1. Set goal.
2. Fail goal.
3. Set no more goals.

"I always fail my goals!", you scream like a little bizattchi.

"I now avoid setting goals because I don't want to fail anymore!"

Say that to Supertreezy, and he'll throw you off a cliff and eat your children.

Instead, know this:

1. Sure, you'll occasionally fail at your goals.
2. You'll fail even more if you set no goals.

Read that last little bizattch again:

• You'll fail even more if you set no goals.

Why?

Goals psychologically compel you to get work done in the allotted time.

That is, subconsciously:

1. Brain sees goals.
2. Brain magically revolves its priorities around demolishing those goals.

Result:

• Your inner voice: "Hey! I will strive to complete these things! Oh yes I will!"

Yes, You'll Suck at First. But, You'll Suck Good.

Get this:

1. Like an inept little 4-year-old who can't play t-ball, you'll initially suck at kicking ass.
2. But over time, the more you work on accomplishing your goals, the better you'll become at it.

It's like lifting weights:

1. "I will try really hard to complete my goals at first."
2. "But, rocking my goals will soon become a natural thang!"

Eventually:

• You = Alex @#$% Rodriguez.
• Goals = Kaput like mofos.

Yay for you. Hooray we all say. High five to you.

Set goals. Blast goals. Repeat.

1. Plan to make dinner. Skip.
2. Plan to make movie date. Skip.
3. Plan to contact Customer A. Skip.

Get this:

1. You give up at small things.
2. You'll give up at big things.

Read that mofoshizzle again:

1. You give up at small things.
2. You'll give up at big things.

When you habitually give up on the little things, you spill that habit over to bigger things you want accomplished; e.g.,:

• establishing your startup
• growing your business to X revenues
• getting your business acquired/going-IPO

"So what do I mother-$#@$% do?!"

Habitually, finish things.

...even the littlest-tiny-tiny ones of 'em all:

1. Finish a book
2. Finish a recipe
3. Finish a story
4. Finish a side project
5. Finish a daily goal

Consistently finishing gets your brain comfortable to the concept of chasing down your goals and beating them into submission.

• Translation: 'I have accomplished small goals, so it will be much easier for me to accomplish larger goals'

WINNER! HOORAY! HIGH-FIVE TO YOU!

Finish every freakish goal as freakishly-frickin-freaker possible.

1. "I'm the best!"
2. "I know everything!"
3. "I will lead us all to victory!"

You'd think a lead must never admit his/her faults:

• "A leader must never show weakness!" you'd think.

But, what happens when you think you're the greatest thing to happen since Billy Mother-@#%^ Idol?

1. You ignore where you suck.
2. You ignore how your competitors are going to kick your ass.
3. You ignore better approaches to lead your company.

Result: A state of denial gradually destroys the engine that drives your company.

How Humbleness = Good

A humble person constantly seeks to:

1. improve his faults
2. improve his efficiency
3. improve his team's morale/skills/productivity/direction

Admitting to your team:

• "I suck in these areas: , , __."
• "I don't know how to approach: ."

...leverages your team's collective strengths to resolve those weaknesses for you:

1. "Hey! No sweat! I actually did that at my last job!..."
2. "You're in luck! I read about some tricks the other week!"
3. "I have tons of experience doing that...."

How Denial Sucks Your Company

Without admitting your faults, your team members think:

1. "He knows everything."
2. "He knows where to take the company."
3. "He doesn't want or need my input."

Result: You create a bunch of yes-men -- people that wait for your directions instead of taking the initiative to kick ass.

Admit your faults. Embrace team's input. Rock the @!#$@ world.

This is how I suck.

• A million things.
• A million things get attention.

Or try:

• 5 things.
• 5 things get attention.

Why do chefs serve their shizzlekabizzles individually?

1. All-at-a-time? You give none any much attention.
2. One-at-a-time? You get focused on every-frickin'-bite-of-every-frickin'-dish.

Likewise, the more you simplify your life:

• The more you focus on the most important things.
• The more productive you become.
• The more value you provide your customers.
• The more @!#@% you #@!$@!.

