Many times we will look people who are achieving success with admiration because from the outside they seem to make it look easy. As if they have a code of some sort that the rest of the world doesn’t have. The very best performers and leaders are obsessed with a commitment to the process. They fully understand that success is just a by-product to consistently focusing on doing the right things everyday.

Take a look at one of the greatest coaches of all time: John Wooden basketball coach from UCLA. He won 10 NCAA Championships in 11 years and is widely considered the greatest coach of all time. Yet if you analyze the philosophies you’ll observe there were no secrets, no shortcuts, and most importantly an obsessive focus and commitment to teaching the fundamentals everyday. Coach Wooden’s pyramid of excellence serves as great teaching tool and testament to his commitment to focus on the process. He always understood that if he and the players focused on doing the principles in the pyramid, his team would have success as a by-product.

You can apply this logic to everything in your personal and professional life. The best business executives, coaches, athletes, writers, investors, parents, friends, and leaders all have an incredible commitment to processes and principles. Success isn’t fast and there will be difficulties or setbacks; however, when you remain fully committed to high quality processes success will eventually come as a product of doing the right things.

You’ve probably heard before that time is your most valuable resource. It’s finite and how you use it shapes your life, so the logic makes sense on the surface. This type of belief can spur action. It will give you the illusion that you cannot waste time without being productive every second of the day. However the more we’ve explored this topic with the Exclusivia team, we’ve come to the conclusion that that this isn’t quite right.

Time is not your most valuable asset. Intentional, focused time is your most precious resource.

Not all time is created Equal. Neuroscience tells us that it is not physically possible to give 100% maximum concentration every second of everyday. Attempting to do so, will eventually lead to exhaustion, in-balance in life, and diminishing returns.
A good analogy to this is physical exercise. When you train your body there is a point where too much exercise is no longer beneficial and actually starts to become detrimental to the body. The muscles, joints, and bones start breakdown and become at increased risk for injury. Intense fatigue and overtraining will lead to diminishing results for athletes. The same is true of your mind.

The highest level performers understand that not all time is created equal. So they do short “sprints”. This is prioritizing the very most important tasks of their day and giving them the ultimate focus, concentration, and attention that they can. No multi-tasking, no all day work trying to fill every second of the day. Just short, very focused time.

This mental framework provide enormous productivity and liberation. Do not feel guilty about turning the mind off and relaxing in between “sprints”. Give yourself permission to enjoy time with family, friends, and pursuing hobbies. It will actually improve your efficiency.

“Dearest Fear:

Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. I understand you’ll be joining us, because you always do. I acknowledge that you believe you have an important job to do in my life, and that you take your job seriously. Apparently your job is to induce complete panic whenever I’m about to do anything interesting—and, may I say, you are superb at your job. So by all means, keep doing your job, if you feel you must. But I will also be doing my job on this road trip, which is to work hard and stay focused. And Creativity will be doing its job, which is to remain stimulating and inspiring. There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still—your suggestions will never be followed. You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote. You’re not allowed to touch the road maps; you’re not allowed to suggest detours; you’re not allowed to fiddle with the temperature. Dude, you’re not even allowed to touch the radio. But above all else, my dear old familiar friend, you are absolutely forbidden to drive.”

Excerpt from Big Magic – Creative Living Beyond Fear]

Just leaving this excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic, would have been enough value to anyone who reads it. It’s incredible how we let our own fears intervene and control our lives. It’s easy to let fear “give directions or take the wheel” especially when difficult times or decisions come. Fear’s main purpose is to keep us alive, but if we’re not careful fear can prevent us from actually living.

If you are not committed to continual constructive discomfort from
leading-edge learning and application, nothing can help you.

If you are committed to continual constructive discomfort from
leading-edge learning and application, nothing can stop you.

We are living in a comfort crisis. In so many ways, we are more comfortable in our lives and work than at any time in history. The hardwired brain loves the comfort-seeking and comfort-clutching attitudes and behaviors that fill up the lives of so many people. In most settings, the people around us, and all our competitors, are in his trap, too, so we hardly notice how much it is eroding our potential effectiveness.

There are evolutionary mind, heart, and body benefits of extending the edges of your comfort zones in how you live, lead, and learn. One of the most important choices and commitments you can make like the world’s best leaders and teams make every day is to embrace more of the discomfort of learning at the leading edge of record-setting possibilities and applying that learning. This uncomfortable approach to leadership and living can significantly improve your health and happiness and deepen and expand your understanding of what it means to be most human and alive. Here are several ways you can embrace more of the right discomfort:

Notice. Start observing how often your conscious and subconscious minds default toward mental and physical comfort. Doing what you usually do, in the way you usually do it. Sitting instead of standing. Sinking into your chair. Spacing out. Going on autopilot. Resisting new learning. Delaying fitness actions. “Polishing the past” instead of testing new ways forward. And so on. Make notes—what you discover and focus on drives growth!

Raise the resistance. As you know, muscles only grow from increased resistance and variation in angles of exercise. As leaders, to streamline and align how you think, move, plan, create, and set records, you must add more resistance. Seek new learning that stretches your mind and senses. Challenge yourself to learn at least three or four valuable new things each day and put them into practice. (Are you noticing how your brain is balking at even these relatively simple suggestions?) Carry a notepad and pen so that new and potentially challenging ideas don’t just slip away. Remember the research we mentioned on how “a pen in hand” making notes crushes the mediocre effectiveness of just thinking or typing at a keyboard.

