Dr. Robert Cooper, Monica Kerber, and Dr. William Anton explore 1 or 2 practical adjustments that they are making in today’s noisy and chaotic world.

The goal of this conversation is to briefly explore and share some inspiring practical glimpses into ways they are each making adjustments in their own best lives evolving in this crazy, complex, and ever changing world.

For example: What are small changes are we noticing or applying that can make the biggest positive difference? As the world changes what are one or two practical cutting-edge ideas and practices are potentially valuable and deeply meaningful in a human way?

The hard-wired brain craves coasting. Chrono-performance research shows how today’s top performers reject this tendency and act to reflectively reengineer their performance. Glance ahead and sense the clear difference.

Faith Shapes Our Destiny
Faith matters to highest human performance, yet it is uniquely and deeply personal. It can be religious or spiritual faith. It can be connected to specific holidays on the calendar, and it can also transcend that. Faith can evolve, deepen, and grow, transforming us along the way. It aligns with, and often encompasses, our deepest values and highest purpose.

Martin Luther King reminded us:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Reflectively Reengineer Ways You Can Become an Ever-Greater Asset to Your Mission and Team
The greatest aspirations, responsibility, and honor come from being part of a team devoted to accomplishing the highest possible missions and goals. This fuels a deep intrinsic drive for each team member to be ever more indispensable to the team—rather than just centering on their own performance.

Here is one description of what a Tier One team values. Take a few minutes to ponder how you measure up to this—and what you could improve right away:

We are looking for a combination of toughness, heart, resourcefulness, ingenuity, adaptability, integrity, and relentless drive to be an ever-greater asset, never a liability, to the team. We must gauge a person’s selflessness, depth, drive, and true being.

Now, Elevate Your Reach Toward What is Possible
Top-performing teams embrace the commitment to plan and execute No-Fail Missions—On their top priorities and biggest goals, there is no Plan B.

The simple, neuroscience-based rationale is this: Having a smaller goal available enables the brain to hope for the best but increasingly be satisfied with performing small. Today’s top teams are always stretching forward and upward in their faith, commitment, learning, selflessness, and application, beyond “good” and “great” to the highest level of what is possible.

This is a perfect time of year for you to transcend the norm and go a little farther, carrying more than your share. What small, specific changes or adjustments will you make? And for your team? How can you ignite and incorporate more of this spirit into your life and work?

In The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Abraham Maslow wrote:

“To be ultimately at peace,
a person must keep becoming
all that he can potentially become.”

Commit again now.
Deeper and higher.
Earn it every day.
Never stop.

Key Takeaway: We believe that everyone needs a set of guiding principles to use as their decision-making framework.

In November of 2022 there was very large crypto currency exchange that went bankrupt. When something like this happens, it is always surprising to the public to see the number of highly intelligent, well respected, and “sophisticated” investors who were exposed to the losses. It’s not the first time something like this happened: Enron, Theranos, 2008 Real Estate and Banking crashes, ect. We do not want to discuss that actual investments themselves, but to dive a little deeper into the rationale, thinking, and decision-making processes that can help people avoid these scenarios across multiple aspects of their lives.

One of the harsh realities that we all face is that excessive amount of information and distraction in our world. It makes it difficult to make clear, rational decisions and can lead us astray from the path that we’d like to follow. Whether we admit it or not, the information we consume and people we interact can have a significant directional pull on us. It effects the way we think, behave, respond emotionally, and a number of items sometimes for the positive or negative.

A good analogy of this: If the speed limit is 65 mph but all the cars around us are driving 90 mph, does this make it right for us to also drive 90 mph? It’s a fact that driving 90 mph significantly increases the risk of dangerous situation; yet, when the people and noise around us indicate something different our judgement and decision making becomes clouded. Our perception changes and we justify things we ordinarily would not. I would imagine this is what happened to those “sophisticated” investors mentioned earlier.

