Words I like: More progress has been ruined by distraction than incompetence. Minute Read: Play Your Hand I had an influencer who advertised amazon products as an affiliate making $400 - $500 per day in commissions. She was crushing it and she paid me for a 1 on 1 workshop to scale her income. At the end of the day of working on her business she asked me... "Do you think I should build this software product?" I said... "Honestly, no." And, let me tell you a story why... When I was trying to decide what to do with my life, my uncle wanted me to follow in his footsteps and take over his practice in the luxury real estate space. It made complete sense. Everyone I asked told me I'd be dumb not to do it. But I still couldn't shake this idea that if I was successful, everyone would credit him for the success. (Little did I know that would happen no matter what - and probably - rightfully so - but not for the reasons they thought). Anyways, in one of his final attempts to persuade me he gave me this amazing analogy I think about to this day. He said..."Do you think Shaq told his father 'I don't want to play basketball. It's unfair that I'm born with this advantage.' No. Of course not. He was 7 ft tall and played the cards he was dealt. You were dealt a set of cards of having me as a family member. Play them." I ended up completely ignoring the advice but I still thought the reasoning was amazing. (I also used those cards to learn business as a whole.) Anyways, back to the influencer. I told her..."You didn't start coding when you were 13. You're not a tech savant. No one in your team is. But what you're top 0.1% in your bracket at is making content that young women like you resonate with. Don't try and beat the nerds at the nerd game - you'll lose. Play your game. Play the cards you were dealt like you mean it." Sometimes, we have some abilities, backgrounds, connections or dare I say privileges that we're born with. The dumbest thing you can possibly do is NOT use them.

Words I Like: You can't want an extraordinary life and force yourself to comply with the social norms of who are ok with a mediocre life. It's like wanting to be a surgeon thinking about what school janitors will think of your sanitation process. Minute Read: If You’re Scared of Looking Cringe A lot of people stay behind because they treat shame, guilt, and cringe like they mean the same thing. That mix-up costs them years. They hold back the first post, the first video, the first sales message, the first serious attempt at anything public. They protect their image and delay their growth. Meanwhile, the people willing to look rough at the beginning stack reps, improve fast, and build real proof. Shame is breaking someone else's rules. Guilt is breaking your own rules. Cringe is supposed secondhand embarrassment. A lot of “cringe” rules come from people who optimize for social safety. Stay cool. Care less. Try less. Stay quiet. Stay average. Blend in. Those rules work great for fitting in. They work terribly for building anything meaningful. So someone saying, "Oh, that's cringe," will come off as saying, "I'm embarrassed for you." But in reality, it's a defensive status play. If someone says you're cringe for putting in meaningful work, it means you're beginning to change your status relative to other people or relative to average/mediocre, and therefore you're on the right path. And so we have to ask the question, like, whose rules are we breaking? Did we agree to their rules? If we set the rules, what outcome do those rules optimize for? Because a rule is an if-then statement, so they have to be for a meaningful desirable result. If your rule is “I publish and improve,” that leads to skill. If your rule is “I say what I believe and let the multiple attempts clean it up,” that leads to confidence. If your rule is “I care deeply about something and work on it in public,” that leads to momentum, proof, and opportunity. That is why cringe gets such a strong reaction.