Stand and move more than before. For over a decade, I have worked almost exclusively at a standup desk; using headphones and earphones; only sitting down at a conference table or desk to change things up, participate in a video conference, etc. I am sure you have seen the research on how deadly sitting (for too long) can be. Focus on this simple adjustment!

Left on autopilot, your brain will coax you into slumping and slouching, which cuts off up to a third of the blood and oxygen to your brain and senses. Along with standing and moving more, add some balanced load or resistance, such as wearing a light adjustable backpack with some weight in it. Another idea: Part of each day at my standing desk, when I am not having personal meetings with clients, I wear a GoRuck Weighted Training Vest: https://www.goruck.com/products/training-weight-vest; with 10 or 20 pound plates. Scientific studies now show that humans were designed to ruck, or carry weight, and this builds both brain and body fitness in ways almost no one embraces today—except Tier 1 leaders and teams.

Challenge your edges and step back more often to get ahead.” Test adding a mind-clearing, do-nothing “step backs,” of just a minute or two, every hour or two across the day to recharge your mind and body. When you can, step outside, into nature—which can multiply the positive benefits that almost everyone misses. Recent studies show this is vital for sustaining peak performance.
According to a summary of research on what is called the brain’s “default mode network,” here’s what I taught: “When we stop responding to external stimuli for just a few moments, our brains don’t do nothing, they do the most important things, helping us to have the resilience, fortitude, insight, and vision to guide us toward our most successful and satisfying lives.”

Our greatest strengths are born not from talent but from our willingness to embrace discomfort and challenge on the path to what is truly possible in life and work.

The immediate benefits and long-term return on these small, specific upgrades will pay off for you and your team many times over.

If we let ourselves, we can spend a lot of time of worrying. Worrying about finances, choices, our kids, and the list could be infinite. Unfortunately it’s highly unproductive. Worrying drains of us our time and our energy. Worry is another form of fear. We fear the unknown and the possibilities about what might happen. Worry will cloud your judgment, keep you up at night, ruin your health, and have a harmful impact on your relationships.

Truthfully most of the things we worry about will never happen and are possibilities that we have very little control over. Much of life is outside of our control. Accepting that do not have control over these things is a powerful realization. Instead focusing on what we can control and actions that we can take is significantly more productive.

A good friend of mine used to say that “Worrying is nothing more than spiritual nearsightedness.” I’ve always thought this was an incredibly profound statement.

When we have strong faith and belief, things will always work out. They might not work out the way we believe they should, but when we keep focus on what matters most we’ll always find that everything turns out the way it should. Adopting this mindset is incredibly liberating and calming.

For me, personally, my own faith gives me the ability to keep moving forward when things are difficult or I can’t see my next step clearly. It doesn’t mean that I still don’t worry. I’m human, so of course I do. But when I find myself worrying, I’m usually able to pull myself back to a calm place and trust that I am on the path I’m supposed to be.

If a person tends to be under aroused (low drive) then external pressure tends to improve their performance.

In fact, as external stress increases, their performance typically increases because outside pressures are pushing their arousal levels up.

On the other hand, for individuals whose arousal levels are already optimal, an increase in external pressure tends to lead to poorer performance.

And for individuals who normally have high drive or arousal levels, an increase in external pressure not only results in poorer performance but under extreme circumstances may negatively affect their health.

For these reasons, it is important to know yourself (and your team members), to know what types of approaches would work best to optimize performance, when working under pressure.

When success is measured, it’s usually not the smartest or most talented people that are successful but the people that have the GRIT and fortitude to persevere when times are difficult. The combination of passion and perseverance ultimately leads to great success. This applies to everything: business, personal relationships, and life.

Most really successful entrepreneurs have stories about failing again and again until they figured the right formula. They have the grit and fortitude to continue on and look for solutions even when they’re probably facing enormous amounts of pressure and uncertainty financially and personally. The vast majority of people just don’t have the the grit it takes to soldier on through that difficult times.

Another good example is marriage and relationships. Every single relationship will face challenges and difficult times, but having the ability to continue forward committing to the relationship because it’s important is probably one of the factors that lead to long lasting, successful relationships.

When I’m building a team or bringing people into my life, this is one of the major character traits I’m looking for. I want people who will commit to getting the job done or being a good friend come what may.

If you’re looking for more scientific research on the topic, I’d recommend Angela Duckworth’s book, “GRIT”.

Trust is a difficult thing to quantify but nothing is more important. It’s the fabric that keeps teams, relationships, and societies together. In today’s world, it’s never been more difficult to build trust. We’re constantly bombarded with information, text messages, news, social media, email, ect…Even our governments and news media have never had lower trust ratings.

Here are just a few, simple principles that I have tried to identify to help build more trusting relationships with my family, friends, co-workers, and customers.

1. Consistency- Do you do what you promise again and again? There are no short cuts to building trust, but if you consistently do the right thing it will go a long way. Trust takes a long time to build, but can be broken quickly if your actions don’t match your promises.

2. Alignment of Interests- Having a conflict interest (especially financial), creates mistrust. If your family, friends, or customers do not believe that you are acting in their best interests it becomes difficult to trust.

3. Competency-Can you deliver what you promise? If you don’t have the capability to follow through, trust will be lost.

4. Own Your Mistakes- All people, companies, and even government leaders will make mistakes. Own those mistakes by acknowledging them and sharing how you’re going to do better.

Exclusivia is a big trust exercise. We are trying to transparently share ideas, tools, experiences that we think would benefit others. If we take shortcuts or break the trust of our members, Exclusivia could not exist.