely from scratch. I couldn’t even walk, I couldn’t brush my hair, I couldn’t wipe my ass. So I was in that low point of my life. And I found the tools within me to learn how to get out of bed and start walking, how to bend my elbow enough so I could feed myself, how to brush my hair. And I think because I went through that experience, I realize that not only am I resilient, but it also makes me thing that all of us are resilient. All of us are capable, all of us are strong, all of us have to much mental toughness. But we never get tested, we never get uncomfortable, we never get outside of our comfort zone so we believe that we don’t have it in us, that we’re not capable. But I think that’s bullshit. I think we’ve all got it within us, we just never test ourselves.

Turia on negative thoughts:

I’m human and, of course, I have negative thoughts. In a race, I’ll think this is hard, I can’t do it, it’s too much. When I wake up in the morning, I think all right, I’ve got a really big day, I don’t know if I wanna do it. We’ve all got these two voices inside of us. And you’ve got that negative voice who says, oh, you’re not good enough, you’re stupid, you’re ugly, you’re gonna fail. But we’ve also got that other voice, that empowering voice and that voice which tells us that we can do it. And so to try and drown out that negative voice, every morning without fail, I do my gratitude practice.

And gratitude is a tool that I use every day to short circuit those sort of negative emotions. And the awesome thing about gratitude, you can’t be grateful and angry at the same time. You can’t be grateful and bitter at the same time. If you’re truly grateful, that’s the only experience that you can have.

And I think, as well, so often we’re always focused on what we don’t have in our lives and what’s not going right for us and what people haven’t done for us. And I think when you flip that and think about what it is that you are truly grateful for in your life, whether that’s your family, your kids, your health, your home, your job. When you start your day in that place, that’s a way more motivating place to be in. So that’s what I use, specifically to short circuit negative emotions, I use gratitude.

Turia’s morning routine:

So I always get asked about what my morning routine is. It’s pretty simple. The first thing I do in the morning is actually the first thing I don’t do, and that is, I don’t look at my phone. ‘Cause when you do, you get into that habit of just scrolling through, and you get messages and emails and alerts. And all of a sudden, not only are you starting the day off stressed ’cause you’ve gotta do all of these things for everyone else, but at the same time, it’s not a very inspiring or motivating place to start your day off.

So the first thing I do is I don’t look at my phone. The second thing I do is I grab my son, I pick him up, I put him on the living room floor, set him up with some toys. I open up the blinds because sunlight helps us wake up. I make a coffee, I sit down, I watch my son play. I marvel at his tiny little fingers, and I reflect on the miracle of life, and I think of three things specifically that I’m really grateful for. So today, I was grateful for my partner, who got home after 10 days, and he’s really working on something that’s important to him. I’m grateful for my son, for all of the joy that he brings to my life. And I was grateful because I had a lot of exciting things that are happening with my book behind the scenes. And I think that’s such an awesome place for me to be in, that not only are people interested in my book, but they wanna buy it, and they wanna read it. And after that, I ask myself a really simple question, and I ask myself what’s the one thing that I could do today that would make today great? And if you ask yourself that, you’ll notice instantly your body start to react biochemically to that question. And for me today, when I asked myself that, I thought I’m gonna go for a surf with my family later today, yeah.

Turia’s 3 most valuable life lessons:

I guess if I think about my three most valuable life lessons, the first one would be…

Everything in our life comes down to our mindset. And I really believe when you master your mindset, and you master your self talk, that anything is possible.

I think the second life lesson, I guess, would be that I tell people just to forget about motivation, forget about this idea that you have to be externally motivated by some external source. Forget about that and just focus on being consistent. And the third life lesson, I guess, would be to really start using the tool of gratitude because it’s so awesome. It’s free, it’s easy, it’s quick. But if you start your day off being grateful and showing gratitude, that’s gonna instantly transform how the rest of your day turns out.

Turia’s legacy:

And when I think about the legacy that I wanna leave behind, I guess it’s just, in hospital I read books by people who had overcome adversity. I read a book by Sam Bailey, who’s a farmer, and he had a bad car crash, and he became a quadriplegic. And he managed to rise above all of that, and now he’s the first quadriplegic in the world to fly a helicopter. And so I read his story, and it really made me think if this typical Aussie bloke can rebuild his life, then I can, too.

So I think for my legacy, it’d be awesome that when people hear of my story, they think, well, if Turia’s been able to rebuild her life, and if Turia’s been able to do an Ironman event, then that means maybe I could quite my job. Maybe I could learn a language, maybe I could do a half-marathon. I think if I inspire people to take action in their own lives, I think I’d be really proud of myself.

Share your thoughts on this interview with Turia Pitt in the comments below. Share with someone you know would love this.

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David Goggins – The Interview on YouTube:

Get David Goggins new book “Can’t Hurt Me” now, worldwide. (PRE ORDER)
Listen to the speech on your phone: Spotify, Soundcloud

David Goggins – THE INTERVIEW – Transcript

I was in such a dungeon in my life and I thought I was in such a hole… with nowhere to go, with so many issues and so many things to climb over and overcome… But the thing about it is… we all have the ability to come from nothing to something.

I was 300 pounds and my goal was to be a navy seal. Impossible goal. But what if I could?

You have to be willing to suffer to get to the other side. And on the other side of suffering is a whole ‘nother world that people have no idea that it even exists.

Cracked Foundation

From the very beginning, how I became who I am today… I grew up very soft, very insecure, I was beaten as a child, a lot, not only physically, but also mentally. My dad was an alcoholic, so it transferred to him being very abusive of me growing up, not just to me, but also my mother and from that, my foundation at an early age was cracked. I had a very cracked foundation growing up.

So with a cracked foundation and my mom having a cracked foundation, I had no one to really show me the ropes, show me the way… and so we went from that kind of cracked foundation to another cracked foundation. We went to a small town in Indiana. In Brazil Indiana. There were about 5 black families there… so being called “nigger” was something that happened regularly.

