Transcription
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The first element of the self-maximization circle is optimism. Optimism without hope, nothing happens. And so, optimism is something you absolutely want to protect. You want to constantly armor-plate your inspiration. You want to constantly fortify your positivity. You do not want to be around toxic people. You don't want to allow the news to infect and invade your mornings. You definitely do not want to associate with people who have resigned themselves to mediocrity and average.
There's a concept called emotional contagion, which speaks to the emotional phenomenon that we subconsciously adopt the emotions of the people we spend most of our time with. Very important to understand emotional contagion. It's also very important to think about the type of brain cell called a mirror neuron. A mirror neuron, basically, we subconsciously behave and mimic the behavior of the people we surround ourselves with as well, through mirror neurons. Thousands of years ago, when there was a tribal chieftain who came up with a new tool or a new way to hunt, these mirror neurons allowed us to mimic the behavior. Now, we're in the modern age. We still mimic the behavior of the people we are around, and through the power of emotional contagion, we adopt the emotions of the people we associate with.
So, you want to protect your optimism, and you want to keep on boosting your confidence and your hope and your vision. It's a very simple word, but your vision needs to always be upgraded and insulated. Your vision is your ability to seek out bigger dreams, to see possibilities where there are problems, to always be continually more and more ethically ambitious. So, the first part of the self-maximization cycle, which will really help you as you practice it, it will help you maximize your primal genius, is to guard and increase your optimism. And these are the elements of your optimism.
After that, you want to grow your independence. What a beautiful word, independence. If you're part of the majority, you're never going to innovate. If you think like everyone else, you're not going to change the world. A lot of people will ridicule you for getting up early. They'll say you're strange. Why would you do this? Why would you want to get up at daybreak and then develop yourself in a world where a lot of people believe that the doorway to success swings outward versus inward? So, you absolutely must safeguard and bulletproof your independence.
Your independence is really about being self-governing. I know that word might be hard to see, but it's self-governing. You run your own race. You stay in your own lane. You live your truth rather than living in the way society seduces you to live. In other words, being independent makes you a pirate, and it makes you a pioneer. And living in such a way is absolutely essential for maximizing your talents. It allows you to be creative. It allows you to think for yourself. It allows you to be a person versus a sheeple, a member of the herd following everyone else and doing it just because you haven't thought through how you want to live. So, being independent is incredibly important. Another element of independence is being a leader versus a follower.
So, that's the second element of the self-maximization circle. This circle that we're that I'm drawing is the self-maximization circle. Element number one: boost, protect, armor-plate your optimism, which is comprised of your confidence, your hope, and your vision for a brighter future, no matter what has happened in your past. It's a key point. I want you to draw a metaphorical yellow line across: no matter what you've gone through, it's just set you up for an even brighter future. Too many people stay stuck in the past. One of the greatest of all spiritual lessons is letting go and understanding that life has an orchestration that is designed for your best life. Life doesn't want to hurt you. Life always wants to help you. Life doesn't hurt you. Life always wants to help you. A bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. So, when you've been hurt, it's easy for your ego to say, "Oh, I got hurt. Oh, I faced adversity." It came to serve you and make you stronger, more creative, more productive, more useful. So, build a moat around your optimism.
The second part of the self-maximization circle is scale your independence. The third part of the self-maximization circle, element number three, is activity. Yes, that word is activity. So many clients say to me, "Robin, how can I build self-discipline? How can I install the 5 AM Club method so I don't even miss one day? And how can I become stronger in my business life, my personal life? How can I turn adversity into opportunity?" And it sounds very simple, but the way to get stronger is to do the things that make you stronger. Your activity is how you become a stronger human being. The doing of difficult things consistently makes you a stronger person. Every single time you get up at 5:00 AM when you don't feel like getting up at 5:00 AM, you build self-discipline. Every single time you go the extra mile with a customer when you don't really feel like it, you build the interior architecture of mastery. Every time you take an hour to study at night before you go to sleep when you feel like watching television or a video, you build the neuroanatomy of mastery a little bit more.
So, the doing of difficult things is how you grow self-discipline. Activity is incredibly important. Doing the deeds of world-class and practicing the routines of world-class. So, deeds and routines. And what that'll do is it'll build a new interior architecture, which actually increases your self-identity over time, and it becomes a positive feedback loop. By doing the acts of excellence, you receive the results of excellence. When you start to see these amazing results, you start to see yourself as an even more creative, productive, energetic, ethical, loving, amazing human being. It's a very important point here. By positive acts, just doing better things, by exercising your human will to do better deeds, you're going to receive better results. And those better results are going to change that interior self-narrative, that personal story, that self-identity. And it becomes a positive feedback loop because then, as you see yourself as a bigger person, you do even more heroic things.
And then the final element of this self-maximization circle is element number four, which is optimization. Never stop getting better. Never stop calibrating. Never stop making your morning routine, playing with it, refining it, making it yours, tweaking it. In your personal life, never stop getting more fit. Never stop learning new things about your nutrition, whether it's fasting or hydration or your supplementation stack. In your relationships, never stop learning to communicate better, to understand people better, to make people feel bigger. In terms of your spiritual life, never stop growing. Never stop investigating. Never stop reading. Never stop adventuring to go to deeper recesses of your human spirit. So, this optimization mentality is fundamental to self-maximization. The whole journey of life is to continually get better.
So, those are the four elements of the self-maximization circle: optimism, independence, activity, and optimization. To add even more value to you, I've gone ahead and created a worksheet for you where you can work through the four elements of the self-maximization circle. And all you need to do is click on the resources section below. And as you'll see on the worksheet, there's the four elements of the circle, and then a place for you to write down five action steps to increase your optimism, five action steps to help you increase your independence, five action steps for you to accelerate your activity, and five ways that you can optimize your ability to live your primal genius and get to know more of your strengths and your talents. So, I know it'll help you. Click on the resource section link below.