Let's provide a different perspective on how we can approach challenges. The very nature of something being a challenge means that you need to apply extra effort in order to achieve the end goal. When something is challenging then you make progress at a slower rate, which might not appear to be worth the investment. Oftentimes, we view this pursuit as a struggle. I think that word has a negative label and I want to explore the reason why because I think there’s a lot of power in struggle.

My friend and mentor Daron Roberts puts it best - “No struggle, no progress.” That might seem like it contradicts what I just said, but he’s referring to a different kind of progress, which is within your personal growth. When you are struggling more is being asked of you, you must apply extra effort, and that process facilitates growth. Struggle causes you to strengthen and raise your capacity moving forward.

This thought comes from a number of different angles. In “Grit” Angela Duckworth says applying effort is the mechanism of turning talent into achievement. Anders Ericsson in "Peak" talks about deliberate practice, and how one fundamental element of it is to introduce challenge. Struggle should not solely be viewed as oppression, it should also be viewed as a catalyst.

In fact, some of the great oppressions of history - People of color in America, jews and antisemitism, women in the workplace - Have created some of the strongest and most resilient populations we know. And that’s because struggle is directly related to progress.

This quote is short, sweet, and only two words but it’s some of the best advice you’re ever going to receive. “Be you.”

We get so caught up watching other people and everything they’re up to, admiring them, that sometimes we lose sight of ourselves. We try to mold and shape ourselves to be more like what we see because we think that’s what is expected of us. But what that does is it actually silences the most valuable thing about you which is your uniqueness. 

So if you see things a little differently, good! If you think about something a little differently, good! It is the “you” behind it all that offers and contributes something that no one else can! If we were all  supposed to be the same then we all would be the same. But that’s not how it is, and we should celebrate that diversity.

Of course there are guidelines to fit within. I personally don’t think it’s right to be so over-the-top “you” that it comes at the expense of someone else’s experience. So it’s important that while you dedicate yourself to being the best you that you can be, and honor who that person is, you need to respect and appreciate others as they attempt to be the best them that they can be. 

To wrap it up in a cheesy quote that you’ve probably seen a hundred times in a high school yearbook - “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” Be you.

You hear it all the time, grow 1% everyday. It sounds great, but what does that mean, and how do you do it?

Let’s start with doing some math. If you were to truly grow 1% every day, then you calculate the potential for growth in the year as an exponent, 1.01 to the 365th power. I’ll save you the time, that equals 3,800% in one year. That is a pretty insane amount of growth, and I think we’d all agree that would be a good year.

But what if we pick something more reasonable, say .1% every day. At the end of a year you’d experience 44% growth, meaning you’ve expanded your capacity by almost half of what you were previously capable of! That still would be incredible progress. 

.1% every single day is easy. It’s parking in the back of the parking lot to get a little exercise. It’s pausing for 5 seconds before dinner to be grateful. It’s noticing that you're getting lost scrolling on social media, so you put your phone down and move on to a more productive task. It’s little habits, little decisions like this that fuel major growth.

And you’re already doing everything right! You showing up here and reading this is that .1%, because it allows you to reflect on the person you want to be, and helps you generate an awareness for other opportunities to improve in the most subtle ways.

We’re going to talk about the ‘D’ word today, "Disappointment". You can feel a lot of ways toward someone - Angry, upset, frustrated, distant, but for some reason this word disappointment is one that cuts so much deeper.

I think it’s because it’s representative of how someone feels on another level. Being angry and upset is more of a superficial, sporadic emotion, and disappointment is more visceral and enduring. When you disappoint someone, it means you let someone down. It means you didn’t meet expectations in a really important way, and it jeopardizes the trust you’ve developed with someone else. It’s the fact that the relationship has been damaged in a way that is more difficult to recover from, and exists at the level of your character.

We’ve all disappointed someone in that past. Maybe we didn’t do what we said we were going to do, maybe we went back on a commitment we made, or maybe we didn’t speak our truth in the first place. In any of these cases, it’s important to address that disappointment so that you can grow beyond it.

A fundamental piece to managing and overcoming disappointment is acknowledgment. You need to admit the error, get on the same page with yourself and others about what happened, and begin to explain why it happened so that other people can understand. People want to give benefit of the doubt, they don’t want to feel disappointed, and vulnerability is a key element to helping others allow themselves to believe in you again. 

Either way it hurts, the pain of vulnerability and the pain of disappointment, but one is much more constructive and you get to choose which one you lead with.

Today I’m going to challenge you a bit but trust me, it’s out of love. When it comes to your life, your circumstances, your situation, no one knows it like you do. Therefore, no one is more prepared to make a decision about your life than you are. The problem is we spend too much time waiting to be told what to do because we don’t trust our own ability to do the right thing. Well let me tell you this, you already know what you need to hear. You just aren’t doing it.