I had a lot of friends, but you know, when you have a cracked foundation the only thing you really see is the negative. You don’t see a lot of the people that like you… all you see is the people that don’t like you.
So that cracked foundation just kept on getting more and more cracked and throughout the years I developed a stutter. I had a lot of issues with people, social anxiety… I copied all through school… I had learning disability so I cheated a lot going through school, so my foundation continue to get cracked. And when you get to that point in your life and no one is there to really help you out, you have to figure some things out.

So what made me who I am today is basically seeing that cracked foundation and not liking it. So I had to learn how to mend that cracked foundation alone… and what happens is you have to really develop a lot of mental toughness… but to me mental toughness wasn’t enough. I had to really develop a calloused mind.

Victim Mentality

So, I had a victim mentality. I was a victim. Everybody messed my life up: My dad, society, my mom, whatever it may be… I was dealt a band hand. And so it gives you a victim mentality.
So, I developed a way to get over the victim mentality and it was through callousing the mind. I was literally callusing over the victim’s mentality, through outworking all my faults. So I developed a work ethic that became known as what it is now. So I got this ‘world’s toughest man’ because… I am not the best person in the world… I’m not the smartest… I’m not anything… but I learned to outwork everybody around me and that’s how I got to where I am today.

Living Outside The Comfort Zone

So I don’t live a very glamorous life at all. I live very uncomfortable to a lot of people. It’s not that I’m broke. It’s not that I don’t have the means to do it. It’s like a boxer… A boxer may have a 4 million dollar house. But before a big fight, he may go away to the mountains for about 2 months to train… totally secluded, desolate world, he may sleep on the ground. What that boxer is doing, is he’s trying to form his mentality. He’s trying to get that mentality to a very granimalistic state… so when he goes inside that ring his mentality is ready to do whatever it takes to win that boxing match.

So what I realized from my foundation growing up was that I had a very soft, soft mind. And I live that way now, like that boxer training for that big fight. I live that way all the time. So I’m always sharpening my sword and how I sharpen my sword is I have a mentality of ‘my refrigerator is never full’. I’ve never arrived… and every time I get close to the top of the mountain… I fall back down on purpose.

I believe that the true growth is at scratch. Starting from scratch is true growth. You have to have friction in your life. There has to be friction in your life for you to be able to move forward.

Becoming The Hardest Man On The Planet

So many people call me the hardest man on the planet. I got to the point from having a never ending work ethic. So, if you want anything in life…

We live in a society right now where mediocrity is often rewarded. Mediocrity is almost a standard. And for me, if you live that way that’s when you get beat.

Let’s say you have 10 people. You have 10 people and all of them are mediocre… and you beat those 10 people, in a race or at work, wherever it may be… you are really still mediocre.

What we do in life is we set our standards to everybody else. What we do in life is we look at what someone did before us. We look at a standard. I don’t look at anybody’s standard. I set my own standard… and how I became this ‘hardest man on the planet’ is I literally set my own standards. I started to reinvent the wheel for myself. I didn’t follow the crowd, whatever the crowd was doing. I didn’t follow. I did what I had to do to to get where I had to go…. and in doing that, that’s where true growth is, is finding yourself.

I’m not trying to be like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or anybody else, I’m trying to be David Goggins and through that, you can find out what you’re made of. You are always trying to conquer yourself and that’s how I got this title.

Advice For Those Going Through Hard Times

My advice to people who are going through hard times… A lot of people know my story: I come from a very, very humble beginning… You have to be open with that.
Like, for instance social media… All the people on social media… what they do is they show you the best side of them. Everybody on social media, everybody here in this world if you have friends… everybody has 2 sides to them.

We have a side that we want you to see which is our best side. We also have this side that we’re not working on. The side we’re not working on is that side that you want no one to see.

Like on social media … everybody posts where they’re going… I’m going here for vacation… this is me in the gym… this is me here… what I do is I post my bad side. I let everybody know: I’m this I’m this. I’m this. I have to work on all these things. It’s ok.

The first thing is you have to accept the fact that everybody judging you, you judging yourself, it is ok to be f***ed up. It’s ok to not be exactly like everybody else. It’s ok not to follow the crowd. That’s the one thing I would tell people: Don’t worry about what everybody else is doing… Worry about what you’re doing. Focus on what you’re doing. Because everybody else out there… Everybody judging you, They also have problems themselves.

And that’s when I realized myself, so I stopped comparing myself to everybody else and I started comparing myself to me I’m my own hero.



The Underdog In Us All

I believe that a lot more people can relate to the struggle. A lot more than the success. People relate a lot more to that. I relate a lot more to a person who’s the underdog.

Most of us in this world are underdogs. There’s very few of us out here who are the one percenters. Those 1% are those people who are like… the CEO’s, these people who are like the best basketball player, the best golfer… Very few people are there.

It’s those people who are at the very bottom and in the middle… who are trying to get there… It’s all about work ethic.

So, everybody loves the underdog. That’s what that whole Rocky story… Everybody loves the Rocky story. The thing about it is, to develop the Rocky story you gotta work your ass off and not many people are willing to do that part of it.

That’s the hard part about overcoming the odds… Overcoming yourself… Is you have to create a Rocky story. You have to be willing to suffer to get to the other side.

The Rocky Story

So, why I like the Rocky film so much is when I was growing up I didn’t have much of a role model, growing up. So, in between my cheating and me ditching school and all these things I got obsessed with people that I saw my life in their life.
I got obsessed with people who struggled. People who were at the bottom of the doggone sewer. I got obsessed with watching these people.
And I got obsessed with watching (the movie) Rocky 1 – Round 14

And the reason why this specific round is… even to this day, I’m 43 years old… To this day it puts chills in my body. I can go back to when I was 10-11-12 years old… whenever the movie came out.

I remember my first time watching it. I was watching Round 14 of Rocky 1. I’ll never forget watching this guy, who was Rocky getting his butt kicked. Apollo Creed was just knocking him down, beating him up… and all he wanted to do was to go the distance.

And to lot of people, this makes no sense to them but for a kid who is looking for strength… who is looking for like… Is it possible? You’re looking for is it possible?
Can I pull off the impossible? … and me watching this film, that’s what I saw, so… there was a no name boxer against the best boxer in the world, who was Apollo Creed. Now I’m watching this guy in the ring, who is Rocky… he’s getting his butt kicked… Falling down, getting back up.

