The Not-So-Secret Formula for Lasting Success and Peak Performance
There’s an old adage in the personal development world that was coined by Tony Robbins (I think…)
Success leaves clues
Whatever you want to achieve… There is a blueprint for doing it.
… No matter how crazy or out of this world it might seem.
Successful people have a system and a formula for achieving massive results.
And after interviewing more than 400 of the world’s most prolific individuals, I’ve realized that this formula is much simpler than you might imagine.
If you are willing to apply the following formula to your life, you can and will achieve success much faster than you ever thought possible.
If you ignore this information and think that you already know what you’re doing…
… Well, you’ll probably spend about 10 years grinding away at the wrong things never getting the results you truly desire.
You can either try to reinvent the wheel and risk crashing and burning.
Or you can simply use what has already been proven to work and get to your desired destination faster and easier than you ever thought possible.
The choice is yours…
1. Develop Crystal Clear Clarity on What You Want and How You Will Get It
A genius without a road map will get lost to any destination. But even an average person with a road map can arrive wherever they want to go. ~Brian Tracy
The first step to getting what you want is knowing what you want.
Without a clear map and blueprint for what you want your life to look like and where you want to be, you will be forever stuck in “no man’s land” testing out dozens of different strategies but never seeing any of them through to fruition.
As such…
The first step to achieving success is to create a clear definition of what success means to you and how you can achieve it.
Get Honest With Yourself and Eliminate Any Shame You Feel Towards Your Desires
What do you want?
… No really
What do you want?
Do you want:
- Millions in the bank and worldwide fame and renown?
- A simple life in the mountains with your family?
- An adventurous life as a single man traveling the world?
- A wife, 2.5 kids, and a white picket fence?
Whatever you want (so long as it’s within the boundaries of general ethics and morality) is ok.
Before you can develop crystal clear clarity on what you truly want, we need to start by eradicating any shame that you feel around your desires.
… Let’s be clear
You aren’t supposed to desire anything.
Outside of the basic human needs, you shouldn’t feel pressured to conform to any one way of living or performing.
If you don’t want to
- Work a traditional job
- Become an entrepreneur
- Get married
- Have kids
- Buy a home
- Travel the world
It’s ok…
You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.
So right now, I want you to take a moment to consider the following question.
What desires and goals have I been lying to myself about? What do I want that I’m ashamed to admit? What don’t I want that I’m scared to give up?
If you don’t want to be a millionaire, you don’t have to.
If you want bookus of cash and a yacht with an infinite supply of champagne… That’s fine too!
As long as you aren’t hurting yourself or anyone else, you are allowed to want and pursue anything you desire.
So …
What do you really want?
Take a minute to write out the answer to this question before moving on through the rest of this article.
Develop Crystal Clear Clarity on the Life You Want to Live
Now that you’ve taken some time to consider how some of the desires in your life might be mismatched from what you truly desire, it’s time to get clear and define the exact life you want.
To do this, we are going to analyze 8 key categories of life:
- Health and fitness
- Finances
- Career
- Romance
- Social Life
- Fun & Adventure
- Personal Growth & Spirituality
- Impact
Take out a pen and a sheet of paper and get ready to write…
Put on some inspiring instrumental music and get in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for at least 20 minutes.
… I know you have responsibilities, but this is your life damn it!
Isn’t it worth 20 minutes to figure out what you truly want and how you can get it?
Alright…
Now that you’re in a quiet place, have your notepad ready, and some good music to inspire you, I want you to go through each of the 8 life categories and write down a simple 2-3 paragraph response to the following question.
“If I could achieve anything I wanted in the next 5-10 years, what would my ideal life look like in each of these areas?
Would you…
- Become a super athlete and start competing in Spartan races?
- Quit your job and start your own online business?
- Get married? Stay a bachelor and live the playboy lifestyle?
- Move to a new city or country?
- Travel the world?
- Build a school in Africa?
- Earn $1,000,000?
- Build a 6-figure passive income machine?
What would your ideal life look like?
Remember…
The goal here isn’t to be realistic.
… It’s to get to the heart of what you truly want so that you can start moving in that direction.
Take 20 minutes and do this right now… I’ll be waiting when you get back.
Use the “Billionaire Method” to Follow Through on All of Your Wildest Ambitions
Alright!
If you took action on the previous section, you should have a few pages written out clearly describing your ideal life in detail.
And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking.
