Coming at you today with another one of my favorite all time posts from May 3rd, 2011
This one has LOTS of energy… Make sure to play the song as you read, and start about 1:30 in…
Enjoy!
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Hyper calibration…
Nonono…
Actually let’s go with UBER-calibration…
Nonono…
Life calibration…
Walking through the world with ease.
Excellence in everything you do.
I call it living the HIGH FIDELITY LIFE.
Hyper Calibration
There is nothing I enjoy more than a nice hot shower.
I jump out, enter the living room to find my friends chatting about who-knows-what.
They look over, and I bat the hair out of my face.
Tyler just laughs.
“DUDE! Everything you do is like HYPER-calibrated!”
It’s all unconscious.
Everything from the way I comb my hair with my hand, to how I walk, to my facial mannerisms…
I say it’s unconscious, yet, I think a better explanation would be “semi-conscious auto pilot.”
Everything is thought out, planned out.
Smooooth.
Not in a hyper-calculated, all thought engrossing way. But more like a Zen, mindful, full presence.
I’ve always prided myself on this aspect of self actualization…
Mind-Excellence
It’s not the Zen fluffy mindfulness.
It’s mind-excellence.
Be great.
AT EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO.
Some of my aspirations:
- Be the best at Mariokart.
- Have the most Twitter followers.
- Grow my blog faster and make it more popular than any in the industry.
- Have better mentors than anyone else.
- Have a better fashion sense than anyone else.
- Have better hair than anyone else.
- Dance better than anyone else.
- Have a better laugh than anyone else.
- Lift weights with better form than anyone else.
- Have a better taste in music than anyone else.
I’ll stop before I sound like a complete arrogant asshole, but:
Be the best in everything you do!!!!!!
WAIT!!!
If you are an avid reader of the blog, you might remember this article:
Is Your Goal to Become the Best? Try again!
This isn’t a change in theory.
This is not about how you stack up to the next guy. Becoming the best is a BY-PRODUCT of a certain state of mind.
This is about pushing yourself to the limit.
YOUR personal best.
LIVING LIFE FULL STOP!
At the edge of your abilities.
Further than you ever thought possible.
Beyond your friends, beyond your family, beyond your mentors.
Striving for excellence.
Not just in big goals, financial, relationship, or health related.
I’m talking everything from the way you make eye contact with people, to how you fold your napkin.
But first, let’s deal with the bigger issues…
Why Most People FAIL at Life
To excel in any area of your life requires a great deal of passion, fully immersing yourself in the learning process.
But passion requires stepping up.
Stepping up requires taking a risk.
Taking a risk leads to mistakes and looking like a douche.
But mistakes are a necessary part of the trial and error process that leads to mastery and excellence.
There is an obvious reason winners keep winning,
Why the top 20% control the 80% majority of anything in life.
Winning begets winning.
Losers never start.
But why do winners keep winning?
Winners Have Won Before and Know the Process of Mastering Specific Skills
My first exposure to learning a specific skill, and the long road to mastery, happened at a pretty early age.
For whatever reason, when I was in 3rd grade, I decided on my own volition to play the piano.
I think it was because I thought it would get me girls. 🙂
Anyway, I was also good at math, and the logicality of the piano integrated well with my analytical nerdiness, and I excelled.
I have played for over 15 years now, mostly jazz cocktail style, but some classical, and even taking a semester off of university to travel around Colorado touring with a blues band.
I spent countless hours in practice rooms doing repetitive scales, never ending band rehearsals, and actively listening to the best musicians, immersing myself in the music, developing both a high level of dexterity and understanding of music theory.
Through this process, I subconsciously learned how important PASSION and IMMERSION are on the journey towards mastery.
Masters don’t dabble.
The same way you build a successful business is the same method of successful entrepreneurs.
It was only recently that I realized I have applied this same long term learning process over and over again.
Whether it be in as mundane a skill as efficiently packing my suitcase, or something more complex like creating a successful business, each time I used a similar process.
And with each new success, came a higher level of confidence.
I slowly started to feel that I could master ANYTHING.
This blanket confidence has become ubiquitous in EVERY ACTION I TAKE IN LIFE.
What are the qualities that lead to this mastery and excellence?
Taking Responsibility
People are quick to pass blame.
You must take responsibility.
It takes a higher level of consciousness to stop living your life in reaction to the environment, and start taking control of the reigns.
If something goes wrong, take a step back and objectively try to see what you could have done differently to change the outcome.
Don’t pass blame on others.
Don’t pass blame on the environment.
Don’t pass off the responsibility and blame it on being sick, or that you were tired.
Objectively look at your situation or experience, and determine how you could change the result for the better next time.
Win-Learn.
Not win-lose.
But even more so of true mastery, even if you win, take a step back and see how you could improve.