In the 14th round Apollo is like… just killing this guy but also Apollo is tired. He is extremely tired… But Apollo knocks him down in the 14th round, for like the 30th time… And even Rocky’s coach, Mickey is telling Rocky to stay down… and Apollo turns around. He turns around and he thinks that he got this guy… he thinks he beat him. He thinks he finally took this guy out… this guy that kept coming at him, and coming at him.
Apollo Creed turns around… Puts his arms in the air. He turns his back to Rocky. He’s assuming he’s down. ‘I got him!’

Everybody in the crowd is saying stay down. Everybody. This guy is climbing the ropes to get back up. Totally destroyed. Nothing left. But HE FOUND SOMETHING… And this is the thing about it… He found something!

And I watch this guy get up, and once he gets up, Apollo Creed turns around and sees this… and the look I saw… most people don’t even see this… The look I saw on Apollo Creed’s face was this look of total awe… of Who the hell are you? Who am I fighting?

It looked like Apollo Creed’s soul left his body… and Rocky got his gloves and motioned him to come on… and Apollo Creed put his head down and shook his head.

Why that scene resonates with me so much is that I was such an a dungeon in my life and I feel like I was such in a hole, with nowhere to go, with so many issues and so many things to climb over and overcome on my own…

I wanted every obstacle and every person who ever doubted me to look like Apollo Creed. I wanted the people, obstacles, whatever to look at me like this guy is going to continue coming after me. I wanted what that Rocky had. Just the ability to keep getting up. I don’t care if I win. I don’t care if I’m the best. It’s not about being the hardest man in the world. I just want to keep coming after you.

So through years and years and years of visualizing that scene of that guy just getting up… It’s just a movie to some people… but to me it became what my reality had to become. I had to become that guy. Who could run on broken legs going through hell week. Who could endure the most pain. The most suffering.

To get where I had to go. I’m going to have to be that guy. And a lot of people will never understand that because they don’t have that kind of mindset… but we all have that.

I came from nothing. But the thing about it is… We all have the ability to come from nothing to something. But it takes that kind of spirit.

Remind Yourself Who You Are – “The Cookie Jar”

The cookie jar is something that I developed years ago. So what happens to me, happens to a lot of us in situations… We get put in these… My whole life I’ve been put in struggles… I’ve put myself in struggles… I’ve purposely put obstacles in front of me to see how I’m going to feel, like for instance I’ve run over 200 miles at one time… non stop. Do you know what goes through you mind… when your goal is to run for 200 miles and you’re at mile 100? You’re at mile 100. You’ve run for over 24 hrs and your body is broken. You’re destroyed. You have nothing left. You have 100+ more miles to go. How do you find more?

So I developed this thing called the cookie jar. So the cookie jar is a reminder. It’s all that is. It’s a reminder. Even the hardest person on planet earth… we forget how badass we are. When times get hard… When times get hard your mind spazzes out. It freaks out. It goes somewhere else. We forget.

That cookie jar… You gotta take 1 second. Take 1 second and that cookie jar has all these things in it… All the things you overcame… All the things that you suffered through… All the things that got in your way and you fought through.
So you go in your mental cookie jar, when you’re going through bad times… When you wanna quit and you wanna bailout… You think about it… Ok, David what did you do? You went through 2 hell weeks. You went through ranger school. You went through this. You went through that. It’s a reminder that you are that badass. And that’s all it is.

The cookie jar is, you take 1 second when you’re in an extreme environment and your mind and your body are saying: We’re done. We need to quit. You can remind yourself: Hang on a second! I’ve been through a hell of a lot more than this and I had the strength to persevere, to move on, to not be mediocre, to not settle for what’s in front of me. To overcome the odds.

WHAT IF You Could? – The “What If Mentality”



The What If mentality is a mentality of… a lot of us in this world have people who say we can not do something.

You can’t do it. You’re too short. You look a certain way. You act a certain way. You’re not smart enough…
I hit that roadblock every time. I was 300 pounds. I’ll never forget, I was 300 pounds… I went from 175 to 300 ponds and my goal was to be a navy seal… Impossible goal. And Navy recruiter that saw me said that, besides one. Every recruiter said: There’s no way, man. You’re 297 pounds and you’re going to lose so much weight so fast.

I talked to one recruiter… I’ll never forget, getting back in my truck and he said: “You can not do this” I got in my truck and I said to myself “But what if I could?” What if… I could pull up this miracle? How will I feel at the very end if I can defy all the odds?

The what if mentality is… this guy told me: I was a 36 African American navy seal in navy seal history, in over 70 years. This guy told me there’s only 35 African Americans to ever be a navy seal. He was pretty much telling me: You ain’t got what it takes. I took that and said: “ What if I could be the 36th?”. Versus taking what he said… All the negativity he’s putting on be because he cant imagine himself do what I’m about to do.

So, most people who can’t imagine it they reflect. It’s like a mirror. They put that right on you. If they can’t see themselves doing it: I can’t see you doing it, I take that mirror and I totally discard it. I say What if I could be the 36th person to ever do it? I use all the negativity as positivity and fuel to get me to where I need to go.



What Drives The Hardest Man On The Planet?

What drives me today is being my best… and being my best is a never ending journey. A lot of people call me obsessed. That’s fine. I probably am obsessed.

When you finally realize … Like, for me, that humble beginning I had… When you realize that I could have literally given up and right now at 43 I could still be a 300 pound man spraying for cockroaches.

It’s truly amazing that a lot of us walk this planet earth being a fraction of what we’re capable of being.

I look back when I was 24 years old and that could have been my 100% if I chose to take the path of least resistance. That could have been my 100%… Never knowing that in that 300 pound body… The kid who couldn’t read, 4th grade reading level… is now a person that’s been through almost every special ops training in the world, has broke several records and has continued to grow.

