Transcription
I'm really happy to be here with you in this lesson, and this lesson is all about the six tactics for daily victory. Victory is such a great word. When I talk about victory, it could be realizing your personal Mount Everest. It could be being kind to another person. It could be doing something hard at work that makes you better in your work. It could be enjoying your family and friends. Victory could be financial victory or physical victory.
I also think a victory is something that happens when you walk towards your fears. In the *Everyday Hero Manifesto*, there's the story about these people, and they walk up a mountain, and they finally get to this monastery, and they see the gates, and they open up the gates, and they see these ferocious dogs on a leash. And the leader of this group is this wise, great master. And the dogs start, right, they break free of their leashes, and they start running towards this group of people. And all of them start to run away, except for the great master. And the dogs start running faster, but the master does something really interesting. He starts running towards the dogs. And the dogs start running even more quickly. And the master was in pretty good shape. He started sprinting towards the dogs. The dogs were foaming at the mouth, and they started running directly towards the master, ready to, I don't want to say gobble him up. I sound like I'm speaking from some kind of a fairy tale, but ready to attack them. The master remained monotonically focused and wildly brave and ran straight towards the barking dogs. Eventually, they said, "This guy's going to eat us." They turned around and they ran away.
And that metaphor is really a metaphor about victory. It's a metaphor about the fact that fears you don't face become your walls. It's a metaphor about the fact that when you do the things that frighten you, you take back the power that you gave to the things that frighten you. The thing about a victim is they don't think they have any power, even though they have power. Every single thing that you're scared to do, that presentation in front of your team, that travel you're resisting to take. I read recently, most people don't, most people don't go to. It's a metaphor. Most people don't travel to the village on the next mountain over their entire lives. What are you frightened to do right now? If I asked you right now, what are the two or three things that if I said you should do them for your next level of growth, you start to feel afraid? Remember, fear is just an emotion. It's not real. Fear is just an emotion. It's just a feeling. But you've given your power to the things that you've, that that have frightened you. And here's the really powerful idea: when you do what frightens you, you take your power back.
You're here in this world-class program because you want tactics or in powerful insights. Here's a key insight: you want to grow stronger? Do difficult things. You want to become more powerful and braver? Walk towards what frightens you, just like the master walked towards the dogs. So on this topic of victory, I thought I would give you six quick tactics in today's lesson to help you become stronger and more powerful, so that you can walk towards those barking dogs.
Number one: vocabulary. I hear people talk about, "Oh, though that TV show was sick." I hear people talk about enlightenment. You get to enlighten by not giving a f***. I hear people saying, "Do cool s***." I hear people saying, "I hate that customer. I hate doing this." I hear people say, "Oh, you did a great job at work today. In that presentation, you murdered it. You killed it." I hear people saying, "Oh, wow, you just saved whatever amount of money, or you just made, had the best financial year for your life. You killed it." Or, "That's crazy. You did, you just bought, you just bought a house in New York City. That's crazy." Look at people's vocabulary, especially victims. Victims are about "can't." Leaders and heroes are about "can." So number one, clean up your vocabulary because the words you use set up your self-identity. They, they send signals to your subconscious mind about what's possible. The words you use forge your, forge your beliefs. Use the words of world-class.
Number two: exercise. Exercise is not just to look good, of course. It's not just for longevity. It's not just to be more productive. The stronger you become, the more of a warrior you can be. So you want to exercise every day to get the benefits of the neurochemistry, the metabolism, the endorphins. Exercising is a great mood enhancer. It will help you become so much stronger. I remember one person saying to me, "I lift weights because I become stronger, which makes me feel strong. Feel stronger during difficult times. Exercise is what makes me feel much more resilient."