… How in the hell am I going to achieve all of these goals?
If you try to achieve all of your new goals at the same time, you will inevitably burn out and fail.
However…
There’s a secret tactic used by billionaires and thought leaders all over the world that allows you to quickly accomplish your biggest goals in record time.
What’s this secret strategy?
Understand sequencing and single focus on one goal until completion.
What exactly does this mean?
Well…
In a recent interview with Jeff Hoffman, I asked him how he was able to build a billion-dollar company, produce a Grammy-winning Jazz album, produce a movie, travel the world, and still have time for his wife and kids.
His answer was pretty simple…
I focus single mindedly on the most important goal for 3-5 years, accomplish that goal, and then move on to the next one.
At this point, you probably have dozens of goals that you want to achieve, some big some small.
I want to tell you right now… You CAN achieve all of them.
… Just not at the same time.
The trick is to find the right goal to focus on, give it 110% until it’s achieved, then move onto the next one.
For example…
If you have 4 goals:
- To build a 7-figure business
- Lose 60 lbs. of fat and reclaim your health
- Find the love of your life
- Quit your soul-sucking day job
You would want to start by focusing all of your efforts on losing those 60 lbs.
When you reclaim your health and vitality, you will have more energy and cognitive capacity to focus on the next goal, making each of your goals easier to achieve.
Once you’ve lost the weight, then you can move on to building a side hustle and quitting your day job.
Afterall… It’s hard to build a 7-figure business or find the love of your life if all of your time is spent in the office doing something you hate.
Once you have lost the weight, built your side hustle, and quit your job, you can now start to focus on finding a partner.
Building a successful business is much easier when you have someone in your corner supporting you and pushing you to succeed.
From here, you can put all of your efforts into your business.
Achieving the success that you desire in all areas of life is possible. But you must understand how to select the right goal at the right time and follow through to completion.
2. Forge Unbreakable Self Confidence and KNOW that You Can Achieve Your Dreams
Once you have a clear vision for the life that you want and the success that you want to achieve, you must now develop the internal fortitude and self confidence required to achieve this life.
Luckily, building unbreakable self confidence is a much simpler task than you might imagine.
It’s not easy, but it is simple.
And it all starts with a few powerful mindset shifts and the acceptance of some uncomfortable truths.
No One is Going to Rescue You… So Act Like It
To build true confidence we must start by accepting a rather unsettling fact…
No one is coming to save you.
Not your mom and dad, not Uncle Sam, not your friends…
No one will give you the life that you think you deserve.
… If you want success, you must take it and create it for yourself.
You must choose yourself for success.
The burden of success is yours and yours alone.
You must learn to cultivate high levels of self-reliance and accept that you (and only you) are responsible for how your life turns out.
The only way to create lasting success is to accept responsibility for your actions and results and then make the necessary moves to change it.
You are responsible for you… Period.
Although this might seem a bit disheartening at first, it’s the first mindset shift required to develop rock-solid confidence.
When you accept that you are the only person responsible for your results, you realize that you have the power to change them.
When you blame others for the way that your life is, you give up your power.
… You allow other people to control your future instead of captaining your own ship and commanding your own fate.
It’s been said that with great power comes great responsibility…
But I say, “With great responsibility, comes great power”.
When you cut through the crap and own your actions and results, you empower yourself to make a change and create the life you want.
Until you do this, you will forever be at the whim and mercy of others.
Stack Small Wins to Compound Your Results and Build Lasting Confidence
Once you’ve shifted your mindset and taken full ownership of yourself and your results, you are now in a position to start building real and lasting confidence.
… Luckily, it’s not as hard as you might imagine.
Confidence is an acquired skill.
And it’s acquired by stacking small wins on top of one another until you prove to yourself that you’re capable of achieving your biggest goals and dreams.
Think about it this way…
If you walk into a gym for the first time in a decade and try to deadlift 405 lbs. for reps… You’re going to fail and likely hurt yourself trying.
However…
If you train consistently over the course of 12 months, slowly adding weight to the bar every training session until you are comfortably deadlifting 375 lbs. for reps, when the time comes to increase the weight to 405, you’ll be physically and mentally prepared for the challenge.
Building confidence in any endeavor is the same way…
If you set out to build a $1,000,000 business before you even have one client or a marketable skill, you will probably fall flat on your face and say:
“See! I knew I couldn’t do it!”