Once you realize what’s on the other side of that… That will keep you… I’m the most driven person in the world because I realized that I was leaving so much on the table never knowing that inside that fat guy was this person here.
And once you peel that crust away and see who you really are, you open you mind to a whole ‘nother world. So I’ve opened my mind up to a whole ‘nother world that most people can’t even fathom because they haven’t dug deep into their own personal problems.

They think I’m crazy because I found a whole ‘nother way of living. I think they’re crazy for never even trying… to get to the other side of whatever is in front of them.

So what drives me every day is finding more of myself.

How To Break The Habit of Making Excuses

So how do I suggest to someone how to break the habit of constantly making excuses… Is do something every day that sucks.

There’s a saying out there… There’s a saying the says: “Triple down on your strengths”… Tripling down on your strengths does 1 thing to you… It makes you very comfortable. It makes you very strong at what you’re good at.

So, why people have excuses is that’s the world they live in… They live in a world where if they’re good at running: All they do is run. If they’re good at reading: All they do is read. So the excuse world comes up because when the world, life doesn’t give a damn about what you’re good at… so when a challenge comes up that you’re not great at the first thing this ‘triple down’ mentality does is it forces you to say “I’m not good at it”… “ So I’m not going to do it”
Versus saying “I’m not good at it… I’m going to be great at it” I’m going to figure out. I wanna put the work in… That’s how you start to callus your mind.

The excuses that we’re making are just because we’re not good at it. So, it makes us feel insecure. It makes us feel a certain way.

That’s why I tell everybody: You can not fix anything in life until you fix YOURSELF.

Look Inside Yourself

A lot of people give great advice… How many people do you know in your life that give great advice? They give the best advice on planet earth… but their lives are all jacked up.

No one looks inside themselves… because what they see inside is ugly. It’s full of lies. It’s full of secrets. It’s full of insecurities. Once you dive into that you have no more excuses, because you start ripping away those layers of insecurities… On the other end of those layers is exactly who you truly are.

So do something everyday that sucks. Get outside your comfort zone. Triple down on your weaknesses… Not your strengths. Thats how you grow. That’s how you stop making excuses

You Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins Interview

So my book’s coming out Dec 4th… Its called “Can’t hurt me”… Why I titled it ‘Can’t hurt me’ is, this book is a self help memoir. We have a whole bunch of self help books out there that are 5 step… 5 step this… Mine is not a 5 step program. Mine is about getting to the root of the problem… and the root of the problem is yourself.

You have to master your own mind. Once you master your own mind everything else is taken care of.

So, ‘Can’t hurt me’ is about LIFE. It’s about YOU. It’s about my mentality… But you get to develop your own mentality.

So, life is full of people who are getting bullied, People who are insecure. People who’re going through problems… A lot of problems… But if you have this mentality that you start to develop of you can’t hurt me…

When I was going through seal training… it’s what you say to yourself on a daily basis… If you say You cant hurt me! Every time I got my assed kicked, in everything I did… Whether it be a fight or test… Ranger school… Can’t hurt me! It starts to get in your mind and before you know it: It’s the truth.

So when you fail, you fall on your ass… Somebody bullies you… Whatever is going in your life: Can’t hurt me!
Why that saying is true, is not because you SAY IT… You have to put the work in to develop that calloused mind… to believe it’s true.



Self Talk – David Goggins Interview

So, a lot of people want to know what I say to myself when I’m out here doing these long events. My self talk.

David, when you’re out there and you’re at mile 75 of 135 mile run through death valley… Well, I tell myself… back in the day I was the weakest person that God ever created. That’s what I thought. I made this man to be the hardest man that god ever created Is it true? I don’t care if it’s true or not. I believe it.

But, a lot of people… like these books: Self talk, Visualization… Self talk doesn’t mean anything… you can tell yourself you’re the best person to ever live… Self talk without the work… without the work is just lies.
So I’m telling myself I’m the hardest man on the planet… When I’m in the worst situation possible… I’m going back to the 3 hours I’ve put into training everyday… I’m going back to the 3am wakeup call Looking at my shoes thinking God, 75 days in a row. No days off. Running 15 miles a day. I don’t wanna do it And then you lace them up!

So, when I’m in that horrible spot and I’m talking to myself… I’m also recalling all the training sessions… All the years… All the hard work… So, when I talk to myself that way: The self talk is REAL… It’s not lies.
Because if you’re taking a test in school and you haven’t studied for it and you say I’m going to pass this test… chances are you’re going to fail it. Because you haven’t put the time in to get the result of passing.
So self talk is good but putting the work in is bigger.



Don’t Talk About It… BE ABOUT IT!

There’s a lot of people in life who are theorists. Theorists are people who… it may be that guy in the corner who’s in the library all day long… Old man with grey hair… he’s the master of the mind… of being a theorist. He got all of these books… Read about how the brain is supposed to work. That’s a theorist. He has all these theories on how it’s supposed to be done.
You want to be a practitioner in life. A lot of people who study theories will put these bars… these invisible bars and barriers in your mind about what we can and can not achieve as human beings. That’s a theorist
A practitioner will listen to a man, like a theorist and defy the odds.

Never be a theorist. Be a practitioner. Be a guy who goes up there and actually does the work. Put yourself in situations, like when I was going through hell week… I got to see where my mind was.
130 hours. At hour 48, 72 your mind is a mess. You’re all over the place. A theorist would tell me what he thinks is going to happen. A practitioner dives into suffering and as he’s suffering he is then writing the book while he’s suffering.

It’s easy to write a book while you are in a nice 72 degree library. Flipping the page. A practitioner writes a book when he’s in hell. When he’s in suffering. When it’s 50 degree water… Everybody’s quitting… Snot’s coming out your nose… That’s how you really start to figure out what the mind and body are capable of.

Don’t read a book about it Don’t read what some man wrote. Put yourself in the environment. See how you start to talk to yourself in the worst times… In the worst situations.
And that’s how you start to develop that real self talk. That real visualization… The real tools to get through those hard times.

You have to be willing to suffer to get to the other side… and on the other side of suffering is a whole ‘nother world that people have no idea it even exists.

