Big Ideas
Create A Vision
Cultivate A Champion’s Mindset
Develop Hustle
Master Your Body
Practice Positive Habits
Create A Vision
We focused first on creating a vision because it’s the most important step to getting anywhere and achieving anything you want in any area of life. But we also have to be clear about what a vision is. A vision is not just a dream A powerful vision emerges when we couple our dreams with a set of clear goals. Without both, we are apt to wander in a clueless and purposeless fog, because a dream without goals is just a fantasy. And fantasies are the bad kind of visions – the hallucinogenic kind, not the real kind
A powerful vision emerges when we couple our dreams with a set of clear goals.
Without a real vision, we lack identity. Having a real vision isn’t just about clarifying what you want: it’s about defining what and who you want to be.
Begin with the end in mind once you’re clear on your end goal it’s easy to create the step to get there on a daily basis…Ask yourself WHO do I need to become in order to achieve my goal?
If we are not clear on our identity we will always go back to our former self in the tough time because it’s comfortable. In order, to achieve our goal we need to become a better version of ourselves. It’s not about achieving the goal it’s who you become in the process”
CULTIVATE A CHAMPION’S MINDSET
“Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps, Tom Brady, Janet Evans, Michael Johnson, Mia Hamm, Michael Schumacher. What is it like inside the minds of these champions and champions like them? From a distance, they appear superhuman or super lucky or both. They get all the calls, all the money, all the best parking spots. The ball always seems to bounce their way.
It’s like they are living in a different world than the rest of us, and in a way they are. Their world is crystal clear. It isn’t foggy and tumultuous and filled with self-doubt, like ours can be if we haven’t clarified our vision, battled through adversity, and developed the proper mindset – the champion’s mindset.
The champion’s mindset is all about focus, flow, belief, and emotional intelligence.”
Pursuit of perfection and excellence, independent of external results. This is very different from a drive to “win.” Shawn, like many athletes, isn’t obsessed with winning so much as she is with doing her absolute best: “ I never focused on winning… I just always wanted to do better.”
The champion mindset is so different that many people let their dream die because they only focus on results and because of seeing the current result they currently have they get emotional, depressed, start to have self doubt, and eventually give up.
Focus on what you can control and let the result go. The only thing in your control is your action and how you respond. When we focus on results we tend to criticize ourselves and tell ourselves why we are not good enough or what’s wrong with me… the truth nothing is wrong with you don’t take it personally. We just need to upgrade our skill set.
Exercise to cultivate a Champion’s Mindset
Visualization Process
“Create a clear space with no distraction. I prefer it to be in nature, which for you might mean at your favorite park or on the beach. Or you can do this in bed before you go to sleep and right when you wake up.
Allow yourself to relax and be calm. Breathe relaxing breaths. Now visualize whatever you want to see as complete. Nothing negative, only positive outcomes.
In each process, really dive into what it feels like: What does it smell like and taste like? What color is it? What sounds are you hearing?
The key to visualization is to see whatever it is you are envisioning as complete. Then ask yourself how you feel at that moment. What do all of your senses feel?”
Meditation – The 25-Second Centering Breath
- Breathe in through the nose if you can for a count of one, two, three, four, and five, expanding the belly.
- Then hold it for a count of one and two.
- Then breathe out through the mouth for a count of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, releasing the air in the belly
I love to meditate. It brings me back to the present moment… It reminds me WHO AM I AT MY VERY BEST. Then I start being or acting like the best version of yourself at this very moment.
Develop Hustle
“In 1991, a college sophomore studying music in the American Midwest made the mistake of selling some drugs to the wrong person. Until then, he hadn’t done much more than smoke pot and sell some of it to his friends. Pretty vandalism at his high school was as high stakes as his criminal career had been. Then, as these things tend to go when you’re just 19 years old, he tries to push the envelope and test his boundaries. He started experimenting with hard drugs like LSD. But he was naive, and the brashness of youth got the best of him. He sold some of that LSD outside his circle – to an undercover policeman… Judge, under pressure to make an example out of his young man, sentenced him to 6 – 25 years in prison.
After being released in less than 5 years on good behavior, he went on to become one of the best jazz violinists in the world. He left prison with a fire lit underneath him. To practice, to repent, to humble himself, to hustle, and to do whatever it took to make something of his life.
That young man’s name is Christian Howes. He is my older brother.
Chris’s journey taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned about greatness: how to hustle. No, not that kind of hustling – selling drugs on the streets. The good kind. The kind that makes you sweat and makes other people nod their heads and marvel at your work ethic.
He rededicated himself to his musical gift. “When I got in there, “ he told me later, “I ad a purpose. I knew I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be a man and do something with my life.” Music was going to be that something.