Trust in the Process
What creates the ability to not develop emotional frustration and passing off the responsibility onto your environment as you drudge through the long road towards mastery?
Its knowing that if you just stick at it, be patient, and keep moving forward, success is inevitable.
This is why the winners keep winning.
They have specific reference points of winning in their past, and know the long process it takes to get there.
They know that road blocks arise along the way, and those exact hurdles are what create excellence, create mastery.
It’s the ability to push through the bullshit.
Think of a master airline pilot…
The rookie pilot hits some turbulence, freaks out, and starts grabbing dials and pulling gears.
But when the seasoned veteran encounters turbulence, he calmly dials in an altitude change, radios air traffic control, and smoothly stabilizes the plane, all while explaining the situation in a cool-relaxed manner to the passengers in back.
If you haven’t experienced the ups and downs of mastering a long term skill, the second things go awry the mind starts chattering about how you are wasting your time, how XYZ is impossible, how you’ll never be successful.
Doubts.
Success barriers.
They reside here.
Dwelling on these thoughts give them power.
There is no place for self doubt in mind-excellence.
Success With Women
I’ve been hitting the social media front hard and interacting with a lot of gurus in the “success with girls” industry.
I heard something funny in a speech recently, the “Guru” said something to the effect of:
“Guys try all these techniques and shit, all you have to do is realize that YOU DESERVE THE GIRL!”
Although I do agree with this, after the speech some guy in the audience sheepishly raised his hand and asked:
“But what if you don’t feel like you deserve the girl?”
Aaaaahhh… there it is!
Sitting outside the positive feedback loop.
If you are talking to a girl that’s more attractive than you are used to, doubts are an ever present part of your day to day existence.
“Is this going to work?”
“Am I ever going to get good at this?”
“What do I say?”
“Does she like me?”
“Am I weird?”
“Is now the right time to approach her?”
“Am I dressed right?”
“Is this the right way to stand?”
Realize that these DOUBTS are the only thing that actually hold you back.
The glass wall.
Think back to high school, the difference between the cool guys in school and the guys that try to be cool, is that when you stop trying, that is when you become cool.
In spiritual circles they call it the gateless gate.
When you stop striving for enlightenment, that’s when you become enlightened.
You work so hard to become “enlightened,” or more accurately, a higher level of consciousness, that once you cross through, you turn back and realize that there never was a gate to begin with.
It was all delusional thoughts and ego attachments that you artificially put in front of yourself.
So…
If you don’t have the confidence yet, let’s give some actionable steps to start the process…
Whenever You Have SELF DOUBT
STOP
And Replace it With SELF LOVE
That’s it really.
As you get more success in life, one of the biggest changes is how quickly you cut out negative thought patterns.
They don’t even become patterns, before the thought fully arises, you’ve already shunted it, and turned it on it’s head.
No more “what’s wrong with …?”
It becomes…
Why am I awesome?
Why is this moment awesome?
You see how this takes the situation back under your control?
There is no blame on the outside environment, no emotions getting in the way.
It’s an action based, conscious decision you make to stop dwelling on the bullshit, and strive towards excellence.
Remove the doubts, remove the fear, live passionately, and EXCEL.
Back to Mind-Excellence
I like that term. Mind excellence. Mmm…
It’s excellence in everything you do.
It’s mindfulness down to the finest detail.
What you order for dinner.
HOW you order it, and talk to the staff.
Word choice.
Diction.
How you fold your napkin, how you WALK TO THE BATHROOM.
How you develop your business.
How you step to that girl with 100% conviction.
Having the confidence that you know EVERYTHING YOU DO IS AWESOME.
Why?
Why not?!
Doubt = weakness
Caveats
I’ll end here with a few caveats…
Remember excellence is not an end goal.
It’s a work in progress.
Removing self doubt, being mindful of your actions, and doing them with 100% conviction is not an excuse to stubbornly ignore your environment.
It’s the exact opposite.
It is paying hyper attention to your surroundings, finding what works, what doesn’t, and doing it BETTER than anyone else.
How do you know what better is?
EXPERIENCE.
Trial and error, watch how people respond.
How does it feel to you?
Congruent?
Incongruent?
Weigh all the factors, and slowly move towards full confidence in what you do.
I call the process “petrified wood.”
As you move through life and gain more experience, nothing really changes. But the trust in your actions and mannerisms grows stronger and more confident.
High Fidelity is not Fake
As I read this, people who have not met me in person might think that every action I take would appear contrived, like I’m acting, or fake.
It’s not that at all.
It’s using the cumulative data of arduous introspection, advice from mentors, books, tests, experiments, and life experience…
TO STRIVE TO DO EVERYTHING IN LIFE AS BEST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
How about one last example…
You’re reading it.