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David Goggins Motivation – The “What If” Mentality on YouTube:

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Listen to the speech on your phone: Spotify, Soundcloud

David Goggins Motivation – The “What If” Mentality – Transcript

The What If mentality is a mentality of… a lot of us in this world have people who say we can not do something.

You can’t do it. You’re too short. You look a certain way. You act a certain way. You’re not smart enough…

I hit that roadblock every time. I was 300 pounds. I’ll never forget, I was 300 pounds… I went from 175 to 300 ponds and my goal was to be a navy seal…

Impossible goal.


And every Navy recruiter that saw me said that, besides one. Every recruiter said: There’s no way, man. You’re 297 pounds and you’re going to lose so much weight so fast.

I talked to one recruiter… I’ll never forget, getting back in my truck and he said: “You can not do this”


I got in my truck and I said to myself
“But what if I could?”
What if… I could pull up this miracle?
How will I feel at the very end if I can defy all the odds?


The what if mentality is… this guy told me: I was a 36 African American navy seal in navy seal history, in over 70 years. This guy told me there’s only 35 African Americans to ever be a navy seal. He was pretty much telling me: You ain’t got what it takes.

I took that and said: “ What if I could be the 36th?”. Versus taking what he said… All the negativity he’s putting on be because he cant imagine himself do what I’m about to do.
So, most people who can’t imagine it they reflect. It’s like a mirror. They put that right on you. If they can’t see themselves doing it: I can’t see you doing it, I take that mirror and I totally discard it.

I said What if I could be the 36th person to ever do it?


I use all their negativity as positivity and fuel to get me to where I need to go.

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The Rocky Movie Changed My Life – David Goggins on YouTube:

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Listen to the speech on your phone: Spotify, Soundcloud.

How The Rocky Movie Changed My Life – David Goggins – Transcript

I believe that a lot more people can relate to the struggle. A lot more than the success. People relate a lot more to that. I relate a lot more to a person who’s the underdog.


Most of us in this world are underdogs.


There’s very few of us out here who are the one percenters. Those 1% are those people who are like… the CEO’s, these people who are like the best basketball player, the best golfer… Very few people are there.
It’s those people who are at the very bottom and in the middle… who are trying to get there… It’s all about work ethic.

So, everybody loves the underdog. That’s what that whole Rocky story… Everybody loves the Rocky story. The thing about it is, to develop the Rocky story you gotta work your ass off… and not many people are willing to do that part of it.

That’s the hard part about overcoming the odds… Overcoming yourself… Is you have to create a Rocky story. You have to be willing to suffer to get to the other side.

So, why I like the Rocky film so much is when I was growing up I didn’t have much of a role model, growing up. So, in between my cheating and me ditching school and all these things I got obsessed with people that I saw my life in their life.
 I got obsessed with people who struggled. People who were at the bottom of the doggone sewer. I got obsessed with watching these people.
 And I got obsessed with watching (the movie) Rocky 1 – Round 14.

And the reason why this specific round is… even to this day, I’m 43 years old… To this day it puts chills in my body. I can go back to when I was 10-11-12 years old… whenever the movie came out.
 I remember my first time watching it. I was watching Round 14 of Rocky 1. I’ll never forget watching this guy, who was Rocky getting his butt kicked. Apollo Creed was just knocking him down, beating him up… and all he wanted to do was to go the distance.

And to lot of people, this makes no sense to them but for a kid who is looking for strength… who is looking for like… Is it possible? You’re looking for ‘Is it possible?’ Can I pull off the impossible?

… and me watching this film, that’s what I saw, so… there was a no name boxer against the best boxer in the world, who was Apollo Creed. Now I’m watching this guy in the ring, who is Rocky… he’s getting his butt kicked… Falling down, getting back up.

In the 14th round Apollo is like… just killing this guy but also Apollo is tired. He is extremely tired… But Apollo knocks him down in the 14th round, for like the 30th time…
 And even Rocky’s coach, Mickey is telling Rocky to stay down… and Apollo turns around. He turns around and he thinks that he got this guy… he thinks he beat him. He thinks he finally took this guy out… this guy that kept coming at him, and coming at him.

Apollo Creed turns around… Puts his arms in the air. He turns his back to Rocky. He’s assuming he’s down. ‘I got him!’

Everybody in the crowd is saying stay down. Everybody. This guy is climbing the ropes to get back up. Totally destroyed. Nothing left. But HE FOUND SOMETHING… And this is the thing about it… He found something!

And I watch this guy get up, and once he gets up, Apollo Creed turns around and sees this… and the look I saw… most people don’t even see this… The look I saw on Apollo Creed’s face was this look of total awe… of Who the hell are you? Who am I fighting?

It looked like Apollo Creed’s soul left his body… and Rocky got his gloves and motioned him to come on… and Apollo Creed put his head down and shook his head.

Why that scene resonates with me so much is that I was such an a dungeon in my life and I feel like I was such in a hole, with nowhere to go, with so many issues and so many things to climb over and overcome on my own…

I wanted every obstacle and every person who ever doubted me to look like Apollo Creed. I wanted the people, obstacles, whatever to look at me like this guy is going to continue coming after me. I wanted what that Rocky had. Just the ability to keep getting up.

I don’t care if I win. I don’t care if I’m the best. It’s not about being the hardest man in the world. I just want to keep coming after you.

So, through years and years and years of visualizing that scene of that guy just getting up… It’s just a movie to some people… but to me it became what my reality had to become.

I had to become that guy. Who could run on broken legs going through hell week. Who could endure the most pain. The most suffering.

To get where I had to go. I’m going to have to be that guy. And a lot of people will never understand that because they don’t have that kind of mindset… but we all have that.

I came from nothing. But the thing about it is… We all have the ability to come from nothing to something. But it takes that kind of spirit.

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Fitness celebrity, author and entrepreneur Tiff Hall explains every principle that made her a huge success.

These 3 Things Are Crucial To Succeed In Any Area Of Life – Tiff Hall on YouTube:

Speaker: Tiff Hall – Website – Facebook – Instagram
Interview By: Indie Creative Agency

These 3 Things Are Crucial To Succeed In Any Area Of Life – Tiff Hall – Transcript

The three tenets that I think you need to be successful…. number one is passion.