However, if you start by setting the goal to find one $1,000/month client, achieve that goal and then stack your wins on top of one another…
You’ll be at 7-figures before you know it.
To build confidence, you want to stack small wins daily and keep a written log of your biggest victories and successes.
The more often you achieve small goals, the more you will believe in yourself when it comes time to pursue bigger, scarier, more audacious goals.
Remember: What One Man Can Do Another Man Can Do
Ultimately, the biggest confidence hack that I’ve ever learned is to accept one simple fact.
We are all human.
Everything that you see, use, and enjoy today was created by people no more special, intelligent, or gifted than you are.
Every goal you’ve ever wanted to achieve has likely been achieved by someone else with fewer financial resources, a worse family history, and fewer mental and emotional assets at their disposal.
At the end of the day, what one man can do another man can do.
If it’s been done, it can be done again.
Remember this…
Internalize this.
… Hell, get it tattooed on your forehead!
Because there’s no greater shortcut to achieving confidence than to look at the millionaire, billionaires, and moguls of the world and realize that they are people just like you.
3. Eradicate Fear and Boldly Move Towards Your Scariest Dreams
With your vision in place and your core confidence rising, it’s time to eradicate the biggest road block to success.
… Fear.
Fear will stop you dead in your tracks and prevent you from even pursuing the life that you desire and deserve. But today, you’re going to learn how to beat fear once and for all and reclaim the lost courage you once had.
Change Your Relationship with Adversity by Embracing Stoicism
Most modern Americans fear adversity.
How couldn’t we?
Everything in our society seems hell-bent on convincing us that the key to a happy life is ease and comfort.
But in reality, the “Good Life”, a truly well-lived life, is about overcoming greater and greater adversity and building a legacy worth remembering.
As such, it’s important that we change our relationship with adversity and embrace something known as Stoicism.
Stoicism is an ancient Roman philosophy that promotes emotional resilience in the face of extreme adversity.
When you practice Stoicism, you remain calm, cool, and collected no matter what’s happening around you. Instead of responding to every negative situation and speed bump with an emotional outburst, learn to accept everything as it is.
Neither good nor bad… Simply the reality in which you find yourself.
You cannot change what has happened. You can only change how you respond to what has happened and what you do in the future.
Accept this. Embrace this. Live this.
And you will find your success.
“Fear Set” to Eradicate Self Doubt and Give Yourself True Courage
Fear can cripple your grandest dreams and squash your most wild ambitions.
Luckily, there’s a simple trick that allows you to eradicate fear (almost) instantly and move forward with your life.
It’s known as Fear Setting.
The premise is simple…
Instead of writing down your goal, you are going to write down your fears in agonizing detail.
Figure out exactly what you are afraid of. Write down all of the bad things that will happen if you fail. Write down all of the ways a given situation could go wrong.
Write down anything and everything that comes to mind.
Then, you are going to ask yourself one simple question… “How can I recover?”
For example, if you want to quit your job and start a business and you write down that you are afraid of going broke, losing your home, and failing, how can you recover from that?
Maybe you can move back in with your parents, get a job waiting tables during the day, or simply sell your car, use the money to pay for rent, and then bike around town until you get your next client.
Figure out your exact escape plan in the event that you fail.
Once you do this, you will realize that you really don’t have much to fear and that you can quickly and easily recover from almost any setback.
When you define your fears, create a plan B, and look at the facts… You’ll realize that, as the old saying goes, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”
Accept that Pain is Inevitable
You are going to experience pain in this life.
Period.
There’s no escaping this fact. It doesn’t matter if you are the richest of the rich. You will experience pain at some point in your existence. This is one of the only guarantees of the human experience.
… And it’s also an empowering fact to accept.
Because the truth of the matter is accepting the inevitability of pain allows you to select which pain you want to endure.
Do you want to endure the pain of working late, saving diligently, and giving up some free time or do you want to endure the pain of being broke, unemployed, and in debt?
If you see a beautiful woman that you want to talk to, do you want to endure the possible pain of rejection or certain pain of regret?
Do you want to endure the pain of training your body, eating healthily, and taking recovery seriously (even when you want to go party your face off) or the pain of sickness, disease, and an early death?
We’ve all got to endure pain…
The only question is, “What pain do you want to endure?”
4. Shift Your Mindset to Become Unstoppable in Business and in Life
It’s been said that success is 80% psychology and 20% mechanics.
