https://youtu.be/3NwDAz68hcA?si=LGKPCtlvqY4wpkfo

The basics 1. The best performances and best possible life comes from learning to be fully engaged, heart, mind, and body, independent of results and circumstances. Fully present is even more empowering than fully confident. 2. Inner Excellence training is about training the heart and mind to come together, united and wholehearted. Your heart (spirit and will) is the source of all your actions; training it is the most important thing you’ll ever do. 3. We train the heart to love most what’s most empowering. This creates a powerful stability and inner strength that goes beyond temporary transactions, wins and losses, and ever-changing circumstances. 4. Your opponent does not exist. He’s merely a dissenting voice to the truth I speak (see it here). Your rival is not the enemy, they’re your teacher–your partner in the dance. The real opponent is the loss of vision and possibilities that happens when your ego is threatened. 5. Self-mastery (mastery of the ego) is the great battle that goes on in your mind, for your heart. The pursuit of mastery requires daily disciplines and training, developing empowering habits of thought and action. “True mastery transcends any particular art. It stems from mastery of oneself – the ability, developed through self-discipline, to be calm, fully aware, and completely in tune with oneself and the surroundings in the midst of the ever-changing moment.” – Bruce Lee ​ INNER EXCELLENCE (IX) TRAINING FLOW CHART ​ 1. Redefine success: Focus on the process not the result. 4 goals: 1. Give it your best shot. 2. Be fully present. 3. Be grateful. 4. Focus on your routines and only what can control. The #1 goal is to learn and grow into your true self; the person and performer you were created to be. The first thing we do is completely change pursuits, from pursuing what we want but can’t control, to pursuing absolute fullness of life–to be fully alive; to feel and experience that life more and more often. The results take care of themselves.

How to Learn Summary: 1. Inner Excellence is an in-depth system on how to be fully engaged in the moment, heart, mind and body, to facilitate not only extraordinary performance, but more importantly, the best possible life. This system has one overarching goal every day: learn and grow. 2. Most professional athletes (and the rest of us) have misused our time, focusing on low-hanging fruit like short-term wins and temporary transactions when entire orchards await. Rather than pursuing the much more powerful long-term strategy of continuous improvement and skill development, we’ve used the wrong barometer to evaluate our progress and short-changed ourselves. 3. The crucial component in learning, for performance and life, is what to learn. 4. Everything you’ve ever wanted is enhanced and made possible by becoming a certain type of person, one that lives in the flow of resonance, connected to beauty and creativity. NOTE: The Inner Excellence audiobook is now available on Barnes and Noble, Google Play and multiple other websites. (Audible.com should have it in a week or so). See links at the bottom. “I realize now I was actually handed the gift of that way of thinking by one of my heroes, the great cellist Pablo Casals. I played for him when I was seven and afterwards asked for his autograph. He gave me some advice: ‘Always make time for baseball.’ Well I failed at that, but I was always guided by what he said… that he thought of himself as a human being first, a musician second, a cellist third.” – Yo Yo Ma, 19-time Grammy award winner, from the (free) audiobook Beginner’s Mind​ ​ The vast majority of us adults have spent our entire lives chasing our tales. We’ve run around in circles, on an endless treadmill, pursuing PALMS (possessions, achievements, looks, money and status) and yet so often come up empty. Most of us don’t realize it (that we’re chasing our tales) because the PALMS are so enticing. They’re shiny and exciting and bring instant gratification, so we get lost in the pursuit. We think we’re pursuing the best possible life, the one we’ve imagined, while the whole time we’ve been chasing emptiness.

The Discipline Delusion Why Systems Beat Willpower HIGH PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES OCT 3 - Discipline isn’t a virtue, it’s a panic button. - High performers don’t push it every day - They build systems that make the right action automatic. Real Life “Every day feels like holding down a panic button,” he admitted.This from a senior partner who wore 4:30 a.m.workouts, 18-hour days, and permanent exhaustion as his identity. Discipline wasn’t strength. It was survival. The Discipline MythWe’ve been sold discipline as virtue…grit, moral fiber, even superiority. In reality, discipline is a panic button. If you need it daily, your system has already failed. Why Discipline Fails - 40% of actions aren’t choices at all, they’re habits (Wood & Neal, 2016). - The willpower “muscle” theory collapsed in replication. Discipline is unreliable at best. - Decision fatigue proves it: good systems outlast grit (Kahneman, 2011). Which is where systemic laziness comes in. The Cheat CodeHigh performers don’t rely on heroics. They strip out choices until the good option is automatic. Barack Obama rotated the same suits. Not for style, but for fewer decisions.That’s systemic laziness: making success so frictionless it looks effortless. Three Design Moves 1. Audit your panic points.Where are you forcing yourself to push through? Those are system failures, not character flaws. 2. Make defaults do the work.Delete food apps. Block time for deep work. Defaults > discipline. 3. Shrink the win.20 minutes > skipping the gym. One paragraph > no writing. Small defaults scale into habits.