Words I like: Commitment is the elimination of alternatives Minute Read: Productivity Tradeoffs Productivity is the amount of desired result you get per unit of time. That means a day will feel full and still be a waste. You answered texts, cleaned your room, watched “educational” videos, responded to your emotions, had a smooth day at your job, and still end the day with ZERO movement. That’s the trap. If you deal with ADHD brain, dopamine addiction, or just constant distraction, this matters even more. Because your brain will HAPPILY reward you for motion that creates zero progress. And so, use this 5-step filter on whatever you’re doing in the moment: 1. Name the result. Ask: “What result am I trying to create right now?” Money. Muscle. Better grades. A finished piece of content. A cleaner room. More peace. Pick one. 2. Name the action that CREATES it. Get brutally literal. If the result is money, the action might be outreach, content, sales, applying, learning a paid skill, or building something sellable. If the result is fitness, the action might be lifting, cardio, meal prep, steps, or sleep. 3. Check the distance between the task and the result. Some actions touch the result directly.Some are support actions. Some are just emotional comfort dressed up as progress. The closer the action is to the result, the more productive it is. 4. Check the focus cost.Important work usually needs an uninterrupted block. Every switch burns energy. Every distraction taxes momentum. If the task matters, protect the block and finish the rep while your brain is locked in. 5. Ask the only question that matters. “Is this moving me closer to the result I want?” Closer. Still. Backward. Productive people live from that question. Everything else is preference. If you keep asking that question all day, your wasted time starts exposing itself fast. Your best hours stop getting donated to random urges, random apps, and random people. If you want help building a schedule that works with your brain and your goals, check the modules. Entire Notion template is coming soon that will act as your millionaire brain for productivity.

Words I like: “People obsessed with their morning routines make less money than people obsessed with making money.” Minute Read: Stop Worshipping Routines A client once told me the business coach from a self help and productivity course he bought had him doing a full morning routine before work. Grounded walking. Meditation. Gratitude journal. Daily list. Ice plunge. The whole "productivity" package. By the time he finished, three hours were gone and he barely had energy left to do the actual thing that would grow his business. So I told him to do something radical. Cut the 3-hour routine. Replace it with 3 hours of work. A week later he messaged me back and said it changed everything. He was getting more done. Which makes sense. If you work more, more gets done. That’s the whole lesson. A lot of people copy the habits of successful people at the top of the mountain and assume those habits created the success. That’s backwards. People usually work, sacrifice, and do whatever it takes to get rich. Then, after they’ve already made it, they fill their time with relaxed lifestyle choices and start telling themselves that the "routine" was the reason. That’s like saying Warren Buffett got rich because he drinks Coke. No. He got rich because of the actions that created the result. That’s the filter: What actions actually create the outcome I want? Anything that does not directly help that outcome is either: 1. a tool, or 2. a distraction. And the difference is simple: If it takes 5 minutes and measurably increases your output, cool. Keep it. If it takes 3 hours and makes you feel productive while stealing time from the thing that matters, cut it. Don’t do things for the sake of doing them. Do things because they produce a RESULT. That’s also why you have to be careful with fake cause-and-effect. Successful people may have routines, scars, habits, drinks, preferences, or stories. That does not mean those things made them successful. Look at what they did on the way up, not what they do now.

Words I like: Work begins once motivation stops. Minute Read: Motivation is a Killer A lot of people say they want big results. More money. Better body. Bigger business. More freedom. Then they see what it actually costs and back off. I’ve had that happen to me multiple times. I’d meet someone way further ahead than me and realize they weren’t just a little more disciplined. They were working five to ten times harder than I was. And not under perfect conditions either. Tired. Distracted. Burned out. Hurt. Still moving. That’s when I started seeing work differently. Most people think work is the part when you’re excited. New plan. New business idea. New gym phase. New goal. That’s not work. That’s the honeymoon. Real work starts when the excitement wears off. When you feel neutral. Then stressed. Then tired. Then annoyed. Then tempted to stop. That point right there is what separates everyone. Because that’s the test. It’s easy to say you have work ethic when you feel good. The real test is whether you can work when you’re tired. When you’re distracted. When the task is boring. When it’s not fun. When you’re not getting applause yet. That’s why so many people quit too early. They feel discomfort and assume they picked the wrong thing. No. They just hit the part where work begins. Same thing with values. Values only count when they’re tested. Work ethic only counts when working sucks. And this is where people get confused about high performers. They see the result, but not the trade. They see the stage, not the flights. They see the money, not the missed sleep. They see the physique, not the meals you ate when nobody was watching. Then they say, “I want that.” Maybe. But do you want the trade that comes with it? Because if you don’t, that’s fine. Just don’t lie to yourself and pretend you want the outcome while rejecting the cost. The move is simple: when you hit the wall, don’t read it as failure. Read it as the start of the rep that counts. That’s the champion wall.