1. PASSION

If you haven’t got passion, then when times get tough, you’re going to give up.

You have to be doing the thing that makes you excited when you wake up first thing in the morning and it’s the last thing you thinking about before you go to bed.

A lot of people talk about work life balance, but for me, I don’t believe in it because your passion should be part of your life. It should be running through your veins and it should be something that gets your heart racing. And if you have that passion, when times get tough, when you set challenges, when you see competition rise, when you, have financial setbacks or perhaps, issues within your team, then, you can keep going. Always remind yourself of your mission and the meaning that it has for you.

The more meaning you can give to your goal and to your business, then the more you stick at it, when times get tough, because times will get tough. And a lot of us need to fail to be good at business and to be great entrepreneurs and failure doesn’t mean failure. Failure just means a lesson learned, right? And you’ve got to make those mistakes to learn and to get better and to grow. Nothing is going to happen in your comfort zone.

2. GRIT

The next is grit. I think grit is so important. Keep going. A lot of it is a grind. I think 80% of it is a grind and a lot of people in my work see me on tv or doing a video or doing something glamorous that is 2% of what I do. My work is a real grind too. I record up to 50 fitness, workout videos a day.

I sweat my muscles ache, I get tired. It’s hard work. So every element of what you’re wanting to go after it, we’ll have grind in it and you have to be ready to go and just grit your teeth and get through it. And eventually that grind will get easier as you find efficiencies cut down time and to make it more effective, but the grind exists accept it and go for it.

3. SUPPORT

Lastly, support. I think for anyone to be successful, you need support. You need a good support network at home and you need to find people in your industry to support you. Be that networking with other people in your industry, finding mentors, shadowing people who are more experienced than you. If you’re in a position to hire people and have a great team of people and a support network within your business, do that. But teamwork does make the dream work and you do need to find that team in a way that will really support you to get you to your goal.

BUILD A REPUTATION THROUGH EXPERIENCE

Look, a lot of people always say, oh, she’s an overnight success. All of a sudden you your publishing books or you’re on television or you have a successful business, but behind every overnight success is 10, 20 years of hard work and especially these days with social media, it’s very easy for people to compare themselves to look at other people’s lives and think, wow, all of a sudden they’re a huge success because they have a lot of followers or a lot of engagement, but it takes years to build businesses, to build brands and to build reputation, and I think that these days the words brand and reputation gets all muddied up.

I think it’s very important that you focus on building a strong reputation through having experience.

There are a lot of people now on instagram with a lot of followers who haven’t had the grassroots experience and they don’t have the years of experience and qualifications. So I think, anyone can get qualified, but it’s experienced that counts.

You can’t fake that. You can’t fake experience. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a skill, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s 30,000 hours.

KEEP GOING.

It’s difficult if you’re working hard in something that you’re not seeing the results, then my advice to you is keep working hard.

Don’t expect to see results in months. Expect years, be patient and as you’re going along the path towards your goal, keep thinking, how else can I get experience and get more qualified?

Just always trying to up-skill, that will dominate your competition and you just have to be patient because I know for myself, it has taken years and years and years to start my own business. I only launched my own business two years ago. So that was after, you know, 20 years in the industry and myself thinking, when is this going to happen? When will I find the right people to support me and to work with how will I, you know, financially do it. All these things come together, but it does take time. And the one thing that you have control of in this process is getting as much experience as you can and becoming as qualified in that area as you can be.

WORK LIFE BALANCE

I don’t believe that work life balance is achievable. If you are an entrepreneur, if you are running your own business, then your business has to become part of your life. And for me it is. It doesn’t mean that I’m less of a mother or a wife or you know, it just means that I’m incredibly passionate about what I do. And I’ve found a way to integrate that into my life, so that means I take my son to work with me at the moment and we’re making it work. But I have such a drive with my business and such a passion for my members, for the people in their living rooms, doing my workouts and making changes. They are so brave and courageous and I honor that every day. It means that I am in my facebook community talking to my members all day every day, helping them, coaching them personally, wherever they may be in the world.

ROUTINE AND DISCIPLINE

I think routine is so important for success. Discipline is so important for success.

I see so many people who are very talented and yet they lack discipline and I’m always so devastated by that. A little bit of discipline goes a long way.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, workout, mindfulness, there’s a routine there if you want to get change and if you want to get results be it, weight loss, putting on muscle, building a business, you know, building your numbers on Instagram even, you need discipline, you need to post regularly, you need to, you need to engage with your followers, you know, all of this comes back to discipline and having that discipline, I was never the smartest kid in the class, but I was the most disciplined and I had the biggest work ethic and that helped me to achieve nearly the highest score possible in my year 12.

So I do believe in, in it. And in year 12 when I did get my result, I thought, wow, discipline work ethic goes a long way and I’m sold, I’m going to, I’m going to work hard, keep discipline because if I can do that in my year 12, I thought I can do anything.

HARD WORK – WORKS.

Hard work. Oh, I’m a big believer in work ethic, hard work, discipline, and not relying on luck because what do they say? No lucky is just a moment of opportunity meeting hard work. So the harder you work, the more those opportunities will open for you.

WORK ETHIC OR BRAINS?

I think work ethic because the brain is plastic, right? Your brain can learn, it can develop. The gray matter is so fascinating. Neuroscience, so fascinating and anyone can learn to be smarter.

Anyone can learn to do anything. But if you don’t have that work ethic, then you’re not going to be successful.

I’m a huge believer in work ethic and discipline. And in drive… for me, I, I wasn’t always the smartest kid. I struggled at school a little bit, but in year 12 I really applied myself and I ended up getting 98.75, five in my end year results… 99 is the highest. So 0.25 and that was hard work and asking questions and reaching out and you know, it wasn’t natural smarts… I could learn and I proved to myself, hey Tiff, You can learn anything and with hard work you’re going to get there.

RECOMMENDED BOOK?

I’d recommend Tribes by Seth Godin. I think it’s so important, especially now with social media.