Your intuition is strong and it is there to guide you, you need to honor that. Like any normal person doubts and fear will creep in and try to paralyze you, and if you let it be successful it will stall your efforts and prevent you from getting where you need to go. That’s why it helps to take advice from a mentor or coach, because it provides some authority behind the action steps that need to be taken. This is helpful in getting you to step past your doubts and forces you to get uncomfortable in a necessary way. 

But ultimately, no one knows what that step is better than you. Yes, seek advice and understand how other people have done it in the past, but think for yourself in the way you apply those learnings in your life. You already know what you need to hear, you just need someone else to tell you to do it.

When it comes to today’s topic, I could not agree more. As we strive to make progress on something and create change, consistency is king. Fortunately I’m not the only one who thinks this. Ricky Mendez touches on this in a compelling way.

The universe doesn’t reward scale, it rewards consistency. And I want to go a step further to breakdown why. When it comes to neuroplasticity and literally changing the way your brain is wired, it’s a matter of frequency of activation not intensity of activation. On occasion intensity can implement change, think of trauma or iconic moments, but those moments don’t happen often.

However with frequent and consistent activation your brain can begin to recognize patterns and start to develop in a way that accounts for those patterns. So believe it, it’s not just me saying it, consistency matters, even when it’s small because everything counts!

We live in such a comparison based culture and I’m guilty of it like everyone. We seek to evaluate ourselves in relation to those around us. And what this does is it creates a competitive undertone in everything we do, which yes, is effective in a capitalistic society, but it has an unfortunate consequence when it comes to our self worth. We constantly position ourselves relative to others just to see how we measure up, so that we can be more secure about our relative placement.

Which brings me back to the core thought - Many people view “winning” as coming in first. Logically what that means is that you can only succeed when you beat others, when your performance is deemed to be better than others, and it creates this inferiority-superiority complex. But we need to realize that this is all motivated by the ego, our eternal desire to make everything about ourselves, and it greatly affects the way we relate to others.

If you can reject your ego and overcome the need to compare yourself, you’ll see winning for what it truly is - Self-mastery and personal progress. Not the competitive mess society has crafted it to be. Winning isn’t reserved for only one person. Winning is abundant! We all can win at the same time. In fact, one person winning invites the opportunity for more people to win, cascading and compounding in a contagious way.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself that’s down the road, but let’s start at the beginning with our awareness. “Winning doesn’t always mean being first.”

Something we all have in common is that we want to have a better future. That’s not to say that you can’t be grateful and mindful for what you have, but the desire to make progress and grow is innate inside each and every one of us. But when it comes to wanting to have a better future, how do you actually go about pursuing that?

Something I’ve learned is that we are all creators. We all hold the key to every door we want to open, we just need to connect with that possibility to make it a reality. And something I do to make that connection is I choose to see my future.

The first way of doing this is by letting your future exist in your physical environment. Write out your goals and put them on the wall, create your vision board, change your laptop screensaver. When you do this, and as small as it may seem, you begin seeing your future on a daily basis just based on the stimuli around you. The more accessible the visual is the more exposure you get, and the more your mind can develop around that idea.

The second way of seeing your future is through visualization. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal future and imagine it in vivid detail. Find a way to revisit that space often because each time, it primes your brain to seek out opportunities that will help you to ultimately create it.

I know, when it comes to building your future there’s more to it than just imagining it or looking at pictures - You need to take action. But seeing your future cultivates an awareness and makes the future you want to have more top of mind, more often. And you can’t get there unless you start seeing it!

I learned a lesson in 8th grade that really stood out to me, and 13 years later it’s something I think about often because it left a strong impression on me.

My math teacher, Mr. Smith, had us do a really interesting and reflective exercise. At the beginning of the semester he asked us to set intentions about how we were going to show up to class. But the nuance here is he encouraged us to think in a realistic way so that we could actually deliver on the intention. Instead of saying “I will give 100% in class everyday”, he suggested we say “I will give everything I have on any given day”, helping us acknowledge that things aren’t always going to be perfect and we need to plan around that.

Typically in goal setting I focus on stark objectivity, but this idea introduces a necessary subjectivity. Each action you take exists within the context of the day, and many things beyond your control. It’s hard to be enthusiastic and excitable when a loved one passes away, or you hear other bad news, or you didn’t get enough sleep for some reason. And that’s going to happen, so introducing some subjectivity gives you the leeway you need to handle a variety of different situations. 

Marshall Goldsmith, a world leading executive coach,  does this perfectly. He asks people to establish a number of priorities, and then everyday evaluate their performance toward that priority by asking themselves “Did I do my best to…”. In this way, you make it about the effort, not the outcome, which is always in your control. 

With this in mind, I recently adjusted my goal setting and tracking to be more compliant with this. I’ll let you know how it goes!