Peep Your To-Do List

...or your email list, your project list, etc.

The rec:

1. Cut 80% of the sucky ones.
2. Work on the remaining top 20%.

The less you place on your plate, the more you kick mother-kafluckin assizzle.

"So I'll just work on the top 20% of things to do!"

Supertreezy would give you a flying Flying forearm smash to the nuts if you say that to his face.

The more things you see:

1. The more things you subconsciously give attention.
2. The more energy you drain.
3. The less productive you get done.
4. The more you ignore your most important tasks.

Start cutting shizzlekabizzle out of your life.

Be productive. Start filtering out crap.

1. You list your todos.
2. "I'll finish my todos!"
3. You try, but get distracted by the internets.

When you have no anal micro-manager above directing you like a madman:

• You're likelier to slack off.
• You drain productivity exponentially with every distraction.

Here's a way to help:

The Gem to Get Productive

First, do this:

1. Take out a stopwatch. Start it.
2. Work for XX-minutes straight (e.g., 60 minutes).
3. Stop the stopwatch. Relax.
4. Return to #1.

Do that throughout the day.

Rules:

1. When the clock runs, you have to work.
2. When the clock stops, you can stop working.

(It's like you're clockin-in and clocking-out of work. HOORAY!)

Why You're More Productive

When you do something -- anything -- with the clock running, you force yourself to work.

• No distractions (or you clock-out).

Phenomenon:

1. Simply forcing yourself to work as if a tidy-whitey baby-bunny has a gun to your sternum if you don't work a gets you doing something.
2. The little "something" gradually builds your productivity momentum to get more things accomplished.

That enforcement to-work-or-bunny-offs-you gets you thinking:

1. "I can work like a bored-unproductive piece of shizzit."
2. "OR, I can work like one happily-productive mofokoko."

Unless your momma dropped you down the elevator shaft when you were two-months old (because you = ugly), chances are, you'll choose the latter:

• "I have to work. I might as well have fun and get things done!"

More fun = More productive = More tasks accomplished.

Now, Beat Your Records

Example:

1. "Yesterday, I accomplished 100 minutes of good work by 11 pm!"
2. "Today, I will accomplish 100 minutes of work by 10:30 pm!"

Or:

1. "Last week, I completed 1500 minutes of work!"
2. "This week, I'll go for 2000 minutes of work! WHO'S THE MAN?!"

You start taking the deliberative approach to improve your daily productivity (e.g., "Let's save time by not checking NYTimes this morning!") -- constantly looking for different ways to improve how efficient you work.

Result: Freakishly more work done everyday.

KABAMBIZZLEWHOSTHEWINNERNOWBEYOTCH!

Clock in.

You're gonna build your industry's greatest business.

1. You anticipate the rewards and accolades.
2. You imagine your grand future with people basking in your presence.

But, you never get there. You fail.

• Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, and horribly fail.

"Am I a failure?" you thoughtfully ask yourself.

"If I look deep down inside my heart of hearts, am I a failure?"

Of Course You're a Failure!

You big frickin' failure.

You suck.

Hooray!

The moment you try to impress others:

• the moment you fail.

Rules:

1. You don't live in others' shoes.
2. You don't know what impresses people.
3. So, you can't possibly super-duper-rifically understand what will impress people.

You can only do this:

Impress yourself.

Understand that millions of others like you exist, and will too be impressed.

Winner: You + Millions of Others.

Ask:

• "Am I happy with myself?"
• "Am I happy with my work?"
• "Am I happy how I manage?"
• "Am I happy with our products?"
• "Am I happy with my business?"

Make masterpieces as defined by YOU, Inc.

Impress yourself.

Try this:

1. Unplug your computer from the internet.
2. Work.

Try that for an hour.

(Or, even 10 minutes.)

See how much more productive your become.

1. Before the web = productivity high.
2. After the web = productivity low.

The Candy Store

Keeping your computer online is like walking into a candy store without touching anything.

1. You'll be okay at first.
2. But, temptations will eventually drain your productivity like MoFo.

And If You Really Need the Internet...