A lot of people are trying to attract an audience and I don’t think they really know what they want. They just want fame. Especially instagram. They want followers, but you just see them screaming into the ether without meaning or purpose and they’re attracting what Seth would call a crowd, and I’ve been famous before on when I worked on primetime television for many years I was famous, but I had a crowd, but what Seth talks about is having a tribe, being a true leader, having a tribe of people who really believe in you and you adding value to their lives, and that’s what I want.

I don’t want to have a crowd of people anymore. I want a tribe and I’ve created that through my community at TiffXO. I have a tribe of Ninjas.

It’s so cool and we are all on the same page of self love, self care, looking after ourselves, being fit, being healthy, being the best version of ourselves for ourselves and for our families, and we support each other and I love that. I love that we have a tribe.

Seth also speaks about failure and he talks about failure and says that people aren’t afraid of failure. They’re afraid of criticism and I think that’s really important to remember as you’re building your business, fail, fail a thousand times. It’s great. You learn, you make mistakes, you move on, you grow, and you become stronger for it. but you know, criticism, if you’re scared of criticism, then that’s, that’s dangerous. You have to be able to take criticism and feedback and that’s really important as well in business.

He also talks about belief and that belief is a great business strategy, self-belief. And I back that, I think, believe in yourself and go for it.

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In this powerful video, world renowned success coach, brain expert and best selling author, John Assaraf talks you through 2 simple steps you can take right now to overcome any fear that may be holding you back. REWIRE YOUR BRAIN – John’s free webinar here.

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John Assaraf – Destroy Any Fear You Have In Only 2 Steps – Transcript

Hey, it’s John Assaraf.

Is it possible to turn and use your fear as your fuel for driving success?
The answer is YES… and I’ll show it to you in just a moment how to do that.

But this al stemmed from a meeting I had with a dear friend of mine, Dr. Srini Pillay from Harvard, who’s a world renowned psychiatrist and brain imaging expert and he and I met at the Harvard Club and we were talking about how
the 50 different types of fears hold most people back from achieving the success they want.

When he and I started talking about fear and the brain it became very apparent to me that most people have no idea what fear is and let alone what to do when they feel fear, so let me share with you some examples:

Lets say you have a fear of public speaking. Is it really a fear of public speaking that you have? Or is it a fear of getting up on stage and being embarrassed and ashamed, ridiculed or judged?

Let me take you to another type of fear. Being buried alive.

Can you imagine for just a moment if there was an earthquake, or there was a natural disaster  and somehow you were buried alive? Wouldn’t that trigger this crazy amount of fear of dying while you are buried alive?

Now why am I taking you there? I’m taking you there because fear is a subconscious trigger whenever we feel threatened and the threat could be a threat for our very lives and when that happens we move into one of four modalities and modality number 1 is we try to fight this feeling. Number 2 is we freeze because were in such shock. Number 3, we may faint because of the neurochemistry that the fear causes or we might run away if we can run away.

Now these neurological reactions are our brains’ way of keeping us safe, which is the highest need and desire of the brain: safety above all else.

So when we are looking to achieve a goal that we want to achieve and it doesn’t matter if it’s to start a business, or grow a business, or leave a relationship that you’re not happy in, or a job that you’re miserable in… whenever we think about the actual behavior that is required to achieve that goal, once we get motivated in doing that, that’s part 1 of how our brain works, but right after that, our brain has to analyze if there’s any real of imagined danger associated with taking that action step.

So if you are going to leave a relationship that you’re not happy in, your brain is going to activate the memory circuits and discover what’s in there that may have caused you pain and suffering in the past.

And when that happens, whether its a relationship you want to leave, a job that you want to leave, a goal you want to achieve…your brain is always analyzing is there any danger here… and when there is real or imagined danger the amygdala part of the brain, the emotional response centre in the brain is going to fire off an amazing amount of neurochemicals like cortisol, epinephrine, or norepinephrine and it’s that rush of those neurochemicals that causes this emotion: energy in motion we label as fear.

Now once you have that rush of neurochemicals in your blood stream, that actually gives you an enormous amount of energy, what most people never have learned how to do is how to take that energy and channel it to action versus to fighting it, freezing or running away.

And so here is two little techniques I call them Innercises and they’re based on my new book called Innercise – the new science to unlock your brain’s hidden power – and it goes like this:

When you write down a goal you want to achieve and you write down a fear that you might have in achieving that goal… so it could be a fear of failure, a fear of succeeding and then failing, a fear of trying your best and it not being good enough and that’s gonna cause you to be embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged etc.

When you recognize a fear I want you to do this: Innercise number 1, it’s called Take 6 Calm the Circuits.

When fear neurochemicals are released in your brain you’ve activated the fear or stress response centre in the brain.

When you just observe the emotion called fear through being quiet and breathing 6 times in through your nose and out through your month like this:
You take a deep breath in for 5 seconds, you blow out like you’re blowing out through a straw… and if you do this 5 seconds in 5 seconds out, with 6 to 10 breaths, you’re going to deactivate the fear response centre and that actually is going to reactivate your thinking centre in your brain so that you can move on to Innercise number 2.

Innercise number 1 is Take 6 Calm the Circuits… Innercise number 2 is called AIA

A-I-A and that stands for Awareness. Intention. Action.

So here’s how you do this; after you do the first Innercise, then you move to Innercise number 2 and then you ask yourself in a calm relaxed state:
What am I thinking right now?
What am I feeling right now?
Am I calm or am I tense?
Am I breathing
deeply or shallow?
Is my heartbeat fast or slow?

And in this state of calm awareness as you deactivate the brain’s fear or stress response, you can observe what you are feeling and what you are thinking and what you are doing and then you can ask yourself the next question that is the I – What is my intention right now?

Is my intention to move forward or is my intention to stay in this fearful state? And chances are you’re going to say: Well I really wanna move forward.

And then you ask yourself: What is one action step that I can take to move forward towards my goal and dream.

So this is how it works: After you do the Innercise number 1 to calm the circuits and to deactivate the reactive state that fear causes and then you move into the second Innercise called AIA to move into the responsive state awareness-intention-action now puts you in control of being aware of the fear, being aware of what you’ve been thinking and then being at choice of what you want to do.