Comparisons also contribute and affect our emotions. We hear about our neighbor who isn’t as smart as us, talk about how much money he or she made in a risky investment. “If they can do it, anyone can do it.” Jealousy, envy, fear of missing out, hope, being overly optimistic, and a number of other emotions spring into action. We behave in ways that don’t make sense to our rational minds, but that’s the point. We’re no longer rational. We’ve allowed our perception to shift due to external circumstances.

This happens across every aspect of our lives: Our family, faith, spouse, business, finance, health, ect. We are all constantly at the risk of being influenced and subject to cloudy judgement from the external. So, in a world of unlimited information and noise, it’s our firm belief that we all need a set of guiding principles to use as decision making framework.

Guiding principles will serve as a compass to navigate the decisions that you’re faced with on a regular basis. By keeping your principles front and center, they serve as a baseline for you to come back to in your decision making.

The 10 Commandments are essentially 10 principles for living. Perhaps we should have commandments for investment decision making, parenting, business, ect. Each individual must decide what principles they will use for their own situations and lives.
“Does the decision that I’m about to make align with my principles for ___________?”

There are no guarantees that everything will work out perfectly but following clearly defined principles will help cut through the noise, make the decision making process more clear, and keep us moving in the direction we wish to go.

You may have heard the expression, you are what you repeatedly do. I think there is much truth to this and it’s worth exploring this statement as it relates to our habits.

Whenever we get in the habit of engaging in any behavior repeatedly, at some point the habit takes over and you start becoming the habit. In other words, if you get in the habit of watching TV late at night and sleeping in, this is what starts to feel comfortable or normal to you. And if you do this often enough, it will feel odd to do something different.

The same goes for engaging in a healthier habit, such as exercising at a particular time of day. If you consistently exercise at the same time every day for a period of at least 30 days, you will be amazed at how your mind and body expect to exercise and are physiologically prepared to do so at this time.
At some point, it will feel odd to not engage in this behavior pattern, as it has become a part of who you are. In my own journey, I’ve found this to be the case, as it would now feel odd for me to not meditate, write in cursive, and exercise in the fasted state in the morning.

For this reason, it’s really important to develop habits that serve you and are aligned with your goals. Remember, first, you create the habits, then they create you!

C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his teachings, “Christ did not come here to preach a brand new form of morality… really great moral teachers never introduce new moralities…. People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. The real job of every moral teacher is to keep bringing us back time after time to the old, simple principles.”
I found this to be an incredibly powerful thought that is applicable across a broad spectrum of life. Innovation and change can be powerful, but in our lives we need to be reminded more often of what is important than we need to be instructed of brand-new ideas. Some examples:

Society
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Don’t kill
Don’t steal, Don’t lie

Health
Exercise
Sleep
Eat healthy fruits and vegetables
Don’t smoke or drink alcohol

Professional
Work hard to serve your customers and employees
Be honest and consistent with integrity

Family
Prioritize time for your spouse and kids
Love each other and treat each other with respect

There is nothing on this list that every reader didn’t already know, but yet we fall short. We get distracted and seek shiny objects. This is why CS Lewis’s quote is so important and powerful. Great teachers and leaders, consistently highlight and give reminders of what is most important.

It’s easy to get lost in the struggles of life. We miss the forest through the trees as we metaphorically stumble around in the dark feeling our way through the busyness of daily life. We can be scared, uncertain, stressed, or any number of unpleasant feelings when we don’t know the path that will be laid out before us.

One useful idea to calm these negative feelings and think clearly is taking a Bird’s Eye View of life.

When we are able to step back and see the larger picture of where we were, where we are, and where we want to go, it clears the mind. Reflecting on the past there were many times where we felt uncertainty and fear; however, in hindsight the path unfolded before us. Think of some of the most life changing, unexpected things in our lives. Great triumphs, miracles, and even disasters have shaped and guided us toward the people are and lives we live. Reflecting with this bird’s eye, helps calm the present mind because even with all the past struggles, life unfolded how it was supposed to. Maybe not how we thought it should at the time, but the way it was supposed to.