Number three: heavy. Do heavyweight work, or what I call masterwork. That's tactic number three for daily victory. Sometimes people think they miss the opportunity or the insight that we become so much stronger and more positive when we do work that really makes us feel we are honoring our primal gifts. Doing heavyweight work or masterwork is really hard. I, I shared earlier on when I wrote the *Everyday Hero Manifesto*, it was exciting, but I, I put so much of myself in it. Every line, I wanted to be my best. I, every word I chose, every model was calibrated and optimized and iterated so many different times. The pictures I chose, even trying to get the photo of Cora Greenway was so hard. I was told no, we can't get it. No, this one here, the one that's on the internet isn't available, et cetera, et cetera. And then I pushed and pushed, and finally we reached out to the caregiver who spent, who helped her during the last year of her life. He lives in Amsterdam, and he said, "Oh, I have a high-resolution photo." And that's the photo you see in the book of Cora Greenway, my grade 5 teacher, when she was 101 years old. And all I'm suggesting to you is, I put so much into the *Everyday Hero Manifesto*. I worked so hard on it, but I feel so good about what I released into the world. And so a great way to achieve victory is to do the work very few people are willing to do. The project you are most resisting is the project that carries the seeds of your genius. Don't do easy work. Be the person at your office, be the person in your industry who says, "I'm only going to push master," or "I'm going to be a multiple masterwork producer." Don't just do one Sistine Chapel ceiling. Your next work should be even better, even if it takes you four years, like it took Michelangelo four years to do the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Number four for a tactic is music. Whenever I do work, whether it's a video shoot or writing a new book, or maybe preparing for a leadership keynote, I will build playlists that will put me into a state of flow. I often listen to heartbreak country music, and it's, you know, those songs about, "Oh, his dog died, and his partner left him, and his house burnt down." I'm not making fun about that. I'm simply saying, if you listen to a country song, it's, you know, they're pretty tragic stories. Uh, and then he's reminiscing about, he goes, "I wish I would have loved you the way I miss you, and now I drink a lot of Bud Light every night." I just find country music touches my heart. It inspires me. I find it very real, and it makes me think of the time I was sitting next to an artist on a flight to Paris, and he said, "I pick partners who break my heart." And I said, "Why would you pick relationship partners who break your heart?" And he said, "Because that causes me to do my best art." So listen to music that touches you. Make playlists. Music is amazing to find daily victory, to be more positive, to be more creative.
Last two: recovery. Recovery. If you want daily victory, don't work all day. If you want daily victory, there is a time to work and there is a time to play. Work really, really hard when you work, versus working like most people. They're distracted. They're not really there to get. Most people need 12 hours of work to get about two hours of work done. They show up at work, they start chatting, they check their phones, they go for coffee. I mean, it's extraordinary how most people work. They want, they want to be industry titans. They want to dominate their domains. They want the rewards of world-class, and yet they're checking their phones, looking at their social feeds. I mean, going to most stores right now, watch how most people work. Go in most airports, you see people even at the gates, they're checking their phone. Going to most hotels, you check in, rather than the team, they're looking at you in the eye, "Hello, welcome." One of them's there, the next person standing in full view, they're being paid, in full view, they're just checking their phones. It's an addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production. So make the time to recover. Work really hard. Work like a genius when you work, and then make the time every day when you finish your work. Go out for a mountain bike ride. Make the time to read. Take an Epsom salt bath. Sunbathe, which I think is very, very powerful for vitamin D. Read about how valuable vitamin D is for longevity and energy and sustainability and elite performance. How else can you recover? Get out in nature. The nature walk. Nature walks are unbelievably powerful.
And then finally, I would suggest to you, the sixth tactic for daily victory is use technology as a servant, not as your god. Technology is beautiful. I, in many ways, I run my life off my phone, but I spent a lot of time away from my phone. There's too many families, they're sitting out at the dinner table, you see it everywhere in restaurants, and there's seven people around a circular table, and six of them are looking at their phone, and the seventh is just staring at the ceiling or scratching their stomach. So technology, technology is beautiful. I think technology is also causing us not to be present, to miss out on the magic of life, not to be as creative as we can be, to miss human connections. So please use technology brilliantly. And if you are addicted to technology, because a lot of companies, their focus is to actually use technology to addict you, right? The dopamine addiction, we know all about that. Break free of that. Live a great life so you can be the everyday hero you are in this program to be. I'll see in the next lesson.