So when you combine these 2 Innercises you are now reconfiguring the neural networking in your brain around the goal that you want to achieve and instead of allowing the real or imagined danger to control you or to stop you dead on your tracks, you take one action step in a calm state and that rewires your brain, so that the same reaction doesn’t hold you back anymore and that you are now able to use fear as your fuel for success.

Now, the other thing that you can use here is just a little added trick: they say because I am afraid of x, y or z, I’m going to take action anyway to overcome the fear.

And when you choose one small action step, not 10 or 20, but 1 small action step towards what you want to achieve, you will neutralize that fear over time, because you are being victorious over the fear, versus a victim of fear.

Fear is a neurological response to real or imagined threat. Most of the time it’s imagined because of something happening in your memory bank that you’ve read or heard, or experienced but I want you to be able to stare fear in the face in a calm way and choose your path forward to use your fear as fuel.

There’s your tip for the day, I hope you enjoyed it.

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In this powerful speech full of truth, Lisa Nichols explains 3 things about becoming successful that no one talks about, but you should know before “signing up” to this life.

Lisa Nichols is a 6 times best selling author, and world renowned self development speaker. Sign up to Lisa’s FREE 3-Steps-To Abundance training here.

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3 Brutal Truths About Becoming Successful You Must Hear – Lisa Nichols – Transcript

Hi, I’m Lisa Nichols and today I’m gonna share with you the 3 greatest things about becoming successful nobody talks about.

Number One: Success is going to cost you something.

People who want to be successful normally don’t think about what it’s going to cost them.

Success is going to cost you way beyond money, but the other things that you don’t know is how much time it’s going to cost you, the friendships that it may cost you…

Success comes with a price that’s normally bigger than what most people want to pay.

See, success is not something that’s gifted to you. Success is something that you have to go get. And in order to go get it you gotta be willing to put something in that you probably did not sign up to put in.

You gotta put in more time, you gotta give up much more sleep than you thought, you gotta put in more money, again and again…

No one talks about that it’s going to take me so much longer, so much longer that I thought.

Those 3 years I thought it was going to take… ok great, I want it to happen in 3 years, but am I willing to put in 9?
 Are you willing to put in 12?
Oh yes, you think it’s only going to cost you $50,000? Ok great. But are you willing to put in $350,000 if it costs you that?
Are you willing?

Number Two: It’s a lonely journey

The second thing about becoming successful that no one talks about is that becoming successful can be, and at some point will be a very lonely journey.

There’s a time when you’re becoming successful that you have to put everything into this moment, everything into this season, everything into this project, everything into this experience, and the people around you might not get it.

And at times they may not only physically and emotionally pull away they may pull away in every form or every fashion or you may pull yourself away from them so becoming successful can be a lonely journey.

No one talks about that when you’re holding on to a vision that no one else gets that you’re the only cheerleader for that vision, you’re the only parade for that vision, and that it doesn’t mean stop parading and stop cheerleading for the vision. It means continue parading, and continue cheerleading until other people can understand the sound of your voice, until one more person joins the parade.

You may be the only person parading for your parade for a long time. Still parade. Still cheerlead. Still march.

I for so long expected, required, needed my family to get the vision with me.
That wasn’t their job to get the vision. Because God didn’t give my vision to them, God gave my vision to me.

So if you’re expecting other people to get your vision… you call it whatever you choose, I’ll call him God… God didn’t give your vision to them, God gave a vision to you.

Be willing to walk alone. Be willing to have lonely moments, hours, weeks and months.

Be willing. Be the cheerleader of your own parade. Be the bandleader… and the marchers until someone else joins you.

Number Three: If you’re doing it for money… It’s not success.

The third part about becoming successful that no one discusses, that you don’t hear is that success, if you measure it just by business, just by money earned, just by likes or popularity on social media, then success will be very very hollow and very very shallow and very, extremely unfulfilling.

If you’re only measuring becoming successful by the balance in the bank account, and the number of likes, and the number of followers, and the number people giving you accolades, the amount of media exposure that you have, then success, all of the success you have will be hollow.

The things that define you as successful existed long before you were becoming successful: the relationship with your family, the health in your body, the ability to command your arm to raise and it raises, the ability to smell the roses and to enjoy laughter to laugh until your belly hurts, the ability to have faith and pray and see and believe in the unseen…

Most people trade in those things… for the monetary success, for the popularity success… they trade in the very things that makes their life feel successful.

They trade in relationships… I know I did for a while. I traded in relationships, so that I can have business success. I traded in nurturing the things that gave me life with my mother, with my father with my son with my family chasing success.

Only to realize once I became successful that I wanna go back and make sure those things are along the journey too.

Success without memories, success without relationships, success without those great moments that ground us is not really success. It’s just a slice of a pie. I think success is having the whole pie.

I want health.
I want relationships.
I want spirituality.
I want finance.
I want love.
I want all of them because that’s success.

But no one talks about how on your way to becoming successful you often forget and leave behind the things that are going to matter the most.

Make sure you measure success by the right barometer.

Success is a holistic experience. It’s not partial, it’s not compartmental, it’s an entire experience. Most of the things that will matter to you when you become successful are already sitting around you, waiting to be nurtured and brought along the journey.

So most people don’t wanna talk about that. Because they don’t wanna deter you from pursuing success. But I wanna tell you about it because if you really want success then you have to know about it and then sign up.

If this is too much for you, don’t sign up for it. But if you sign up for it, sign up for the complete experience. Sign up for everything. Sign up for the lonely moments. Sign up for the costly years. Sign up for the getting back up 1000 times. Sign up for no one getting your vision. Sign up for making sure that you bring your family along, even if it means that your 14 hour day now it needs to be an 18 hour day so you can watch a movie, so you can walk on the beach, so you can have dinner with them, so you don’t leave them behind.

Make sure you understand that if no one else gets your vision it’s because right now your vision is to be nurtured by you and you only.

No one wants to talk about that. But I would be remiss if i didn’t. Why?

Because I wish someone would have told me.

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