This bird’s eye view also applies to the future. When we glance ahead intentionally toward the future, it’s helps us to see the big picture. It calms us. It also helps us to re-engineer the daily actions that we need to take in the present to make that future a reality.

Taking a Bird’s Eye View doesn’t mean living in the past or daydreaming about an imaginative future. It’s about calming the mind in the present so we can make the decisions and take the actions to intentionally build our best lives.

“We are all the heroes in our own story.”

There’s a lot of truth and wisdom behind this phrase and it impacts many facets of our lives. In some way or another we all view ourselves as the hero who is living out an incredibly important journey. We are striving, seeking to overcome the odds and slay the hypothetical mythical dragon in our life’s quest. Our hypothetical dragons might be raising a great family, building a business, reaching new heights academically, or any number of things that are important to us individually.

While this type of thinking is completely normal, we should remember that everyone in the world perceives themselves as the heroes in their own story, whatever that story might be. Once we’ve come to that understanding, we can take a step back and recognize that while we may be the heroes in our stories, we are not the heroes in everyone else’s story. We are not the knights in shining armor to them, but a healthier approach might be to think of ourselves as man who gives them their own sword or tools so they can “slay their own dragon” and accomplish their own hero story. This is a powerful motivation thought process that applies to any number of situations.

1. Employees or Co-workers- each one of them have their own dreams and destinations. What tools, steps, or help can you offer them on their own hero journey?

2. Parenting- While our children our young they depend on us for everything. But as they grow, how can we empower them so they can live out their hero story?

We often reference sports metaphors and examples because they are easy to point to and understand, but a great one in this example is Nick Saban. It’s amazing the amount of head coaching successes that have emerged from working under Coach Saban at Alabama. When he hires his assistant coaches, he knows that most of them dream of being their own head coach someday. He doesn’t hold back this dream for fear of losing a good coach. Instead, he empowers them, challenges them, and if the Alabama football team succeeds it gives them the opportunity to live out their own hero story of being a head coach somewhere.

At Exclusivia, this is a core value that we apply to our members, our employees, and our partners. Everyone in our ecosystem has their own unique goals, needs, and mission in life. They are the hero in their own story. So the role of Exclusivia is not to be the hero and try to save the day, but instead to empower and provide the “sword” so they can slay their own mythical dragon.

“We tend to measure what is easily measurable instead of what is truly important to measure.”

We recently heard Charles Koch the CEO of Koch Industries in an interview talk about his company, their philsophies, and how they want to seek mutually beneficial relationships with their shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, and partners. This mutual good and interdependecy throughout the ecosystem creates a “rising tide, lifts all ships” that creates loyalty, strength, and lasting power for everyone.

Mr Koch revealed how he the team spend an enormous amount of time designing the compensation packages of their people. They look at all kind of measurement metrics to incentivize the type of behavior and actions that promote the overall goodwill and strength of the company. When he spoke about this, he acknowledged how hard it was to design these metrics because so many of the behaviors they are incentivizing are not strictly about maximizing profits, revenues, costs or other qualitative measures but instead qualatative attributes that lead to good will across the entire ecosystem. “The Problem is, We tend to measure what is easily measurable instead of what is truly important to measure.”

The significance of those words stuck in our minds. How often do we seek simple and easy measurements when we are looking at Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)? Short term revenue, sales and profitability at all costs, cost of production, user acquisition, might all be examples. While we shouldn’t discount measuring these items, perhaps we should dive deeper into the measurements and analysis.
For example: Is it beneficial to increase profitability by squeezing our suppliers making them unhappy to do business with us, decreasing their loyalty for the future? Or would we be better served taking less profits in the short term, but ensuring that when we hit a difficult with supplies that they take care of us in turn? Is it beneficial to acquire customers at all costs, even those customers do not align with your values and will most likely cause problems for your organization, or would you be better served seeking out customers appreciate your services and worth the future investment of your company? There are countless more examples that we could identify, but the main point is it’s difficult and requires hard work to look deeper at the intagibles that should be measured.