Sweet action plan:

1. "Before I touch the computer, this is what I want done..."
2. "Now, I will get those things done..."
3. Repeat #1.

See how productive your freakish boo-tay becomes.

Unplug. Work.

1. You're planning to change the world today.
2. A friend tells you to get away.
3. You reluctantly follow your friend.

You know how that gut feeling (i.e, the "I don't know if I should do this..." feeling) developed?

• It's not a two-second thing.
• It's what you've conceived throughout your life.
• It tells you the rights from the wrongs.
• It's your life's freakish compass.

Follow it, and you'll boost your chances to achieve whatever ridiculous thing you want.

What's the feeling like?

• It's that feeling you get when you do something immoral at work.
• It's when you rob your customers out of something small.
• It's when you take pencil sharpeners from conferences.

Or:

• It's that feeling when you know you've got to talk to that one person.
• It's when you've got to pitch that big customer.
• It's when you've got to chat with those vendors.

Your instincts rarely lie.

Follow your gut, and soar like freakish flying hyenas on PCP.

Obey 'em instincts.

1. You want to accomplish a lot of things today.
2. You've set yourself up for a big ol' productive day.
3. "Today's the day that I excel!" you tell yourself.

But then:

1. You do the first task, trying to perfect it.
2. Lunchtime hits.
3. You start on Task #2.
4. You end the day still trying to perfect Task #2.
5. You don't get to the rest of your tasks until weeks later.

Scope creep. BOO!

How to Start Your Day

If an overweight-inebriated ostrich held a gun to your face and said:

• "Accomplish your today's tasks in 30 minutes or else! ROAR!"

What'd you do?

You'd probably do something like this:

1. Finish Task A in 5 minutes.
2. Finish Task B in 5 minutes.
3. Finish Task C in 5 minutes.
4. Finish Task D in 5 minutes.
5. Finish Task E in 5 minutes.
6. Finish Task F in 5 minutes.

"DONE!" you'd scream at the ostrich.

You get high-fives all over the place.

Let's Analyze That Mofo

Did you perfectly rock Tasks A, B, C, D, E, and F?

Oh no, you didn't.

1. You didn't sit there waiting to perfect Task A until you were perfectly content with it; that'd get you shot.
2. You did what you could get by with, then moved on as quickly as possible -- avoiding the dreaded scope creep, and keeping your day productive.

Accomplishing stuff that you can "get by" with matters infinitely more than perfecting Task A.

Completing tasks you've set for today super-rifically quickly lets you:

• improve build on top of "Version 1" of the various tasks throughout the day
• have a security blanket; if you somehow suck the rest of the day, you've still got something that lets you flow with

Start thinking:

1. Execute first.
2. Perfect that execution progressively over time.

That is:

1. Finish today's tasks freakishly quickly (e.g., 30 minutes).
2. Perfect those tasks throughout the day.

Quickly complete; then, beautify.

Do this mofosoko:

1. Understand the big picture in 10 seconds.
2. Grasp more of that picture using another minute.
3. Progressively expand your knowledge of that big picture in follow-up quick increments.

Ta-da!

You've just learned what people take exponentially days/months/years/decades to understand.

Why the big picture?

The big picture helps you put every succeeding thing you learn into context.

It helps you synthesize the information, and make more sense of the topic/argument/thesis/yadda quickly and efficiently.

Take a Book

You're no chump; you don't read a book from page 1 to page 300 chronologically.

No way!

Here's what you do:

1. You get the very big picture: the cover's flaps/intros -- to get the book's thesis statement.
2. Then glancing at the intro/conclusion chapters..
3. Then identifying the individual chapters' theses..
4. Then scrutinizing the indiv. chapters' intros...
5. Then glancing over the entire book

Every progressive step expands that balloon of knowledge (i.e. the big picture) you got initially.

That helps you:

• dramatically cut your learning time
• viciously boosts how much you comprehend

World-class learner: You.

First, start with a big pic.

Then:

Progressively expand that balloon like You = Rockstar.