In other words, if you have your mindset right, you can achieve success even without the best systems, strategies, and tactics.
I’ve found that the success mindset can be distilled down to 3 core mindsets and ideologies.
Memento Mori Motherf***er
You are going to die.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, but eventually…
… You are going to die.
I know this isn’t something that’s fun to think about.
And you probably didn’t read this article expecting to hear this… But it’s true.
Death comes for us all and unless Elon Musk saves the world (again), you will eventually breathe your final breath and slip out of existence forever.
To some of you… This is terrifying.
But when you really stop to think about it, it’s the most freeing thought there is.
The worst thing that can happen to you is already inevitable. The most painful thing that you can experience is guaranteed. No failure or f*ck up is worse than the reality that already faces you at the end of your life.
You are going to die.
So start acting like it.
If you’re already certain of your own death, there’s nothing holding you back from pursuing your dreams and going after the life that you want.
If you know you’re going to die, then failing at your new business, getting rejected by that beautiful woman, or losing all of your money in an investment gone wrong isn’t really that bad.
… I mean, c’mon.
If you’re going to die anyway, none of those things matter right.
You are going to die.
So live like it.
Switch From Scarcity to Abundance and Never Feel Fear Again
All fear comes from a place of scarcity.
Anytime you are afraid of something it’s because you don’t believe that you have the resources at your disposal to achieve your desired outcome.
Just think about it…
If you are scared of talking to a beautiful woman, it’s because you fear that rejection will ultimately result in your social status being lowered and your ability to find a suitable partner being eliminated.
If you are scared of quitting your job and building your dream business, it’s because you are afraid that you will not have the financial resources that you need to live a comfortable and healthy life.
But what if you were in a place of abundance?
What if you realized that there are millions of beautiful women around the world who would love to be in a relationship with you and rejection from one of them didn’t hold any weight?
What if you realized that money is abundant and that you can easily earn the income you need to live the life you desire?
What if you switch your mindset from scarcity to abundance?
The truth of the matter is that life is abundant.
We are in the greatest era of human prosperity and wealth and there has never been a time in our history where the common man had as much access to information, capital, and support as they do today in the 21st century.
Anytime you feel fear and scarcity creeping back into your life, I want you to switch your mindset to abundance.
Think about all of the assets and resources that you have at your disposal. Express gratitude for what you already have in your life. Internalize the fact that there is more than enough to go around.
When you do this, you will quickly realize that you have nothing to fear and that life is happening for you and not to you.
Eradicate the Comparison Trap so that You Can Live Your Best Life
Comparison is one of the greatest killers of hopes, dreams, and ambitions.
It will halt you in your tracks, tell you that you’re not good enough, and make you believe the hype that life is rigged in favor of others.
Here’s the deal…
Comparing your life to the lives of other people is like comparing apples to oranges.
You don’t know the situations and circumstances that other people have been through. Comparing yourself to others only denigrates your own journey and invalidates the struggles that you are facing.
If you want to achieve lasting success, then you must eradicate comparison from your life.
The only person you can compare yourself to is the man that you were yesterday. Because he’s the only person that matters.
Get off of social media, stop obsessing over the results that other people are getting and instead focus all of your efforts on making changes in your own life.
Comparison is a parasite that distracts and drains your resources from doing things that actually matter.
Focus on growing yourself and let other people live their own lives.
Change Your Relationship With Money with this One “Weird Trick”
Although success should never be defined by the contents in your bank account, money does play an important role in allowing you to live your best life and pursue your dreams.
Unfortunately, most of us have a number of negative mental loops in our heads about money.
We believe the lie that money is the root of all evil and that somehow, becoming rich means that we are a greedy or selfish person. In order to change this relationship, you only need to realize one simple fact.
Money is freedom.
That’s it… Money is the ability to have, do, and be who you want.
When you have money, you have the freedom to travel the world, spend more time with those you love, retire your parents, pursue your creative endeavors, eat the healthiest foods possible to feel like a million bucks every day, and live (relatively) stress-free.
Anytime you start to think negatively about money, I want you to replace the word “Money” with “Freedom” aka you have more time and don’t do things you don’t want to do.
Do you really think that freedom is the root of all evil? Is freedom bad? Are people with more freedom greedy and self-serving?
Of course not!
Money is a tool that gives you freedom, accept this and your entire relationship with money will start to change.