Innovation, fortitude, trust, commitment, creativity, consistency, and looking after the long term value of the company and all it’s members are just a few examples of other items that are difficult to measure but might be invaluable. To dive deeper and identify what matters most then try to measure that, requires a leader or organization to have courage and to think long term about what adds value and strength to the organization and it’s entire ecosystem.

While business is the easy example to point to, this idea could most likely be extrapolated and applied to many areas as we pursue our best lives.

I’ve heard two investors, Guy Spier and Nick Sleep, use the term destination analysis in regard to their evaluation process for making an investment. In this context, these investors look at the current company and are trying to envision where the company is going into the future. In summary, is it clear that the company be a larger, stronger, and be serving more customers than it is today? Nothing is certain but if they feel that they have very clear idea of the company’s future destination it helps make their decision-making process significantly easier. On the flipside, if the future of the company’s destination is cloudy or there are too many unknowns affecting the destination, they most likely will not proceed.

Investing is a bit different than life, because in investing if you don’t like the destination of the investment, you can simply walk away and find something else to invest in, whereas you cannot walk away from your life. However, this idea of destination analysis is something that can extrapolated across all areas of our best lives.

Dr. Robert Cooper frequently uses the term “glance ahead, then look back.” The future destination is made by intentionally looking at where we want to be, then reverse engineering that process to do the action steps required to get there.

Have we done a destination analysis of your family’s happiness? Our health? Business? If so what does the future destination look like with the road we are currently on? Does it align with where we want to be?

There are many unknowns in life and many things that will unfold that are outside of our control. It is very easy to get lost in the noise and chaos of the present, but if we are not careful our lives will unfold almost by accident, and we can miss our best lives. Life is not something that just happens to us, we must be active participants.

We have found this exercise of destination analysis incredibly helpful with our team at Exclusivia in building the company as well as helping each other intentionally pursue our own most amazing futures.

The ability to think, plan, and execute for the long term is one of the hardest skills to master but if you can it’s one of the largest advantages a person can have.

Today’s world is increasing complex and based upon instant gratification. Technology has made it so we never have to wait anymore. We have instant access to the entire world through our smart phones and devices. Instant news, instant email access, instant food delivery, instant updates, and instant communication all leads to short term dopamine rushes. It’s created a world that is constantly rushing and full of short-term incentives, short term thinkers, and a lot of short-term activity.
Here’s the secret to it. If the vast majority of the world is competing with the short-term goals in mind, you will be competing with essentially everyone. Those are nearly impossible odds to overcome. However, if you can recognize this, you can play a different game than everyone else and dramatically improve your chances of success.

Some examples:
1. Business- Companies that are pressured and incentivized to think quarterly or even yearly are not going to be able to make the long, term strategic decisions that position their company to be stronger and more healthy 10, 20, 30 years from today.

2. Investing- almost all hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity investors are paid to deploy capital whether the right opportunity exists of not. They are also tracked on a quarterly or yearly basis for results. This incentive system encourages short term, speculative thinking and gives the patient investor with patient capital a huge advantage.

3. Health- Committing to sleeping, exercising, and eating will give you more years to live and function at high level allowing to continuously improve the other areas of your life. The short term temptation is to neglect this when you’re tired or busy.

4. Family- giving energy and time to your family continuously, greatly improves the chances that your family relationships will be deeper and more meaningful.

Long-term thinking and execution require rejecting what is normal in today’s society and approaching your life with an emotional discipline that most people do not possess nor are they willing to do. Many may talk about the long term. But when they’re under stress or they’re ideas are not working out, most people will cave and embrace the short-term fix.

One of the most important tips on how to play the long game is you to set up your environment to do so. If you’re relying on your own discipline, will power, and emotions to play the long game you’re most likely going to fail. But if you structure your life so that everything encourages long term behavior you’ll be able to calmly make difficult decisions that will give you an advantage.