When he first got out, he would perform anywhere. He started by playing for free at local restaurants just to put himself out there and build a name for himself. Then he’d do hotel lounges, late-night dive bars, tiny jazz clubs with five people in the audience. He would play whatever time slot they’d give him for however long they needed him to play. He would put 100 percent of his blood , sweat, tears, and soul into each performance.
In those early days, when he was playing at restaurants for free, it’s not like he was calling ahead to schedule with a booking agent. He would just show up. He would go door to door until someone said yes. He created something from nothing. He had to. His back was against the wall. He was committed to his vision of being the best jazz violinist he could possibly be. And no amount of adversity was going to stand between him and his ability to make a full-time living at his passion.”
We all have a turning point that dramatically changes our life. We become who we are today based on the decision we make. We can make decisions move us forward into growth or decisions move us back from growth.
This reminds me of The One Thing by Gary Keller “ 80/20 Extreme Pareto: I want you to go small by identifying the 20 percent, and then I want you to go even smaller by finding the vital few of the vital few. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing.
25 X 20% = 5 X 20% = 1
Christian Howes by identifying his One Thing Music became one of the best Jazz violinists. He was featured in magazines, played Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and professional violinists from all over the world came to learn from him.
He’s able to achieve this level of success by doing deep work.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell say “that
Elite performers had totaled 10,000 hours of practice
Merely good student had totaled 8,000 hours of practice
Music teachers had totaled just over 4,000 thousand hours of practice”
Working the Hustle Muscle
- Your Body
Do one thing every day that makes your body healthier and stronger. Something that is painful and requires you to push yourself physically at the gym, on the bike, or during your run. Something that makes you feel uncomfortable that you’d rather not do… consistent habit will increase your pain threshold and make you stronger in all areas of your life.
- Your Mindset
Do something every day to improve your mindset and your way of thinking. The greatest minds question everything. They see the world where anything and everything is possible.
- Reading a thought-proving book
- Listening to an inspiring podcast
- Going to a workshop
- Learning from a coach or mentor
- Your Relationships
A leader is someone who understands that relationships are the key to success in business and life. How well you understand people, your compassion, and your ability to flow through others’ emotions in stressful situations influence how deep you can go in relationships.
- Connect with three new people each week in your industry in person, by phone, or online.
- Your Skills
Whenever you are in transition or you feel stuck, it’s not the time to hunker down, it’s the time to hustle and learn new skills. The more skills you have, the more you have to offer in any situation – it’s like you’ve added a new tool on your tool belt to handle any situation in business and life.
- Learning how to write books
- Learning how to build web sites
- Learning to be a coach and workshop facilitator
- Learning breathing techniques
MASTER YOUR BODY
My face was so wide my family and friends started to joke about it – they called me “flewis”… Fat Lewis – but when I couldn’t wear my underwear anymore without the waistband snapping back and rolling down under my belly like a slap bracelet, that was enough. I stepped on a scale for the first time in a long time, and the digital display shouted “254” back at me in big, red, angry numbers. I decided in that omen to cut out everything bad for the next 30 days
I didn’t have any sugar, gluten, or dairy for 30 days. I’m not saying this is for everyone, nor was it recommended to me by any heath expert or doctor: it’s simply something I wanted to do to create a new habit for myself, because I understood the power of creating positive habits when something isn’t working the way you want it to. I lost 28 pounds in the first 28 days and felt better than ever… It was all from cutting my intake of the stuff that wasn’t working for me.
We’re like batteries, everybody needs sleep. It recharges you. It increases and balances hormones, strengthens your immune system, gives you clarity, gives you focus, and so much more. Sleep was the pivotal factor in achieving optimal health, ahead of diet, ahead of exercise, ahead of everything.
“We don’t understand that by lacking that high-quality of sleep, we’re actually demolishing our ability to achieve at a high level in everything else in our lives.”
“Around 2013 a study came out that showed people who stay up 48 hours or more, which many people do in these crazy stressed out days we’re living, have the same blood sugar as a diabetic.”
So true without sleep we are not able to achieve a high level goal because we need our energy to match the energy required to accomplish our goal.
Our body is like a battery at the end of the day we’re low on energy and the only way to recover your energy is to sleep. That’s why we want to use our finite energy to create Habit that runs on autopilot.
The most successful people get at least 8 hours of sleep. L Brown James, one of the world’s best basketball players sleeps for a minimum of 8-12 hours. They know that to create a high level of success it requires a tremendous amount of energy and focus.
PRACTICE POSITIVE HABITS
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” That old Greek understood how important positive habits are to overcoming adversity and enduring the quest to become a champion. I have learned that champions aren’t just born; champions can be made when they embrace and commit to life-changing positive habits.
Earl Nightingale The Strangest Secret comes to mind here “We become what we think about.” It stands to reason that a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. And we become what we think about. Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn’t know where they are going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry become what they think about. Their life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety, and worry.
Our thoughts lead to our feelings, and our feelings lead to our actions, and our actions lead to our results.