Set and Track Your Systems… Forget about Goals
One of the most well-kept secrets of the success is that they don’t just set goals… They create systems
Here’s how James Clear explained it in his excellent article on goals vs. systems
- If you’re a coach, your goal is to win a championship. Your system is what your team does at practice each day.
- If you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week.
- If you’re a runner, your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month.
- If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process.
Now for the interesting part…
What if you completely ignored goals and benchmarks and devoted all of your energy to the systems in your life?
What if, instead of setting a goal for your income, tracking your KPIs against that benchmark, and setting arbitrary deadlines for when you had to achieve a specific result, you focused 100% of your energy and effort on building rock-solid systems to increase your income?
This is how I’ve approached success in my life and I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am happier, healthier, and wealthier because of it.
When you focus on systems instead of goals, you will no longer get caught up and frustrated by a results-only focus. You will have more patience, more mental energy, and more long-term success because you are focused entirely on doing the things required to move your life forward in the direction that you desire.
Refine the process, track the process, and commit to the process and you will eventually reach and surpass the original goal.
5. Leverage Proven Success Tactics to Accelerate Your Path to Achievement and Peak Performance
Once you have “Hardwired” yourself for success by creating a clear vision, building self-confidence, eradicating fear, and doubling down on your mindset, we arrive at the final 20% of the success equation.
… The tactics and strategies.
While I’ve written extensive guides on many of these topics which I encourage you to check out, I wanted to leave you with a few actionable strategies to help accelerate your path to success and achieve the life you want.
Here are 7 quick and dirty tips to increase your success today.
1. Work in Chunks and Take Frequent Breaks
Your brain (literally) cannot effectively stay focused on a single task for hours on end. Instead, it works in waves by staying hyper focused, resting, and then restoring focus.
Instead of trying to work against your brain’s hardwiring, adopt the work-break-work model known as the Pomodoro Technique to instantly increase your productivity and cognitive capacity.
Work in 50 minute chunks on a single task, then take 15 minutes of rest before resuming work.
Apply this tomorrow and I promise you will be 10X more productive.
2. Prioritize Your Health Above Everything Else
You don’t have anything without your health.
Your physical body is the source of all financial, personal, relational, and career success. Unless you have the energy and vitality to do what needs to be done, you will never achieve the success you desire.
Prioritize your health above everything else.
Exercise daily, eat healthy foods, drink plenty of water, and get 7.5+ hours of sleep.
Any sacrifices you make in other areas of life to improve your health will pay dividends in the long run.
3. Affirm Your Awesomeness
Affirmations were once believed to be a steaming load of New Age b.s. But we now know that affirmations are actually a scientifically verified method for improving your performance and increasing long-term success.
I recommend that you take 10-15 minutes every day to either listen to or actively state affirmations to yourself that relate to your biggest goals and ambitions.
4. Engage in “Monk Mode” to Ease Stress and Gain Clarity
Meditation makes you better at just about everything. Research has shown that meditation can alleviate stress and anxiety, boost grey matter, increase your ability to focus, and improve emotional resiliency.
Simply sitting down and shutting up for 10-15 minutes a day can have lasting and far-reaching effects on your quality of life and journey to success.
5. Practice Minimalism to Reduce Mental and Physical Clutter
The more things you own, the more your things own you. By reducing the clutter in your life and getting rid of the unnecessary, you free up mental and physical space to focus on the most important things in life.
6. Find and Keep High Quality Mentors to Slice Your Learning Curve in Half
If you want to achieve your version of success in half the time that it normally takes then you need to find a high-quality mentor or coach who can point out your blind spots, keep you accountable and shave your learning curve in half. I’ve written about my proven 5-step system to find a keep a mentor here and, if you’re interested in high-performance coaching, you can learn more about our coaching program by clicking this link.
7. Take it One Day at a Time
Success doesn’t happen over 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years. It happens over the course of 24 hours. Success, at the heart of it all, is about how you spend each and every day. It’s about the habits, thoughts, and activities you engage in on a regular basis.
Instead of focusing on the long term, I want you to focus on owning one day at a time. If you can conquer today, you can conquer tomorrow. And if you can do that, you can conquer an entire decade and eventually… Your whole life.
Conclusion
Success isn’t easy, but it is simple.
By following the formula I’ve laid out in this article you can and will achieve success faster than you ever thought possible.
Put in the time, do the work, and follow the system and I can promise you, you will achieve your dream life.
So get to work.
It’s time to become who you were born to be.